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Q&A
Stretching to Make Calls That Aid Decision-Making
Defense Analyst
Robert Cardillo
Deputy Director for Analysis
Defense Intelligence Agency
Robert Cardillo is deputy director for analysis for the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA), where he directs the analytical effort of
approximately 7,000 analysts who are responsible for producing
the national military intelligence required to develop and execute
the National Security Strategy. He is also the designated GDIP
functional manager for analysis. In this role, he manages all-source
analytic responsibilities and leads efforts to evaluate and improve
the performance of the analytic community, which includes DIA,
the service intelligence centers, and the intelligence centers at the
combatant commands.
Cardillo has served in a variety of leadership positions within the
intelligence community. Before assuming his current position, he
served as the director, analysis and production, National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency. Other key leadership positions included director,
source operations and management, and director, Office of Corporate
Relations, National Imagery and Mapping Agency. He began his
career in 1983 as an imagery analyst with the DIA and was selected
to the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service in May 2000.
Cardillo earned a Bachelor of Arts in government from Cornell
University in 1983 and a Master of Arts in national security studies
from Georgetown University in 1988.
Q: As the deputy director for analysis at the DIA, you are responsible
for thousands of analysts supporting the warfighter. How do
GIS and geospatial technology help your work force accomplish its
mission?
A: GEOINT is a critical contributor to the various sources of intelligence
used by our expeditionary analytic work force supporting
the warfighter on the ground. Over 15 percent of DI analysts have
deployed in the field. That impressive number is a credit to our work
force. When our analysts can support the mission in theater, it helps
them to combine their content—what information they know—with
a context—knowledge gained from relationships, networks and collaboration
from the warfighter. When content and context are put
together, we can provide real analysis that is of consequence: analysis
that provides decision advantage to our leaders. GEOINT and the
use of geospatial intelligence systems take on a fuller and deeper
perspective when developed within the same content and context in
which the warfighter is operating. For those analysts supporting the
warfighter stateside, GEOINT and GIS provide a key element to the
products they are developing both in support of the warfighter and
policy decision-makers.
Q: You were asked to speak on a panel discussing human terrain
and socio-cultural analysis at the GEOINT Symposium this past
October. What, in your opinion, were the most important points of
those that were shared?
A: Experts from the ODNI, NGA, Marine Corps Intelligence and the
Army Human Terrain System Research Center, as well as from academia,
joined me to discuss this topic. We looked at how this area of
intelligence calls upon us as leaders to develop systems that manage
and mine the huge amounts of data gathered in support of the
warfighter. In effect, knowing that providing contextually substantive
intelligence is a key to success on the ground, our discussion centered
on how we are re-engineering how we do the business of intelligence
and, essentially, redefining the term “context.” Local and regional
cultural issues—or human terrain as that area of intelligence has
come to be known—is an area of analysis that hinges on geographically
based socio-cultural intelligence to support a wide variety of
missions.
I’ve heard it estimated that some 65 percent of all information
on the battlefield is geo-referenced, and while I can’t confirm that
estimate, even at half that percentage, GIS has become pivotal to
success in the field. The irregular, asymmetric threat that currently
faces us can be found in a wide variety of socio-cultural environments,
including urban areas. That means there is the added concern: How
do we adjust our planning to take into account the safety of places like
schools or other areas where children or families congregate?
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