Category Archives: Intelligence Collection, Analysis & Estimates

Foreign Policy Research & Analysis, Intelligence Collection, Analysis & Estimates, Terrorism Information

What are the best open source global intelligence databases?

Let me share some tips with you that I’ve picked-up along the way that helps me do what I do, and am sought after for Global Intelligence Research & Analysis (GIRA). I’ll apologize in advance if I share something you already know, or are aware of. Since I do not know you, nor your current level of knowledge, I am not going to make any assumptions.

One of the things I have determined over the years about GIRA is simply this: There are two types of people doing GIRA…the professionals who are really good at it, and then everybody else. How can you tell if someone has the intrinsic “stuff” to be really good at GIRA? I like illustrating things using metaphors and examples; so, here’s one on being a GIRA expert. Have you ever heard of the social science concept called “Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?” Maslow theorized that human behavior can be categorized based on one of five need levels, and the level someone is on currently, can go up or down on a real-time basis in the blink-of-an-eye. The five levels are:

  1. Physiological Needs. These are the things to sustain human life. Breathing oxygen is as basic as it can get.
  2. Security Needs. Shelter, clothing, avoiding immediate danger.
  3. Socialization Needs. The human trait to interact with other humans.
  4. Recognition, Achievement Needs. Human desire to advance, self-worth, be seen by others as adding value.
  5. Self-Actualization Needs. Ever wonder why someone will voluntarily jump out of a perfectly good airplane to use a parachute? Why does a NASCAR racing driver want to drive a 3,000+ lb car at 200 mph while he’s literally bumper-to-bumper and door-to-door – only inches apart – from three or four other cars? Why did Air Force pilot, Chuck Yeager, want to fly an airplane to break the sound barrier in 1947? These are examples of people self-actualizing; doing something because there is a burning desire inside them that is so important, it defies understanding by most people…except for the few others with the same unfulfilled need.

If you want to be a really good GIRA expert, your desire must derive from Maslow’s 5th level. A good example of a self-actualizing GIRA expert is me…how important is it to me to self-actualize GIRA? Well, I am writing about it right now on Christmas Day. Not too many people will see this as being a burning need, so much so, I need to do it on Christmas. The GIRA tips and techniques I will describe are only useful if you put them to work…you gotta, wanna know.

Tips on Open Source Intelligence Research & Analysis

  1. Establish your personal knowledge baseline. My four kids are all grown and on their own. When they were in grade school they frequently asked me, “Dad, what do we have to do to be smart?” My answer was: “Read anything and everything you can get your hands on.” When I said anything and everything, I told the kids that meant if they were just waiting in the grocery store checkout line, read the ingredients on the box of cookies in your basket! You have to be a voracious reader. The reason it is so critical to have an ultra-high level personal knowledge baseline is simply because when you start to get serious about GIRA, you are not going to have the time to focus on a topic to produce a GIRA product of integrity quick enough to do someone any good if you have to go school yourself, first. Sometimes you have that luxury; but, if someone is paying you money for your intellectual product, you can’t take too much time to produce it. People and/or companies requesting GIRA from you, view time & money in the same context. This being said, having an evolving, expanding knowledge baseline in general, and a certain topic, in specific, allows you to monitor global happenings within the topic area and quickly spot something that’s not part of your baseline knowledge and determine whether it’s something significant enough to dig further.
  2. Determining if your generic personal knowledge baseline is adequate. About 15 years ago when I decided to start dabbling in GIRA for-hire, I knew already that my ability to find, absorb & analyze data for myself, or for the seminars & college classes I taught, or the magazine articles I wrote, or my management duties, was adequate. But, I wondered what I could do to compare my knowledge against a recognized base of global knowledge? I don’t know if you’ve ever sat for any type of professionally recognized credentialing exam, like the CPA (certified public accountant), or the Bar exam to be an attorney, or the exam to become a licensed U.S. Customs Broker, etc. These are some of the toughest exams anywhere. For the level of knowledge needed on a global scale, I decided to apply for candidacy to become a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. Diplomatic Corps. Before the State Dept will even interview, you have to pass the FSO exam. These days the FSO jobs are highly sought after, which makes the candidacy process very competitive. For anyone without 10-15 yrs of experience that’s useful in the Diplomatic Corps, the younger, entry-level candidates won’t get too far in the application process unless they at least have a Masters Degree. So, when you sit for the FSO exam, if you are not extremely well versed in a broad range of global topics, you won’t pass. I’ve taken numerous professional credential exams before; the FSO exam is/was the toughest I’ve ever taken…but, I passed. That was good enough for me, and I didn’t pursue FSO idea further. It intrigued me, but at 50 back then, I decided I’d to let the idea go. You don’t need to go this far to see if your knowledge measures up; but, you get my drift…you have to really know your stuff.
  3. Where to find GIRA primary source material. There’s two types of GIRA, Static Data R&A, and Dynamic, Emergent Data R&A. SDRA is generally the history-based side of GIRA. SDRA can be at either a macro or micro level. Sources for this type of analysis are not difficult to find because the SDRA report you generate is not meant to give actively changing, ongoing emergent R&A. Don’t get me wrong; SDRA reports are not supposed to contain just stale (i.e.; mostly past tense that’s not changing anymore) information, unless the requester has asked specifically for a mostly historical report. SDRAs I’ve done for corporations, like an inquiry about a country’s climate for a new business venture, need a mix of historical data, and anything relevant to the current business climate. If you were writing an SDRA report on Indonesia and during your R&A an airliner crashes on takeoff from Jakarta’s international airport, it’s not likely to impact report, and it would be too early to include it until the impact to your report, if any is understood. On the flip side, reporting intelligence information that’s in the DEDRA category requires primary source material that is extremely time sensitive. This is when your ability to identify information sources beyond the typical is really important. There are many sources that can cover static (historical) and dynamic (emergent) information. Remember: regardless what kind of data a source has available on the internet, it didn’t get there for free…it’s being paid for somehow. Some of the primary sources I list below are those you cannot access for free. One thing about GIRA…are you looking to prepare a macro report or a micro one? What I’ve listed below is not everything I use, just the ones I’ve used reliably from time-to-time (some a lot more than others). I have other sources I’ll use to fine tune my info and double check my facts. I pick-up new sources all of the time.

Lastly, GIRA is not an expertise you can just learn out of a textbook. My methods, sources and thoughts expressed here, work for me, and there may be 100 people out there that disagrees. So be it. Everyone can choose their own path that makes them happy and/or financially successful. What you do with all of this info I’ve provided is now up to you! Note: Due to the dozens and dozens of sources I listed, I did not take the time to add-in all of the hyperlinks…gotta leave ya with something to do!

Best of luck!

Air Force E-publishing

USAF Air University

Air Power Australia

American Special Operations

AVIALOGS

Aviation Week & Space Technology

Baseops.net Flight Planning, Aviation Weather & Military Discounts

Bibliography of the Vietnam War

Black Vault

Boeing Acronyms And Definitions

Currency Converter

Defense Department

Defense One

Defense Technical Information Center

Demand Media Studios

Designation-Systems.Net

Federal Aviation Administration

Federation of American Scientists –

Global Digital Media Network

Guide to Military Equipment and Civil Aviation

International Rescue Committee (IRC)

Joe Baugher's Military Aircraft Index

Joint Electronic Library, Joint Concepts

Mach One Manuals

Mine Action Group

MIT Security Studies Program (SSP)

Myinforms World News

National Security Archive

National Security Council

National Security Internet Archive

NATO

OECD

Pacific War Online Encyclopedia

RadioReference.com

SearchMil.com

SIPRI

Spyflight

The Library of Congress.

Time Zone Map

U.S. Military – CNN.com

World Health Organization

United Nations International Childrens’ Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations High Commission for Refugees

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

United Nations Development Programme

United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

The World Bank

International Labor Organization

World Food Programme

Center for Intelligence and Security Studies

Center for Strategic and International Studies

RAND Corp Research Services and Public Policy Analysis

SmartBrief | Industry E-mail Newsletters for Professionals

Sanctions Programs and Country Information

American History [ushistory.org]

DoDBuzz

Global Security

Department of Homeland Security

Heritage Foundation

National Security Network

Military.com

U.S. State Dept.

Stratfor

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The National Counterintelligence Executive

The National Counterterrorism Center

Bureau of Intelligence and Research

National Technical Information Service

Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence

ProQuest

Federal Research Division of Library of Congress

U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office

Defense Intelligence Agency

NATO Open Source Intelligence Handbook

OSINT Deep Web Search for user names and e-mail addresses

NATO OSINT Reader

Open Source Solutions

Janes.com

Digital Globe – High Resolution Global Imagery

Foreign Policy.com

U.S. Dept of Commerce

Steve Miller, Copyright (c) 2006, 2012, 2015, 2018

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Intelligence Collection, Analysis & Estimates

Book Review: Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency, by Thomas L. Ahern Jr.

Steve Miller, Copyright (c) 2011

vietnam-declassified-book-cover

Note: This article first appeared in the Air Force Research Institute’s “Air and Space Power Journal” in the Summer 2011 Edition.

Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency by Thomas L. Ahern Jr. University Press of Kentucky, 2010, 450 pp., $40.00 (hardcover).

Anyone intent upon a serious study of the Vietnam War or of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) operations in general, must read this book. Of the more than 1,000 hours I’ve spent researching the war and the nearly 300 books and oral interview transcripts I have read, Ahern’s study stands as one of the best accounts of America’s involvement in Indochina. He deserves a standing ovation for giving us the unvarnished truth.

Anytime an author attempts to write a book about a controversial subject, he or she knows that not everyone will agree with the results. The real challenge involves getting the story right without creating more negative thinkers. Given the amount of mud tossed around about Vietnam, an author must have iron-willed courage to buck the trend—exactly the case with Ahern. He properly acknowledges situations in which judgment should have been better or which produced mediocre results. But Ahern does three things that reflect his integrity:

1. He stays clear of making editorial comments or offering personal opinions.

2. Even though many different types of intelligence operations ran simultaneously, Ahern keeps the reader informed about the chronology and the direct or indirect linkages between them.

3. He avoids using his professional expertise to fill-in gaps in the story or fabricate topic linkages. Ahern wisely keeps his literary license in his pocket, letting the facts tell the story.

I appreciate the author’s effort to prepare a balanced narrative that covers the various intelligence programs. He takes the right course by not dwelling on the well-known Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) or Phoenix Program. By time a reader finishes the book, it is apparent that very few programs did poorly while the CIA was in-charge. Ahern notes the common project pattern: develop and launch it in one or two provinces, prove that it works, and then decide to roll it out nationally. Generally speaking, project incubation went well under CIA guidance.  It was not uncommon, however, for a Program to fall on hard times when it transitioned to a larger effort and the CIA relinquished control.

In the best part of Vietnam Declassified, the author shows how he and his colleagues tirelessly pressed forward, trying to salvage something of enduring value. Ahern notes that most CIA officers serving in Vietnam realized the near impossibility of having an operation develop the “legs” to do well all over the country or make any long-term gains. He cites an exasperating meeting about a problem with a certain pacification program, during which someone tossed out a new idea. William Colby (the CIA station chief in Saigon, and a future CIA director) replied that he was willing to try anything—if it would work (pp. 69, 86).

Ahern purposely—and correctly, I might add—calls the reader’s attention to repeating themes throughout the text. Vietnam Declassified shows the many recurring actions/inactions outside CIA control for which the agency nevertheless received blame and/or an assignment to tidy up a mess not of its making.

The book clearly points out that for any given intelligence operation, the Saigon government and armed forces, provincial as well as local leaders, and the US military or State Department might have held differing goals for the desired outcome; however, Ahern demonstrates the CIA’s consistency in resisting involvement in actions having dubious intelligence value. He demonstrates the fine line present in operations, whether overt or covert, that successfully hid a clandestine intelligence-collection effort. Early in the book, he explains one of the more common accusations made about the CIA in Vietnam—that it participated in operations perceived to have no intelligence value. Ahern reveals that, on the one hand, outsiders who concluded that the CIA’s participation in an operation produced nothing beneficial, actually validated the agency’s concealment of an intelligence operation inside a pacification program. On the other hand, the CIA had to “take it on the chin” for purportedly spending taxpayer dollars on something without intelligence value.

Coming out of Vietnam, the CIA carried the undeserved image of a power-hungry loose cannon, but the author debunks this paradigm. Ahern explains that, aside from avoiding power grabs on ethical grounds, the CIA actually had the least amount of manpower and one of the smallest budgets in-country. Although he does not say so explicitly, I have the impression that the CIA saw its role as a “counterinsurgency project manager,” not as a full-scale “production (i.e., combatant) manager.”

One of the thorniest issues Ahern mentions had to do with convincing South Vietnamese leaders that the war was in the countryside, not in the cities. The CIA routinely coached Saigon leaders on the “battle” not being against Hanoi or merely about stopping the Vietcong from bothering rural peasants. The author reminds us that the Americans constantly repeated and demonstrated this particular message, starting in 1954 when they arrived and the French left. According to the CIA, the real task lay in convincing the peasants to side with Saigon before the Vietcong talked them into going the other way.

Vietnam Declassified left a lasting impression. Specifically, Ahern writes in several places about the CIA as a trailblazer in Vietnam, as was the author himself. In fact, he observes that “most [CIA] officers who served there had no previous experience of third world insurgency, and many of us . . . found ourselves facing challenges and exercising authority at a level well above the norm for our rank and experience” (p. 4). It seems that in situations in which young officers lack the extrinsic benefits of manpower, money, equipment, precedence, and experience yet still need to get the job done, they do so, according to the author, by using intrinsic skills they could not buy or receive from someone else—tenacity, creativity, and courage.

When I closed Thomas Ahern’s book, a time-honored passage kept ringing in my ears: “We who have done so much, for so long, with so little, are now qualified to do everything with nothing.” Excellent work, Mr. Ahern.

Steve Miller, Copyright (c) 2011

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