quote:
I will say that HUMINT is a lot like ID witness testimony--it can be your ace in the hole, or it can be a complete piece of crap. Sources lie, obfuscate, misremember, pass on second and third-hand garbage as though it's first-hand etc. And when you get a good, vetted, well-placed source, you have to hope like hell he stays motivated to help (unless you have some degree of control over him) and doesn't get caught, transferred, die whatever. Pound for pound it can be more resource intensive than technical collections (after the initial investment in the capability) and is generally less reliable.

Yes but HUMINT can often give you a larger picture. And I don't want to focus solely on HUMINT in the traditional sense of running sources. Human/Cultural understanding of our friends and enemies(not really sure how to word this). Technical collections can get you a lot of tiny details but not the sentiment of a people or the mood of certain actors in interest. Hence my missing the forest for the trees remark

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Posted by Navytiger74

Member since Oct 2009

50458 posts

Posted on 1/6/17 at 7:26 pm to GeauxxxTigers23

quote:
Yes but HUMINT can often give you a larger picture. And I don't want to focus solely on HUMINT in the traditional sense of running sources. Human/Cultural understanding of our friends and enemies(not really sure how to word this). Technical collections can get you a lot of tiny details but not the sentiment of a people or the mood of certain actors in interest. Hence my missing the forest for the trees remark

We have fairly robust analytical efforts devoted to understanding individuals, groups, nations, etc within the IC, military, and diplomatic corps (think like the intel functions within DIME/PMESII. I take your point that we don't seem all that successful at reading and understanding what motivates and how to influence certain cultures. I don't know how to better crack that nut. It's not for lack of trying. We just can quite seem to grasp certain elements of the Oriental psyche.

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Posted by MrCarton