Open Source Intelligence

(OSINT): The Way Ahead

Presented to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

Robert David Steele (Vivas)

22 November 2006
 Plan of the Brief
• Global Reality—Context for Intelligence
• Strategic Failure of Secret Intelligence
• Status of OSINT Today
• What You Can Do Now to Improve
• Intelligence & Information Operations (I2O)
• Where We Need to Go as a Nation
• GO NAVY: 450-Ship Navy, Peace from the Sea
GLOBAL REALITY
 Conflict Facts for 2002
23 LIC+, 79 LIC-, 175 VPC

Source: PIOOM (NL), data with

permission © 2002 A. Jongman
 Ethnic Fault Lines 2000
18 Genocide Campaigns On-Going Today

Source: Dr. Greg Stanton

 Water & War
Hyper-Arid
1 4
3
Arid

5
Semi-Arid

Sub-Humid 6
Water
Pollution
2
Source: The State of the World
Atlas (1997), chart 54, 53
 Global Threats to Local Survival
Complex Emergencies Water Scarcity &
32 Countries Contaminated
Water**
Refugees/Displaced Ethnic Conflict 18
66 Countries Genocides Today**

Food Security Resource Wars, Energy

33 Countries Waste & Pollution**
Modern Plagues* Corruption Common
59 Countries & Rising 80 Countries

Child Soldiers Censorship Very High

41 Countries 62 Countries

*State of the World Atlas (1997), ** Marq de Villier (Water), John Heidenrich and Greg Stanton (Genocide),
Michael Klare et al (Resources), all others from PIOOM Map 2002
 Taxpayer Dollars Focused
on Just 10% of the Threat
10%
15%
State vs State

State vs Nation

25% Inter-Ethnic Tribal

50% Gang Wars, Genocide,

Decolonization
 Presidential Trade-Offs
$100 million will buy:
1 Small Navy Platform or Ground Unit or
1,000 Potential George Kennan’s or
10,000 Peace Corps Volunteers or
1,000,000 cubic meters of desalinated water or
One day of war over water (or oil)
We’re in a Six-Front 100-Year War of Our Own Making.

America is losing/has lost the moral high ground.

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Poverty

Disease

Ecology For each Al Qaeda $1,

US Spends $500K.
Badly. They can do DoD
State War
this forever. Any Focus
Civil War
Questions?

Genocide

Oth. Atroc.

Proliferation

Terrorism GWOT

Trans. Crime
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Poverty
Big Dogs
Disease
Brazil
Ecology In Grand
Strategy terms, China
State War Al Qaeda
shrinks to zip. India
Civil War
Indonesia
Genocide
Iran
Oth. Atroc.
Russia
Proliferation

Venezuela
Terrorism

Wild Cards
Trans. Crime
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Poverty
Big Dogs
Disease
Can't Fix Stupid! Brazil
Ecology
China
State War
India
Civil War
Indonesia
Genocide
From left  : Larry the Cable Guy , Bill
Engvall , Jeff Foxworthy and Ron White. Iran
Oth. Atroc.
Russia
Proliferation

Venezuela
Terrorism

Wild Cards
Trans. Crime
STRATEGIC FAILURE OF
NATIONAL SECRET
INTELLIGENCE
 Global Intelligence Failure
Breakdown in Collection and Understanding

Digital Analog Oral/Unpublished

English NRO
Language
NSA FBIS UN/STATE
Foreign CIA/DO
Languages*
Cascading Deficiencies:
1) Don’t even try to access most information
2) Can’t process hard-copy into digital
3) Can’t translate most of what we collect

*31 predominant languages, over 3,000 distinct languages in all.

 Global Processing Failure
Breakdown in Exploitation, Dissemination

50% Less Costly Does Not Exist

OSINT
More Satisfying

HUMINT
STATE SIGINT
IMINT

MASINT
0% 50%
 Threats vs. Sources
Threat #1: Poverty 95%
Threat #2: Infectious Disease 99%
Threat #3: Environmental Degradation 90%
Threat #4: Inter-State Conflict 75%
Threat #5 Civil War 80%
Threat #6: Genocide 95%
Threat #7: Other Large-Scale Atrocities 95%
Threat #8: Nuclear, bio-chemical weapons 75%
Threat #9: Terrorism 80%
Threat #10: Transnational organized crime 80%

Average Importance of “OSINT” 86%

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Poverty
Big Dogs
Disease
Brazil
Ecology
China
State War
India
Civil War
Indonesia
Genocide
Iran
Oth. Atroc.
Russia
Proliferation

Venezuela
Terrorism

Wild Cards
Trans. Crime
 Secret Intelligence Misses 80% of the Relevant Information!

ALL-SOURCE ANALYSIS

HUMINT SIGINT IMINT MASINT

95% of cost 20% of value

5% of cost 80% of value

OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE

OPEN SOURCE INFORMATION

 Baseball Analogy
Harnessing the Power of the Crowd
OSINT
HUMINT
SIGINT
IMINT
MASINT
 Policy-Intelligence Failure:
Unbalanced Instruments of Power
350
300
Too much of:
250 • Military heavy metal
200
• Secret satellites
150
100 Not enough of:
50
0
• Humans on ground
USA Allies Russia China Rogues
• Human expert analysis
Military Diplomacy Home Front
• Technical processing
The real budget is the real policy.
• State & local intelligence
Citizens must vote and provide
• Public health, water, etc.
constant oversight if the taxpayer
dollar is to be spent wisely.
 Policy-Intelligence Failure
Public is Neither Engaged Nor Informed
Why This Matters
Nations Inc. • Homeland security--”A Nation’s
best defense is an educated
citizenry.” (Thomas Jefferson)
Bacteria • Prosperity--the financial value of
ethics, trust, strategic culture
• Global security--the long-term
Citizens Gangs
value of public intelligence to
multi-cultural policy initiatives,
the best pre-emption is moral.
World War III Players
 STATUS OF
OSINT TODAY
OSINT Matters I
• "By `intelligence' we
mean every sort of
information about the
enemy and his country--
the basis, in short, of our
own plans and
operations."

Clausewitz, On War, 1832

Emphasis Added.
You get no points for just knowing
secrets when they are less than 2%
of what you need to know.
 OSINT Matters II

What’s on the other side of the hill?

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavor to
find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called “guessing
what was at the other side of the hill”.
Duke of Wellington
quoted in John Wilson Croker, The Croker Papers (1884)
 OSINT Matters III

This is what got General

• History Schoomaker’s attention
Strategic
Planning • Context in 1997.

• Current Awareness
Operational
Coordination • Key Personalities/Motivators

• Imagery & Image Maps

Tactical
Employment • Translation Support

Acquisition • Strategic Generalizations

Design • Critical Technologies
Brief History of OSINT
• Diplomats diminished
• FBIS in WW II
• FBIS going, going….
• FRD on the margin
• ER&A cut, cut, cut
• We do secrets
• “On your own time…”
• “Use the Internet”
USMC Intelligence Experience
• 1988 MCIC start-up
• $10M on DODIIS
• Learned 90% raw info
– Not secret
– Not online
– Not in English
– Not available from DC
• No DoD focal point
• No knowledge base
US IC Response
• HPSCI Forced the Issue in
1992
• FBIS claimed the turf and
promptly blew it
• COSPO created, DIA led &
screwed it up
• Markowitz tried hard, Dempsey
blocked NFIP line for years
• Tenet June 1997 refused
Global Coverage
recommendation of $1.5M
($10M/year per 150 lower tier
targets)
• 2005 DNI appoints ADDNI/OS,
never heard from again….
Meanwhile….
• 1994 Steve Emerson got it right
on jihad within the US
• 1996 Yossef Bodansky got it
right on BL’s declaration of war
• 1997 Pete Schoomaker
established SOCOM OSINT
• 2005 Col Vince Stewart USMC
does super job for USDI, they
offer SOCOM Executive
Agency, declined
 DoD OSINT Today
• OSD POC Back to FMF
• DIA lip-service to OSINT
• No DoD Doctrine (Army contractor wrote garbage)
• No DoD Program, Budget, or TO&E
• Varied parties spending around $25M in complete
disorder & mostly on data mining
• SOCOM & CENTCOM good but limited funding
• STRATCOM wasting $65M on 36 US on-site butts
• PACOM destroyed VIC, SOUTHCOM 2 bodies…
• FSMO tries when not diverting funds to MILCON
 Data Mining is not Data
Capture
• Spending $250M on
data mining, and less
than $10M on open
source data capture,
is not cool.
• 80% of what we need
is not available to
FBIS or anyone else
Forget about the letter, which as we are now unled,
requires reading the language, un- funded, and
I’ve got the stamp…so pretty!
untrained.
Meanwhile….
• 2003 SecDef quotes
Bin Laden training
manual as saying Al
Qaeda gets 80% of its
intelligence from
OSINT but…
• Ramps up OPSEC
(good) but does not
establish DoD OSINT
 ADDNI/OS & OSS CEO
ADDNI/OS View of OSINT OSS CEO View of OSINT

Humint

Masint
Osint

Sigint

Imint
Humint Sigint
FI

Imint Masint

OSINT is both a supporting discipline,

OSINT and an all-source discipline.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
TO IMPROVE ON
YOUR OWN
 WWW.OSS.NET
• www.oss.net/BASIC
• See especially the Context & Practice sections
• See the briefings, especially New Rules
• www.oss.net/LIBRARY
• See especially the Training section (this is Word
table, can sort by columns, search)
• www.oss.net/HISTORY
• Believe it or not, CIA & DIA and the Services
have fought me on this since 1988.
 New Craft of Intelligence
China, Islam, Ethnic, Etc. Narrowly focused!

I IV
Lessons of History Spies & Secrecy

II III
Global Coverage National Intelligence

Harness distributed
Cost-Sharing with Others--
intelligence of Nation
Shared Early Warning
 Focus of Global Effort
Strategic Forecasting
10% Need, 40% Cost
Top
Secret Primary Research &
Experts on Demand
Tribal
20% Need, 30% Cost
Secret
Help Desk (Tell Me
Partial Sharing More Right Now)
30% Need, 20% Cost
Shared Among Tribes Daily/Weekly Reports
40% Need, 10% Cost
 Creating the World Brain:
Web-Based Virtual Intelligence Teams
Expert Forum

Shared Shared
Calendar Rolodex

Distance OPG Virtual

Learning Library
VPN
Shared Virtual
24/7 Plot Budget

Weekly Review
Internet Competency
Now a serious source
• “All-source” means all
sources--the Internet is
now a major source
• Search engines vary.
• Find images and maps.
• Find experts and groups.
• Limit to 1-hour efforts.
• Need an Internet
specialist on call.
Commercial Online Competency
100X more important than Internet
Italian intelligence chief puts Al-
• Google rapidly
Qa'idah's assets at 5bn dollars
BBC Monitoring, 05/16/2002, 142 displacing, but still
words. need foreign
language monitoring
that OSC/FBIS
simply will not do for
the military.
CIA 'Probably' Helps Italian • Need a specialist.
Subversive Groups.
Xinhua News Agency, 03/20/2001,
268 words.
Gray Literature Competency
Limited edition, must know to ask
• Pre-prints, technical
reports, company
telephone books,
university yearbooks,
“niche” references.
• Generally requires
human access and
special knowledge of
availability.
• Unique and useful.
Primary Research Competency
Knowing Who Knows, Direct Contacts

• Citation Analysis is
key to finding top
experts across
different nations.
• Using the telephone
(and the Internet) to
reach top experts
yields powerful
results.
Citation Analysis Example
DIALOG, SSCI, $1000 = Savings
• DIALOG access to
Social Science Citation
Index
• Use OSS methodology
• $500 in access charges
+ $500 in analyst time
= list of top experts on
any country or topic
• Then you call them...
Analytic Toolkit Competency
Software can be a curse or a help
• Digital conversion,
storage, visualization,
and retrieval tools
• Geospatial tools
• Structured analysis
and detection tools
• Multi-media
publication and
presentation tools
 Geospatial Competency
Maps & images make a difference
• Commercial imagery
cheaper than ignorance
• Russian military maps of
Third World vital
• Post-processing support
from private sector
• Desktop tools for plotting
Such as plotting ships on information in time &
Google Earth…. space context
 Analytic Tradecraft
Emerging appreciation for its value
• CIA University trying
• Moving away from
“cutting and pasting”
• Moving away from
hard-copy files
• Focus on learning how
to think, and how to
structure digital data
• Still not there.
 Creating an OSINT Cell
Central discovery, distributed exploitation

Senior All-Source • Six people can

Collection Manager leverage global
OSINT for an entire
Internet Commercial Ministry or Service or
Specialist Online Expert
Command
Primary External • This eliminates need
Research Contracts for duplicate open
source infrastructure
All-Source Analyst/
Presentation Manager • Also saves money
 INTELLIGENCE &
INFORMATION
OPERATIONS (I2O)
 7 Generation Warfare
th

First Generation Low Tech Attrition

Second Generation Relatively Higher Tech Attrition and/or

Maneuver
Third Generation From Hard to Soft From Force to Brain
Power Power
Fourth Generation Non-State Threats Asymmetry

Fifth Generation Information and Knowledge &

High-Tech Technology &
Organization
Sixth Generation Military-Technical Bio-Informational
Revolution
Seventh Generation Belief Systems & All Information, All
Global Languages, All the
Accountability Time
GRAND STRATEGY:
Understanding Ways, Means,
and Ends
 Reference
• www.oss.net
– IOP ’07 Portal Page
– Link dated 17 Nov 06: I2O Draft 3.4
– Includes table for monitoring & predicting
revolution, levels of analysis figure
WHERE WE NEED
TO GO AS A
NATION
 New Strategy: 1 + iii:
Need better balance
1 i i i
CINCWAR CINCSOLIC CINCPEACE CINCHOME
Strategic NBC Small Wars State/USIA Intelligence
Big War(s) Constabulary Peace Corps Border Patrol
Reserve Ground Truth Economic Aid Port Security
Reserve Environment Electronic
Peace Navy Public Health

45% 20% 20% 15%

248B vs. 550B 110B vs 20B 110B vs. 20B 82B vs. 36B
 Modern Presidential Leadership
Congress President Judiciary

Chief of Staff

Director-General for Director-General for

National Policy Global Strategy

Director-General for Director-General for

National Intelligence National Research

Director of Classified Chairman, National Director, Global

Intelligence (DCI) Intelligence Council Knowledge Foundation
Modern Strategic Governance
Director General
Global Strategy

Deputy Director Deputy Director

Global Strategy Response Management

Associate Directors Associate Directors

• Strategic Council • Response Center
• Leadership Retreats • Public Liaison
• Global Reserve • Civilian Reserve
• Special Projects • Non-State Actors
GO NAVY
 450-Ship Navy

• 6 Slides -- Global, local, OOTW -- Navy Message:

Must be able to put force on target within 24, 48 hours;
must do sustained littoral ops in multiple languages;
and instream Humanitarian Assistance.
Global Reach, Local Service
• Must be able to put air-
ground team anywhere
– 24 hrs: Platoon/Cobra
– 48 hrs: Company/Harrier
– 72 hrs: BLT “Swarm”
– 7 days: MAGTF (-)
• Increase Littoral
capabilities to 31%
• Create Humanitarian
Assistance Fleet
Big Decks
• Fence subs at 15
ballistic & 50 attack
• Fence carriers at 12
but dedicate four to
littoral/VSTOL ops
• Restore 2 battleships
for low-cost naval
gunfire support and
big stick diplomacy
Heavy Duty Platforms
• Protect cruisers/ destroyers.
• Create 25 new Expediters,
air-capable SPRUANCEs.
• Increase WHIDBEY
ISLAND class LHDs
• Create 25 three-ship
squadrons of brown water
fire, air, troop interdiction
platforms
Mine Warfare & Port Security
• Distribute helo-borne anti-
mine capabilities
throughout the fleet
• Devise comprehensive
new port security concepts
with USCG
• Consider Port of Houston
as a CIO-Intel testbed for
global information aspects.
Humanitarian Fleet
• 16 roll-on, roll-off bulk
carriers with integrated
engineering, police, and
hospital spaces--half
ready to do instream
ops only
• Protect two large
hospital ships, create
five small hospital ships
Global Reach, Local Service

Blue Water Carrier Big Amphibs Patrol Squadron

Brown Water Carrier Small Amphibs Humanitarian Fleet
 References
• www.oss.net/BASIC
– Has the article on the 450-ship Navy (EE21)
– Has MCIA model for expeditionary analysis
– Has 67+2 country summaries of WF factors
• www.oss.net/LIBRARY
– Over 600 speakers, 15 years, 30,000 pages
• www.oss.net
– Watch the portal pages, updated daily
– Use the Public Daily Brief, check the weekly
summaries of 30 factors, bookmark the threat, policy,
and challenger forecasts and cummulative weeky
summaries for each factor.
WWW.OSS.NET

bear@oss.net
703.266.6393
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