A Commander's Guide to Social Radars
Abstract
Thesis: Integrated as part of a holistic "Big Data" strategy, "social radars" will unlock the potential of predictive analytics to generate foresight over insight and will potentially enable the manipulation of social outcomes. Consequently, commanders at all levels must have at least a working knowledge of this emerging technology as well as an awareness of the associated ethical, legal, and cultural challenges. Discussion: A social radar is a global and persistent indications and warnings capability, consisting of integrated technologies for detecting, localizing, and monitoring operationally relevant socio-cultural behavior signatures. In the simplest terms, it is the ability to know what people are thinking, where they are thinking it, and how, when, and where they might react. This presents the capacity to better understand and interact with human terrain. However, social radars also multiply the effectiveness of Information Operations, potentially making it possible to alter perceptions surreptitiously. This raises ethical and legal challenges. Social radars are not the realm of science fiction. Research models have predicted civil unrest events in Latin America with 80 percent accuracy, and similar systems are now leading to the notion of predictive policing in the United States and elsewhere. Concept demonstrators and in-service capabilities exist in both the US and UK militaries. However, these systems use only Open Source data and this limits both their accuracy and their military utility. Social radar developers always intended that such systems would eventually integrate all data, classified and open source, and that this was key to their success. However, although the technical solutions to achieve this fusion already exist, the Intelligence Community appears reluctant to embrace a fused intelligence system that would unlock the full potential of social radars.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 26, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1176368
Entities
People
- Robert M. Thorpe
Organizations
- Marine Corps University