Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (62 page)

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Authors: Mark M. Lowenthal

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Department of Defense (DOD) official statements on the topic are somewhat confusing. The two key documents are
Joint Vision 2010
and
Joint Vision 2020.
Both emphasize the importance of DBA and the role of intelligence but tend to use intelligence and information technology interchangeably. However, information technology is a means to, but is not the same thing as, intelligence.
Another problem with DBA is that delivering on its promise could require the intelligence community to allocate a large percentage of collection assets to the task, to the detriment of other priorities elsewhere in the world. As with SMO, the question “How much is enough?” is pertinent. Finally, an essential ingredient in successful DBA is getting the right type and amount of information to the right user. An army commander’s intelligence needs differ from those of an infantry squad leader or a combat pilot. Some critics are concerned that too much information is pushed down to users who have no need for it, flooding them with irrelevant intelligence simply because the means are available to do so. As a result, their jobs are made more difficult.
The military campaign in Iraq that began in 2003 illustrated both the promise and the problems involved in DBA and RMA. The vastly superior strategic and tactical intelligence of the United States and its allied forces enhanced both the general campaign plan—including the decision to make a dash for Baghdad with fairly small forces—and the ability to locate, identify, and attack in detail regular Iraqi forces. But the war also pointed out that the evolution of U.S. military doctrine continues to put pressure on intelligence for increasing degrees of support. Given the likelihood that the size of U.S. forces (as opposed to their mobility and lethality) will not grow much, intelligence will increasingly be seen as one of the factors that allows these relatively small forces to achieve both dominance and victory. How much support is entailed and what it means for the shape and practice of intelligence are not entirely clear. Also, it remains uncertain how the DNI fits into the relationship between intelligence agencies—especially those such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and NSA, which are national but are also designated in law as combat support agencies—and DOD. The situation is especially murky because the DNI does not control any of the agencies upon which the military relies for intelligence support. The DNI could be bypassed by DOD as it seeks intelligence support from national and defense agencies.
CONCLUSION
 
In the first decade after the end of the cold war (using as a benchmark the breaching of the Berlin Wall in 1989), the U.S. national security agenda remained largely unformed, not in terms of which issues mattered but which of them mattered the most, which would receive the highest priority over time (as opposed to immediate reactions to events), and what the United States would be willing to do to achieve its preferred ends. In the absence of clear definition, the intelligence community found it difficult to perform. Intelligence officials have a broad understanding of policy makers’ preferences and immediate interests, but these do not provide the basis for making a coherent set of plans for investments, collection systems, personnel recruitment, and training. The war on terrorism offered some clarity in that it has given one issue priority over all the others, although not to the same extent as the old Soviet issue. Moreover, the terrorism issue is different from the Soviet issue in many important respects, thus emphasizing the importance of the cold war legacy for the intelligence community, as well as the need to transcend this legacy.
Many issues in the new U.S. intelligence agenda share an important hallmark: the gap between the intelligence community’s ability to provide intelligence and the policy makers’ ability to craft policies to address the issues and to use the intelligence. This gap may even be seen in the war against terrorism. If the disparity persists, the intelligence community and its policy clients may become disaffected. Clients want to be more than just informed; they want to act (that is, to receive opportunity analysis). And intelligence is not meant to be collected and then filed away. It is intended to assist people in making decisions or taking action. This is not to suggest that the intelligence community will suddenly disappear. But it may come to be seen as less central and necessary—a provider of information that is interesting but not as useful as it has been in the past because of the changed nature of the issues. Moreover, the increasing tendency by high-level participants in the broader policy process (that is, the executive and Congress) to commission intelligence estimates and then use them selectively in partisan debates has considerable costs for intelligence. Over time, managers and analysts may be increasingly tempted to water down the assessments they write, making them blander and less pointed, largely as a self-defeating act of preservation.
KEY TERMS
 
battle damage assessment
bioterror
chatter
dominant battlefield awareness
ECHELON
foreign economic espionage
industrial espionage
information operations
JTTFs (Joint Terrorism Task Forces)
link analysis
network warfare
revolution in military affairs (RMA)
FURTHER READINGS
 
Writings on the post-cold war intelligence agenda remain somewhat scattered across issue areas, reflecting the nature of the debate itself.
General
 
Colby, William. “The Changing Role of Intelligence.”
World Outlook
13 (summer 1991): 77-90.
Goodman. Allan E. “The Future of U.S. Intelligence.”
Intelligence and National Security
11 (October 19961: 645-656.
Goodman, Allan E., and Bruce D. Berkowitz.
The Need to Know.
Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Covert Action and American Democracy. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1992
Goodman. Allan E., and others.
In from the Cold.
Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Future of U.S. Intelligence. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1996.
Johnson, Loch K.
Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America’s Quest for Security.
New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Johnson, Loch K., and Kevin J. Scheid. “Spending for Spies: Intelligence Budgeting in the Aftermath of the Cold War.”
Public Budgeting
and Finance 17 (winter 1997): 7-27.
U.S. National Intelligence Council. Global
Trends
2015. Washington, D.C.: National Intelligence Council, 2000.
Economics
 
Fort, Randall M.
Economic Espionage:
Problems
and Prospects.
Washington, D.C.: Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, 1993.
Hulnick, Arthur S. “The Uneasy Relationship between Intelligence and Private Industry.”
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
9 (spring 1996): 17-31.
Lowenthal, Mark M. “Keep James Bond out of GM.”
International Economy
(July-August 1992): 52-54.
Woolsey, R. James. “Why We Spy on Our Allies.”
Wall Strect Journal,
March 17, 2000, A18.
Zelikow, Philip. “American Economic Intelligence: Past Practice and Future Principles.”
Intelligence and
National
Security
12 (January 1997):164-177.
Information Operations and Dominant Battlefield Awareness
 
Aldrich, Richard W.
The International Legal Implications of Information Warfare.
Colorado Springs: U.S. Air Force Institute for National Security Studies, 1996.
Deutch, John M. Speech at National Defense University, Washington, D.C., June 14,1995. (Available at
www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/dci—speech—61495.html
.)
Law Enforcement
 
Hulnick, Arthur S. “Intelligence and Law Enforcement.”
International Journal of Intelligence
and
Counterintelligence
10 (fall 1997): 269-286.
Snider, L. Britt, with Elizabeth Rindskopf and John Coleman.
Relating Intelligence and Law Enforcement
:
Problems and Prospects.
Washington, D.C.: Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, 1994.
Narcotics
 
Best, Richard A., Jr., and Mark M. Lowenthal. “The U.S. Intelligence Community and the Counternarcotics Effort.” Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1992.
Peacekeeping
 
Best, Richard A., Jr. “Peacekeeping: Intelligence Requirements.” Washington. D.C.: Congressional Research Service. 1994.
Johnston, Paul. “No Cloak and Dagger Required: Intelligence Support to UN Peacekeeping.”
Intelligence and National Security
12 (October 1997): 102-112.
Pickert, Perry I
.. lntelligence for Multilateral Decision and Action.
Ed. Russell G. Swenson. Washington, D.C.: Joint Military Intelligence College, 1997.
Terrorism
 
Cilluffo, Frank J., Ronald A. Marks, and George C. Salmoiraghi. “The Use and Limits of U.S. Intelligence.”
Washington Quarterly
25 (winter 2002): 61-74.
Grimmett, Richard F. “Terrorism: Key Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and Recent Major Commissions and Inquiries.” Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service August 11, 2004.
Massie. Todd. “Homeland Security Intelligence: Perceptions. Statutory Definitions, and Approaches.” Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, August 17, 2006.
Massie. Todd, and John Rollins. “A Summary of Fusion Centers: Core Issues and Options for Congress.” Washington. D.C.: Congressional Research Service, September 19, 2007.
U.S. National Intelligence Council.
National Intelligence Estimate: The Terrorist Threat to
the
US Homeland.
Washington. D.C.: NIC, July 2007. (Available at
www.odni.gov/press_releases/20070717_release.pdf
.)
Proliferation
 
U.S. National Intelligence Council.
National Intelligence Estimate: Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities.
Washington, D.C.: NIC, December 2007. (Available at
www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf
:)
Dominant Battlefield Awareness
 
Nolte, William. “Keeping Pace with the Revolution in Military Affairs,”
Studies in Intelligence
48 (2004): 1-10.
CHAPTER 13
 
ETHICAL AND MORAL ISSUES IN INTELLIGENCE
 
T
HE PHRASE “ethical and moral issues in intelligence” is not as much of an oxymoron as some people consider it. Important ethical standards and moral dilemmas challenge intelligence officers and policy officials and must be dealt with. As with most discussions of ethics and morality, some of the questions have no firm or agreed on answers.
GENERAL MORAL QUESTIONS
 
The nature of intelligence operations and issues and the basis upon which they are created raise a number of broad moral questions.
 
SECRECY. Much intelligence work is done in secret, although the definition of intelligence set out in chapter 1 does not include secrecy as a necessary precondition. The question remains: Is secrecy necessary in intelligence? If so, how much secrecy? And at what cost?
If secrecy is necessary, what drives the need? Governments have intelligence services because they seek information that others would deny them. Thus, secrecy is inherent not only in what your intelligence service is doing (collection and covert action) but also in the information that others withhold from you. You also do not want the other state to know your areas of interest. Is this second level of secrecy necessary? After all, those keeping information from you often know—or at least presume—that you want it. That is one reason for hiding it from you (although many dictatorial states attempt to control all information, understanding that it poses a threat to their regime). Or is secrecy driven primarily by your attempts to gain access to hidden information? Is it based on not allowing those who are attempting to deny you information to know that, to some degree, they have failed? How necessary is that? After all, you will act on the intelligence collected, although you will attempt to mask the reasons for your actions. Won’t your opponents at least guess. based on your decisions and actions, that you have gained some access to the information they were safeguarding?
Beyond the motivations for secrecy are the costs it imposes. This does not refer to the monetary costs—for background checks, control systems for access, and so forth—which are substantial. The issue is how operating in a secret milieu affects people. Does secrecy inherently lead to a temptation or willingness to cut corners or take steps that might be deemed unacceptable if they were not cloaked in secrecy? This is not to suggest that thousands of people are morally compromised because they work in organizations that prize secrecy. But the nature of some aspects of intelligence—primarily collection and covert action—combined with the fact that they are undertaken in secret may lower an intelligence official’s inhibitions to commit questionable actions. These factors put a premium on the careful selection and training of officers and on vigorous oversight.

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