Symptoms and Systems: Intelligence and Information for Future Urban OOTW
Abstract
This paper posits that military operations other than war (OOTW) in an urban environment require information and intelligence from two complex but ultimately knowable systems. First is the city itself, which is made up of three interconnected subsystems, the physical environment, the people, and the infrastructure. The second system is the outside actors sent to accomplish a specific, possibly changing mission. The parts of that system include the groups of people; military and nonmilitary, the OOTW mission assigned, the information and intelligence to support, the mission, and the resources available to accomplish the mission. All of the parts of the outside actor system are there to change the city, in some way shaping it to their own ends. While this description may sound overly complicated, urban planners, historians, economists, sociologists, and military doctrine writers have already done a great deal of work on analyzing certain aspects of both systems. One of the paper's main points is the necessity to look beyond traditional military templates and the narrow focus of intelligence as traditionally defined in order to first understand the dynamics of the systems and then to exploit the information available to effect the mission.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA529061
Entities
People
- Joseph H. Wheeler Iii
Organizations
- Marine Corps University