The Staff Model.

1. The Staff Model. CORP Chief of Staff SO Plans SO Intel SO Logistics SO Ops Chief of Staff DIVISION SO Plans SO Intel SO Logistics SO Ops Staff Liaison Officers (intelligence collection) BRIGADE

2. Lessons from the Prussian staff model. • Intelligence as a unitary discipline based in universal doctrine. • Staff officers selected from the best and given long term training. • The staff constitute a single intelligence based institution permeating every level of command. • Intelligence analysis was synchronous with operational planning. • The principle of ‘aufstragtaktic’ allowed for simultaneous intelligence usage at tactical and strategical levels.

3. Lessons from the Prussian staff system (2) • Intelligence was integrated into the command chain at every level. • Tactics and operations were subject of constant review with great emphasis placed on candour from every level. • The ‘rational’ principles implicit in the staff model provided an intellectual core to the entire military body. • Centralized ‘intent’ around the mission was reconciled to decentralized tactical exploitation.

4. Lessons from the Prussian staff model (3) • Strategic intelligence effort subordinated to strategic purpose: the concentration of superior force at the decisive point at the critical time (Clausewitz). • Intelligence was viewed as the infusion of knowledge and experience at every level – tactically, operationally and strategically – via a nervous system simultaneously feeding the brain and the arm.

5. Contrast with twentieth century models. • Intelligence agencies are separated from policy and operations by design. • Timeliness protracted by the process drag associated with the intelligence ‘cycle’. • The ‘cycle’ is more exactly linear with all the inherent disadvantages of hierarchy. • At a national level specialist means of collection predominate over analysis. • Policy and decision makers access intelligence through intermediaries.

6. Contrast with twentieth century models (2) • Contrary to intent, intelligence agencies proliferate. • There is an absence of common doctrine. • The ‘intelligence community’ is a misnomer – intelligence operatives are subdivided into specialisms of different standing. • There is no synchronicity with operational planning. • Tactical appreciation and operational review are regarded as separate disciplines.

7. Contrast with twentieth century models (3) • At a national level there are artificial divides between ‘foreign and domestic’; ‘all source and single source’; ‘policy and analysis’; etc. • Tacticians see little relevance to practical problems. • The analogy to a ‘nervous system’ does not apply – aim is to be neutral and disconnected.

8. Colonel Weitz - a comment from Vietnam • “A list of some of the agencies involved gives a bewildering flavour of the Byzantine bureaucracy of analysts and collectors working the Vietnam problem: Office of National estimates; Central Intelligence Agency; Defence Intelligence Agency; National Security Agency; National Reconnaissance Office; Office of Naval Intelligence; Joint Intelligence; Military Assistance Command Vietnam; Combined Intelligence Centre Vietnam; Combined Military Interrogation Centre; Combined Military Exploitation Centre; all paralleled by the Republic of Vietnam’s own agencies.