With its overwhelming emphasis on technical collection, U.S. military intelligence is poorly equipped to meet the requirements of the counterinsurgency mission, according to a recent study (pdf) by the Defense Science Board.
“Many, if not most, specific COIN [counterinsurgency] ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] requirements are population-centric and are not exclusively solvable with hardware or hard, physical science scientific and technical (S&T) solutions,” the DSB report said. “One senior intelligence officer with years of field experience pointed out that 80 percent of useful operational data for COIN does not come from legacy intelligence organizations.”
Among other things, “the defense intelligence community does not have the foreign language and culture depth and breadth necessary to plan and support COIN operations,” according to the DSB.
See “Counterinsurgency (COIN) Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Operations,” Defense Science Board, February 2011 (released May 2011).
The United States’ biosecurity governance system is structurally incapable of detecting and responding to certain classes of threats. U.S. biosecurity tools have not kept pace with technological advancements or a changing threat landscape.
The United States has never lacked for scientific ambition. What we need now is a renewed civic commitment to ensuring that talent is harnessed for the benefit of all people. Science can work for everyone. Join us as we build a broader coalition committed to that vision.
The United States federal government invests nearly $150 billion annually in research and development. However, the supporting evidence generates wildly different estimates depending on the methods and available data.
The digital government field has an opportunity to build a more responsive and resilient government by pushing into new frontiers, with new tools, approaches, and even organizations that don’t exist yet. This is the time for radical experimentation, delivery, and exploration.