In this blog, Fivecast Tradecraft Advisors draw on their Defense and National Security expertise to discuss the role open-source intelligence (OSINT) plays in assessing military capability, a role that is highly relevant given the current geopolitical environment.
Tracking the movements of military and para-military forces at the global level has long been the domain of highly classified & far-reaching defense intelligence collection systems staffed by military specialists, who sift through millions of pieces of information to measure the capability of military organizations, including their posture, strength, and intentions.
There’s a well-entrenched bias governments assign to certain information simply because it was harvested by a highly classified intelligence machine. But does this information necessarily deliver better intelligence insights because it was collected using sensitive or highly classified means?
The role of publicly available information in measuring military capability
Faced with constantly evolving geo-political factors and the rise of the ‘Great Power Competition’, intelligence strategies for uncovering and assessing foreign military capabilities must evolve as well.
While open-source intelligence has long been used in military operations, its potential to complement classified intelligence has not yet been fully recognized and is often overlooked by military leaders. Recently, NATO’s two-star General, Major General Matthew Van Wagenen emphasized that NATO must undergo a cultural shift to process and leverage publicly available information effectively [1].
Working in open-source intelligence, I’m often taken by how much publicly available information online can enrich data from classified sources. For instance, consider classified intelligence reports that use sensitive satellite imagery to pinpoint the exact time and date a ship departs its home port or passes through a known choke point. This information is now freely available online. If you’re big and grey it can be hard to hide, and there’s no end of enthusiasts online waiting to snap your picture and post the highlights to their social media accounts. Many of these accounts update daily, or even hourly, and can be found all over social media.
In response to images and videos revealing the construction stages of warships, aircraft carriers and aircraft outside People’s Liberation Army (PLA) installations in China have caused Chinese authorities to warn that military enthusiasts endanger national security and repeat violators could be imprisoned for up to seven years [2].
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Intentional displays of military force
In May this year, China conducted military drills around Taiwan, including sending warplanes and staging mock attacks. This was in response to what China called “separatist acts” by Taiwan’s newly inaugurated President Lai Ching-te. The drills took place in the Taiwan Strait near Taiwan-controlled islands close to China’s coast, just days after Lai took office. China considers Taiwan part of its territory and opposes Lai’s stance, calling for Beijing to stop its threats [3].
Classified intelligence reports are bound to discuss the PLA’s actions at length; however, it is clear that open-source intelligence can, in this instance, complement classified intelligence to provide a richer intelligence picture.
Military OpSec breaches
The rotation of large numbers of military personnel also provides a valuable source of publicly available information with Operations Security (OpSec) discipline varying dramatically across military members and their close contacts, many of whom maintain a strong social media presence.
A very well-known example is the geo-locating of Russian military personnel in Ukraine during the height of territory disputes back in 2014.
Despite improved military OpSec following these breaches, the prevalence of social media usage among enlisted military personnel, their networks, and other interested parties remains consistently high and yields substantial intelligence potential.
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How to measure military capability?
All this valuable intelligence hiding in plain sight online this raises the question:
“How can we leverage this information to enhance existing intelligence holdings and effectively measure military capability?”
This is where open-source intelligence comes in.
Advanced open-source intelligence capabilities can be deployed to enable military and para-military forces to rapidly collect and analyze publicly available information to uncover valuable and actionable insights. Fivecast ONYX performs advanced data collection on the broadest data set possible from a wide range of constantly evolving platforms across the Surface, Deep, and Dark Web. Intelligence teams are then able to filter, and risk assess the data with a customizable AI-enabled risk detection framework that uncovers the information most relevant to an investigation from masses of online data.
Leveraging augmented intelligence that filters and analyzes data in a way that doesn’t remove, but actively assists the most important aspect of intelligence, “the human”, to effectively uncover valuable insights, should become an essential component of assessing foreign military capability
For more case studies and OSINT educational content, register for our Fivecast Intel Hub.
REFERENCES
[1] Ferrann, L 2024, Breaking Defense, NATO two Star calls for Cultural Change for Military ops
[2] Lendon, B and Chang, W 2023, CNN, China warns ‘military fans’ they could face prison for posting photos online
[3] Orr, B and Lee, Y 2024, Reuters, China launches ‘punishment’ war games around Taiwan
