[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 113-46]
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
IRREGULAR WARFARE CHALLENGES:
PRIVATE SECTOR PERSPECTIVES
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JUNE 28, 2013
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman
JEFF MILLER, Florida JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida Georgia
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
DUNCAN HUNTER, California DANIEL B. MAFFEI, New York
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York DEREK KILMER, Washington
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada SCOTT H. PETERS, California
Peter Villano, Professional Staff Member
Mark Lewis, Professional Staff Member
Julie Herbert, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2013
Page
Hearing:
Friday, June 28, 2013, Past, Present, and Future Irregular
Warfare Challenges: Private Sector Perspectives................ 1
Appendix:
Friday, June 28, 2013............................................ 25
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FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 2013
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE IRREGULAR WARFARE CHALLENGES: PRIVATE SECTOR
PERSPECTIVES
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats
and Capabilities............................................... 1
Thornberry, Hon. Mac, a Representative from Texas, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities 1
WITNESSES
Atallah, Rudolph, Chief Executive Officer, White Mountain
Research LLC................................................... 2
Cohn, Mark, Vice President, Engineering and Chief Technology
Officer, Unisys Federal Systems................................ 4
Costa, Barry, Director, Technology Transfer, The MITRE
Corporation.................................................... 5
Jacobs, Scott E., President, New Century US...................... 7
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Atallah, Rudolph............................................. 29
Cohn, Mark................................................... 41
Costa, Barry................................................. 50
Jacobs, Scott E.............................................. 62
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Franks................................................... 79
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Langevin................................................. 99
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE IRREGULAR WARFARE CHALLENGES: PRIVATE SECTOR
PERSPECTIVES
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House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and
Capabilities,
Washington, DC, Friday, June 28, 2013.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mac Thornberry
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAC THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, EMERGING THREATS
AND CAPABILITIES
Mr. Thornberry. The subcommittee will come to order. We are
going to be interrupted by votes here shortly, so we are trying
to make the best of a difficult situation.
I will just say that it has been a continuing interest of
this subcommittee on the lessons learned from irregular warfare
and how we go forward. And so today's hearing is an attempt to
get a cross-section of private-sector opinion about that
subject, and we very much appreciate the witnesses being here
and, in advance, your patience in a rather constrained day.
With that I yield to the ranking member, Mr. Langevin.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses for being here; thank the chairman for holding this
hearing. In interest of time and brevity, in light of the fact
that we will be pulling votes, I will submit my opening
statement for the record, but again thank our witnesses for
being here.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you. Let me turn it over to our
witnesses: Mr. Rudy Atallah, Chief Executive Officer of White
Mountain Research; Mr. Mark Cohn, Vice President, Engineering
and Chief Technology Officer for Unisys Federal Systems; Barry
Costa, Director, Technology Transfer, The MITRE Corporation;
and Scott Jacobs, President of New Century US. Again thank you
all for being here.
We will turn it over to you, and, without objection, your
entire written statement will be made part of the record, and
we will turn it to you to summarize your statement, if you
will. Mr. Atallah.
STATEMENT OF RUDOLPH ATALLAH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, WHITE
MOUNTAIN RESEARCH LLC
Mr. Atallah. Mr. Chairman, honorable members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the invitation. Let me just dive
right in and outline a few of my thoughts.
I'm going to start by discussing a few points on the
challenges to irregular warfare as we see it from our side,
from my company. The first challenge is understanding non-
Western friends and foes. Perhaps the greatest challenge to IW
[irregular warfare] observed since 9/11 attacks is our
inability to accurately understand and therefore project how
and why nonstate allies and adversaries, including those
inspired by militant strands of political Islam, think,
organize, and operate.
Part of this problem set arises from our institutional
tendencies towards mirror imaging; that is, thinking like
professional soldiers, analysts, and policymakers rather than
non-Western activists, bureaucrats, or militants, motivated as
much by identity belief or cultural imperatives as they are by
traditional notions and strategy.
Challenge number two is our overreliance on technology.
Despite recognition since 9/11 of the importance of
sociocultural understanding, the reality of our approach to IW
remains focused on zeroes and ones. We continue to rely
increasingly on intelligence derived from technical sources and
less on humans. Context derived from understanding and thinking
like others takes a back seat to information.
Beyond the monetary burden associated with overreliance on
warfighting technologies, our ability to grasp and contend with
complex sociocultural issues is gradually eroded. Our soldiers
have grown accustomed to possessing enormous amounts of
intelligence data at their fingertips that provide answers to
almost every question arising within the operating
environments. But whether the financial resources required to
sustain this technology will be there in the coming lean years
is unknown.
SOF [special operations forces] units will have to return
to more traditional modes of working as small units conducting
operations by, with and through local military liaison forces
and other local surrogates. Although advanced technologies will
certainly play a role in these cases, these small units will
succeed or fail based on their ability to analyze, fight, and
navigate within the local
environment.
The third challenge is defining the political outcomes of
IW. It is a well-known maxim that war is politics by other
means. A clear understanding of our objectives and strategies
in waging IW is essential, essentially given the primacy of
influence and winning at war's moral level. Further, the clear
articulations of these objectives, basically our desired end
state, to the American public is also key, given this necessity
to generate support for the long-term operations and patience
that characterize effective irregular warfare.
Fourth, our fourth challenge is limited to SME [subject
matter expertise] immersions. Another apparent challenge in
combating irregular warfare is basically having a lack of
reliable subject matter expertise in some regions of the world.
Generating a meaningful understanding of a country or a
region's sociocultural issues requires years of immersion.
It has been our observation that when DOD [Department of
Defense] reacts to a new issue, it often reaches out to
academia for answers. However, it is often the case that
academic advisors have limited understanding of ground-truth
sociocultural context because their expertise is gleaned from
desktop research or coupled with trips to a distant capital.
Instead of turning to individuals who have spent meaningful
time on the ground conducting field work and developing
objective, qualitative perspectives on the challenges at hand,
DOD too often invests in shallow and often biased expert
opinions. The result is poor, often skewed understanding of
both the problem set and the environment that is nevertheless
translated into IW planning.
Recommendations. First, we need to expand our human
capabilities. As American warfighters, we will always have the
ability to do something, but having good intelligence coupled
with solid context allows to us do the right thing.
Second, we need to couple an expanded HUMINT [human
intelligence] capability with new methods of sociocultural
training and alternative analysis programs that promote viewing
the environment through the eyes of non-Westerners.
Third, continued private-sector partnerships as well as--
are essential for DOD. Businesses like White Mountain Research
that work overseas have a great deal to offer as the market
forces us to stay in tune with foreign political and
sociocultural issues in order to compete. As we conduct our
peer-to-peer research and keep pace with local politics in
foreign countries, DOD can gain richly from our experience.
Fourth, we must bear in mind everything has an economic
limitation. Based on this, at the political level we should
determine what we want our objectives to look like and define
and calibrate appropriate IW resources to meet it.
Fifth, the lack of continuity in DOD must be addressed.
Most soldiers never exceed more than 2 to 3 years in an
overseas assignment. This does not allow for sustained
familiarity with the host country that is so crucial in IW.
This is why programs like AFPAK [Afghanistan-Pakistan] Hands
must be continued and expanded to other regions of the world.
These programs can dovetail well with regional centers of
excellence, like the Africa Center for Strategic Studies or the
George C. Marshall Center.
Finally, I will conclude with that more effective and
systemic screening procedures should be instituted for academic
advisors. These should be vetted for not only their subject
matter and knowledge, but also their objectivity. When advising
on a far-flung place like Mali, Nigeria, extensive on-the-
ground experience should also be a prerequisite before there
are any people put in position to educate the warfighters. We
have witnessed too many times the unfortunate consequences of
unprepared or biased advisors hired to provide direction to
crucial DOD initiatives.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Atallah can be found in the
Appendix on page 29.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Mr. Cohn.
STATEMENT OF MARK COHN, VICE PRESIDENT, ENGINEERING AND CHIEF
TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, UNISYS FEDERAL SYSTEMS
Mr. Cohn. Good morning.
Mr. Thornberry. Hit the button and get closer.
Mr. Cohn. Thank you very much.
Good morning, Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Langevin
and other distinguished members of subcommittee. I am Mark
Cohn, Chief Technology Officer for Unisys in our Federal
Systems division. We thank you for inviting Unisys to
participate in this hearing about lessons learned in irregular
warfare challenges in today's operating environments and how
industry can contribute to enhancing our security.
Around the world and here at home, Unisys is a leading
provider of integrated security solutions, many of which
incorporate advanced biometric and identity management
technologies. For example, we delivered a national identity
system for Angola with multiple biometrics that required mobile
enrollment in the villages under austere conditions. It
provides counterfeit-resistant proof of identity to a widely
dispersed population, representing a cornerstone of citizenship
in this emerging democracy as proof of their right to vote and
for access to government services.
Recently we delivered a system for Mexico that provides for
storage of 110 million identity records, comprising
fingerprints, iris scans, and facial images, with a capacity to
accept 250,000 enrollments daily.
To defend the Nation and defeat our adversaries engaged in
irregular warfare, the Defense Department requires capabilities
in counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, foreign internal
defense, and stability operations. Success depends on
separating enemy combatants from the civilian population or the
innocent members of the civilian population.
Biometrics can be used to record the identity of enemy
combatants, to link individuals to events such as IED
[improvised explosive device] explosions. So in irregular
warfare, a primary U.S. objective is also to create a safe and
secure environment for friendly populations and friendly
military forces to mitigate disruptions to their daily lives.
Providing that safe environment is complex as the enemy is
generally well concealed within the population.
Another challenge in irregular warfare is being able to
distinguish loyal indigenous security forces from disloyal foes
who can procure uniforms and equipment that allow them to blend
with regular forces and conduct surprise attacks in
installations or within government buildings.
It is important to recognize there are limitations to the
biometric systems and methods available to U.S. military forces
in theater. Data capture generally requires close physical
proximity to a subject who is usually uncooperative, and relies
on equipment and a system architecture that reportedly fails at
times to meet vital needs.
Today's tactical collection equipment employs custom-built
integrated mobile kits that can be bulky and cumbersome, and
there are problems with data synchronization. Industry can help
by taking advantage of new mobile processing platforms derived
from consumer mobile devices extended with ruggedized biometric
sensors, and by implementing interfaces in a unified
architecture that streamlines uploads to the authoritative
database so it can return match/no-match results to the
operators quickly.
It is essential that transmitted and stored identity
information and biometrics stay coupled, because separation of
the data undermines the system's speed, accuracy, and ability
to detect enemy combatants.
The relative cost and performance of biometric systems has
improved dramatically in the last 12 years. There is greater
reliance on multiple biometrics that can interoperate between
vendors. There are multiple examples of large-scale systems
implemented rapidly at predictable cost because we used a
framework of proven components. That enables us to deliver
systems that are flexible, scalable, secure; to utilize
multiple workflows and biometric modalities without complex
custom software coding; and to be extensible through standards-
compliant open interfaces.
There has also been a great expansion in the diversity of
use cases for biometrics. For example, in Canada we implemented
a system for the Port of Halifax that uses vascular, that is
vein pattern recognition, for access to the port's 5,000
workers. We did the restricted area identity card that uses
fingerprints and iris scans to secure Canada's 28 major
airports.
In all regions of the world we see widespread consumer
acceptance of biometrics. There is significant commercial
interest in banking and other regulated industries because
biometrics can simplify the user experience while increasing
security when compared with passwords and PINs [personal
identification number].
The Department of Defense today employs a user
authentication approach that relies on a common access card and
a PIN. This is highly secure, but can be impractical. A
commercially available biometrics-driven alternative used today
in the banking industry is more convenient, less expensive and
time-consuming to administer, eliminates the problem of
transport and lockout during PIN reset, and can address risks
that the current CAC [common access card] and PIN model cannot,
such as the impostor threat.
So in conclusion, we believe the Department of Defense can
expect these international and industry developments are in
many cases applicable to the challenges confronted in irregular
warfare, and we think they can help improve internal security
and stability through U.S. and partner-country initiatives.
Unisys looks forward to supporting that progress both here and
overseas.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cohn can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Mr. Costa, I think we have time to get your opening
comments.
STATEMENT OF BARRY COSTA, DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER, THE
MITRE CORPORATION
Mr. Costa. Chairman, Mr. Langevin, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me today to speak about
irregular warfare challenges, specifically in my case the value
of sociocultural situational awareness and the technologies and
data that enable such awareness and support rapid and effective
decisionmaking.
What I will describe is 21st-century radar, technology that
can provide us with rapid and effective insight into the
changing human terrain for irregular warfare as well as other
missions. Just like an airborne camera allows us a view of the
physical terrain, and infrared lets us see into the night,
there are now technologies that allow us a view of the human
terrain to include populations, networks, groups, and
behaviors.
The Nation must adapt its methods and create tools that
reflect the realities of national security in a new age of
real-time global information flow, and we must understand and
engage in the public dialogue created by these new
communication media. As demonstrated by the swift changes
brought about by the Arab Spring, we must rapidly sense,
understand, and, if necessary, engage with words and deeds to
positively shape the environment.
While technology can't replace deep human insight, we
believe that empirically derived, scientifically grounded
technologies can help us understand the human terrain. The
defense community has built a science and technology foundation
necessary for studying and understanding sociocultural
behavior. Given that this technology foundation allows us
insight into the human terrain, we are now better positioned to
pursue effective courses of action in the full range of
military operations.
These new technologies are enablers for irregular warfare,
allowing us to identify extremist networks, groups, and key
influencers. Additionally, these technologies support our
analysts and decisionmakers as they work to mitigate irregular
warfare threats.
Much remains to be done to evolve and adapt these sense-
making capabilities to play a vital role in current and future
missions. Recent rapid and profound shifts in the geopolitical
context have brought renewed attention to challenges such as
hostile nonstate actors who may be pursuing weapons of mass
destruction, nation-state instability driven by drug economies
and transnational criminal issues, humanitarian and disaster
relief, and cyber threats. These technologies can give us some
more nuanced insight into global challenges, but this is just
the beginning, and continued research is likely to make
significant additional progress.
However, we must conduct such research with a keen eye
toward quick and effective transitions to those warfighters,
programs and organizations that need them. While there are many
difficult challenges in this area, some of which will take
years to solve, there are technologies and methods available
today that can help us find key information within this deluge
of data and understand the effectiveness of our words and
actions upon those with whom we
engage.
Experience to date suggests an exciting future in which
global information, applied research and analytics are fully
and dynamically integrated; however, DOD and the Nation are not
yet at that desired end state. To get closer, DOD should
maintain the momentum created over the past several years by
supporting promising research that will enable the capabilities
most relevant to future national security demands.
Let me leave you with this thought: If DOD had ended its
research investment in traditional radar technologies after
just 5 years, the program would have ended around 1939, leaving
us with a rudimentary and tantalizing potential for long-range
sensing. Social radar is at that tantalizing stage, and we can
see the promise. Drones and satellites alone can't detect
violent speech or determine how our adversaries' narrative is
spreading. We need a global and persistent indications and
warning capability. We call that social radar.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Costa can be found in the
Appendix on page 50.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Mr. Jacobs, if you don't mind, I think we will go ahead and
take your opening statement. Now, there are still 356 Members
who haven't voted yet, so I think we will have time to do that,
and then we will come back for questions.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT E. JACOBS, PRESIDENT, NEW CENTURY US
Mr. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Langevin, members of the subcommittee. I thank you for your
opportunity to appear before this panel today. And as a retired
NCIS [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] special agent and a
graduate of the Congressional Fellowship Program, I am acutely
familiar with the leadership that this committee does every
day, and it is that leadership that is vital to our Nation's
security.
New Century US is a privately held firm that is the
American subsidiary of the London-based New Century
International. Currently our firm is executing a contract with
the U.S. Government to provide training that supports the
professionalization of the Afghan National Army, while New
Century International continues to provide training and
mentoring to the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National
Army in support of the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty
Organization] mission in Afghanistan. In short, our programs
and the collective experience of New Century personnel has
positioned our firm as both the keen observer of irregular
challenges worldwide and as a knowledgeable proponent of
irregular solutions.
At New Century we believe a focus on improving the capacity
of the Afghan military and security forces and other host
nation security forces is a wise, cost-effective and
intelligent investment for supporting American foreign policy
objectives because it offers a potential to build an effective
leave-behind and self-sustaining indigenous security force
after a large-scale U.S. military presence is reduced or
becomes unavailable.
With that in mind, our firm's flagship program is called
Legacy and was first implemented in western Iraq province of al
Anbar in 2008, and is currently being executed in Afghanistan.
Aimed at improving the capability and capacity of the ANP
[Afghan National Police] and ANA [Afghan National Army] forces,
the current iteration of Legacy employs a specific doctrine and
teaching methodology that is based on the experience of the
British constabulary force, or Special Branch, in Northern
Ireland during the conflict in the 1970s and 1980s.
The value added of New Century approach lies in the
methodology, but also of the deep experience found within the
ranks of the personnel that work for New Century. These are
former Royal Ulster Constabulary police officers that have
worked tirelessly in Northern Ireland to defeat and disrupt the
networks that perpetrated the violence in Northern Ireland.
Since irregular threats abroad and Federal budget pressures
at home are almost certain to continue, we believe the indirect
and irregular approach will become increasingly important in
the days ahead. That is why our firm embraces and supports the
all-important ``by, with, and through'' creed of the Special
Operation Force community as it applies to achieving U.S.
foreign policy objectives.
We view this indirect approach as practical and essential
for working with foreign allies as well as for identifying and
confronting irregular challenges around the globe, especially
in environments requiring a limited counterinsurgency response
or, as Admiral McRaven would say, a small footprint. Therefore,
establishing carefully targeted assisted programs to develop
and empower the local authorities of American allies would be
wise.
Just imagine America's strategic position if we were able
to establish indigenous-led counterterrorism COIN
[counterinsurgency] programs in states that struggle to defeat
irregular networks. Imagine, too, the improved security posture
and greater moral authority of America if both the State
Department and the Department of Defense would combine efforts
and jointly offer assessments to potential partners and allies.
Three lessons learned that I would like to talk today that
we have learned in Afghanistan. One, Special Branch-like
activities to ultimately succeed need the U.S. military. The
U.S. military must provide daily support to overall COIN
doctrine and strategy. They must train for it, they must
develop doctrine for it, and this must be embedded in the very
mindset of how we wage war.
Effective COIN efforts take time. We learned in Northern
Ireland that it took over 20 years to penetrate the criminal
networks that promoted the violence in Northern Ireland. It
takes time.
And final observation is actually a concern and pertains to
the point just made about doctrine, training, and budgeting.
Despite significant gains in the field, notwithstanding the
2008 issuance of the DOD Directive 3000.07, the Department and
each of the military services have remained somewhat listless
with respect to this important subject. The 2008 directive
assigned additional duties to SOLIC, the Special Operations/
Low-Intensity Conflict Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense, for organizing lead roles defining, and guiding, and
coordinating irregular warfare-related activities across DOD.
Yet 5 years later we still do not see any tangible leadership
on these issues anywhere in the Department. The 2010
Quadrennial Defense Review and the 2012 Defense Strategic
Guidance only lightly referenced the concept, and no true
champion, no true champion has emerged for institutionalizing
such lessons or for providing a sustainable budget.
And I must point out--I know I am just about out of time,
but this is a very critical point. General Stan McChrystal
recently talked about it takes a network to defeat a network,
going back to earlier comments of Mr. Atallah as well. And
ironically this committee echoed his comments back in the 2011
and 2012 National Defense Authorization Acts, an important
point, where you praise the approach of the Legacy program in
the committee report. And also the report noted special
interest in the ``attack of the network'' approach. And you
made two recommendations. Actually you directed the Secretary
to provide you with two things: the applicability of Legacy
program in other operations and regions where network-based
threats are present, or where conditions are conducive to
supporting these threats; and number two, very important point,
options for an appropriate management structure within the
Department to institutionalize and sustain the capabilities
that Legacy and, I must emphasize, similar programs provide to
the warfighter.
And finally, in conclusion, we agree with both General
McChrystal's assessment and your wise words after toiling years
in the field doing this kind of capacity building, but we need
a more visionary and effective leadership in the United States
Government, just as more international partners and allies are
required. Our Nation cannot do it alone. It simply cannot.
``By, with, and through'' is an effective guiding principle for
the United States in the years ahead. Our recommendation is for
us to follow it.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jacobs can be found in the
Appendix on page 62.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you all. Lots of interesting topics
to follow up on. We will stand in recess while we vote, and
they are estimating it will be about 45 minutes, so Pete will
buy you all a cup of coffee in the back.
Thanks, Pete.
[Recess.]
Mr. Thornberry. The subcommittee will come to order. Thank
you all again for your patience. I think Mr. Langevin had
another meeting he was going to try to grab, and then will try
to be back with us.
Let me go back to, as I say, each of you made a number of
interesting points. Mr. Atallah, you said in your testimony--or
one of the points you made is there is an overreliance on
technology, and yet we talk about human terrain radar, which I
am not exactly sure what that is, but I presume there is a
technological component of that. The kinds of things we hear
about are monitoring social media, for example, and detecting
trends and that sort of thing.
So I guess I would appreciate thoughts from each of you
about this, I guess, question: Are we too dependent on
technology, and are we looking to technology to solve what may
be nontechnological problems?
Mr. Atallah. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your
question. I had to think long and hard about this, and, yes, we
do rely heavily on technology, and I find it more with our
younger generation that is actually entering the forces, they
can't function without their devices.
I am an Africanist. I spend a lot of time on the continent.
And although cell phone technology, for example, on the
continent is growing pretty quickly, there are remote areas in
Mali, Niger, different places where various ethnic groups are
not relying--don't use technology. So how do we metric those
individuals? How do we figure out what those individuals are
doing? So we come back to we are looking for solutions on
Facebook or Twitter just to see what these individuals are
doing, and we miss the important part.
I think what we need to do is focus more on the basics.
HUMINT, I pushed for that. Sociocultural training is important.
We do a little bit of it, but we don't get into the depth that
is required in order to understand. I was born and raised in
Lebanon. When I understand a culture from its roots, and I
speak the language, the last thing I want to do is go to
technology to look for an answer. The first thing I want to do
is to go to a human being that I know down the street that may
have the answer. And that is where we are starting to miss the
boat. We find ourselves today just sitting 7-, 8,000 miles away
looking for an answer that is in front of us on a screen
instead of having that granular HUMINT side that is important.
Mr. Costa. Sir, I agree that deep human insight is
required, and I agree that people like Mr. Atallah can't be
replaced, but on the other hand, there are technologies that
allow insight to him, to people like him, and to others,
decisionmakers included, that can allow us to understand
trends. Four billion, eight hundred million people have a cell
phone right now, and most of the world will have a cell phone
and be wired, wired so to speak, within the next decade. It is
a lot of information that people are generating, that they are
discussing on social media and in other forums, and that
dialogue becomes increasingly important.
It is not the only source. There are lots of other great
data sources. There are lots of other great technologies and
methods. But I would suggest that understanding this emerging
dialogue and using these technologies to help foster
understanding is critical. And there have been some great
examples of successes doing that, but, again, it doesn't
supplant just deep human understanding that people like Mr.
Atallah can provide.
Mr. Thornberry. When you talk about human terrain radar,
what sorts of things are you talking about?
Mr. Costa. A variety of technologies, sentiment analysis is
one of them, emotion analysis is another one; technologies that
model decisionmaking, others--technologies that even forecast
instability. There is a system in use in the Department of
Defense right now that forecasts long-term instability. So, as
an example, will government X or will country X experience
instability events in the next 6 months? There is a system that
does that right now. It is not perfect; however, it provides
deep insight to analysts studying that country and allows them
to dig deeper into issues of interest. So those are the sorts
of technologies that I am referring to.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Cohn, if you all are putting in these
ID [identification] cards in a variety of countries that don't
have maybe as much technology as we do, what are some of the
challenges that you have run into in implementing those
technologies?
Mr. Cohn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an interesting
subject that fascinates us in the industry. I could probably
spend an hour talking about that, but I would like to keep it
brief, though.
There are a number of sociocultural issues that we
encounter that are quite striking. In Malaysia, where we happen
to do the national ID, in that country they have religion that
appears on the face of their ID card, which seemed like a
pretty oddball concept to those of us. They happen to also have
a default state religion that goes on there if you don't claim
one. It is a different world.
In the Middle East, where we do a lot of work, and Malaysia
is one of the countries where this arises also, there are
cultural concerns regarding how we enroll biometrics because of
personal privacy. If you have a fingerprint sensor, and you use
both hands, there is a tremendous aversion regarding hygiene.
Therefore iris is used, say, for the expellee database
[National Expellees Tracking and Border Control System] from
the United Arab Emirates because you can still take a sample
with a veil.
So we see a lot of variation, and in candor, without
getting down in the weeds regarding this sort of cottage
industry of biometrics, the way we see it, it has to be tuned
to the country and its culture. But the Prime Minister of
Malaysia said in 1995, this will be a way that we catapult our
country into the 21st century. They saw it as a big part of
modernizing their economy, that they could have more
participation because biometric verification would then be an
inexpensive, widespread social good.
When Pay By Touch, a U.S. company, went into bankruptcy,
Singapore banks could no longer use fingerprint verification
for banking. Malaysian banks that used to thumbprint under
MyKad, their national ID card, could continue to do banking
security with biometrics. The banks there have a key to unlock
the card, and you can put your equivalent of an ATM [automated
teller machine] card onto the same card the government issues,
and they have a local e-Purse application so you don't have to
carry cash when you go to their equivalent of a 7-Eleven. So in
other words, this allows people to participate in a modern
economy in a way that we don't even think of in this country.
And I could go on about some of the Latin American differences
as well whenever you would like.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Jacobs, can you reflect on technology
and how it has applied, and the challenges, I guess. You talked
about training the Afghan National Army. I would presume in
Afghanistan you run into some of those as well.
Mr. Jacobs. Absolutely.
I would first like to go back to the question you asked Mr.
Atallah here. The purpose of the Legacy program is to penetrate
a network, the criminal network, drug network, terrorist
network. And then through that penetration how you do that is
by developing sources, informants, and tasking informants to
get information. And then based upon that information, you do
something with it; you take action against that network to
disrupt it. And a person can do that.
You can ask a person for information. You can task him to
do something. It is hard to task a technical device. And even
though technical devices are added benefits, and can certainly
help us in our endeavors, it is the human piece that, in my
years of experience, have really been deemphasized in terms of
our, you know, national strategy. It is more of a reliance on
the technical piece, and the very human piece, the human
interaction, the relationship development piece is what I
believe has been shortchanged in the most recent history. But
it is that human piece that allows us to penetrate the networks
that do these bad things that harm our country. So the
challenge, and it is a challenge, is how do you take the good
technology and apply it to the human piece, and that is a
challenge.
In terms of Afghanistan, I had just recently come back from
Afghanistan, and I was talking to an Afghan Army general about
GEOINT capability--geospatial intelligence--and what were their
requirements for this capability. And he was a very practical
general, he had he fought the Russians during the Russian
incursion into their country, and he said, Scott, what I need
is a good map. You know, I don't need the GEOINT capability.
You know, I need a good map, and then I need your help in
training the map readers. And again, he focuses on the human
piece, you know, an individual utilizing a map, and from that
map you do your targeting, you do your operational planning.
And I thought that was very insightful from an Afghan
general that has the ability to get GEOINT, but he says, no, I
can't sustain it. There is not a legacy here. My people don't
understand how to work GEOINT because of my lack of education
here.
So you have to build systems at a level in which the host
country can apply it. And that is the lesson that we have
learned through Legacy and through other experiences that I
have had in my
career.
Mr. Thornberry. Switching topics, in your written and in
your oral testimony, you talked about the importance of DOD,
and State, Intelligence Community working together, that
interagency cooperation. Can you offer your thoughts on where
we are and if you have a suggestion on how that--what can be
done to improve that moving ahead. And actually for any of you
who would offer your insights based on your experience about
how well the Federal Government works with itself, and how well
the Federal Government takes advantage of the opportunities the
private sector offers.
Mr. Jacobs. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
The State Department and the Department of Defense have
enormous resources, personal resources, training capabilities,
but oftentimes there is--because of the lack of coordination
between the different parts of the Government, and oftentimes
the same purpose, we see an ability not to fully leverage those
resources that both State and both DOD have.
In many countries that I have been in, you don't have an
effective police force, and your military force is that police
force, and so you have to use irregular techniques to train a
military component. But the problem with the military is that
the U.S. military is not a police capability; that resides in
the State Department. And so that is where this cross-
pollination could really be an effective tool to more
accurately and appropriately teach police skill sets to the
military component on the ground.
So that is really what I mean about blending in certain
environments that we find ourselves in today where that
leverage would be a powerful U.S., you know, strategy to work
together to get more done on the ground.
Mr. Thornberry. Okay.
Mr. Costa. Chairman, within my domain we have found that
technology itself can be a point of agreement. And we have used
one of the systems that was developed by the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering called the
Integrated Crisis Early Warning System as a rallying mechanism
to bring both the IC [Intelligence Community] and the State
Department together, in a limited sense at least, around some
technology that actually does help them forecast and understand
data. That in itself has created a dialogue which is very, very
productive. And in addition, using this allows them to more
fully leverage private industry since some of this technology
is commercialized, and they are bringing this to bear.
So MITRE, as a nonprofit FFRDC [federally funded research
and development center], is helping support this and bringing
the world to bear in support of these problems. And technology
is one way that we believe we can bring it together, and we
are.
Mr. Cohn. Sir, we have seen actually what I would
characterize as excellent cooperation in the areas that we get
to observe. And perhaps I should explain that. Coming at this
from the perspective of this identity management challenge, our
biggest concern is how do we collect information about the
largest group of the population in a cooperative way, because
it is a lot cheaper and easier to get them to cooperate. So we
want a national government or equivalent to create some kind of
a use case where the citizens voluntarily benefit from
participating, that allows us to kind of deal with the
``needles in haystack'' problem. Those that comply, it is
cheaper for us to have that data collected by a friendly
government, so if whatever sensitivity they need to the local
culture, the State Department, the community, and Defense
Department all see the benefit of this, and the programs that
we have, I believe, are cooperative in this space.
Ultimately there is a shared interest with the ally abroad
to share information that can be useful, denying movement to
adversaries, be able to some degree even target the enemy. And
it benefits us if we don't have to do the work ourselves, using
a Western perspective with our local footprint, but rather have
them, in a sense, helping us, but by dealing with a lot of the
data collection and even the analysis in many cases.
But if I can return just to the general issue, you know, in
terms of technology versus HUMINT, I don't think that is really
a choice we must make. We will all be living in a world where
technology continues to flourish around us. If we fail to take
advantage of mobile computing, of analytics that are available
to both our adversaries and us, to cloud-based repositories
that assemble more and more information together, then shame on
us for failing to do that. On the other hand, that is not a
substitute for people on the ground, and I don't think it is
really a choice that we make
directly.
Mr. Thornberry. Very well.
Mr. Atallah. Mr. Chairman, with respect to everybody, I am
not denying that technology doesn't have its uses obviously,
and I think everybody has said that.
And in terms of your question on interagency cooperation, I
think from my experience interagency cooperation is very good
whenever we are focusing on something kinetic. We tend to come
together and make solid decisions.
I think where the interagency still lacks is when it is
nonkinetic. Decisions are often mired in disagreements, and the
approach between the various organizations sometimes slows to a
halt, and therefore it takes a long time to come up with a
decision on a particular problem set.
And I think if we can take best practices from how we come
together in coordinating on a kinetic strike and apply them to
nonkinetic issues, I think that is where we can see ourselves
moving forward.
I find this, again from an African perspective across the
continent, I have seen this time and time again from my days in
OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense], and now as an
outsider working on the corporate side trying to support
certain agencies and looking at some of the key issues focused
on CT [counterterrorism].
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again I want to
thank our panel of witnesses for being here today and for your
testimony.
Before I give my questions, I don't know if he had been
acknowledged already, but I know the subcommittee has had its
jurisdiction expanded, adjusted over the last several years,
but in another incarnation the former chairman of this
subcommittee Mr. Saxton is in the audience, Jim Saxton. I just
wanted to welcome you, Mr. Chairman. It is great to have you
here.
With that, if I could just turn to our witnesses. I am
going to start with Mr. Cohn, but if others to like to chime in
as well. You touched upon this in your testimony, but again, if
you could speak more broadly about the capabilities that
biometrics and defense forensics bring to an irregular warfare
environment, and how useful are those capabilities in a more
conventional fight?
Mr. Cohn. Thank you. I appreciate the question.
We focus a lot of attention on identification technology
with respect to live samples that we get from people that we
encounter in real life. That tends to be the economic engine
that drives us forward. DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] indexing
happens to be one of the biometrics that isn't normally used
that way because you don't get a rapid response. Today it is
not available in real time.
But DNA is a biometric. We have, in my company, done the
algorithm development work and rehosting for CODIS [Combined
DNA Index System] for the FBI [Federal Bureau of
Investigation], and so we have some experience with that. We
have designed some of the kinship analysis protocols, and that
can play a big role when trying to sort out friend from foe
even when you don't have a sample from an individual. If tribal
affiliation is a factor in someone's loyalty, that is one of
the things you can, in fact, tell from DNA. You also can do
disaster victim identification, identifying remains based upon
relatives, using kinship analysis.
So biometrics has a broader set of use cases than just
verification of identity for willing subjects. But ultimately
most of the use cases that we think about commercially involve
witting subjects who are cooperative. In warfare we are going
to be in the opposite scenario for the most part. And there
have been emerging technologies like three-dimensional face
verification, which we can use at a distance exceeding 20
meters now to be able to identify with great accuracy and
biometric precision almost at the level of iris recognition,
which means that we are dealing with accuracy at the level of
tens of millions in terms of our discrimination ability. So we
could have standoff distances, protect facilities that way.
We also have something called two-and-a-half dimensional
face, which may seem a little bit odd, where they can use a 2D
[two-dimensional] facial gallery, compare it to unposed,
uncontrolled poses in the crowd. We do it for soccer hooligan
detection in Europe. We might as well do it at IED scenes,
where we could capture passively images of people around,
associate them with the images captured at other scenes to be
able to build a model of whoever you encounter on a frequent
basis. But those might be examples of biometrics, not civilian
use, but where they might be used in----
Mr. Langevin. The last, the facial recognition technology,
the two-dimensional images, how quickly does that happen? How
rapidly can you find a cross-check?
Mr. Cohn. Oh, the matching algorithms are fast enough so
that you could determine if somebody is on a known, say watch
list of a magnitude equivalent to our national watch list, in
real time. In candor, it is not so much the elapsed time, it is
the number of processors you have behind the scenes to be doing
those checks in parallel against the known repository. So it
may be that if we are talking about a tactical scene, that
processing may be done by server cluster, if you will, not on
board, say, the mobile vehicle where the cameras and sensors
reside, if that makes sense.
Mr. Langevin. Anybody else care to comment on biometrics?
Mr. Jacobs. I would like to comment very briefly. I think
when you use biometrics, you have to have really a good domain
awareness, what is the technical capability on the ground of
that population. And the reason for that is so you know what to
use in terms of technology to get the kind of information that
you need. I think that is an important point here.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
So for the panel, what partner-nation training capabilities
are particularly suited in your views to be resident in DOD or
in industry, particularly with regard to cybersecurity?
Mr. Cohn. Sir, I am probably the closest person to a
cybersecurity person here on the panel, so I will thank you for
the question because it is so important to our society and to
our partner nations.
DOD, through NSA [National Security Agency] and through the
military network defense organizations that are companions with
NSA, is unrivaled in their ability to perform a mission under
adverse and hostile network conditions. Having said that, we
are challenged in theater because of the networks and the
diversity of circumstances. And I think that we are facing a
generational challenge to overcome this.
I appreciate the suggestion we should have DOD training our
allies. The truth is that we have too many cases that we know
of of foreign intelligence services likely having penetrated
systems that we depend upon for security because they are owned
and operated by our friendly host governments, and they may
have been designed or built in a way that didn't have first-
rate security safeguards. We have seen cases where a national
identity system or border control system was having backup
tapes of the encounter data sent unencrypted overseas to
another country. So it could easily be penetrated and known,
but if known, the tapes, in fact, could be altered.
I don't know if that is typical. That was some time ago.
But there are a number of situations like that where basic
cyber hygiene and practices that we think of as kind of
midlevel protection, not esoteric against high-level threats,
just the basics, will not be found overseas, and it is very
important that we share that knowledge.
Mr. Langevin. It is disappointing, but a good point to
make. Anyone on that point?
If I could then, just my final question to Mr. Costa, what
do you see as the future of the Department's human social,
cultural and behavioral, or HSCB, monitoring capability after
the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan?
Mr. Costa. Thank you for that question.
I see them as broadly applicable to all the challenges that
are facing the Department of Defense, you know, the
Intelligence Community and perhaps even State Department. How
do we have any sense of short-term instability? How do we
predict the next Arab Spring? That is a great goal. We can't
predict the next Arab Spring, but how could we predict it? How
could we get a sense of awareness of how opinion and behavior
and sentiment around the world is changing so that leaders like
you and decisionmakers can get a sense a priori of what might
be changing? How can we understand how our U.S. messages,
whether those are words or deeds, are being received around the
world? How can we understand whether our stability actions in
country X are having any effect or having our desired effect?
I believe that the technologies associated with what we
call this human sociocultural behavior domain have extremely
broad applicability, and I have seen them applied to a variety
of missions already--countering WMD, countering proliferation,
in addition to irregular warfare. So I see the condition quite
bright for the applicability of these technologies.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
With that I have no further questions. I will yield back
and again thank the chairman for holding the hearing, but also
to our witnesses for your testimony. Thank you for the work you
are doing.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Costa, is that sort of modeling more challenging in a
tribal society or----
Mr. Costa. Well, sir, it is always challenging. The
modeling is always challenging. And frankly, the more granular
you become, the smaller the group you try to model becomes, in
some senses it gets more challenging to do it that way.
Strategic modeling, while challenging, may be just modeling
nation-state interaction.
Mr. Thornberry. Yes, yes.
Mr. Costa. Incredibly complex. But now when we want to go
subnationally and model competing groups, we have to have far
more data and model to more precision. And in some cases it can
be done, but yet the reusability of that model becomes a
question. So nations don't change quite that rapidly, but
groups can. And so that sort of modeling gets quite complex.
So I think while this technology is very applicable to
regular warfare, when we start to move toward subnational and
national levels, it gets even more possible and even perhaps
more effective.
Mr. Thornberry. Interesting.
Let me, if I could, kind of broaden back out to the general
topic that we are thinking about today, irregular warfare. My
view is that we are going to have a lot more of this in various
places all around the world. I think that is inevitable. And I
take the point that at least some elements of DOD and other
agencies kind of want to turn the page and go back to regular
warfare. There is resistance to that.
But I guess I would be interested from each of you as to
what sort of capabilities should we look for DOD to retain in
thinking about irregular warfare; what sorts of capabilities
does it make more sense for DOD to engage the private sector to
obtain; and talk about, at least based on your experience, that
interaction of DOD choosing to engage the private sector and
how well or how poorly that works. So kind of a broader
question. Thinking about irregular warfare, what does DOD need
to be able to do itself; what can it hire out; and that
interaction between the two, oversight, if you will,
procurement, where the two come together, how is that going,
and how can it be made better?
Mr. Atallah. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your
question.
I guess I would start by saying in order to employ proper
IW technologies, I think it is important to define where we
want to go, what we want to do. And at times that is not very
clear, and therefore it becomes difficult to figure out what
type of technologies to use.
So if we take issues like Libya, or Syria today, or Mali,
or whatever is going on, first and foremost we have to define
what we want the warfighter to achieve at the end, and that is
a political process, I think, that would just--at that in
terms----
Mr. Thornberry. I don't want to interrupt. So you have got
to know what your goal is before you can decide what the
capability is that you need to have or to procure?
Mr. Atallah. Or to procure or invest in.
Mr. Thornberry. That has got to be country or case-by-case
basis?
Mr. Atallah. And so it just depends on what the long-term
goals, where our focus is going to be for the up--for the near
future. I guess it just boils down to having an end goal in
order to--because as I view it, if we are talking about a
resource-constrained environment, and we have a shrinking
budget, we have to use our resources in an effective way, and
therefore we have to pick what we actually invest in.
Technology is great, but I am a former aviator by trade, so
we invest in large-ticket items that cost billions of dollars
when we can employ less amount of money in technologies that
can give us more bang for the buck depending upon where we are
going. So that would be one.
I think I mentioned in my testimony when I talk about AFPAK
Hands, that is a great program that can be employed, for
example, with our regional centers in making our warfighters
smarter on particular regional areas of the world with
longevity; meaning that, you know, when we cycle our soldiers
out on the battlefield, typically they will have 2 or 3 years
in country, and they push out, and then a new person has to
relearn the new. But when we have longevity in a particular
environment, we become smarter, and therefore we know what
technologies to employ based on that environment that we have
been living in or operating in for long periods of time. I
think that would be the case that I would make.
And so there is no silver bullet for this question, but,
you know, the key is defining truly where we want to go in the
future. And I would leave it at that.
Mr. Thornberry. And I will just comment. I think you are
right. Resource-constrained environment, and yet we need to
invest ahead of time in the people to have the cultural-social,
language capabilities for those places, and that is going to be
hard in a resource environment. But your point about the
importance of that, the irreplaceability of that when you get
into a situation strikes a cord with me, but I think there is
going to be that tension. I think you are right about that.
Mr. Atallah. Yes, sir. I mean, obviously, again, there is
no perfect answer. The enemy is evolving all the time, our
issues are evolving all the time. So I think when we go back to
basics, and this is probably the point that I am trying to
drive home in what I am saying today, is the sociocultural
aspect, I think, in everything is extremely important in order
to drive where we resource our technologies to be effective in
particular problem sets around the world. When I understand the
environment, say, for instance, in Lebanon and Syria, and I
have spent enough time studying it, I will know what
technologies to employ in that particular environment to
achieve the end results of what our political process is asking
me to do.
Mr. Thornberry. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Cohn. Mr. Chairman, I want to be careful how I respond
to that. I would like to start, if you don't mind, just by
talking for a moment about what it is that I do for a living.
My job is to look at commercial technologies and try to figure
out where they are cost-effective and applicable to our
Government's missions; and likewise, to look at the
Government's developed technologies that we are familiar with
to see whether they are cost-effective and of value in the
private sector. Because my company, three-quarters of our
customers are outside the U.S. Federal Government, and that is
how we bring value. So we spend a lot of time trying to look at
technologies like what I mentioned in my statement earlier
regarding personal authentication.
But I would suggest that perfect is the enemy of good, in
austere budgets we can't afford to have ambitious, unrealistic
stretch objectives driving the way that we build systems and we
specify them. I don't think we can afford to have shortfalls
and capability where they are vital, but I think it is a very
difficult trade-off. And I think we can learn a bit from our
commercial programs where there are capabilities that might be
good enough and have defense-grade security capabilities built
in even if they don't necessarily meet the full list of desired
functionality. That may be the best we can afford in some
cases, because the alternative may be providing no capability
whatsoever.
And with respect to our current Defense Department and how
it handles information technology, I think there is a lot of
progress to look at commercial platforms to see how they can
apply. The latest Army NIE [Network Integration Evaluation],
the integration evaluation, used a commercial smartphone from
Samsung as the display unit for maps tied to the Rifleman
Radio. That, I think, is an example of what we have no choice
of what to do because we can't afford to build ruggedized,
military-grade devices that cost 10 times or 100 times as much.
I think the same thing is going to be applied more and more
across the spectrum. And my guess is that we will end up with
bigger bang for our buck, if you will, but we may also find
cases where we have to still deal with specialized development
of a custom solution because the military does have unique
needs, and balancing that will become the issue.
Mr. Thornberry. So you see the trend, because of tight
budgets, among other reasons, to using more commercially
available technology and making it fit, I guess the ``good
enough,'' particularly when we are trying to build partnership
capacity.
Mr. Cohn. Sir, it is not just because of tight budgets; it
is also because of the accelerated pace of change. If you stuck
with custom platforms like we used to build to put down the
hatches of the nuclear submarines, you would have computers
like on the Apollo capsule. If you use commodity IT servers
that are coming out that can be configured with virtualization
of the cloud, they are so much cheaper, but they are less
reliable. If we cluster them together, they work fine.
I think it is also the fact that we want to harness that
innovation in the private sector, but we can't do it unless we
accept the commercial platforms are modified.
Mr. Costa. Sir, I would actually start by addressing a
point that my colleague to the right just made. I believe that
absolutely there is much commercial technology that the
Department of Defense and the Federal Government can leverage
in the domain that I am speaking to you, in this human terrain
domain. There is much technology that can be leveraged, and
that is being done. However, there are certainly things that
aren't be done by commercial industry, and that has to be done
by DOD research. But yet that DOD research needs to transition
to the warfighter to programs of record and perhaps back to
commercial industry, because that way we both stimulate the
economy, and we get that technology into commercial solutions
that are then available for the broader Government to bear
under challenges.
So I believe that it is both; that we have to leverage
commercial technology, but yet the results of DOD research can,
in fact, go back into that and stimulate the economy and bring
value to the warfighter. But I believe there are low-cost
technologies that allow us to understand violent extremists,
their networks, their groups, and the spread of their messages,
and that is key to irregular warfare. And people on this panel
that conduct such analysis can use tools like this to achieve
that understanding, at least at some level, while they conduct
their deeper understanding.
We also have some technologies that allow us to understand
the effects of our messages, and they are still in their
infancy. I am not overpromising that any of these technologies
are a magic or silver bullet, but they allow us to understand
some of the effects. And we are pushing beyond just
correlation; we are pushing towards causation: We said the
following, and, based on that, this happened, and that was
because of our actions. We are pushing toward that. That is a
promise, but not yet here.
In addition, we have technologies that allow us to do
course-of-action analysis. So if we do X, then Y, we expect the
best result to happen. So that also has pertinence to irregular
warfare.
So I think with that there are clear things that DOD and
the private sector can do. DOD has a clear mission to conduct
this irregular warfare. Contractors, companies can help with
that in engaging. However, in my domain we can help deeply in
helping technology and bringing that to bear on this mission.
Mr. Thornberry. And how effective is DOD at figuring out
what it needs to invest in itself versus let the private sector
do?
Mr. Costa. Well, personally I have spent a lot of time with
the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
staff on the human sociocultural behavior program, and we
monitor the commercial environment and work closely with them,
so we never willingly, knowingly build something that we could
buy. We keep close track of where commercial industry is.
Mr. Thornberry. So you think at least in that area it is
working pretty well. Keep track of what the commercial sector
is doing so you don't duplicate, and then at the same time
figure out the key areas where DOD dollars need to be invested.
Mr. Costa. Absolutely. I believe that we have done a good
job in this area. In fact, in this area we are transitioning
some of these technologies to commercial companies to, again,
close that loop and make those more broadly available. So I do
think this is a success story.
Mr. Thornberry. I am not sure that is the case in all
areas, but I am glad to hear success stories when I can find
them.
Mr. Jacobs.
Mr. Jacobs. Thank you again.
Contractors should not collect information. Contractors
should not be tasking individuals to collect information. That
is an
inherently governmental function to collect human intelligence
information.
Contractors, on the other hand, can mentor, train, and
advise very effectively, and, through observations on the
ground, one of the key capabilities of the contractor community
is sustainment.
The military has an unbelievable rotation cycle, the
OPTEMPO [operational tempo] is just an incredible, difficult
thing for our military commanders to manage. They come to
Afghanistan for a year and leave. Contractors, on the other
hand, have been--I mean from my experience have been on the
ground for years in Afghanistan doing the mentoring and
training, and developing those key relationships that are
required to do this kind of work.
So that is a differentiator between a contractor
sustainment over a period of time versus the military.
The other item that I would like to point out to is that
the Congress has invested heavily in the past 10 years, since
9/11, in a lot of technologies. Lots and lots of good things
have come from that investment. But what my observations have
been over time is that we don't institutionalize the success
stories, the things that really work, the technologies that
really work. And we need to have some resource, some font where
that is captured and not lost, and the investment that has been
made, hundreds and millions of dollars, will not be lost to the
future battles that we will find ourselves in.
We all agree that there are many unsettled states out
there, and the technologies that we talk about here will be
required. And we know from industry, really through independent
assessments and some other tools that we have employed based
upon Congress' tasking of those things, we know they work. So
we need to capture those things. I don't want that to be lost
here today. And----
Mr. Thornberry. Capture how?
Mr. Jacobs. We need to capture it in doctrine, in strategy.
We need to capture it in schoolhouses by which we teach our
leaders; in which we teach, train, and equip our soldiers; we
train and equip our State Department foreign specialists, our
police advisors. We need to capture these lessons learned, we
really do, and it needs to be written down, or it will be lost.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Franks.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you
for being here. I know you all contribute in many different
ways, many times in your own specific esoteric way, to
strengthen the national security of this Nation, and I truly
appreciate it.
I am going go ahead and just do a shout-out here. Former
Congressman Saxton is in the room here, too. He was here when I
came into Congress 11 years ago. And that doesn't mean he is
old; that just means he was here. But always grateful to see
him.
Mr. Jacobs, if I could, I would like to direct my question
to you, sir. Can you share some of the metrics that highlight
the successful implementation of these human intel-based
programs? You know, I just think that obviously all of us knows
the real, best intelligence is boots-on-the-ground, human
intelligence, and I would like to get sort of these metrics or
the results of some of your human intelligence programs. I
mean, how many lives do you think you and your team have been
able to actually save, and has that been as a direct result of
their sort of unique role in the human terrain? I will follow
up if I need to, but it gives you sort of a flavor.
Mr. Jacobs. Sure. Thank you for the question.
There have been great capacity built in the last 4 years on
the part of the security forces in Afghanistan both on the
police side and on the army side. The results of that mentoring
and training has resulted in hundreds of insurgents being
captured or killed. I think, you know, probably my last count,
over 600 insurgents have been captured or killed. The weapons
of insurgency have been taken out of production, in terms of
kilograms of the chemicals that are used to hurt and harm and
kill our soldiers and marines.
But the more tangential, the more direct is to see the
incredible capacity that has been started years ago from a zero
now probably to, out of 10, a level five, a level six in terms
of their ability to collect information, analyze that
information, target and take down the bad guy.
I was in Afghanistan again several weeks ago. There was an
attack at the airport. Three years ago that SWAT [Special
Weapons and Tactics] capability by the police would have taken
days to resolve. This was done in about 4 to 5 hours. They
came, they identified, they secured the perimeter to protect
the public, and killed the bad guys. Pretty impressive. Pretty
impressive. That is progress. That really is tangential
progress on the ground.
And so I don't want to get into a lot of specifics, but one
of the beauties that I think every successful program needs to
have an independent analysis by a third party to look at it and
to kick the tires. It is very important. And the RAND
Corporation has done that on our Legacy program, funded by the
United States Congress, to look at whether or not this truly is
a unique capability that we should have. And the studies have
begun in 2008, and they go on to this day. Legacy is probably
one of the most unique programs that have been countless
studied by RAND, and without a doubt they show clearly that
these kinds of programs work, and that we should have this
capability in our arsenal, in our toolbox of irregular warfare.
The other thing that the RAND Corporation has talked about
is the measures of effectiveness that we go into, and we
measure--we have 500 data points, and I am not going to get
into all the details of that, but those data points measure--
are quantifiable and measurable to the outcomes of the program.
And it ensures that the taxpayers are getting their money's
worth, that this program actually works. And that is why we do
what we do.
So I know I have been rambling a little bit and covered a
lot of things, but----
Mr. Franks. Mr. Chairman, if you would afford me just one
last followup here, because I have been listening very
carefully to what you are saying, and I am wondering if you
might have--because I know it is impossible to get into some of
the minutiae, but if you might have some sort of compilation of
some of the things that we are talking about here today, and,
as you know, especially that you could give us to that would
have an impact not only to the members of this committee, but
to the larger membership of the Armed Services Committee.
And as we move forward, it seems especially important with
this transition period in Afghanistan where combat operations
will soon draw to a close, would you say programs like this
will increase or decrease in importance? And what are some of
the hardware tools that best suit operators who are trying to
build intelligence capacity in this environment? You know, it
especially seems like a relevant question given that some of
the majority of our Afghan partners are still using technology
like flip cell phones.
Mr. Jacobs. That is right. That is right.
Mr. Franks. I would love to get some sort of written
overview of this, because if this is saving lives, and you are
saying--your testimony is that this is saving lives----
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 79.]
Mr. Jacobs. It is saving lives.
Mr. Franks [continuing]. Of American and coalition lives.
Mr. Jacobs. Yes, yes.
One thing I would caution. A lot of things get caught up in
drawdowns, you know, and we need to be very careful not to cut
the ability to build capacity by our allies. And my concern is
that in the rush we don't leave a true capacity on the part of
our Afghan partners to penetrate networks. And that needs to be
sustained, mentored, and continued to be nurtured on the part
of the United States of America.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Atallah, we have got security
challenges all across Africa. Would you foresee that it would
make sense for the Government to hire companies to help build
capacity, improve security forces in some of the various
countries you are familiar with?
Mr. Atallah. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your
question.
Certainly companies can provide capabilities, absolutely. I
think these companies need to be carefully selected. I think we
need to also carefully select what we employ, because as we
make certain countries more capable, we also--at the same time
the enemy becomes more capable in time, adjusting to, you know,
what the realities are on the ground. And so we got to define
that and figure out what we are trying to achieve; again going
back to my earlier statement is what is our end game? Once we
define that, we can obviously employ--there are places across
the Sahel; of course, in Somalia now, we are looking at
tensions between, you know, the two Sudans, and Egypt and
Ethiopia. These are going to continue to fester. And there are
certainly places with our small companies like we see here, or
mine, where we can bring in some of that; we can bridge the gap
between usage of proper, well-fitted technologies into specific
cultures to achieve the end means that we are aiming for.
And I always go back to the problem is not what we are
capable; we can do a lot of stuff. The thing is, are we doing
the right things? That is the question is what does right look
like at the end? And I think that is important to actually
answer.
Mr. Thornberry. Great.
Well, thank you all. I appreciate it. I think this is going
to be a topic that occupies us a lot in the years to come, and
each of you have helped enlighten me at least on how to move
forward. So again, thank you for being here, thank you for your
testimony, and thank you for your patience on our interruption.
With that the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:23 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
June 28, 2013
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
June 28, 2013
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
June 28, 2013
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. FRANKS
Mr. Jacobs. See attached. [See page 22.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
June 28, 2013
=======================================================================
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. In Unisys' experience of integrating biometrics
solutions for international customers, what lessons have you seen that
might be applied to our own biometrics challenges?
Mr. Cohn. See attached.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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