There are some misconceptions about intelligence that have been pervasive throughout both our classroom discussions and media coverage of intelligence related issues. One of many issues is the myth of perfect intelligence. Keep in mind, much of this is observational after years in the Intelligence Community and some is opinion built out of those observations.
The myth of perfect intelligence has four significant elements: cooperation, primacy, completeness, and clarity; all of these elements can be illustrated as a puzzle. The common delusion about intelligence is the IC comes together, everyone bringing their pieces of a single 150 piece puzzle and completing the puzzle which, like the picture on the box, is a crystal-clear picture of a halted terror attack.
So, let’s break down the fallacies one at a time.
One of the major findings of the 9-11 Commission was the IC was too fractured to effectively identify threats before it was too late; this was the motivating factor for creating the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (currently held by James Clapper). Many strides forward on this issue have been taken, but there are still problems with sharing and getting along. Classification guidelines are designed to prevent any one person from knowing too much, which often makes intelligence sharing very difficult. These guidelines, while prohibitive, exist to protect the US from grave harm. Another significant (and in my opinion dangerous) problem is rice bowling; intelligence is, like most things, owned by someone, whether that someone be a department within a government agency vying for more money, or an intelligence contractor vying for bonuses. Rice bowling is the hesitancy of these organizations and individuals that control and own intelligence to share because they are concerned less with the mission and more with the bottom line.
The US and her allies are also under attack from many different directions. Terrorists, Communists, Anarchists, Fundamentalists, Socialists (except for you, Europe *wink*), and other –ists and –isms all have stake in bringing us to our knees, or at the very least, down a peg or two. Every individual with beef against the US that also has the means to be a threat presents another puzzle that needs to be put together in order to prevent that threat. There are tens of thousands of requirements levied on the IC to provide hundreds of millions of pieces of data to defend against every threat, and the IC must pay attention to every threat. The IC can’t dedicate every resource available to one problem.
Completeness and clarity often present together. Often, decisions need to be made by commanders and policy makers with a deadline in mind and it is not always possible to have complete information before that deadline arrives. If all information were available about one topic there is no guarantee the result of that information would be worthwhile. Rarely is there a Jack Bauer out there pulling the key piece of information out of a broken terrorist at the last minute; more often than not, information comes across like “there may be an attack someplace in the US sometime in the next little while.”
I think the puzzle metaphor is apt, but the details of the story are idealized. More accurately, the Intelligence Community reluctantly acknowledges each other but refuses to share puzzle pieces because of fundamentalist adherence to classification guidelines and rice bowling. Each organization has a only few pieces each of 30,000 different puzzles, none of which will be completed until well after a decision must be made about that puzzle; even if the IC manages to put that puzzle together enough to develop a reasonable picture, that picture on the box is a polar bear in the Arctic during a blizzard.
I really liked this post. The humor within it made it easy to read and easy to understand. I also think you make a good point about how it is nearly impossible to get a perfectly clear picture of every threat to the United States, no matter how hard we are working on it. I didn't really know much about this topic before reading your post, but it does make me more inclined to look into the IC and find out more information. Overall, I thought it was really interesting and compelling--after all, if the intelligence community can't even share information amongst one another, how are we ever supposed to put together the extensive puzzle and where is Jack Bauer when you need him?
ReplyDeleteThis was a really unique post for this blog-both in terms of subject matter and the insider perspective you have of the intelligence community. It seems to me that is relatively clear who the common enemy that poses the largest threat to American security is: terrorists (most commonly outside of the border) whose goal is to weaken/harm the US as a nation and who have the capabilities to do so. I do not believe that the government is overly concerned about the socialists, communists, and anarchists that you mentioned, as there are organizations and even political parties in our own country that represent and work to promote the interests of these ideological groups. However, I buy your argument that there are organizational problems within the community and personal incentives can outweigh the importance of effectiveness and cohesion.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I sincerely enjoyed reading this post. This clarifies things for me, and I am left with an image of fluffy white bears in snow (that was your point, right!?)
ReplyDeleteI would like to focus on a new concept that I have learned about through reading your post: "rice bowling" (yum... rice). You said that "rice bowling" is the hesitancy of these organizations and individuals that control and own intelligence to share because they are concerned less with the mission and more with the bottom line. I had to Google it, and of course it mostly came up with stories about Chinese food. The proper definition is as follows: rice bowl n. in the military, a jealously protected program, project, department, or budget; a fiefdom. Etymological Note: Perhaps related to the Chinese concept of the rice bowl as a metaphor for the basic elements required to live, as seen, for example, in the iron rice bowl, employment that is guaranteed for life. (source:http://www.waywordradio.org/rice_bowl/) I think this is very interesting. The military should be able to rice bowl and protect the information that they have, if it is in the best interest and safety of the state and the military personnel. However, this will lead to imperfect intelligence and some military branches, institutions, political leaders, and common citizens alike from making decisions without knowing all the information; therefore making decisions with a skewed framework. A very interesting conundrum.
I think Nic brought up a lot of good points backed up with good understandable facts in the article. I know that this is very common in the military, although I am pretty sure that since 9/11 we have been taking steps to centralize our intelligence. Many operations now are more joint than ever integrating all of the branches. With this in mind I would imagine it would help to eliminate that rice bowl problem. Another point would be how the CIA plays a part in this. I am not very familiar with the integration between the military and the CIA, but I would imagine the most secrecy comes from the CIA and its reluctance to compromise intel by sharing it with the military. Were you able to find anything in your research about how they integrate intel amongst each other? Lastly I would really like to hear your opinion as far as what you think should be done. It is very evident that there are two sides to this dilemna: One security of information is an extremely sensitive topic, so measures need to be taken to ensure there are no leaks; on the other hand though if this is playing a negative role in the efficiency of our military prevention then channels need to be free to communicate the information. The big questions would be why is it that the CIA/Military are not cooperating effectively enough to stop this? Isn't the point of having a centralized intelligence agency to expedite the bureaucracy that comes from the rice bowl effect? These are just some of the questions I thought of when reading through your post, and was hoping maybe you would have an answer to them.
DeleteI think this post does a great job of explaining why exactly security threats often fall through the cracks and end up occurring. As Nick said, 9/11 was a good example of this, but I wonder how much we have actually substantially improved in the cohesion of our intelligence gathering since then. We have not had an attack as significant as 9/11 since 2001, but have had many close calls since then and even one attack that was carried out (Boston Marathon bombings). I wonder if there is not a way to set up a system in which better communication can be set up between these agencies without sacrificing the security of the information.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post, Nic. Concerning rice bowling, do you see a future of more cohesive intelligence community? Is there a way to integrate organizations? I thought something like this had been done post 9/11, with the DHS. I hope that we see more posts concerning misconceptions of intelligence.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely an enjoyable blog post. Unfortunately, I don't know if there will be an effective way of centralizing the intelligence community in our lifetime. With so many different branches of intelligence all involved in many different things, it is hard (as you mentioned) to put that information together cohesively and work forward from it. With the creation of the Director of National Intelligence position, you'd think there would be an increase in successful collaborations between the heads of the departments. Of course, with the secret nature of the intelligence community, this is something we may never be able to see or measure. There is also the question of whether the intelligence community has too much power. With Greystone, the largest covert operation since the height of the Cold War quickly put in place after the 9/11 attacks, the CIA was now in front of the military with Bush’s authorization of a covert international war. Definitely makes you wonder what all is happening out there. Shout out for the Jack Bauer reference as well!
ReplyDeleteThis post was great to read and easy to keep reading along! I do agree that it can be very hard to find the viable intelligence as well as effectively determine what steps need to be taken in certain situations and who is going to carry them out. It can be hard to be able to have the perfect timing in order to come up with the right decision and weigh the costs along with those decisions.
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