Policymakers and intel analysts: can this marriage be saved?
RAND recently published the findings from a conference it hosted on long-term and strategic analysis (“Making Strategic Analysis Matter”).
Much of the report focused on the cultural differences between intelligence analysts and the policymakers who are the consumers of the analysts’ work product. The cultural gap is especially wide between the producers of long-term and strategic intelligence and policymakers, who, with their inevitable focus on day-to-day problems, often find long-term and strategic analysis an entertaining luxury that they simply can’t fit into their hectic schedules. Many of the participants at the conference seemed focused on a marketing problem – how to convince policymakers to pay attention to their long-term and strategic research.
A table from page 19 of the report (which I adapt) tries to summarize the cultural differences between analysts and policymakers:
|
Intelligence analysts |
|
Focus on foreign countries |
|
Reflective, wants to understand |
|
Usually strives to be analytically objective |
|
Long tenures and time horizons |
|
Believes in continuous product improvement |
|
Enjoys dealing with complexity |
|
Prefers scenarios and probabilities to predictions |
|
World is a given, to be understood |
|
Input and output is written |
|
Policymakers |
|
Focus on Washington DC policy process |
|
Active, wants to make a difference |
|
Strives to impose policy preferences |
|
Short tenures and time horizons |
|
Wants quick and final advice |
|
Wants simplicity |
|
Wants the “straight answer” |
|
World can be shaped, especially by the U.S. |
|
Prefers to operate in oral settings |
Has the recent appointment of two policymakers/operators (Leon Panetta and David Petraeus) to CIA had any effect on the transmission or reception of long-term and strategic intelligence from analysts to policymakers? A hypothesis would be that experienced operators like Panetta and Petraeus, once at CIA, would have a better grasp of what strategic intelligence was most useful to top policymakers and would have better credibility convincing their bosses to pay attention to that intelligence. If this hypothesis is true, it might say something about how to get top policymakers to pay more attention to long-term and strategic intelligence.
This is an enduring problem unfortunately. Rand is reinventing the wheel here to a certain extent – the issues raised in the monograph have been understood since at least the 1940’s. Sherman Kent’s work on this topic, done, as I recall, before his retirement in the late 1960’s, is just as relevant today as it was then.
I’m not sure it makes much difference to put a policy-maker/operator at the top of the intel chain – certainly that’s not a new idea. More important is to have a person that is trusted by both analysts and policymakers and is able to bridge the divide between them. Unfortunately, that’s a tall order and there aren’t many who have the skillset and temperament to succeed.
I recommend readers look at the June 2008 issue of Intelligence and National Security, which has a special section ‘Perspectives on Intelligence Analysis in the United States’, especially a piece by Loch K. Johnson on the Presidential’s Daily Brief and the NIE.
In the UK much was said about ‘intelligence-led policing’ and rarely was there any input on the relationship with decision-makers, whose priorities were very different.
This week I read in the Feb/March 2012 RUSI Journal an article ‘In the Pursuit of Unity: the west and the break-up of Yugoslavia’ by Josip Glaurdic, which noted the intelligence assessments were right, just that politicians ignored them.
I suspect both Robert Jervis, “Why Intelligence Fails,” and Richard Betts, “Enemies of Intelligence,” deal with the issues raised, and offer worthy analysis; I’ve read articles that (I think) form some of the foundations for each (Jervis, “Reports, Politics, and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq,” in the Journal of Strategic Studies, and Betts, “Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable,” in World Politics (not to implicitly devalue the former, but the latter is truly superb)).
Regards
ADTS
The phrase I am struggling with here is “strategic intelligence.” I realize the old joke ala MASH, etc is the “military intelligence” is an oxymoron; but I seriously am not sure what is meant by, and have never seen “strategic intelligence.” To me, that is the oxymoron, any fusion of intel and strategy. I like the list of characteristics, but my experience with the intelligence community is that it is very threat-centric and tactical, and current in focus; so well matched to the policy community described here as well.
I agree with the division described, I’m just not sure who these “strategic intelligence” people are.