Who, What and How of Social Media Exploitation for a Combatant Commander.

摘要

In phase zero, the Combatant Commander's (CCDR) intelligence directorate (J2) should exploit social media to enhance the force's understanding of a state's population to better forecast a state's level of stability. The expansion of social media platforms and devices that allow easy access to these platforms have created a new source of intelligence information. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube provide users with the ability to create, disseminate, share, and access information from almost anywhere in the world in real time, on any subject. The recent revolution in Egypt demonstrates how social media platforms were used to plan and direct the protests that led to the downfall of President Mubarak. The Egyptian case study highlights important observations on how a CCDR and his J2 can best exploit social media platforms. To do this, the J2 must build a robust joint intelligence preparation of the operating environment (JIPOE) on social media platforms to identify the platforms that people in a country of interest use. The J2 must identify Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIRs) and warning indicators that social media can answer. A robust collection plan must be designed, and a process for analyzing the exploited information needs to be in place. Social media is an untapped intelligence source. A well planned collection strategy will enable a CCDR to effectively exploit social media to better understand a state's security situation.