Tag Archives: Sam Culper

The Analytical Leap

by Sam Culper III Coming up, we were always told that our analytic conclusions would never be criticized as long as our logic and reasoning were sound.  The result was that our logic and reasoning were always criticized, and therefore our conclusions … Continue reading

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Executive Intelligence Summary (EXSUM) – 07JAN2014

In the early days of the Iraq War, the U.S. military pumped millions of dollars into non-lethal weapons projects intended to stop people without killing them… There is perhaps no greater example of this than the Active Denial System, the … Continue reading

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28DEC13 EXSUM

by Sam Culper I’m going to start pushing out sporadic news reports with some level of intelligence-related interest, and calling them (for now) the Executive Summary (EXSUM).  EXSUMs are typically written for flag-officer commanders who only have time to hear … Continue reading

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FARC – Lessons Learned

by Sam Culper MSG Morgan recently covered this article over at his excellent SIGINT blog, and suggested that I take a stab at explaining some lessons learned. In my relatively short career, I only had cursory experience with South American insurgencies but was … Continue reading

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Measuring Progress

Sam Culper I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts about intelligence analysis as it applies to measuring progress and developments (both positive and negative). In many ways, tracking conflict is like tracking a business: you have profits and … Continue reading

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Source Recruitment Cycle

Source recruitment and source operations are two areas that have really been lacking on this blog, and I get questions from time to time about how to develop them.  They’re all good questions but the answers have two things in … Continue reading

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Using Crime Reports

by Sam Culper Next week, we’re about to start going over a handful of posts about source recruiting and source operations; areas which have only been lightly covered on this blog.  That’s about to change. I was thinking earlier today … Continue reading

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BICC/E Analysis

In the past week, we’ve touched on the BICC/E analytical method.  It’s best used for developing enemy courses of action (COA).  So if a key assumption is that we’ll be dealing with irregular threats like gangs, mobs, and criminals, or … Continue reading

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Applied Conventional Analytical Tasking

Intelligence analysts in conventional settings are almost always, in one form or another, tasked with one thing: “To find, know, and never lose the enemy.”  What will the enemy do next and what are the enemy’s near-term goalsare some fairly commonplace questions.  Question … Continue reading

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OPSEC Considerations for Cell Phones

It should be no surprise for anyone to hear that your cell phone is one of your largest liabilities.  Long before the NSA leaks, we knew the general tracking capabilities of government intelligence and surveillance agencies around the world. But … Continue reading

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United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB)

The United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) on its face isn’t alarming.  I’m not even sure if this database is official or operational but people tracking crime isn’t new, nor is suspect.  You should note that this database tracks non-violent … Continue reading

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Intelligence and Probabilities

We’ve previously covered that the four factors of valuable intelligence information are timely, accurate, specific, and predictive.  Once we’ve collected information and analyzed it to create a finished intelligence product, we absolutely must present that information (which is timely, accurate, … Continue reading

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Political Movements

We’ve been going over popular support in secession/resistance/revolution movements, and I’ve received a few questions about how we build popular support, specifically from within the American Redoubt.  (This would apply equally to the Appalachian Redoubt, the Republic of Texas, and … Continue reading

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Unity of Spirit

Trudging right along in Learning to East Soup with a Knife (Nagl), we’re arriving at Mao’s “unity of spirit” concept between his revolutionary army and the people. Whether we’re talking about secession, a resistance or guerrilla campaign, or a full-on … Continue reading

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The Problem with Win First

This will be the last defense of secession I post for a while.  I hope many of you are coming around to the idea, especially those of you who live in the American Redoubt.  Secession provides a legal framework and … Continue reading

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