MAJGEN Flynn's Intelligence Report

Major General Michael T. Flynn's intelligence capabilities are clearly really good, because it has already led to a new discovery.

I am writing as a guy who both served as a volunteer advising the Obama Campaign on defense policy issues and as a guy who served a volunteer advising Gen. McChrystal on operations in Afghanistan.

Really? In an official capacity for CNAS beginning in February or as a side project? I would have thought the press would have previously covered this detail, or perhaps Andrew Exum would have mentioned it before. Nope.

I honestly don't care, after reading Andrew Exum for years I have not seen him shift positions so much, rather develop his opinions at a more sophisticated level. Growth is a byproduct of experience, and that is what I have witnessed from his work rather than bias. Those who believe money influences everything are right, but those who suggest money drives opinion must first develop evidence of it, and in the case of Andrew Exum I can't say I've seen it. Andrew can be called a lot of things, but even if one disagrees with what he says he has stayed consistent in his core beliefs even as he has adopted new ideas - and I for one appreciate his consistency.

But it was a noteworthy non-disclosure. I do not have any non-disclosures in my closet of skeletons, but for healthy sums of US dollars I am always willing to reconsider my current position. I'll do almost anything short of what that Pete William guy does. If you don't get the joke - nevermind.

What I find noteworthy is the way Major General Michael T. Flynn decided to release the report - through CNAS. Internally in CENTCOM? Nope, he went straight viral on the web leveraging a brand that has extensive public mindshare in the defense policy space and supported by the CNAS brands viral model for information distribution and perception shaping. People may not like it, but Major General Michael T. Flynn is getting exactly the response he wanted from his method of release, even as it does not make people inside the bubble very happy.

I don't know how other think tanks look at this - I imagine they are less than impressed. They need to take a smarter look if that is the case. If you think this makes CNAS look bad - you are very mistaken. The next General/Admiral gearing up to write a potentially controversial opinion is watching this unfold likely thinking "look what working with those guys does for my work!" Even more valuable, the horizontal distribution of the report now allows for broad exploration of solutions by an enormous net of contributors - exactly the kind of idea generation that every writer wants from their work. The DoD can potentially learn as much from the report distribution model and response as they can from the contents of the report itself.

What bothers me about the report is how this comes off like a war theater centric operational assessment, and with that comes an element where the enemy will explore the papers contents for exploitation. If I can spot the valuable revelations in the paper from New York, I assure you the folks in Pakistan can. I have not decided whether I want to discuss the actual research paper on the blog, because what I was originally going to say specific to the paper has already been said by someone smarter than I. The special comment here is really good.