WELCOME NEW MEMBER DAVID SWAN
I am pleased to announce that DAVID SWAN has joined CIN/RCR as a Regular Member. David's impressive background can be seen at https://www.linkedin.com/in/swdswan/.
Welcome aboard David. Thank you for joining us.
Best regards, Jim
3 Views
Jim issued a general invitation to members to 'blog', of more generally to contribute to the collective thought process. Below is my email reply to Jim - which he suggested should be posted to a CIN/RCR blog.
While I do not 'blog', I am a contributor to RUSI(NS) [Royal United Services Institute(Nova Scotia)) in two ways:
I have strong opinions about the Canadian Intelligence environment. 27 years in Naval Operations taught me a great deal about good vs bad intelligence, while giving me a profound understanding of the end-user's perspective. I suspect my 9 years in the Intelligence Branch, while the Army was busy in Afghanistan, were highly atypical. I had an unusually high deployment rate as a reservist. I was tasked to support Regular Force and Reserve tasks. I was often deployed alone, tasked to build, rebuild or just 'make it work'. Sometimes what was desired by the Army was in sharp contrast to what local Int personnel were planning to deliver.
My emergence as an Intelligence officer in Western Canada started when I drafted a 'Theatre Handbook' [based on current Canadian operations in Khandar province] for exercise Coulee Gunner 08 - as opposed to what 6 Int Coy [among others] wanted to provide.
I did an awful lot of debriefing of personnel who had rarely/never seen an Int cap badge.
I was asked [twice] NOT to teach Naval Reserve Intelligence personnel how to work with Army Brigade Staff. My experiences with Naval Reserve Int personnel were disappointing.
I served as a Reserve Bde G2 for four years. I treated my Bde as being 'oncall' for DOMOps, working in real-time as required. During that time, My Bde Comd made some decisions based on my reporting. It resulted in my having my own budget as part of Bde staff. This is another thing I believe was atypical of my employment as a Res IntO.
Outside the military, I have found that the understanding of what Intelligence is, is problematic. My principal work is in cyber security. Marketing people have bastardized terms without understanding the consequences/implications of what they are doing. Terms such as 'Threat Intelligence' and 'Business Intelligence' are widely used in industry, despite both terms being nonsense.
As much as I enjoy teaching and discussing with interested people, I have little patience for academic snobbery and those who insist on changing things they don't understand. Despite my intolerance for 'intelligence analysts' in the cyber security industry, I have been a contributor to the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies since 2012. I am also a Director. The president, Richard Zalusky, usually starts his comments on me with: "Dave doesn't brief like those other guys. "
Hopefully this missive will give you an appreciation of my attitudes. If you think I can be a resource, please ask. I was delighted with the quality of my training as an Army Reserve Intelligence Officer and the quality of the personnel I served with. If I can 'give back' to the Branch in some way, I will be happy to do so. If I can be an educator in the wider intelligence community, I'd be happy to examine any opportunities.
Dave
David Swan
Vulcan, AB