Ipb

The purpose of this study is to determine why intelligence officers acting as battalion S-2 have difficulty predicting the enemy.

It hypothesizes that two causes: lack of experience of the principal officers conducting IPB and inadequate emphasis on the staff's role in IPB have cascading effects that prevent staffs and commanders from mastering the planning process (which inevitable effects execution).

The study explores several fundamental questions.

First, why predict at all?

It attempts to answer this question through a study of the neurology of prediction as it relates to action and thinking.

Three major sources are used to support the study's findings.

These include the studies of Jeff Hawkins, the founder of Palm Pilot and a student of neuroscience from his book On Intelligence; Richard Heuer, a social psychologist that works for the CIA from his work The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis; and Abraham Maslow, the renowned psychologist from his work A Theory of Human Motivation.

Second, the study researches why the military is so connected to action.

This is accomplished through a survey of the Army's Doctrine both past and present.

Here the study links the requirement for visualization with the Army's action based psyche.

Next the study answers why some predict better than others.

The study shows how our current manning methodology for S-2s at the battalion and brigade level is flawed.

This study concludes that prediction because it involves representing future actions mentally in one's mind, occurs both unconsciously and consciously.

It is an automatic process that is fundamental to how humans perceive their environment.

The mental representation of motor processes, as Hawkins describes it, drives action.

The action typically occurs to fulfill some need.

Maslow contends to satisfy needs, one must move from current conditions to future conditions; ergo one must act.

In order to act, one must "think" about doing it in the sense that one must visualize the acThis work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

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