Assignment task: Ukraine Literal Collection Strategy Paper
Address the following tasks in this assignment:
1. Provide an analysis of the literal collection disciplines available to you and how you would use them to answer the intelligence requirements. For example, how HUMINT, OSINT and COMINT collection could be used to address the intelligence requirements.
2. Provide plausible examples of published or internet sources, or notional HUMINT techniques, and SIGINT sources. For example, how COMINT could be used to address intelligence requirements.
3. How would you sequence collection for the best results? For example, emphasize the benefits of more comprehensive COMINT versus more timely OSINT collection?
4. Address any management issues needed to be considered. For example, availability, intelligence sharing, including foreign partner collection capabilities.
5. What is our alternate collection strategy if we cannot get the assets our request? For example, initial use of OSINT and subsequent HUMINT and SIGINT collection to verify unclassified sources.
For this assignment, we will use a scenario from the on-going Ukraine-Russia conflict. Recommend that we follow the news to develop a deeper understanding of the pertinent players and unfolding events.
Background:
We are an Open-Source intelligence (OSINT) analyst assigned to the J2-E, Joint Analysis Center (JAC), United States European Command (USEUCOM) located on Royal Air Force Base (RAF) Molesworth, United Kingdom (UK). USEUCOM covers 21,000,000 square miles and 51 countries and territories, including Europe, Russia, and Greenland.
Since February 2022, the Department of Defense (DoD) deployed or extended over 20,000 additional forces to Europe in response to the Ukraine crisis, adding additional air, land, maritime, cyber, and space capabilities, bringing our current total to more than 100,000 service members across Europe. Force protection is a high priority intelligence requirement.
The JAC's mission is to analyze, process and produce fused intelligence information for the United States (US) and its NATO allies. It supports mission planning and operations. The current intelligence mission priority is the conflict in the Ukraine.
As an OSINT analyst we are responsible for collaborating and working with intelligence community (IC) members on information sharing, driving collection, and developing concise, insightful, and comprehensive products for defense intelligence.
Intelligence analysts understand how literal intelligence is collected and used. They work with collection managers to address collection requirements to collect and produce literal information. It is the form that we use for everyday communication. It requires no special exploitation after the processing step (usually just language translation) to be understood. For example, literal intelligence collection comes from OSINT, HUMINT, SIGINT/COMINT and cyber intelligence sources. It literally speaks for itself.
Nonliteral information, in contrast, usually requires expertise in special processing and exploitation in order for analysts to make use of it. This will be covered in the second assignment.
Collection Strategy:
Yesterday, our office received an OSINT report that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian airfield in the Crimea on 9 August 2022. Commercial satellite imagery of the Russian Airforce base at Saki in Novofedorivka indicated that at least 10 Russian military aircraft were destroyed or seriously damaged bye series of explosions. This is assessed to be the largest single-day loss for Russian air power since Russia widened its war on Ukraine in late February.
We are to design a collection strategy using literal intelligence collection resources. Determine how this collection could be used to assess the intelligence requirements if Ukraine attacked this Russian airfield, the battle damage to the facility, and impact on Russian operations.
Saki Russian Airfield (10 August 2022) - Circles and an oblong mark destroyed and suspected destroyed Russian Su-24s and Su-30s fighters