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
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