Intelligence And Policy

Center for the Study of Intelligence |Roundtable Report

Intelligence and Policy: The Evolving Relationship 

10 February 2022 Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 

Washington, D.C. March 2022

Intelligence Agency By Dr. E. Sifuentes and Dr. L. Warren 

Introduction

As became abundantly clear during a conference sponsored by CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) in Charlottesville, Virginia, on 10 and 11 September 2003, the challenges that face the US Intelligence Community in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the United States two years earlier are perceived by members of that community as being far more complex, demanding, and consequential than any they have heretofore encountered. That conference brought together an experienced group of national security specialists from the intelligence and policy communities to discuss Intelligence for a New Era in American Foreign Policy.

 Not long after the Charlottesville conference, Dr. James Steiner, CIA’s Officer in Residence and Associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, coordinated an effort to answer one of the challenging questions that have arisen in the changed post-9/11 security environment: how can the Intelligence Community effectively provide "actionable" intelligence while being mindful of its traditional practice of separating, to the extent possible, the intelligence and policy functions of national security decisionmaking. The resulting one-day roundtable conference became for CSI the first in a planned series of projects on intelligence and policy intended to foster better understanding of the oftenperplexing dynamic between the consumers of intelligence and intelligence professionals

The roundtable, Where Is the Red Line? Actionable Intelligence vs. Policy Advocacy, took place on 10 November 2003 at Georgetown University. Instead of using a conference format, with formal papers and designated commentators, the roundtable was conducted as a discussion among a relatively small circle of participants, divided about equally between professional (current or former) intelligence officers and senior intelligence consumers drawn from the ranks of former policymakers. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and a former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Richard Kerr, served as cochairmen.

 In addition to the cochairmen, participants included:

• Frans Bax, President, CIA University
• Hans Binnendijk, Director, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University; Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, National Security Council, 1999–2001
• Dennis Blair, Admiral, USN (ret.); President, Institute for Defense Analyses; former Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command; former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support
•  Christopher Bolan, Colonel, US Army; ISD Associate; former member of the staffs of vice presidents Gore and Cheney, focusing on Middle East issues
• Chester Crocker, James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; Chairman, US Institute of Peace; Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, 1981–89
• James Dobbins, Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center, RAND Corporation; served in a variety of State Department and White House posts, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and Ambassador to the European Union; also served as US special envoy for Afghanistan, for Kosovo, for Bosnia, for Haiti, and for Somalia
• Carl Ford, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, 2001–2003; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, 1989–93
• Paul Johnson, Director, Center for the Study of Intelligence
• Woodrow Kuhns, Deputy Director, Center for the Study of Intelligence
• Douglas MacEachin, staff member, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission); Deputy Director for Intelligence, CIA, 1993–95; Senior Research Fellow, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1995–2000
• John MacGaffin, former Senior Adviser to the Director and Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation; former Associate Deputy Director for Operations, CIA
• William Nolte, Deputy Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production
• Phyllis Oakley, Chair of the Board, US Committee for the United Nations Population Fund; Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, 1997–98; and Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, 1994–97
• Martin Petersen, Deputy Executive Director, CIA
• Jennifer Sims, Visiting Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence Coordination, 1994–98; Intelligence Adviser to the Under Secretary of State for Management and Coordinator for Intelligence Resources and Planning, 1998–2001
• James Steiner, CIA Officer-in-Residence, ISD
• Casimir Yost, Marshall Coyne Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; Director, ISD

The following summary of roundtable proceedings does not attempt to recapitulate the discussions in detail. It attempts, rather, to focus on the most salient points made by the participants as they considered a set of key questions drawn up in advance by the roundtable sponsors. These questions will be found at the conclusion of the text. Readers will note that some of the questions were discussed more extensively than others. 

Those interested in sampling the tenor of the discussions may refer to the italicized excerpts contained in each section. 

The Policy Community-Intelligence Community Nexus

The Intelligence Community Views Its Customers

 

The observation of a former senior intelligence officer that, in his experience, intelligence analysts often knew more about the countries they followed than they did about the customers they served led roundtable participants initially to debate the nature of the target audience for Intelligence Community products. One rather expansive definition held that anyone on the receiving end of an intelligence product could conceivably make policy, including, for example, a member of the armed forces in the field who chose to take action on the basis of a tactical intelligence report. Such a recipient, it was suggested, might, however, more aptly be considered a policy “implementer” than a policy "maker."

Pursuing this line, a roundtable participant thought that "decisionmaker" might be a more useful definition in that a customer could well be a "policymaker" at one point and a “policy implementer" at another point. Moreover, the speaker suggested, as an intelligence consumer moved along this spectrum, the nature of his dialogue with analysts would change, as would the products they provided in response. 

Other participants preferred a more restrictive definition that excluded tactical-level consumers and focused on consumers at the policy level. These consumers would certainly include the president, the cabinet, the cabinet deputies, and those holding assistant secretary-level positions in the various departments. Speakers then suggested that key consumers might also include officials given special, high-level assignments; key cabinet and congressional staff members; and those heading delegations to important negotiations.

A former senior intelligence officer cautioned against trying to arrive at too precise a definition of a policymaker, arguing that identifying the audience and matching product and audience are part of the intelligence professional's job. Further to that observation, a speaker noted that the number of officials who see themselves as having a role to play in the policy process has increased, as has the number of agencies they represent, both of which increase the demands levied on the resources available to the Intelligence Community.

Discussion Excerpts

By intelligence, you could mean one of two things: you could mean information obtained clandestinely, or you could mean any product of the Intelligence Community. I assume you mean the latter, since a lot of the Intelligence Community products are derived from overtly obtained material. 

 Some intelligence providers are also players— verification has been one, covert action is another. Any intelligence operation overseas has some policy significance.

 When you add covert action to the mix and try to figure out who is the policy implementer or not . . . is the CIA officer in the field with Masood an implementer or a collector? The answer is: "Yes."

 This notion that policymakers can do intelligence as well as the Intelligence Community is flat bullshit. There's too much information. The volume is so great that any policymaker who believes that he can look at that and come up with good answers is a fool. And you ought not to provide them with intelligence anyway. But the problem is that the Intelligence Community hasn't recognized that as well. Shame on us if we can't do better than policymakers. We can get more information out of what we're collecting; we're just not doing it.

 In the last two administrations I had experience with, we spent a lot of our time trying to figure out how the people coming in functioned— what their biases and their interests were. I mean, we spent a lot of time on intelligence focused on the principal players, and it was worth every minute of it.

 

 In a sense, you could start off by making the assumption that it is inevitable that, if the machinery works well, intelligence shapes policy.

. . . I would be much happier with competent policymakers who know a lot about the subject they’re dealing with, but know enough to know that they won’t ever know as much as a really good intelligence analyst. 

We can get more informationoutof what we're collecting; we're just not doing it.

What Policymakers Want From Intelligence 

Roundtable participants recognized that policymakers desire both substantive and bureaucratic support from the Intelligence Community. On the substantive side, they want reliable information on new developments and on matters with which they are unfamiliar. They also want intelligence to inform their decisionmaking by describing the choices available to an adversary or an opposing negotiator and explaining how and why one choice or another might be preferred. On the bureaucratic side, they want intelligence to give them an edge in policy deliberations. Several speakers spoke admiringly of senior policymakers who developed a close relationship with their opposite numbers in intelligence in order to give themselves an advantage over bureaucratic rivals.

Participants with an intelligence background observed that the policymakers they have served have had quite different approaches to the Intelligence Community and different styles in dealing with their analytical interlocutors. For example, some have begun by professing little use for intelligence and much confidence in their own knowledge and ability to make policy decisions. Others have appeared awestruck by the intelligence products they were offered.

These contrasting attitudes, it was noted, have generally reached a "crossover" point at which a rough balance in approaches was achieved.

A speaker with experience in both policy and intelligence positions commented that most policymakers failed to make efficient use of the capabilities of the Intelligence Community, relying on analysts to think up the questions they should want answered. Other participants added a caveat, however. In their view, even when policymakers actively solicit input from the Intelligence Community, intelligence officers must be wary of responding to the questions in their own terms. These participants argued that, if necessary, analysts should recast the questions to make sure that their analyses are not compromised by a partisan agenda and that the issues that should be addressed are addressed.

 Several participants raised the question of bias and its role in causing intelligence failures. The discussion focused on several aspects. On the one hand, intelligence producers can be responsible for failures through erroneous assumptions or personal prejudice. Consumers, on the other hand, often cause failures through reluctance to accept intelligence they don't want to hear.

Continuing on this theme, participants recognized the practically limitless volume of information, both classified and unclassified, that is now available to policymakers. This, they added, has led many policymakers to conclude that they can do their own analysis. Several speakers noted that, although many policymakers could point to some prior foreign policy experience, this approach could be harmful because it prevents the policymaker from taking advantage of the knowledge that years of study affords analysts. 

There was agreement among participants that, despite its expense and inefficiency, having more than one intelligence agency competing for the consumer's attention has generally served the country well. Several speakers added that they would not be troubled by additional competition—one example being boutiques created for a specific purpose by individual policymakers—so long as all producers were subject to the same rules. A former policymaker pointed out that the US model of an intelligence system differed from those of several key allies, which are either more restrictive or more freewheeling.

The same former policymaker reminded participants of the commonly held view that intelligence analysts almost always tend toward pessimism in their appraisals because they are more likely to be criticized for failing to predict an untoward event than for making a call that turns out to be wrong. Policymakers, on the other hand, tend to be optimists. Occasionally, however, when they are reluctant to take action on some issue, policymakers are happy to receive a pessimistic assessment. Such conjunctures, he noted, work against policy change and discourage innovative thinking. 

A speaker commented on the difficulty analysts encounter in gaining acceptance for scenarios with non-linear outcomes. This prompted another participant to lament that war gaming, which sometimes produced such results by bringing analysts and policymakers together in structured exercises, had fallen into disuse in recent years. 

Discussion Excerpts 

But one of the things I observed is that some administrations came in saying, “Intelligence can't help me at all. I don't like it. I don't trust it. I am not confident in it. I have my own way of thinking about problems, thank you very much. We'll take your stuff, but don't expect a great deal of interaction.” Another group came in saying, “This is an omnipotent group… [it]knows everything. I can hardly wait to embrace 'em.” All of them changed their views