Intelligence gatherers and analysts need to have as many ways of collecting information as they do understanding what makes their adversary tick. In other words, they must be ingenious in deciphering the enemy’s language, his culture, his motivations, his influences.

Call it “The Art of War 101.”

Christopher B. Jackson, chief of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Transformation Division of the Joint Forces Command’s Intelligence Directorate, knows this all too well. An intelligence officer for a quarter of a century, Jackson has seen an evolution in intelligence gathering—from a process of collect, process, analyze and disseminate to collect and mete out.

“Today, we have to be much more agile and prepared to respond to very fleeting indications that something bad is going on,” Jackson says. “I don’t need to know what type of tank or what type of metal is inside the tank. I just need to know if there’s a tank over the hill. I just need to know that there’s something there.”

Jackson realizes that some habits die hard, particularly when it comes to data sharing. “I was brought up in the culture of protect sources at whatever cost. There are procedures and processes in place where the sources and methods are still protected. How the information is collected is still secure,” he explains. “But the data that’s derived from the information is available.”

And intelligence data needs to flow quickly and unimpeded to troops fighting in harm’s way.

“Intelligence data doesn’t do us any good unless it’s shared to the maximum degree,” Jackson says. “So the information that may be collected by Civil Affairs officers or by military police as they are doing their patrols, that information becomes available to all users as long as they can plug into the network.”

So what’s driving this new paradigm?

“Part of it is the idea that anything you can do to speed up the delivery to the warfighter is inherently a good thing,” Jackson says.

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