I’m not the person to turn to when it comes to political or economic research tips let alone in-depth insights on those topics. I do, however, know a few things about how to go about producing quality military capabilities analysis; an approach that holds for any of the world’s militaries. First one must have an order-of-battle (OB) and a table of organization and equipment (TO&E). Without them judgements become at best wild guesses and at worst flat wrong. Current reporting from single sources proves especially helpful to warfighters as we have witnessed in Ukraine. Making judgments on Russian military capabilities, on the other hand, proved to be far less helpful. Senator King (I-Maine) last month, for example, demanded that the DNI explain why the briefings he received that the Russians would take Kiev in three days and the people of Ukraine would not mount a stiff resistance were so off the mark. I don’t think he found the DNI’s answers helpful.
My guess is that the real answer is that intelligence analysts don’t do in depth military research anymore. Instead, the Intelligence Community (IC) at the national level does political-military studies using current reporting techniques (read and remember) that can explain events as they happen but are unable to tackle more complicated questions like what the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian military are. If such a study existed, I believe the President and other senior officials, such as Senator King, would have been given a much more nuanced assessment than the one they received. The mistakes made suggests that maintaining an up-to-date order-of-battle and TO&E are no longer a national priority. I can’t know for certain the status of these essentials tools when it comes to Russia, but based on the recent assessments it appears to have followed the same course as the China order-of-battle which I know a little more about having started out as a China OB analyst at DIA. Several years later I learned that DIA gave this responsibility to what was then CINCPAC but not for long. Eventually, CINCPAC transferred this responsibility to a reserve unit.
Without an OB and TO&E the next step in producing quality military capability analysis, harnessing the mass of data in the national data bases, especially imagery, isn’t possible. As I’ve described earlier, the National Geospatial Agency (NGA) database contains enormous amounts of data that can be invaluable in military capabilities analysis, but it is not unfortunately designed with the all-source analyst in mind. As you will recall in my “Is China Mechanizing Its Ground Forces” study two of my colleagues in the Office of Strategic Research (OSR) China Branch, for example, found that there were fifteen different ways a Type-59 tank was recorded in the database, and that was just the tip of the problem. Every piece of ground, air, naval, and missile equipment in the database had multiple names for the same item. Unless someone builds a dictionary to capture all the possible names for the same piece of equipment you are bound to miss a lot and often come to the wrong conclusions.
In addition, the database is installation oriented not organized by units. When you pull data out, you must know all the installations that make up the battalion, division, or army you are studying otherwise you can easily get a distorted picture of the military situation. It is the main reason I have long advocated giving NGA the responsibility for maintaining OBs for key potential military adversaries such as Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea. Analysts there would most easily consolidate individual installations into units in their OB making detailed all-source studies more manageable. I’ve heard that DIA opposed moving the OB to NGA, probably for bureaucratic reasons, but then downgraded the importance of such work pawning it off to others. As a result, the tools needed for doing military capability analysis at the national level apparently do not exist. We are left with guesstimates like the Russians will take Kiev in three days.
Some people will argue that policy makers have no interest in the detailed work that goes into OB analysis. I couldn’t agree more. Neither the President nor Senator King would find anything of value in knowing the Russian OB. It is too micro and as a stand-alone document of little use to them. That doesn’t mean the information in the OB is not important for policy makers. Without a detailed OB you cannot even attempt to answer the larger questions concerning military capabilities; information that they would find extremely useful. Churning out current reporting is fine. Senior policy makers need the best minds found in the Intelligence Community (IC) to keep them updated on what is happening around the world. I certainly couldn’t agree more having had the privilege of serving with the experts at State INR. Current reporting fulfills the need for a classified New York Times on the hottest topics of the day for people who are far too busy to read through the tsunami of intelligence reports that pour in each day.
Interestingly, my own experience working with policy makers suggest that on those issues they are most concerned about they read a lot more than many would expect given their busy schedules. I remember getting a telephone call one afternoon to immediately join my boss, Harry Rowen, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (ISA), and Paul Wolfowitz, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in Secretary Cheney’s office to talk about North Korea. As I hung up the telephone, I noticed a report on the top of my in-box pertaining to Korea. I read the title but was in such a hurry I didn’t even look at the report. Five minutes later I discovered that the only person in the room who had read the full report was the Secretary of Defense. A bit awkward, but none of us got fired.
Once you have an OB and a database based on units -- not installations -- there are several things other direct research analysts can do with this basic intelligence information. One thing we attempted during my time at CIA/OSR was combat simulations. It began when China Branch benefited from a mistake made by the Soviet Division of OSR. Jay Hetherington showed up one day in China Branch, unannounced, to join us in the study of the PLA. Jay didn’t know much about China, but as it turned out that didn’t matter. He made a huge contribution to our efforts. The rumor mill suggested that he had been reassigned because he wasn’t a particularly good writer. What the rumor mill didn’t say, but we soon learned, was that Jay was one of the most knowledgeable western analysts on the Soviet’s logistics system. A defector had provided large quantities of documents, including plans and manuals. Jay studied the documents so closely that he knew more than most Russians did about the volume of supplies necessary to keep a Soviet force on the battlefield. Jay was one of many instances during my time there when CIA rewarded those who could write well, but had nothing important to say, over a true expert. Their loss was our gain.
Jay and I worked on what for me was my first attempt at a collaborative analytical effort. It started with a conversation we had wondering how well the Russian military would do against the Chinese along their common northern border. Soviet analysts saw the Chinese as no match for the modern, mechanized force that the Russians could bring to the party. CIA China analysts agreed, seeing the PLA as a much less capable foe than NATO forces in Europe. Jay was not so certain. He had spotted differences in the deployment of Soviet Forces in the Far East, and I had my doubts that China would be quite the pushover many of my colleagues saw. We both worried that if the “experts” were correct, the prospect of the conflict going nuclear early on was a distinct possibility. We reasoned this was not good for anyone.
The conventional wisdom reported by current event analysts, once again, offered an opportunity for us to test its accuracy. Everyone believed, both Soviet and Chinese specialists, that the PLA in a Sino-Soviet conventional war would prove to be no match for the Soviet forces because of Russia’s better weaponry and training. Not unless the Soviet forces were “lured in deep” into a “Peoples War” and the PLA could bring the full strength of the nation into play, China had no chance at all. A few analysts, especially me – the immigrant from DIA – believed that such an analysis overstated Russia’s capability. China would prove to be a more difficult foe than most believed.
When I learned that Jay had experience with simple war game simulations, board games that recreate past battles like Normandy or Stalingrad, I challenged him to develop a conventional conflict scenario between China and Russia at a point along the border of his choosing. There are extremely sophisticated computer-based simulations that help the Pentagon test US capabilities. In our case, we were not attempting to predict the future nor suggest who might win a war between the Soviet Union and China. I couldn’t help but believe, however, that the roleplaying generated by even a simple simulation could have some application to intelligence analysis. Instead of trying to determine who would win or lose, its traditional use, our boardgame simulation would give us an opportunity to see, from the military commander’s perspective, the strengths, and problems he might encounter in a conflict between Soviet and Chinese forces, and possibly provide us with new intelligence insights.
Our preparations involved assigning numerical values to weapons. Soviet weapons were the easy part. These calculations had already been done for us in previous US war games. We weren’t so lucky with the Chinese forces. We searched but could not find any similar values for the PLA. As a result, we had to create our own. Fortunately, most of the Chinese weapons were obtained from the Soviets. They were either built in China to Russian specifications or were Chinese modifications of Soviet designs. We tried our best to play the game as the Chinese and Soviet commanders would use their doctrine and tactics. We also fought a battle, not a war. Jay chose the area along the border that he thought most likely for an attack. I was restricted to using only Chinese forces that were readily available, or that realistically could be brought into the conflict during the timeline of the battle.
The first thing we noticed was that China’s defenses looked nothing like the plans that US and allied forces had for defense against a Soviet attack in Europe. Instead of a forward defense that was designed to block any Soviet breakthroughs, Chinese forces were arrayed in a classical defense in depth. Depending on the location, four to five lines of ground forces were positioned back to front in the best defensible terrain leading away from the border. The range rings of PLA Air Force aircraft that encompassed these defensive positions suggested plans to provide some air defense during the battle. In most cases, the terrain restricted the Soviets to head-on attacks and gave them little room for either flanking attacks or other large unit maneuvering.
When the battle started, the Soviets easily pushed through the first line, and sometime during the first night, scattered the troops in the second line. By the morning of the second day, fighting along the third line had begun. Progress was somewhat slower now; the defenses were well prepared, and the Chinese units were better armed. In a few cases, the Chinese had stalled or even pushed back Soviet troops that were attempting to break through the Chinese defenses. More worrisome to the Soviet commander, however, was that the Chinese units on the first and second line had not just pulled back or disappeared. All along his supply lines these forces were disrupting the Soviet’s flow of ammunition, gas, and water. Not a serious threat yet, but one to keep watching closely. It took two more days of hard fighting to breach the third line of Chinese defenses. By this time, the Soviet commander was receiving reports that his expenditure of ammunition was three times greater per day than the planning factors for an attack against NATO, and that gas was being consumed twice as fast as anticipated. Chinese attacks on his supply lines were increasing. Taken together, his ability to advance had been compromised. After reaching the fourth line, the Soviet advance began to bog down.
At that point, the Soviets were confronting the largest and best equipped Chinese force yet, and their supply of ammunition and gasoline was running dangerously low. Chinese casualties had been extremely high, their forces had been routed at every turn, but they were still there. The Soviet commander faced some difficult decisions. He had not yet reached his military objective, but he needed to call a halt to the advance until he could restock his supplies from Mother Russia. We concluded that in his mind, the time had come to consider the use of nuclear weapons. At that point we stopped the game.
Our take a ways demonstrated that much of the conventional wisdom was true. The Chinese were no match for the Soviets one on one. Nothing in the game contradicted this belief. Indeed, our findings provided more evidence that this part of the estimate was correct. On the other hand, our game also suggested that the Soviets would have a far more difficult time than most were predicting. Soviet plans and doctrine were designed to fight a war in Europe. Major changes in the supply of ammunition and other vital supplies would be needed, including providing for much longer distances for resupply. When we looked at the supply depots in the Soviet Far East after the game, they still appeared to follow NATO guidelines. Although we did not suggest the Soviets would resort to nuclear weapons in a war with China, after the game we thought that they would have to give much more serious thought to this option should a war occur.
We prepared our report with a joint byline, explaining in detail, the game, the methodology, and the basis for our numerical calculations. Once again, although not earthshaking, our findings were well received. I can’t help but wonder if, researchers like Jay and Carl, existed in today’s IC, the estimates of Russia’s ability to take Kiev would have been so far off the mark.
Again, please don’t misunderstand. I am a big believer in accurate, inciteful, and timely current reporting. I simply argue that consistently providing senior officials with quality reporting requires a large cadre of analysts doing research mostly for other analysts. It is how you create new knowledge in any field. CNN’s Dr. Gupta, for example, does an excellent job of summarizing for non-experts the latest developments in medicine, but I would make a large wager that he will never discover a cure for brain cancer. That is not his job. Others you have never heard of and who contribute articles to the New England Journal of Medicine, you will never read, are the ones who have the best chance of making such a breakthrough.