The Iraq civil war is one of the notable armed conflicts that started in January 2014 and ended in December 2017. After the conquest of Fallujah, Tikrit, Ramadi, Mosul, and other key areas of northern Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), the Iraqi insurgency developed into a full-scale war. At its optimal, the ISIL had conquered about 56,000km of Iraqi territory containing approximately 4.5 million citizens. 1 This civil war resulted in the resignation of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraqi and massive airstrike by the US. 2 The American, as well as Canadian troops, participated in the ground operations. Apart from the US and Canada troops, the Iranian troops provided armored and air elements while Russia provided military and logistic aid. This paper, therefore, seeks to discuss the intelligence assessment of the US operation in Iraqi from 2014 to 2017 using the intelligence preparation of the Battlespace.
Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace in Iraq civil war
In this war, the United States utilized the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace (IPB) to fight the ISIL. Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace is a systematic and progressive process of assessing the threat and the environment in a particular geographic area. This method assesses the mission variables of the enemy, weather, terrain, and civil considerations in the area of interest to identify their effect on operations. 3 4 The result of this particular method is used in the development products that are used in developing appropriate courses of action as well as decision points for the commander. The conclusions reached as well as the products developed during the IPB process are important to planning information collection and targeting operations. The Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace consists of four steps.
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Step 1: Defining the operational environment
The first step that was used by the United States in its operations in Iraqi was defining the operational environment. Defining the environment of operation is important because it results in the identification of important features of the operational environment that can influence both friendly and enemy operations. 5 Apart from determining important features of the operational environment, this step also determines gaps in the current holdings of intelligence. The first step of the IPB is significant because it helps the commander in defining aspects of the operational environment in time and space. In this step, the staffs have to determine significant characteristics that are associated with the mission variables of the enemy, weather, terrain as well as civil considerations that relate to the mission and further justify the assessment of the commander. 6 Misidentifying of these variables can hinder decision making on the operations and further establish ineffective information targeting effort and collection strategy. Cultures, tribal affiliations, languages, operational as well as mission variables are also important factors that should be considered in defining the operational environment. Once the information collected is approved by the commander, they become the initial intelligence requirements of the command.
Step 2: Describing the environmental effects of the operations
The second step of the IBP is describing the environmental effects of the operations. In the Iraqi civil war, this came after the intelligence staff had determined important characteristics associated with the enemy, weather, terrain as well as civil considerations of the operational environment in step 1. 7 8 In this step, the intelligence staff describes how weather, friendly forces, civil considerations, and terrain influence enemy forces. This kind of assessment concentrates on the general capabilities of each force until the adversary courses of action are established in step 4 of the IPB process. Lastly, the whole staff identifies the effects and impacts on the population of friendly as well as enemy force actions. If there is insufficient information to make conclusions, the intelligence staff utilizes assumptions to fill information gaps. However, the intelligence should be careful to ensure that the commander comprehends when assumptions are utilized in place of facts to make conclusions.
Step 3: Analyzing the threat
Apart from describing the environmental effects of the operations, US intelligence had to evaluate the threat. The main reason for assessing the threat or adversary is to comprehend how a threat can influence friendly operations. As much as threat forces may relate to some of the basic principles of warfare that direct army operations, these forces have obvious as well as subtle differences in how they approach situations and solve problems. 9 Comprehending the differences that exist between the two is critical in understanding how a threat force can respond in a given situation. The assessment of the adversary does not start with the IPB.
The intelligence staff carries the threat evaluation and establishes threat models as part of the generated intelligence knowledge task that supports the force generation. Utilizing this information, the intelligence staff fine-tunes threat models to support the IPB. 10 When assessing a known threat, the intelligence staff depends on previously created threat models. When assessing a new threat, the intelligence staff evaluates the threat and develops models during the mission analysis step of the problem framing step. When this happens, the intelligence staff depends heavily on the threat assessment conducted by other intelligence agencies. In circumstances where there is no threat force, the intelligence assessment carried out and products developed relating to weather, civil considerations and terrain may be adequate to support planning.
Step 4: Determining the threat course of action
The last step of the IPB process is determining the threat Course of Action. In the Iraq Civil War, the intelligence staff determined and developed possible threat COAs that could affect friendly mission accomplishment. In this step, the staff utilizes products that are associated with determining COAs to help in developing friendly COAs during the development of the COA. 11 The identification and establishment of all valid threat COAs reduces the potential of the commander in being surprised by unanticipated enemy action. Failing to completely identify and develop valid threat COAs may lead to information collection strategy development that does not offer the necessary information to confirm what course of action the enemy has taken, which may cause the commander to be surprised.
When required, the intelligence staff ought to determine all significant civil considerations so that the interrelationship of the threat, population activities, and friendly forces are demonstrated. The intelligence staff creates a threat course of action, in the same manner, a friendly course of action are created. Even though they are written particularly as a guide to create friendly courses of action, the development of the Course of action discussion is a significant model to utilize in developing an effective adversary course of actions that are appropriate, unique, feasible, acceptable, and consistent with the adversary doctrine. 12 As much as the intelligence staffs have the main responsibility for creating an adversary course of action, they need help from the rest of the staff to ensure that the most precise and complete assessment is presented to the commander.
Implications of technological and informational innovation on military intelligence
Modern armed forces rely on high technology to perform various tasks. Troops' movements, battle plans, and military intelligence are some of the segments in the military that rely on technology. 13 In military intelligence, technological and informational innovation has various implications. To start with, technological and informational innovation plays a significant role in strategic decision-making. It affects intelligence analysts in understanding problems, determining data gaps and sources, formulation of questions as well as communication of analyst results. However, to comprehend the implications of technological and informational innovation of intelligence practice, the military intelligence, and the technology need to be connected based on an intermediate conceptual procedure.
Another important role of technological and informational innovation is communication. After gathering information about the capability of the enemy, intentions, the terrain and weather in which the operation can occur, intelligence staff can use technological and informational innovation such as radios and satellites to communicate voluminous detail from the initial point of reception to the nodes in the information network for integration, assessment, and decision-making. 14 After getting the information, those responsible for command and control will be communicated and act on the information as soon as possible. Therefore, technological and informational innovation plays a significant role in military intelligence by enabling information collection and processing.
Technological and informational innovation can result in the development of enhanced equipment that can be used for surveillance in intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace such as drones that can traverse areas where people cannot pass. Military intelligence also uses technology to efficiently process data from different sources, minimize administrative and staff-work through forward-looking logistics, and enhance surveillance and reconnaissance systems. 15 More so, technology has also made military intelligence training and organization of personnel. This has been achieved through personalized training, fair assessments, and credible simulations of future technologies and their applications.
Conclusively, the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace played a significant role in the Iraq civil war. The IPB assisted military intelligence to assess the environment and the threat of the places where they could attack in Iraq. The process was also used to examine the mission variables of the enemy, the terrain, weather, and civil considerations in the area of interest. Further, the process was used to develop products that could be utilized in making appropriate course of actions and decision points for the commander. Because technology plays a significant role in military intelligence, the military needs to adopt sophisticated technology to fasten their surveillance and IPB.
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1 Aurelian Rațiu, Civil Preparation of the Battlespace-Necessity in the Irregular or Hybrid Warfare . In International conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 265-270. Sciendo, 2017.
2 Daniel Boyd, "Intelligence Support for Tactical Policing: Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace." (2019).
3 Nuno Caseiro, and Arnaldo Coelho. "The influence of Business Intelligence capacity, network learning and innovativeness on startups performance." Journal of Innovation & Knowledge 4, no. 3 (2019): 139-145.
4 Donald Carter. "Clouds or clocks: the limitations of intelligence preparation of the battlefield in a complex world." Military Review 96, no. 2 (2016): 36.
5 Yvonne Masakowski, "Artificial Intelligence and the Future Global Security Environment." In Artificial Intelligence and Global Security. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2020
6 Daniel Hoadley, and Lucas Nathan. Artificial intelligence and national security. Congressional Research Service, 2018.
7 Harrison Kieffer. "Can Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace Be Used to Attribute a Cyber-Attack to an Actor." The Cyber Defense Review (2016)
8 Patricia DeGennaro. "The Gray Zone and Intelligence Preparation of the Battle Space." Small Wars Journal Mad Scientist 13 (2016).
9 Richard Wolfel , Amy Krakowka Richmond, Mark Read, and Colin Tansey. "It? s in There: Rethinking (?) Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield in Megacities/Dense Urban Areas." Journal Article| Mar 2, no. 1 (2016): 35pm.
10 Rupali JESWA, . "Battlespace Perspectives of Hybrid Warfare in Ukraine." Countering Hybrid Threats: Lessons Learned from Ukraine 128 (2016): 85.
11 Matthijs Maas. "Innovation-Proof Global Governance for Military Artificial Intelligence?: How I Learned to Stop Worrying, and Love the Bot." Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies 10, no. 1 (2019): 129-157.
12 Victor Morris. "Complex Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield in Ukrainian Antiterrorism Operations." Military Review 97, no. 1 (2017): 58.
13 Douglas Noble,. The classroom arsenal: Military research, information technology and public education. Routledge, 2017 .
14 Pratten, M. "Thailand Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace. Part 1 of 4: Defining the Battlespace." Global Intelligence-Local Context-Experienced Support, retrieved March 3 (2018): 2018.
15 Pavel Skalický and Tibor Palasiewicz. "Intelligence preparation of the battlefield as a part of knowledge development." In International Conference Knowledge-Based Organization, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 276-280. Sciendo, 2017.
