More critical commentary on the CIA and the intelligence community today. The issues: quality of analysis, HUMINT, and trained people. George Friedman of STRATFOR has been saying essentially the same thing for several years to anyone who'll listen. Again, quick fixes do little good and paying attention to the people and the non-sexy factors are key -- dull and diligent would save a lot of lives.
The article also discusses the importance of "moral strategic clarity." Very good points.
A few key paragraphs here, but better to read the whole piece.
The world war against terrorism, analysts add, will consist of 90 percent intelligence and only 10 percent combat. That's a huge challenge for the U.S. intelligence community, which has retained most of the Cold War structures and mind-sets that many consider dangerously obsolete. At present the Pentagon and uniformed services are writhing in the painful throes of a "defense-transformation" process, bringing the national-defense community out of the Cold War configurations of the Industrial Age to Space Age and Information Age designs suitable for the world war on terrorism. These require extreme flexibility, agility, stealth and speed, as well as increasing intellect and evermore intelligence collection, analysis and processing. The intelligence community, however, has not been keeping pace, leaving what professionals see as a dangerous gap that finds U.S. national-security needs far exceeding the capabilities of the intelligence services.The fundamental problem crying for solution is the people factor: leadership and personnel. "We see immense resources placed on acquisition of the world's best technological tools, but little emphasis on improving the vital skills of analysis, education and training," a senior administration official says. "DoD [Department of Defense] has to treat intelligence differently. It's not a weapons system. You can't just buy it." Leadership isn't only at the top levels, according to a senior intelligence officer. "It also works down through the second and third tiers of defense intelligence, where moral leadership and fortitude are in short supply."
The collection of human intelligence (HUMINT) is an art that requires intensive linguistic capabilities, social and professional interaction with counterparts in target areas and a thorough knowledge of local politics, history, mores and customs. But the intelligence community's reliance on high technology, and the nature of the personnel system and promotion practices, place relatively little value and afford few opportunities for the cultivation and recruitment of HUMINT networks around the world. According to a Pentagon official, "The system doesn't reward HUMINT officers. It doesn't reward area specialists."
Even worse, during the last decade - for reasons ranging from political correctness imposed from above to the deteriorated state of American university education that trained the intelligence analysts from below, and on to what some see as a general lack of courage - U.S. leaders have seen a dumbing-down or corrosion of the intelligence process and its products. "Throughout the 1990s the depth of analytical skill in the intelligence agencies was eroded," according to Richard Haver, until recently a senior adviser to Rumsfeld.
via Insight Magazine
A related article summarizes 10 steps for reforming defense intelligence. We moderns are suckers for a list, but this is actually pretty good.
Posted by Alan at May 30, 2003 04:04 PM