Military Intelligence: Its Role in Counterinsurgency

While it is generally accepted that military intelligence plays a key role in low intensity conflict (LIC), there is not a broad understanding as to how intelligence and electronic warfare (IEW) systems are organized and employed nor how IEW operations are executed in a counterinsurgency environment. Some recent successes have been achieved within the US Southern Command area of operations and are being documented to form guiding principles to shape US Army IEW doctrine. At the same time, the US Army Intelligence Center and School is rapidly incorporating those lessons learned, newly defined roles and articulated operational parameters of military intelligence into doctrine. One must stop, however, and ask the question whether or not we are focusing in too narrow a manner on US Army experiences in Latin America, its earlier experiences in Southeast Asia and even on our traditional reliance upon British counterinsurgency methods. It is not suggested that these successful and practical exponents of military intelligence in counterinsurgency be discarded, but rather that the recent experiences of other armed forces be examined to ensure not only that the US Army has gleaned all IEW fundamentals, but more importantly, that it has gleaned all innovative means of applying those fundamentals in a LIC environment. This monograph examines current US Army IEW operational concepts for counterinsurgency, doctrinal literature, current practices in Latin America, lessons learned from Southeast Asia and British Army experiences. This doctrinal and historical base together with its theoretical underpinnings is analyzed and evaluated in light of the military intelligence experiences of the French Army in its counterinsurgency roles from Indochina to Chad, 1946-1984; the Uruguayan suppression of the Tupamaros, 1963-1973; and the Portuguese Army campaign in Mozambique, 1964-1974. The study concludes that case studies of the French, Uruguayans and Portuguese offer no new IEW principle