AND MENIIONPAPEKSFOKZOO I a- I 052$ 5 was waive c TH-Hnmawu m RELEASEE1DATE kw 1 From the Director of Central Intelligence The Intelligence Community has always needed bold thinking Today we need it as much as ever to bring about transformative change Thus I am very pleased to present to the Intelligence Community the results of the first Galileo Awards competition for innovative ideas for the future of US intelligence The call for papers last summer prompted entries from all across the Community The authors who submitted their works ranged from junior officers to senior executives and their proposals covered the gamut of the intelligence business The submissions offered suggestions relevant to every agency and every discipline The overall quality of the papers and their proposals was high a factor that made it very challenging for the judging committee to award the nal prizes Indeed the enthusiasm and creativity which the Galileo Awards process generated shows that the Intelligence Community employs no insignificant number of men and women who want to improve our institutions and methods to meet the challenges our nation faces Now our task is to engage the best of the ideas presented in this collection to discuss them add to them and find a way to integrate their creative value into the vital work of our Community Porter J Goss Director of Central Intelligence From the Director Strategic Management Issues Office U The creation of our of ce approximately one year ago re ected a recognition on the part of the senior leadership of the Intelligence Community IC that we need to seek bold creative solutions to our nation s next national security challenges Our charter is to promote a broad thoughtful exchange of revolutionary change options for the future of US Intelligence The Galileo Awards program has served as a powerful example of the outstanding potential of tapping into the wealth of talent and ideas that reside at all levels of seniority and responsibility in the IC U The Galileo Awards Program was conceived last spring as a call to IC officers challenging them to submit unclassified papers written on their own time with creative ideas for the future of our business Instead of equating change with reform or reorganization we were looking for innovative ways to2 change how US Intelligence operates in all its dimensions Our belief was and remains that the IC must establish a process for dynamic reinvention rather than implement one-time overarching reorganization We must transform the Community into an organization that continuously learns and adapts to accommodate change and this kind of dynamic evolution cannot occur without the full participation and creative energy of all IC staff officers U By the September deadline we received some 130 papers from officers all over the IC and indeed all over the world The papers were stripped of identifying information and were evaluated in two rounds of judging by experts from inside and outside of the IC using four criteria subject matter scale and scope innovation and originality and literary quality In November I served as chair of a a ve-member panel that selected three papers for awards and identi ed ten papers for honorable mention Also participating in the final panel were William Nolte Deputy ADCI for Analysis and Production Erv Rokke Intelligence Science Board member and CIA University and Jeffery Cooper SAIC U We are extremely pleased with the high quality of the papers included in the collection They cover a wide range of topics and many points of View They provide us a marvelous starting place for further discussions on many critical issues for our future At the heart of the Galileo program has been the goal to promote a continuous dialogue throughout the IC about innovative ideas not necessarily the championing of any specific solution or proposal Our hope is that broad discussion of the ideas contained in these papers will inspire others in the IC to come forward with additional creative and well considered ideas for how we can continue to build a successful future for US Intelligence Deborah G Barger Director Strategic Management Issues Office -Contents The 2004 Galileo Award Winners The Wiki and the Blog By page 7 Redefining the First Customer Transforming Intelligence Analysis through Peer-Reviewed Publications page 23 Dynamic Adaptation A Twenty First Century Intelligence Paradigm page 35 Honorable Mention Constellation page 51 From Stovepipes to a Web Adanting Intelink s Gated Communities for the Networked World page 61 Intelligence Infonnation System Audit Log Analysis Transforming IC Mission Performance and Collection Evaluation Processes page 69 Rethinkin Anal tic Tradecraft By a C f cm serving under cover overseas page 83 Science and Intelligence Analysis The Requirement for Critical Thinking Training in the Intelligence Community page 97 The order in which the winning and honorable mention papers are listed was determined by a random processma i l i Honorable Mention continued Starting Over - By Carmen Medina CIA page 111 Avoiding Intelligence Failure An Approach to Recurring Self-Diagnosis by IC Senior Managers page 121 It s Not Rocket Science The Limits of Analysis and the Requirement for a Complement page 133 The Intelligence Community of the Future 1 page 143 Let s Proceed to Plan Because It Will Support Plan Basic Agency Reform By Michael Mears CIA page 153 H A Wiki and Blog The Wiki and the Blog Problem Statement US policymakers warfighters and law enforcers now operate in a real time worldwide decision and implementation environment Information about a new development in Baghdad is known in Washington within minutes Decisions about a response are made in Washington within minutes These decisions are implemented in Baghdad within minutes of the decision The total intelligence decision implementation cycle time can be as short as 15 minutes While this is an extreme enample it highlights the tremendous compression of the response time required by all involved compared to previous generations This severe compression not only affects the highest priority issues it also ripples back into the most routine intelligence decision and implementation processes It does so for good reason The compressed response cycle gives the United States signi cant strategic and tactical superiority over our adversaries Our national security is best protected when we operate more quickly than those who would do harm to our people and our freedom This compressed response time allows us to disrupt interdict preempt and respond to injurious efforts before our adversaries can achieve their goals against us This compression is not just a preferred work style within the US National Security Community It is a characteristic of the way the world works in the 21St Century Thus not only do we respond more quickly but also the circumstances to which we respond in and of themselves develop more quickly These rapidly changing circumstances take on lives of their own which are dif cult or impossible to anticipate or predict The US National Security Community and the Intelligence Community within it is faced with the issue of how to operate in a security environment that by its nature is changing rapidly in ways we cannot predict A simple answer is that the Intelligence Community by its nature must change rapidly in ways we cannot predict What was that How can we change ourselves in ways we cannot predict More directly how do we modify our nature to enable such unpredictable changes Before giving the right answer there is a wrong answer that can be dismissed up front -reorganizatio'n Any reorganization by its nature is both predictable and slow By the time any particular reorganization has taken effect the causes that spawned it will have been replaced by new and different causes The reorganization is thus not suited to address these new and different causes All major restructurings are based on the Wiki and Blog assumption that we can take the recent past and predict the future Such assumptions may have been reasonable in previous centuries but not in this one The only way to meet the continuously unpredictable challenges ahead of us is to match them with continuously unpredictable changes of our own We must transform the Intelligence Community into a Community that dynamically reinvents itself by continuously learning and adapting as the national security environment changes Unless we in the Intelligence Community allow ourselves this ability to change we cannot hope to fulfill our mission to ensure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense and secure the blessings of liberty US Constitution preamble for our fellow citizens from those whose aim it is to deprive us of these values Theoretical Development To describe a Community that dynamically reinvents itself by continuously learning and adapting in response to environmental changes harks to theoretical developments in the philosophy of science that matured in the 1990 s collectively known as Complexity Theory Lewin 1992 Complexity theory arises out of a rich and diverse intellectual heritage Four significant theoretical building blocks undergird Complexity Theory The scope of this paper only allows for a brief mention of these building blocks though Complexity Theory itself will be treated in more detail over the next couple of pages Brie y the four building blocks are 0 General System Theory von Bertalanffy 1968 This theory was formulated in the 1930 s and 1940 s as a reaction to the then-popular theory of reductionism that asserted in order to understand a phenomenon one only had to decompose it into its components System Theory elevated the system itself as the subject of inquiry independent of its parts 0 Information Theory Shannon 1948 This theory is built on the premise that no communication channel is error free that is random errors are always introduced into the message in spite of error-correction routines Shannon showed how to transmit correct messages in noisy channels Moreover he showed that the noise in the channel was information in and of itself and thus can be used to transmit messages There is meaning in the noise Chaos Theory Lorenz 1993 This theory dates from Lorenz s 1963 article in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences where he showed that minor differences in the beginning of a weather pattern produced unpredictably large differences in how the weather pattern played out He summarized this observation in the title of his 1972 address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science Predictability Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas The unpredictability of outcomes due to small changes in initial conditions has thus come to be known as The Butter y Effect 0 Fractal Theory Mandelbrot 1977 This theory took shape with Mandelbrot s 1968 paper entitled How Long is the Coastline of Britain He demonstrated that Wiki and Blog ruler got smaller the length of the coastline increased He also showed that at ever- increasing smaller scales of observation the coastline - remained constantly jagged He discovered this pattern in many natural phenomena such as mountains While a mountain rises from the surface of the earth into the third dimension as we get farther out into space it looks increasingly flat compared to the total earth s surface From space the mountain does not rise a full dimension from the surface of the earth but just a fraction of a dimension Something that exhibits this partial dimensionality is called a fractal Fractals also exhibit consistent complexity regardless of the scale at which they are observed Four Examples As an introduction to Complexity Theory itself four examples of common phenomenon that express various concepts of Complexity Theory will be summarized below Following the examples an explanation of Complexity Theory will be given Example One In one of the foundational treatises of modern Western thought Adam Smith s 1776 Wealth of Nations describes how individuals in pursuing their own economic self interest create a market for goods and services This market has an invisible hand that decides which goods and services survive over time and which do not It is invisible in the sense that no individual or group of individuals decides what the market should produce or consume It just happens out of the aggregated actions of large numbers of individuals The individuals are only trying to make their own lives better Out of their collective and self organized behavior market behavior emerges This market behavior is different from individual behavior The market dynamically adapts prices in response to unpredictable supplies and demands The market is able to do this because of continuous learning on the part of and information feedback to the individual purveyors and consumers of goods and services Markets are essentially bottom up self-regulated enterprises that become incredibly complex Indeed global markets emerge even when individuals behave locally For example German demand for bananas stimulates banana production in the South Pacific Neither the German buyers nor the South Paci c suppliers need to travel to participate in the market though some intermediary shippers do travel The market price conveys information about the behavior of both the German consumers and the South Paci c providers Moreover billions of goods and services are supplied to people around the world and no central authority is needed to manage a list of what goods and services are to be produced and delivered where at what price Two and a half centuries of experience with free markets teaches us however that markets are subject to manipulation distortion and out-of-control spirals We impose -9- Freshwater Wiki and Blog rules on markets to ameliorate the worst of these effects These take the forms of trade agreements taxes and regulations with criminal and civil penalties In sum markets are complex adaptive systems with properties that emerge out of simple behaviors by a large number of self organized individuals The sum is greater than the parts Example Two The mathematician Alan Turing is considered to be one of the fathers of the discipline of computer science for his work in formalizing algorithmic computation He was also an intelligence officer during WWII leading the effort to the German Enigma Machine In the last paper written before his death Turing 1952 he addressed himself to the subject of the Freshwater Hydra and the leaves of plants Turing worked out a mathematical model showing that relatively simple homogeneous sets of chemical agents following relatively simple rules generate quite complex biological structures such as tentacles of the Hydra and the leaf patterns of plants While guided by strict rules these biological structures dynamically adapt to their changing and somewhat unpredictable environment of varying combinations of sun water nutrients and predators etc From the same chemical base each hydra has a unique tentacle set Similarly from the same chemical base each plant of a particular species has a unique - placement of leaves and each leaf has a different structure The important point is that in the face of external changes complex systems can change albeit in unpredictable but adaptive ways Example three Jane Jacobs 1961 shows that decisions by many individuals about where to locate their homes and businesses create neighborhoods with distinctive properties These distinctive neighborhoods persist even though individuals are constantly moving in and moving out Similar kinds of people are attracted to similar neighborhoods Some neighborhoods do change over time in response to Chan ges in the environment Other neighborhoods both exclusive and slum resiliently maintain their character in spite of city planners best efforts For example the silk merchants in Florence Italy have inhabited the same neighborhood for over 500 years People taking into account both the external environment and what the other people or businesses in their neighborhood are doing decide to move or stay This collective self organizing behavior determines how the neighborhood emerges and adapts Example four Deborah Gordon 1999 dispels the of the ant queen For many years entomologists thought the ant queen exerted a controlling organizing in uence over her colony In fact individual ants make individual decisions about what activities to perform from a limited set of behaviors based on what their nearest neighbors are doing For example if too many ants are cleaning a particular area of the colony an individual ant will decide to go hunt food Adherence to simple rules at an individual level allows ant colonies at the group level to respond to both strategic seasonal and tactical predatory changes in their environment From a limited set of -10- individual self organized behaviors an ant colony emerges and survives for more than a decade Wiki and Blog Complexity Theory The Santa Fe Institute founded in 1984 and The Center for Complex Systems Research founded in 1986 at the University of Illinois have inspired a body of work Johnson 2001 that articulates a coherent framework of complex adaptive systems The six critical components of a complex adaptive system are l Self organization individuals people ants chemicals decide to act in similar ways in proximity to and in concert with each other for their own reasons For example two boys independently shooting hoops decide to go one on one to 20 points In addition a critical mass of individuals is required for self organization to happen 2 Emergence the whole is greater than the sum of the parts For example twelve Canadian Geese ying in a is more than just 12 individual geese ying The group behavior is distinct from the individual behavior 3 Relationships individuals look at their nearest neighbors to try and figure out what is happening so they can make decisions For example House Speaker Tip O Neil declared All politics is local By this he meant that people vote for national leaders on the basis of what is happening in and around one s home It doesn t matter what the national unemployment rate is it only matters what the local unemployment rate is 4 Feedback information circulates in the system is modified by others and then comes back to in uence the behavior of the originator either as a positive amplified or negative dampened in uence For example an ant crosses a pheromone trail it previously laid down The ant says to itself I ve already been here so I d better wander somewhere else It is also important that the historical memory of the system be part of the feedback amplifying or dampening loop 5 Adaptability the system is open so that information and or energy ows in and out of the system This new information enters into the feedback loops and in uences the behavior of the individuals and thus the overall behavior of the system adapts to the external environment For example think of a group of kids engaged in unsupervised play in the basement as a self organized system When the dad opens the basement door and yells everyone gets an ice cream cone when the toys are picked up and closes the door he adds new external information into the system The kids adapt to the external in uence by stopping play and putting the toys away Systems that are l continuously open to new information from the environment and 2 circulate the information within the system will continuously change in response 6 Non-Linearity Small changes in the initial conditions or external environment have large unpredictable consequences in the outcomes of the system also known as the Butter y Effect cited earlier For example when the dad yells down the stairs for ice cream the kids adapt by fighting over who made which mess In the ruckus they knock over a shelf that breaks one child s arm The dad did not predict he would be going to the emergency room by offering ice cream to the children -11- Wiki and Blog Positive Feedback Amplifying Simple Self 0rganized Local Relationships This graphic depicts these six characteristics From simple self organized personal relationships emerges complex behavior Information from the external environment enters the system and impinges on these relationships as either positive or negative feedback The personal relationships are changed and the complex behavior adapts Complex systems that under-adapt such as snow akes present us with a model that is too staid for our use Complex systems that over adapt such as the 1994 Rwandan massacres of more than one million people are too chaotic for our use The best complex adaptive systems are those that are poised on the edge of chaos These vibrant systems thrive by continuously learning and adapting to the continuous changes in the environment They have achieved a healthy circulation of positive amplifying and negative dampening feedback in the system Network Centric Warfare There has been a recent attempt to apply the principles of complexity theory to govemment wspecifically to the military services The Department of Defense DOD is subject to the same response time compression as the Intelligence Community The understands that the command and control regimes that worked in the 20th Century do not serve as well in the 21 In response they are pursuing an effort called Network Centric Warfare NCW which is being championed by the Office of Force Transformation OFT and supported by the Command and Control Research Program CCRP both under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command Control Communications and Intelligence While Network Centric Warfare has its detractors it nevertheless does offer an example for the Intelligence Community -12- Wiki and Blog Alberts Garstka and Stein 1999 p2 define NCW as an information superiority-enabled concept of operations that generates increased combat power by networking sensors decisionmakers and shooters to achieve shared awareness increased speed of command higher tempo of operations greater lethality increased survivability and a degree of In essence NCW translates information superiority into combat power by effectively linking knowledgeable entities in the battlespace Wilson 2004 p2 identi es four main objectives of NCW 1 or doing what needs to be done without traditional orders 2 Improved understanding of higher command s intent 3 Improved understanding of the operational situation at all levels of command and 4 Increased ability to tap into the collective knowledge of all U S and coalition forces to reduce the fog and friction commonly referred to in descriptions of ghting The impact of NCW was seen in Operation Iraqi Freedom Only about 250 000 US troops were deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom compared to the nearly 500 000 US troops that were deployed a decade earlier in Operation Desert Storm Individual units were smaller and moved faster Because units knew the location of other nearby units without line of sight they spread out in a swarm fashion If one unit got into trouble the other nearby units gave aid by converging on the enemy from all directions Knowing the location of nearby units greatly reduced friendly fire accidents Because the high-priority objectives were clear there was no need to secure all of the rear Units could hit the heart of the enemy command and thus disable enemy units on the periphery without having to engage them When units encountered difficult obstacles they could engage experts off the battlefield in real time sometimes as far away as Washington to help solve problems Moreover units moved more quickly because damage and opportunity aSsessments were made and conveyed during'the battle rather than waiting for overnight analysis What were the key ingredients that helped make NCW a winning component in Operation Iraqi Freedom The units were highly trained professional warriors Not only were they experts in the use of their advanced equipment and well practiced in the tactical art of battle they knew the rules of engagement and the strategic and tactical objectives Thus enabled they were trusted to act on their own in the battlefield From the thousands of deployed units each pursuing their own tactical objectives emerged an integrated land air and sea force unparalleled in human history No other military on earth can match the effectiveness of the US Military Application To Intelligence The objective that was identified at the outset of this paper was that the Intelligence Community must be able to dynamically reinvent itself by continuously learning and adapting as the national security environment changes Complexity Theory tells us that -13- Wiki and Blog we can only achieve this objective if several conditions exist Enabling these conditions will be a big change for the Intelligence Community but if we are serious about succeeding in improving ourselves it is imperative that these changes be made 1 Intelligence Officers must be enabled to act more on their own Just as people in a market are empowered to make their own purchases and individual ants in a colony can decide which task to perform and military units are able to choose battlefield tactics in real-time so too intelligence officers must be allowed to react min independent self- organized ways etc deveIOpments in the National Security environment 2 Intelligence Offices must be more expert in Tradecraft It is this expertise that engenders the trust required for independent action Military units know the rules of engagement and are thus entrusted to engage in battle Ants have a hardwired rule set which enables the colony Cities are built on the rules that govern property deeds titles and liens Expertise in tradecraft for each intelligence discipline must become a constant quest for each of cer 3 Intelligence Officers must share much more information Just as military units in the field must know where other units are located in geographic Space intelligence for example must know where their colleagues across the Community are located in intellectual space This knowledge results from sharing information From the previously cited examples we understand that information sharing among individuals allows market niches to be filled ants to fend off predator attacks and plants to distribute themselves in the ecosystem Increased information sharing among Intelligence officers will allow these Intelligence officers to self-organize to reSpond in near real time to National Security concerns 4 Intelligence Offices must receive more feedback from the National Security environment The only way to learn from and adapt to the changing National Security environment is to be in constant receipt of feedback from that environment Just as zoo raised animals cannot compete in the wild intelligence officers Cloistered in the Intelligence Community are not adapted to or fitted for the National Security environment 5 Intelligence Managers must be more persuasive about strategic obiectives Quadrennial strategic directions are good but these directions must become part of the everyday dialog at all levels in the Community Many intelligence officers with their noses to the grindstones know little about the overall strategic intelligence objectives One must know how one s own piece of work fits into the overall intelligence mosaic because the intelligence mosaic is constantly changing and thus one s own piece must constantly change to remain well-fitted Intelligence managers must be constantly communicating their constantly changing objectives Intelligence officers will in turn adapt About 1843 the newest and largest western frontier city larger than Chicago or St Louis was also the most orderly and well kept A visiting dignitary asked the mayor of Nauvoo Illinois how he managed so many people so well He replied teach them correct principles and they govern themselves Taylor 1851 This sound bite encapsulates the spirit of what Complexity Theory suggests as a model for the Wiki and Blog ar a'lOW dinformaticn UponzritWilthinja simple are allowed to share information and act upon it within a simple tradecraft regime will emerge an Intelligence 9 Intelligence Community From intelligence of cers who 9 8 Community that continuously and dynamically reinvents I itself in response to the needs of the national security a environment dynamically Self-Organizing Tools reinvents At first blush and in the context of how the intelligence i Communlty now operates the five prescriptions seem 1 1 - - almost ridiculous especially the two most important ones about information sharing and independent selfdorganized action The good news is that in the last four years there have been technology advances that make implementing such prescriptions easier than one might initially think There is a new generation of Internet tools that enable people to self-organize around shared knowledge The first of these self organizing tools is known as Wiki pronounced whicky and is named after the Hawiian term Wiki wiki which means fast Wiki tools allow 1 any person to add content to a web site and 2 any other person to edit the content The most famous implementation of Wiki is the Wikipedia This is an created and edited by Internet users It has been in existence since 2001 and now has over 300 000 entries in over 100 different languages By comparison the 2004 edition of the 32-volume an Britannica contains just over 65 000 entries see 5 lg-g if store britannica com Other Wikis include dictionaries books i A quotations and document collections TbaFm' E tjidopm d The Wikipedia has an interesting and innovative tradecraft or a rule set to which contributors and editors must abide All content contributions are self initiated There is no editor in-chief Because all contributors are also editors when a person notices an article that needs content revisions or does not abide by the rules that person makes the edit All previous versions of the article are available and all changes are attributable Another wiki rule for the is that explicit or implicit points of View are out of bounds These are edited out quickly There are privileged contributors with administrative powers beyond the normal contributor They can adjudicate disputes among contributors The existing administrators confer administrative powers to a person on the basis of the quantity and quality of that person s contributions If a person disengages from performing administrative duties the privileges are revoked -15- - Wiki and Blog The rules themselves are also subject to the Wiki process Any person can introduce changes at any time Disputes over the rules can be escalated to a board of administrators In sum from the little bits of work by many many people following simple rules of content contribution and editing the most comprehensive and authoritative and bias free in the world has been produced in three years This is an that is dynamically and constantly changing in response to the world as the world itself is changing The lists of medals received in the 2004 Athens Olympics were updated as the events concluded No manager made the assignment No editor in chief reviewed the accuracy It happened as if by magic A person took the initiative to update the entries and hundreds or possibly thousands of others reviewed the content for quality One of the Wikipedia s is also a weakness no points of View Much of the self-corrective knowledge that exists in the Intelligence Cdmmunity exists in personal points of view Currently there exists almost no official outlet for points of view in the Intelligence Community A healthy market of debatable ideas emerges from the sharing of points of view From the ideas that prosper in a market will arise the adaptive behaviors the Intelligence Community must adopt in order to respond to the changing national security environment Not all good ideas originate at the top A second self organizing information-sharing tool has matured in the last few years It is called blogging The term comes from web log shortened to blog A blog is a journal or diary that is kept in the public space of the Internet Individuals maintain their own blogs on an hourly daily weekly or periodic basis They are their own editors Current blogging technology makes it easy to manage one s blog see for example Most blogs take the form of citing a current event and offering a point of view about it Often one blog will cite a comment in another blog and comment on it The blogosphere is truly a marketplace of ideas Enabling intelligence officers across the Community to express and share opinions may be one of the largest paradigm shifts for the IC It will be uncomfortable for some because it will be in the blogosphere where the Community will ride along the edge of chaos The blogosphere probably will obey the 99-to-1 Edison rule Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration from wikiquotescom For every ninety-nine mediocre ideas there will likely be only one brilliant idea The few brilliant ideas however are worth the investment of many mediocre and chaotic ones It is these few brilliant ideas that will provide the direction for the Community to adapt to the changing national security environment The few brilliant ideas will survive in the market place of ideas As individual blogs comment on each other s ideas the brilliant ideas will spread as feedback throughout the Community Individuals recognizing the Wiki and Blog brilliance will respond From this self-organized response will emerge the adaptive behavior required of the Community Three Wrapper Technologies The Wiki and the Blog are complimentary companion technologies that together form the core workspace that will allow intelligence officers to share innovate adapt respond and be--on occasion brilliant Blogs will cite Wiki entries The occasional brilliant blog comment will shape the Wiki The Blog will be vibrant and make many sea changes in real time The Wiki as it matures will serve as corporate knowledge and will not be as ckle as the Blog The Wiki will be authoritative in nature while the Blog will be highly agile The Blog is personal and opinionated The Wiki is agreed-upon and corporate The Wiki and Blog however while standing together cannot stand by themselves Intelligence officers need a of intelligence froni which to build the Wiki and about which to comment in the Blog Such a would be a Community wide intelligence repository patterned after SAFE or CIRAS These repositories are largely disordered out of context piles of cables That is okay The intelligence repository is like unrefined ore The repository could actually be many federated databases The Blog and the Wiki serve as successive re ning processes for the unrefined ore in the intelligence repository The Blog would vet comment and establish context for the intelligence This extracted intelligence knowledge from the intelligence repository would be placed in the well organized Wiki Both the Wiki and the Blog would link back to authoritative source documents in the repository While an intelligence repository is required under the Wiki and the Blog two more technologies are required above them One is a search technology and the other is a feedback technology Part of the agility required in todayis high speed national security environment is to be able to quickly find information One needs the ability to search for specific knowledge within or across the Wiki or the Blog or the Intelligence Repository in a Google like fashion While most intelligence officers are quite familiar with search technology we are less acquainted with feedback technologies These technologies are often in and of themselves self-organizing For example we might want to know which cables in the repository were most cited by the Blog over the last 24 hours This feedback lets the visitor quickly know what the Community thinks is important It also lets the originator of the cable understand its impact Feedback technologies let visitors know what areas of the Wiki are changing most rapidly as an indicator of newly vetted knowledge Feedback technologies can utilize subscription techniques such as send me an alert when more than 10 people have read my blog Wikipediacorn makes extensive use of these feedback technologies on its homepage Another feedback Internet site has dozens of real-time lists frorn the top words to the top blog -17- Wiki and Blog postings to and the top sources cited Its Top 40 list not only gives the current ranking but whether the ranking is going up or down Feedback technologies are an integral part of the solution suggested by Complexity Theory As important as information sharing is to the success of the solution it is even more important to know who is sharing what information This allows intelligence officers to accurately understand where they are in the intellectual space of the Intelligence Community It also allows intelligence officers to see what gaps exist and where changes need to be made The feedback technologies allow an agile reading of the current state of play across the wide expanse of the Repository the Wiki and the Blog Together these five technologies Repository Wiki Blog Search Feedback would allow the Community to start down the path of implementing the five mission recommendations self organization tradecraft information sharing feedback and strategic communication suggested by Complexity Theory The Technology Stack Inl lligenca Reposiln wceu Amt-at rr utter-inn an A Sharing Space We need a space for change that is not organization dependent remember reorganizations are not part of the solution set We need a'space to begin implementing the five mission changes that is independent of organization We need a space that is open not just to the Intelligence Community but also to other non intelligence national security elements to allow sharing and feedback We need a space with a suf ciently large critical mass of intelligence officers We need a space that is neither organizationally nor geographically nor temporally bound We need a secure space that can host a corporate knowledge repository We need a exible space that supports tools for self organizing Wiki information sharing Blog searching and feedback as previously mentioned We need a place in which tradecraft procedures can be implemented In short we need a space that is always on ubiquitously distributed and secure We need an electronic network We need Secret Internet Protocol Router Network is managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency It is widely accessible by intelligence officers and other national security officers alike It has been deployed to every Embassy and every Military Command It is a more attractive experimental sharing space than the Top Secret Community Network JWICS because a critical mass accesses it Policy Community officers access it the tradecraft security rules are simpler and it reaches all organizations and geographic locations Moreover is designed to host the -18- Wiki and Blog Internet-based tools outlined above Once the Wiki and the Blog processes and content mature on SIPRNet that is once the IC embraces the mission changes and becomes proficient in the use of the technology the Wiki and Blog could be replicated on the Top Secret network Concept 0f Operations Lipnak and Stamps 1997 in their seminal work on virtual communities identify four necessary conditions for success a critical mass trust content and purpose 0 Critical Mass Because the mission changes need to pervade the entire Community the technology needs to be available to every officer in the Community Because the Community must operate symbiotically with the Policy Community Policy Community officers must also have access to the technology For the feedback mechanisms to work there must be suf cient numbers of participants from the various intelligence disciplines across the Community To ensure the widest participation the barriers to entry must be extremely low This means the resources for deploying and operating these systems must be borne at the Community level and provided as a common service for all All users must be allowed to search the intelligence repository edit the Wiki author a Blog create links among these three and get feedback This means not only must the software be easy to use but also self-registration and self authorization services must be trivial - Trust As mentioned before trust arises from tradecraft Technical tradecraft has already secured the network Technical tradecraft will also secure the tools and data Procedural tradecraft in terms of the rules of use must be explicit and easily accessible Security tradecraft has already cleared the users of Applicable analytic and operational tradecraft principles must be identified and promulgated For Complexity Theory to work the procedural analytic and operational tradecraft rules must be simple 0 Content All intelligence organizations will need to identify content they can place into a Community intelligence repository on The repository will likely be a number of federated databases For hyperlinks to work the objects in the repository must persist and the address to the objects must be permanent There will need to be some priming of the Wiki and the Blog so the content is sufficiently broad and deep to have value In the beginning some resources must be devoted on a full time basis to bring the tools into full operational capability 0 Purpose This is where Community leadership as well as feedback from the rest of the National Security environment plays a key role There are strategic intermediate and tactical purposes that must be communicated A few Community seniors may want to author a blog These would be sure to get high readership Posting strategic directions into the repository would also work Conclusions This paper identi ed a pressing Intelligence Community issue namely that the Intelligence Community must transform itself into a Community that dynamically -19- Wiki and Blog reinvents itself by continuously learning and adapting as the national security environment changes The paper elucidated the principles from an exceptionally rich and exceedingly deep theory Complexity Theory about how the world works and has shown how these principles apply to the Intelligence Community These principles include self organization information sharing feedback tradecraft and leadership The paper argues that from intelligence officers who are allowed to share information and act upon it within a simple tradecraft regime will emerge an Intelligence Community that continuously and dynamically reinvents itself in response to the needs of the national security environment Lipnack and Stamps 1997 make a case that a successful virtual community is 90 percent culture and 10 percent technology The most profound culture change will be for Intelligence managers to let go of their officers the same way the battlefield commanders have let go of their battlefield troops Managers must trust-i their officers to directly share with each other and directly with the Policy Community Intelligence managers role will become less command and control and more teacher of tradecraft and communicator of purpose and objectives The Intelligence Community will need to put into place powerful incentives and rewards for managers to change Indeed Intelligence Officers must feel encouraged by their managers to spend their workday engaged in sharing activities These changes will allow the dynamic learning community to emerge Recognizing that these changes in attitude and work processes will be challenging to implement the paper recommended some first steps It was suggested that recent self- organizing and information sharing tools from the Internet the Wiki and the Blog be deployed on the Wrapping these tools in an intelligence repository a search tool and feedback reporting would complete the technology package This paper also suggested a few process principles critical mass trust content and purpose for success to be deployed along with the technology The Intelligence Community is under extreme political pressure in the wake of the 9 11 Report National Commission 2004 and the Senate s report on pre-war intelligence U S Senate 2004 If ever there was a time for the Community to re examine its modus operandi it is now Our political leaders are now demanding these changes from us Bush 2004 The changes in mindset suggested in this paper are signi cant Enabling intelligence officers to independently express their point of view in a Community-wide setting is groundbreaking Equally avant-garde is letting intelligence officers create a body of intelligence knowledge without an editor in chief Moreover inviting our Policy Community counterparts at State Homeland Security etc to be full participants in these information sharing activities is breathtaking If anything however these changes are timid compared to the changes required to bring the Community into the 21St Century We must act or we will certainly be acted upon May we have the will to overcome our inertia and succeed in our efforts -20Wiki and Blog References Alberts David S John J Garstka and Frederick P Stein 1999 Network Centric Warfare Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority 2 Cl Edition Revised Washington DC C4ISR Cooperative Research Program Bush George W 2004 Executive Order Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans Washington DC The White House 27 August 2004 Gordon Deborah 1999 Ants at Work How an Insect Society is Organized New York The Free Press Jacobs Jane 1961 The Death and Life of Great American Cities Vintage Books Edition 1992 New York Vintage Johnson Steven 2001 Emergence The Connected Lives of Ants Brains Cities and Software New York Touchstone Lewin Roger 1992 Complexity Life at the Edge of Chaos New York Macmillan Lipnack Jessica and Jeffrey Stamps 1997 Virtual Teams Reaching Across Space Time and Organizations with Technology New York John Wily and Sons Inc Lorenz Edward N 1963 Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences Vol 20 No 2 pp 130 148 Lorenz Edward N 1972 Predictability Does the Flap of a Butterfly s Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas A talk given to the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science as found in Lorenz 1993 pp 181-184 Lorenz Edward N 1993 The Essence of Chaos Seattle The University of Washington Press Mandelbrot BB 1967 How Long is the Coast Line of Britain Statistical Self- Similarity and Fractional Dimension Science pp 636-638 As cited in Mandelbrot 1977 Mandelbrot Benoit B 1977 The Fractal Geometry of Nature updated and augmented in 1983 New York W H Freeman and Company National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 2004 The 9 11 Commission Report Washington DC Government Printing Office PDF version available from lcommission gov Shannon CE 1948 Mathematical Theory of Communication Reprinted with corrections from The Bell System Technical Journal Vol 27 pp 379 423 623 656 July October Smith Adam 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations four volumes Edinburgh Original full text is available from the Adam Smith Institute at and from the Gutenberg Project at Taylor John 1851 Millennial Star Vol 13 p 339 As cited in the entry on Agency in Dahl Larry E and Donald Q Cannon eds 1997 The Teachings of Joseph Smith Salt Lake City Bookcraft as enhanced by Infobases Inc -21- Turing Alan 1952 The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences Vol 237 No 641 pp 37 72 US Senate 2004 Report on the US Intelligence Community s Pre war Intelligence Assessments on Iraq Washington DC Senate Select Committee on Intelligence von Bertalanffy Ludwig 1968 General System Theory New York George Braziller Wilson Clay 2004 Network Centric Warfare Background and Oversight Issues for Congress June 2 2004 CRS Report for Congress Washington DC Congressional Research Service Wiki and Blog -22 Rede ning the First Customer Redefining the First Customer Transforming Intelligence Analysis through Peer-Reviewed Publications I Introduction Recently two Congressional investigatory panels have criticized the US Intelligence Community IC for a lack of quality and rigor in its analysis It is possible that some fundamental cultural and procedural practices may negatively impact the lC s ability to analyze and produce foreign intelligence across the politieal economic and military spectrum including highly technical disciplines such as those associated with weapons of mass destruction WMD This proposal highlights the absence of a formal internal Community venue for presentation and discussion of alternate analyses as a vulnerability to the rigor of IC assessments The proposal identifies an opportunity for the IC to address this gap through creation of an internal peer-reviewed periodical targeted to circulate alternate intelligence assessments throughout the Community In the past two months Congressional investigations into the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and prewar intelligence on Iraq have noted a number of deficiencies within the IC that collectively contributed to two significant intelligence failures Foremost among these deficiencies were the propensity for group think failure to communicate across organizational barriers and tendency to streamline intelligence assessments by removing necessary caveats and alternative perspectives from drafts as the texts progress through the coordination process According to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence s SSCI Report on the US Intelligence Community s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Irag a series of failures particularly in analytic tradecraft led to the mischaracterization of intelligence 1 Specifically the IC suffered from a collective presumption this group think dynamic led IC to both interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program 2 and to discount information to the contrary According to the committee the presumption was so strong that other types of alternative or competitive analysis were not utilized concurrently did not give serious consideration to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of the 108th US Congress Report on the US Intelligence Community s Prewar Intelligence Assessments July 2004 14 Available at Last accessed on 16 August 2004 2 Report 18 -23- Redefining the First Customer other possible explanations 3 Clearly the Senate report recognizes the absence of a management-endorsed mechanism for to question and challenge their assumptions and fully consider alternative arguments 4 as a limiting factor in the quality of US intelligence analysis In its July 2004 report Congress National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States 9 11 Commission echoes many of the general findings of the SSCI investigation The Commission further identifies a lack of transparency and communication among across agencies as a key barrier to providing the agile joint intelligence required to combat threats such as terrorism and proliferation of WMD5 According to the 9 11 Commission the importance of integrated all-source analysis cannot be overstated without it it is not possible to connect the dots no one component can hold all the relevant information 6 The 9 11 report proposes significant modifications to the IC structure to facilitate the transparency needed for joint intelligence analysis Although the SSCI report suggests no such restructuring it does strongly imply that the IC needs to do a better job of enabling its to interact in a forum that allows them to fully consider opinions from other intelligence and creates a level playing field in which outside fully participate 8 To this end a variety of academic communities that measure success based upon the discovery and communication of knowledge such as those associated with the physical and social sciences may provide some insight germane to current issues facing the IC On the surface there appear to be strong parallels between intelligence analysis and scientific investigation According to Dr Donald Kennedy Editor-in Chief of the journal Science intelligence as it is best practiced by experienced agents and agencies surely looks like a science problem is defined so that the right measures for dealing with it can be selected relevant information is gathered and then analyzed so that meaningful relationships can be uncovered and understood and tentative conclusions are reached and then tested against possible alternatives Finally perhaps most important critical review is sought 9 Kennedy cites discrepancies between the unclassified Iraq WMD National Intelligence Estimate released in October 2002 and the declassified version released in July 2003 as 3 Report 21 4 Report 23 5 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States The 9 11 Commission 2004 408 6 9 11 report 408 7 Report 28 8 Report 28 9 Don Kennedy Intelligence Science Reverse Peer Review Science vol 303 March 26 2004 1945 -24- Redefining the First Customer evidence that the IC employed a reverse peer review of the classi ed document as it moved from the and IC seniors to the policymakers The result of this reverse peer review was that alternate hypotheses failed to be identified and caveats appeared to have been removed from the document In the normal scientific peer review process alternate hypotheses and assessments of data are often added to the final document as the result of a critical review from peers and senior experts in a field Kennedy s editorial suggests that the IC would benefit from a tighter peer review process that incorporates alternate analysis and is modeled more closely upon that of the Scienti c Community The fact that three independent reviewers SSCI investigation 9 11 Commission and Dr Kennedy of IC practices policies and products came to strikingly similar conclusions regarding the failure of the IC to promote information sharing critical review and consideration of alternate analysis in its assessments strongly suggests significant opportunity for improvement in these areas IC needs 1 a balanced objective standardized Community-wide peer review prticess that occurs on a level playing field and 2 a safe forum within which IC can develop vet and communicate alternate assessments This proposal outlines how the establishment of an independent internal journal for alternative analysis could address existing shortfalls and enhance the Community s overall ability to ensure rigor depth and quality of analysis by fostering critical discussion of analytic issues and promoting increased communication across the community of Moreover incorporation of such a journal into standard IC practice and culture would reproduce the peer review process that currently benefits the Scientific Community and could serve to enhance the critical thinking communication and collaboration skills of junior and midlevel The establishment of a journal for alternate analysis would help the IC senior leadership take a major step towards addressing the criticism of IC analytic methodology raised by the SSCI and 9 11 reports 11 Understanding The Cultural Impediments To Alternate Analysis There are at least three fundamental practices at work in the IC that tend to promote group think and restrict the formulation of alternate analysis Yet each of these practices deliberately has been established and maintained to produce a product that provides the busy policymaker with a clear and concise assessment of current threats and their implications for US security These practices are 1 the drive to seek consensus from within an organization and occasionally across the 2 the focus on writing primarily for a non-technical audience and 3 the constraint of crafting high impact assessments for busy policymakers Efforts to curb any of these tendencies are likely to meet with signi cant resistance because they are at the core of the perception of the policymaker as the first and only customer for intelligence assessments I -25- Redefining the First Customer 1 Seeking consensus in analytic products In an attempt to provide policymakers with a clear and consistent message regarding threats to national interests intelligence organizations routinely seek to achieve analytic consensus and consistency during the internal coordination of intelligence products This means that focus on presenting a principal position often at the expense of fully considering plausible alternatives Although mention of dissenting opinions is occasionally included in finished intelligence products these occurrences are deliberately kept to a minimum While this effort to achieve analytic consensus arguably serves US policymakers by providing them with a concise and unambiguous assessment on which to act it also can inhibit the full formulation communication and evaluation of alternative assessments on complex issues During the coordination process assessments or statements which are at odds with earlier products or the more pervasive views of an analyst s colleagues tend to be minimized reworded or cut altogether in order to present the Policy Community with a uni ed position 2 Writing primarilny a non-technical audience Another consequence of the single minded focus on writing for the policymaker is that the audience for these assessments generally lacks the time expertise or inclination to critically review or challenge the underlying assumptions As a result many intelligence products fail to i provide the reader with fully articulated and sourced arguments Even though the underlying arguments and sources may have been thoroughly explored during the coordination process they often do not make it into the final product which tends to be concise and compact for the busy reader Once in print these assessments are less likely to be challenged or countered with alternate opinions because they are generally pitched at the Policy Community rather than one s analytic peers Concise and devoid of footnoted sources most IC assessments are intended to inform rather than provoke healthy discussion and debate among a community of experts Because these printed documents do not retain references to primary sources are at pains to reconstruct and reevaluate the details of arguments presented by their predecessors or colleagues from elsewhere in the IC 3 Producing high-impact assessments Since most intelligence products are directed at high-level policymakers emerging issues which do not require the immediate attention of our leaders get little if any formal attention and risk remaining unexamined until they are highlighted by current events Because are not given adequate venues to openly explore back-burner issues the IC is often in the position of responding to unforeseen events Rede ning The First Customer take pride in crafting concise and clearly written intelligence assessments for busy policymakers Within the IC the President and other high level intelligence consumers are occasionally referred to as the First Customer to emphasize their -25 Rede ning the First Customer primacy in the mission However it is apparent from the procedures and practices mentioned above that the unique disposition of the traditional first customers place certain constraints on the scope and content of intelligence products that ultimately degrade the quality of the analytic assessments Even though the IC exists solely to inform the Policy Community it is not evident that policymakers should be the first and only customers for most of the Community s analytic products If one adopts Dr Kennedy s view of intelligence analysis as a science-umuch like the other social sciences and examines the publication model that has led to success in each of these disciplines it becomes clear that the rst customer for scientific scholarship is the Scientific Community itself and not the general public even though the public ultimately benefits from scientific knowledge and expertise Intelligence analysis is clearly a compilation of many different sciences These disciplines are as diverse as the academic backgrounds froin which are drawn and include political science military science economics 'chemistry biology and nuclear physics just to name a few However when viewed as a whole the challenges of intelligence analysis most closely resemble those of the historians who practice a form of social science The primary goal of intelligence and historians alike is to develop a refined understanding of remote events based on fragmentary and often biased information and historians often have very little control over the limited data on which they depend In many cases the information is reported by individuals who may have indirect access to or imperfect recollection of the event in question The sources themselves may be motivated to retell the story in a fashion that is beneficial to their interests Regardless of the particular field scientific knowledge and theories invariably are expressed in two distinct genres which are directed at separate audiences and serve very different functions While distinct both genres play important roles in the scientific tradition These venues exist in the field of history as well as in the other social and physical sciences Peer reviewed publications form the core of all legitimate scienti c endeavors and are written by scientists to present their research and ndings to other experts in their eld A strong tradition of peer-reviewed publications exists in each of the respected sciences making the full and systematic exploration of alternate hypothesis possible Peer reviewed scientific publications are distinct from other forms of literature in a number of important ways The primary audience for peer-reviewed papers is the body of one s technically competent colleagues As such these papers provide all the details necessary for knowledgeable readers to retrace the author s research and draw their own conclusions Furthermore peer-reviewed papers are valued for their unique contribution to scienti c debate on a controversial issue These papers generally are not intended to represent a consensus view only the Well argued position of a small group of collaborators -27- Redefining the First Customer Popularized science is more journalistic in style and directed outside the Scientific Community to the general public Popularized science papers are generally written to inform rather than debate This form of writing has several important features which set it apart from peer-reviewed work Popularized science generally seeks to recognize trends in scientific research and consolidate a body of knowledge for non-experts focusing primarily on the most relevant and predominant findings at work within the Scientific Community Perhaps more importantly this journalistic style casts scientific discoveries in a context the general public can understand and value In this respect those developments that have a direct bearing on the lifestyles and interests of the general public are more likely to find expression in this venue while more subtle findings tend to be ignored Although peer-reviewed and popularized publications each play important roles in scientific endeavors legitimate sciences would not exist at all without the free exchange of ideas promoted by peer-reviewed papers It is true that most sciences ultimately exist to serve the public good and must therefore interface with the public on multiple levels including through the writing of popularized science articles However within the scientific tradition the first customer for scientific writing remains the scientist In their commitment to presenting policymakers with concise timely and high impact intelligence products appear to have lost track of their preeminent obligation to develop a thorough understanding of complex issues through an open and formal written debate have sacrificed the important peer-to peer dialog for a relatively one- sided monolog with the busy non-technical policymaker 0 The bulk of the analytic publications are directed not at colleagues but at the policymakers who lie outside the community of intelligence experts 0 Publications to the policymakers resemble a popularized version of intelligence analysis in which positions must by pitched to a non technical audience 0 Most intelligence assessments are not published be critiqued by the Policy Community or other members of the Intelligence Community The IC must not abandon the current array of policymaker products which serve the critical mission of informing US decisionmakers in a concise and unambiguous manner These products have been carefully developed over the years to meet the needs of the busy non technical Policy Community which relies on the consistent and well reasoned assessments of critical events However efforts must be taken to promote the formal development and debate of alternate analytic assessments through the creation of a parallel peer review process similar to that which is at the core of all other scientific disciplines Peer reviewed papers are an essential component of every well-developed -28- vi l 3 Redefining the First Customer science and would compliment and support existing policymaker products by overcoming limitations associated with the existing popularized intelligence product 0 Peer-reviewed intelligence products will permit the critical exploration of multiple assessments in a venue that does not require offices and organizations to present a consensus position on a particular issue 0 While peer reviewed articles will be expected to inform debate on an issue they need not bear the burden of presenting high impact intelligence to a policymaker In this way emerging issues can be explored and understood long before they demand the attention of the Policy Community 0 Publication in IC wide peer reviewed journals will ensure that alternate hypotheses and the supporting evidence become a part of the Community record These publications will be easier to reference and retrieve than more informal mechanisms such as e mails memos and verbal exchanges which are typically employed in the coordination process are limited in their distribution and have a precarious existence The following sections describe the design and implementation of an IC wide peer review Journal of Alternative Intelligence Analysis J AIA which is intended to promote the critical development of alternative assessments and thereby fuel the formation of well-considered popularized products for the non technical policymaker The JAIA achieves this by reducing the cultural barriers to publishing alternative assessments and making experienced and highly critical intelligence across the IC the first customers for analytic products IV The Journal Of Alternative Intelligence Analysis Clearly the need exists for an IC wide publication to facilitate open and fair debate through a peer review process similar to that which has long been at the core of academic and scientific communities must be encouraged to take ownership of alternative assessments'and be given the opportunity to lay out an argument and present evidence in a forum free of bias All too often dominant opinions take precedence at coordinatibn meetings and interagency working groups while alternative assessments are not given their due The proposed JAIA will enable with alternative interpretations of available intelligence to present their positions in well articulated papers to their peers that are not encumbered by the constraints imposed by publications directed at the Policy Community The JAIA will be modeled after existing academic journals in elds such as public policy history and archaeology Contributors to the AIA will be permitted to present independent interpretations of intelligence data provided they use sound analytical reasoning and well-crafted arguments to arrive at their assessments -29- Rede ning the First Customer The AIA could be organized by geographic region as well as by topical issues This format would sort articles in such a way that all stakeholders in the regions and topics of interest can consider the contributor s argument For example alternative assessments on proliferation issues in China that had been debated primarily by WMD may now receive broader readership by regional economic leadership and military who can add substance to the debate as well as become more informed of contentious areas of analysis within their region of study Additionally the ALA could sort the same article by the topic of proliferation allowing WMD who focus on other regions to weigh in on the debate and possibly apply novel analytical perspectives to their own accounts The main utility of the AIA is in fostering healthy consideration for alternative analysis This necessarily will involve more debate and readers will be encouraged to respond to contentious articles either by submitting a letter to the editpr or publishing an article of their own Formal written discourse in this manner has an advantage Over e mails and verbal debates because it serves to document and publicize alternate perspectives allowing who otherwise might have been excluded from the coordination process to consider novel perspectives Authors names should appear on JAIA articles in order to give credit for their work and reinforce the point that their opinions and not necessarily those of their colleagues are being expressed If necessary pen names could be used to protect the true identities of from inadvertent public exposure Organizational af liations should be noted as well to highlight the participation of from different offices in collaborative assessments JAIA articles would be distinct from intelligence products intended for the Policy Community Because the papers will be geared toward knowledgeable colleagues rather than busy policymakers authors should be encouraged to strive for depth rather than brevity would have less stringent space requirements in order to fully argue their points Also will be encouraged to write more technically oriented papers that apply knowledge from one or more of the physical and social sciences to key intelligence issues Typically finished intelligence directed at members of the Policy Community avoids drawn-out explanations of technical data that could otherwise be used to support an analyst s argument Since an author s goal in writing for the JAIA is to convince his fellow of his position on a contentious issue that analyst should be able to incorporate all appropriate technical arguments Properly formatted contractor studies should also be incorporated into AIA articles to multiply the impact of government funded research on IC wide analysis and reduce replication of effort by different agencies Often contractor contributions are overlooked because the results of their work are not circulated beyond the office that commissioned the study While contractors are prohibited from writing'finished intelligence for -30 wheat-91v i i ii M ll ll lillfl lillRedefining the First Customer policymakers there is no reason contract generated analysis could not be distributed via AIA to IC who may benefit from their research Contractor studies particularly in more scientific fields may also lend credence to an analyst s argument but may be overlooked by others because of unfamiliarity with the study Similar benefits could be obtained by accepting qualified articles from experts in academia who are also prohibited from having a more direct role in crafting assessments for the Policy Community Some may be concerned that policymakers will mistake AIA articles as coordinated intelligence products Therefore a clear disclaimer should appear on each article to prevent readers from mistaking the article for an agency- or IC coordinated product Review of all AIA articles will be carried out by a panel of peers selected from among the readership A senior editor who would be responsible for assigning reviewers doing a final read-through of all articles and ensuring publication of accepted articles should oversee the panel for each paper Reviewers could be selected from all ranks throughout the Community and attempts will be made to pull with varying backgrounds from a range of participating intelligence agencies Volunteers could be asked to review articles on a rotating schedule perhaps only twice annually This way the review process will not require full time service to the AIA Although substantive experts would be selected to review papers dealing with relevant accounts non-subject experts who are also evaluating the paper could counter personal or career biases If the argument is poorly articulated or the analytical reasoning awed the panel can opt to reject the paper or recommend changes that will make it acceptable for publication All rejected papers should be returned with an explanation to the authors who can then appeal the panel s decision to the senior editor To aid in the peer review process and adequately inform journal readers all articles must be fully sourced prior to submission and sourcing will be retained in the published version This would allow editors reviewers and readers a chance to read the raw intelligence reports if they are available and check the validity of the author s argument V Options For Establishing A Journal Of Alternate Intelligence Analysis In addition to dedication of financial and material resources and personnel creation of a journal for alternate analysis would require a fundamental shift in the 1C analytic culture Acceptance and use of the journal by IC and managers as a forum for presenting discussing and vetting hypotheses would likely be facilitated if its creation and employment are tailored to minimize the required culture shift To this end this proposal will outline a variety of options for leveraging existing resources utilizing external entities and designing a responsive system for reviewing publishing and disseminating assessments throughout the Community The proposed peer review journal would be implemented within the existing intelligence culture and complement traditional policymaker publications -31- Wis Redefining the First Customer To be most effective and useful to the IC the journal will need to be highly responsive and permit rapid review and production of analyses thus it will need to employ dynamic production methodologies that have significant exibility In this regard a wholly digital production environment could meet the needs of the analytic community such a format would naturally lend itself to rapid perhaps even automated nomination review publication and dissemination of analyses across the spectrum of community players In this notional construct the journal would serve as a daily product for IC to read Individual assessments could be crafted in a standard format reviewed for general content and format by several individuals drawn from a pool of qualified in a related discipline biological warfare for example and published online in a classified environment as soon as the article has been approved for release Secure Communities of Interest could be established to facilitate analyses containing information that requires additional dissemination controls Ultimately the journal would serve as a virtual sounding boar for IC where alternate assessments can be articulated vetted and developed by the Community on a level playing eld prior to being incorporated into more traditional products for the Policy Community Ideally the implementation and daily execution of journal activities could largely be achieved by leveraging existing resources within the IC For example the Center for the Study of Intelligence CSI has a longstanding history of providing resources that promote study and debate of IC activities and assessments CSI also has unique capabilities to support a journal of alternate assessments as it currently produces the peer- reviewed IC journal Studies in Intelligence Thus CSI likely already possesses much of the infrastructure and expertise needed to create a new IC-specific journal Moreover housing the journal at CSI would prevent it from being formally associated with any specific intelligence agency promoting Community use of the periodical as a forum for engaging in discussion of pertinent issues In addition since much of publications are targeted towards the IC its management of JAIA could serve as a buffer between the Intelligence and Policy Communities a critical factor in protecting policymakers from assessments in the nascent stages of development In addition to the resources and benefits available Via CSI the IC could augment the Center s staff with support from a contract publishing agency This may be a feasible fix for the potential problem of leveraging government resources that may be overburdened or insuf ciently staffed to independently take on the mission of another IC'periodical In addition experienced contract editors could help the IC define rules for submission outline and implement an appropriate peer review mechanism and detail processes for editing and publication that will be acceptable to the Community and maintain appropriate security Incorporation of contract support would likely not impact ability to preserve the membrane between this periodical and the Policy Community if anything the use of contractor staff in the journal s production would further dissuade policymakers from trying to access its publications particularly since contractor staff -32 Redefining the First Customer would not be af liated with any speci c intelligence agency However IC managers would need to be aware that contract support presents challenges regarding the clearance levels of the publisher staff management would also need to help develop the infrastructure for coordination of review editing formatting and production via the contractor Ultimately successful implementation of a journal of alternate analysis would depend in part upon 1C management s ability to create an environment that both supports and promotes analyst use of the system Restructuring of production and coordination processes to encourage preliminary publication and testing of hypotheses via the peer- reviewed alternate assessments vehicle could drive the analytic culture towards increased collaboration critical review and broader discussion of substantive issues In addition realignment of analyst performance metrics to include their use of the alternate assessments vehicle could directly impact analyst attitudes and commitment regarding the process Such actions although requiring a concerted and longstanding effort on the part of IC management could successfully impact analytic culture throughout the IC to address the criticisms that were raised in the SSCI and 9 11 reports VI Conclusion Congressional panels commissioned to investigate intelligence failures associated with the September 11 attacks and the Second Gulf War have recommended that the IC place a greater emphasis on alternative analysis Building upon Dr Kennedy s notion of intelligence analysis as a science we believe that one way to systematically address Congress recommendation is to promote a peer review process similar to that found at the heart of most academic and scientific enterprises Such a peer to-peer publication would provide a formal venue for to articulate well-argued alternative points of view to be reviewed by their intelligence colleagues throughout the IC We encourage IC management to endorse the creation of a journal of alternative analysis that will be broadly distributed to IC in electronic format The peer review system has existed at the core of academic and scientific research for centuries Peer reviewed publications have assisted in their understanding of the human anthropologists in their search for our ancestors engineers in building sturdier structures and pharmaceutical researchers in their quest to cure human diseases Few can deny the importance of the peer review process in promoting a solid understanding of complex social and scientific issues by encouraging Community experts to work together The AIA will help who have well argued and possibly dissenting points of View to share them with their peers and establish a Community wide record of their debate Because JAIA articles will be directed at peers working on related issues there is a greater chance that alternative interpretations presented in this fashion will be understood -33- Redefining the First Customer and either expanded upon or critiqued by their IC colleagues Those who stand in disagreement will be encouraged to respond with independent articles that lay out evidence for their own points of View Furthermore by encouraging from different analytic organizations and disciplines to coauthor AIA articles the journal will help lower boundaries that exist between organizations subject matter specialists and regional Given escalating terrorist threats to US pOpulations and interests deceitful use of dual- use technologies by state actors to evade international weapons conventions and innovative efforts of narcotics traffickers evade interdictidn the IC clearly has a need as identified by independent investigators to build a better system for promoting alternative analysis The proposed peer reviewed Journal of Alternative Intelligence Analysis provides a straightforward and cost effective mechanism for promoting a more Vigorous scientific culture of documented peer to peer debate within the Intelligence Community -34- Dynamic Adaptation A Twenty-First Century Intelligence Paradigm Dynamic Adaptation Introduction The principal legacy of Galileo Galilei introduction of a new paradigm in modern astronomy and the scienti c methods that brought it about provided an empirically compelling case that the universe did not work as most people had imagined Galileo demonstrated through a series of systematic observations made through telescopes he had fashioned himself that the sun rather than the Earth was the center of the known universe and anchored an entire system of planets including the Earth that revolved around it in roughly circular orbits 1 This scientific breakthrough substantiated the controversial theory of Nicholas Copernicus that had lacked an empirical basis before Galileo namely that the heliocentric paradigm should supersede its geocentric predecessor This paradigm shift created enormous controversy and intellectual disruption among key thinkers and Church authorities of his time A less-well known legacy of Galileo s offers a keen lesson in adaptation In spite of relentless Church pressure to repudiate his heretical positions Galileo demonstrated uncanny exibility in making temporary accommodations with the dominant authorities while persisting with scientific integrity In the end he prevailed Galileo s subtle lesson in adaptation is better understood through the work of another scientific giant who followed some two and-a half centuries later Charles Darwin 1809 1882 explained how species that survive the longest are not necessarily the fiercest or the strongest rather they are the ones that have demonstrated the best capacity to adapt to changing environments Species that fail to adapt risk extinction 2 Like Galileo s methods Darwin s insights on adaptation have not been sufficiently appreciated by intelligence leaders Both Galileo and Darwin illustrate powerful lessons for US intelligence Paradigm shifts are not easy even if long overdue and must be based on sound observation and evidence to justify serious advocacy Further attention to processes of adaptation is critical to survival Such attention may reveal why US Intelligence is sometimes successful and sometimes not Systematic e orts to better integrate a capacity for adaptation into key institutions and processes may better posture US Intelligence to warn or understand emerging if unidentified threats to US security in the early decades of the 21 century VI i1 WK A I 1 Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems Ptolemaic and Copernican 1632 2 Origin of Species 1859 -35- Thus the key challenges facing US Intelligence are 0 to successfully transition to a new and more effective intelligence paradigm and to ensure that an intelligence paradigm shift fully integrates needed processes of adaptation 3 This essay explores both issues It urges a new intelligence paradigm by focusing on three major kinds of needed adaptations for US Intelligence functional adaptation cultural adaptation and integrating adaptive mechanisms within intelligence institutions If successful adaptive mechanisms would help ensure that important changes in the intelligence environment as September 11th and Iraq s Weapons of mass destruction illustrate do not outpace needed change within intelligence itself Taken together these three types of adaptations will shape a new intelligence paradigm 4 Dynamic AdaptatiOn Functional Adaptation For US intelligence to succeed in the 21St century threat environment signi cant adaptation is required within and across the principal missions of US Intelligence Foreign Intelligence F1 chie y collection and analysis counterinteiligence CI and covert action CA Old and new paradigms are discussed The key themes addressed here are those that illustrate US intelligence performance against the two significant issues at the center of public discussions about intelligence reform the warning failure of September 11th 2001 and the apparent errors in estimating weapons of mass destruction WMD in Saddam Husayn s Iraq 6 Neither issue is dissected in depth here but both help illustrate key Fl malfunctions and thus frame the discussion much as they have shaped the current debates on intelligence reform Foreign Intelligence Collection Old Paradigm Significant failings are evident in both 9 11 and Iraqi WMD intelligence In both cases collection was insufficient and analysis was inadequate Both failed Had collection been better arguably might have been more accurate since successfully connecting the dots would have been more 3 Probably the single most prevalent claim advanced by the proponents of a new paradigm is that they can solve the problems that have led the old one to a crisis When it can legitimately be made this claim is often the most effective one possible Thomas S Kuhn The Structure of Scienti c Revolutions Chicago University of Chicago Press 3rd ed 1996 p 153 4 A fourth type structural adaptation is already underway and beyond the scope of this paper Structural adaptation encompasses how the Intelligence Community is organized and the range of DCI or NID authorities Successful structural adaptation will empower the most senior intelligence of cial with unprecedented budgetary and personnel authorities as well as significantly enhance needed authorities to protect intelligence sources and methods It should also establish a fixed term for the DCI or NID of seven years renewable for one additional six-year term 5 See The 9 11 Commission Report New York W W Norton Co 2004 6 US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on the US Intelligence Community s Prewar Intelligence Assessment on Iraq Washington DC Government Printing Office 2004 -36- likely had there been more or better dots to connect The old paradigm of spotty collection and weak analysis will not well serve the Nation in the 21st century Dynamic Adaptation Both Galileo and Darwin exemplified innovative and relentless collectors Galileo pioneered his own revolutionary sensor program the telescope while Darwin s broad area search aboard the Beagle enabled his study of ora and fauna heretofore unimagined by other naturalists But both enjoyed one huge advantage that US collectors today do not have Neither Galileo nor Darwin faced a target environment that adapted to their collection efforts in order to circumvent them In contrast US intelligence collection failed in 9 11 largely because the terrorist target in this case al-Qa eda successfully evaded our current collection techniques chie y traditional human HUMINT and signals SIGINT intelligence collection Further US imagery offered no appreciable warning help against the al Qa eda threat Terrorist operatives conspired and conducted their operations incliiding those that preceded September 11th in ways to avert timely detection by US intelligence Similarly Saddam Husayn s Iraq also successfully evaded US collection for largely the same reasons US HUMINT generally failed to penetrate Iraq s WMD programs as did SIGINT and while imagery performed better against Iraqi WMD than it did against terrorists it still provided too little of real value We should ascertain why The best explanation for these major collection shortfalls is found in the depth and breadth of understanding that US adversaries bring to US collection techniques and by extension the knowledge they use to defeat them Many signi cant US collection failures are rooted in our failure to adapt to the fact that key adversaries such as terrorists bent on mass killing of US citizens and dictators who build conceal and proliferate WMD capabilities have our playbook Because they have a keen grasp of how we collect intelligence they successfully implement'denial and deception countermeasures against known US collection techniques This effectively blunts or neutralizes even the best of our major collection efforts Using is how adversaries level the playing field in some cases tilting it in their favor As a result and policymakers are left with insufficientmor worse misleading infomation about the major threats that face us In short in defeating US collection capabilitiesmoften complex and costly ones our keyadversaries have demonstrated far better adaptation to our techniques than we have to theirs Here lessons from Darwin have worked to their advantage while our failure to learn the same lessons has worked to our disadvantage These collection failures are failures of adaptation New Paradigm Adaptive Collection US collection often fails because it does not defeat the countermeasures that sophisticated adversaries deploy to beat it It does not adapt to foreign This must change US collection efforts must defeat proven and emerging countermeasures by employing techniques that are not now known by -37- Dynamic Adaptation adversaries and therefore not yet countered New collection-min HUMINT SIGINT IMINT and short must be developed precisely in ways that adversaries do not understand and cannot therefore counter New collection techniques must be more agile capable of defeating foreign countermeasures and better protected from exposure These adaptation attributes agility counter-D D and better protected sources and methods must be integrated into all collection and into all programs including sensors platforms systems and architectures Otherwise future US collection will not succeed against determined adversaries who learn to adapt to i e outsmart the old much compromised too transparent and failing US collection paradigm FI Analysis Old Paradigm Notwithstanding the analytical burden of significant collection shortfalls the essence of intelligence analysis is the ability to work successfully in an environment of ambiguous missing and even contradictory information Better collection will improve analysis but that is far from sufficient Better analysis will mainly result from stronger analytical techniques applied in ways to generate a wider range of hypotheses and structured to test evaluate then accept or reject the veracity of different hence competing hypotheses Galileo s science prevailed in the same way that Darwin s did through careful analysis of systematically collected data making full use of new analytical techniques geared to evaluate multiple hypotheses Neither Galileo nor Darwin was prepared to make claims that would revolutionize astronomy or biology until they were satis ed that their techniques were producing reliable knowledge What techniques produced such knowledge Science But the scienti c techniques that work so well in the physical world are often viewed as inapplicable to intelligence Such views may be true to a point but they are misleading and paralyzing if fully believed The issue is whether the analytical techniques tradecraft that we routinely use are adequate to produce reliable intelligence The short answer is no they are not A retrospective look at the production of intelligence on Iraqi WMD since about the mid- 19908 including the rushed National Intelligence Estimate on the subject would reveal not only the impact of poor collection It would also reveal a distinct lack of analytical rigor This analytical failure is seen in the insufficiently critical acceptance of now questionable assumptions and sources It is seen in the lack of appreciation for missing information that is a failure to comprehend the impact on analysis of relevant data that we never collected and in the woefully inadequate information base for the principal WMD inferences made And it is seen in the unwarranted confidence in some key judgments that we now know cannot stand up to close scrutiny Analytical techniques that cannot discriminate between valid hypotheses and those that are not between trite sentences and false sentences are not worthy of retention in the toolkit nor in the intelligence production process Given their access to better information-wand their professional responsibilities intelligence should be expected to outperform university scholars think tank experts and journalists -38 New Paradigm Reliable Analysis What would a successful analytical paradigm use The unique attribute of scientific investigation when compared with other ways of producing knowledge is that its techniques are self corrective Epistemologists would cite authority habit of thought and rationalism as three alternatives to science as different ways of knowing Iraqi WMD analysis depended too heavily on these three All four methods can produce truth and error But science is self corrigible Of course it may produce errors but it also has intrinsic to its own methods the needed procedures to discover its errors No other way of knowing can claim this significant feature That is why the scientific method is the only way of knowing that consistently produces reliable knowledge We need to adopt similar self-corrective techniques in analysis if we want to produce reliable intelligence Dynamic Adaptation Intelligence analysis even if it cannot easily mimic analytical procedures used in the physical sciences must seek comparably reliable knowledge-producing methods Just as in Galileo s time a new analytical paradigm in intelligence must focus on developing self-corrective techniques Presently the closest we get to them is the intra or inter- agency coordination process The best hope for developing analytical tradecraft with the intrinsic power of self-corrective techniques is first to ensure that it makes much greater use of such quasi-scientific techniques as the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses Second we must conduct the coordination process so that it will highlight potential error in the assumptions facts judgments and conclusions of the analytical product Fortunately ACH is presently taught in CIA analyst training But it is rarely used in practice nor valued by managers of who typically regard such techniques as time-consuming and cumbersome production delays Moreover the coordination process is often perceived as still another obstacle to production and one to be accomplished as quickly and as painlessly as possible To meet its impossibly tight deadlines the substantial October 2002 NIB on Iraqi WMD was coordinated in a single day While many appreciate the coordination process for its hypothesis-generating possibilities too few appreciate it for its hypothesis testing potential As one of the critical steps in the analytical production process coordination can with ACH provide the self-corrective function in intelligence analysis much as empirical techniques have served science so well since Galileo We should do no less in intelligence A new analytical paradigm should also adopt a far more robust effort to improve and integrate reliable forecasting methodologies into routine intelligence work Better forecasting of foreign political military technological and economic trends is essential 7 See Richards J Heuer Jr The of Intelligence Analysis CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence 1999 chapter 8 -39- Dynamic Adaptation to a more effective warning function to a better understanding of new and emerging threats and opportunities to the development of required new approaches to collection and to the adaptation of US intelligence capabilities This is essential so that 21St century threats do not overpower our intelligence and surprise an unprepared nation Counterintelligence Old paradigm Arguably counterintelligence CI has been the worst performing discipline in modern US intelligence Its failures have had a far greater impact on Foreign Intelligence than is commonly appreciated Careful study of the worst US spy cases Ames Hanssen Hall Pelton Chin Kampiles Pollard and Montes and other major penetrations of US human and technical operations would reveal that the quality of F1 has been signi cantly degraded by the poor performance of CI Many of these failures were preventable or their damage could have been reduced through better CI It is not well understood that our CI failures have caused incalculable damage to F1 capabilities in all collection disciplines and even to the analytical process US counterintelligence has been crippled by numerous systemic failures over the years These include the failure to overcome such negative legacies as the excesses of Angleton and the failure to function as a Community due to long standing FBI CIA and DOD bureaucratic parochialisms and the failure to successfully transition from a HUMINT centric activity to an all-source discipline CI has also failed to incorporate analysis as a key function of the profession It has failed to command the needed resources to accomplish its vital mission and to integrate itself into the dominant FI culture of the intelligence professional It has also failed to develop effective leaders owing to the lack of career services and other debilitating CI career disincentives in all agencies And CI has failed to comprehend its extraordinary importance to the e ectiveness of the F1 mission Effective CI New Paradigm While durably fixing CI ranks among the toughest challenges of intelligence reform few are discussing it today Major structural CI changes are required The present CI Community organization the National Counterintelligence Executive NCIX must be signi cantly strengthened to exert real authority over the CI activities of the FBI CIA the DOD intelligence agencies and others such as DOE and the national labs The senior CI Community of cial today CIX requires dramatic new budgetary personnel investigative and operational authorities It should be brought directly under the new NID or whatever new senior Fl official emerges in the present reforms with the rank and organizational wherewithal comparable to the major intelligence agencies Signi cant new authorities for spanning domestic intelligence as wellmmust be crafted in legislation and executive orders The future role of CI must be re-conceptualized not only to address its critical relationship with F1 but also its imperative to overcome the key systemic failures and adverse legacies discussed above Perhaps most importantly the new CI must take responsibility for signi cantly enhanced protection of intelligence sources and methods -40- In counterespionage urgent new attention must be given to the insider threat guided by substantial new work 8 Significant improvements in operational will result from a much enhanced priority for asset validation including information validation which both require greater analyst engagement and clearer authority over FI operations and from a much elevated role for o ensive counterintelligence Dynamic Adaptation Covert Action Old Paradigm Covert action CA suffers the negative legacies of the Bay of Pigs Iran Guatemala and other instances popularly understood as CA failures A strong disinclination to use CA especially if lethal within both the policy community and relevant agencies has hobbled US ability to forcefully address the threats that face us in the 21St century 9 Overcoming this legacy requires a new appreciation for the power and potential of successful CA eSpecially given the nature of the terrorist and WMD proliferation threats to US security and the range and depth of the growing anti US attitudes increasingly prevalent among the populations of the Muslim countries 10 CA does not require a whole new paradigm only the renewal 3f an earlier tradition Less broken than CI and F1 it can learn as much or more from past successes as from failures Effective CA Renewed Paradigm No intelligence capability generates more controversy than covert action But to succeed in the 21St century US intelligence will require a much more effective CA capability than it has had before It is impossible to evaluate the long-term effects of major CA programs to turn public opinion shape popular attitudes towards a governing regime galvanize opposition groups or even topple governments But arguably some CA-capable nations have enjoyed some success at this Soviet active measures against the United States during the Cold War for example enjoyed a high priority from its top political leadership and commanded considerable resources within the KGB According to KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin the Soviets conducted vigorous CA programs worldwide to destabilize the CIA through operations largely successful 40 expose roughly 2000 Agency officers and also used forgeries to expose hostile CIA operations that never existed against Third World governments Other major Soviet CA operations focused on penetrating European peace movements to forestall US INF deployments in the early 19803 stirring up racial tensions within the United States during the 1984 Olympics spawning a worldwide disinformation campaign that the AIDS virus was a creation of US biological warfare efforts and the incredible 8 The preliminary efforts begun in Project SLAMMER some years ago should be revisited and much improved 9 See Richard Shultz Showstoppers Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special Operations Forces after Al Qaida Before 9 11 The Weekly Standard 26 January 2004 and Roy Godson Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards US Covert Action and Counterintelligence New Brunswick Transaction Publishers 2001 pp 64-65 0 See the Pew Global Attitudes Project What the World Thinks in 2002 Washington DC Pew Research Center 2002 and Pew s Views of a Changing World 2003 -41- baby parts fabrication This story alleged that rich Americans were butchering Third World children in order to harvest their organs for transplants These outrageous allegations even resulted in a successful motion in the European Parliament introduced by a French delegate in September 1988 condemning this trafficking in baby parts 11 Dynamic Adaptation According to a Western scholar of intelligence Roy Godson covert action is an essential policy tool While its effects can never be measured precisely Godson argues that CA at a minimum has fared no worse than other instruments of statecraft such as public diplomacy economic assistance or military force Further covert action programs in Western Europe after World War II seriously challenged the notion that covert action is of little value More recently the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the demise of communism in Eastern Europe were almost certainly hastened by US efforts secret at the time but now largely acknowledged by key players Specifically the slow-drip effect of Radio Free Europe and Radio Litterty in weakening communist ideology has been cited in testimonials in 1990 by such East European leaders as Czech President Vaclav Havel and other senior counterparts from Poland Hungary Romania and the former Soviet republic Estonia 12 To succeed covert action should be conceived as a very long-term proposition and part of a well coordinated policy CA moreover cannot substitute for bad policy nor provide an excuse for foreign adventures It requires opportunity of course but also timing creative leadership coordination and plenty of self-evaluation 13 In sum the ingredients of CA successes necessitate a long term highly classified sustained program with clear strategic objectives sound infrastructure adequate resources and the political will to carry it out These features should provide the foundation for a well conceived and substantial effort fashioned to address the present and emerging terrorist and WMD threats to the United States Nothing less will do We need to apply the lessons of past CA successes as well as failures In light of 21St century threats US policy and intelligence officials must learn to re-appreciate the considerable potential that well- conceived and properly executed CA programs represent Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokin The Sword and the Shield The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB New York Basic Books 1999 pp 230-245 See former DCI Robert M Gates From the Shadows New York Simon and Schuster 1996 pp 260-261 for discussion of the Soviet s anti INF campaign throughout Western Europe 12 Roy Godson Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards p 26 and 267-268 note 70 For elaboration see Gates From the Shadows pp 358 450 451 on Poland and pp 319-321 and 348-350 on Afghanistan Ferment in Eastern Europe especially Poland was also feared as contagious by Soviet leaders at that time As early as 1983 the Soviet leaders privately expressed great concern justifiably we now know about possible spillover effects of the Solidarity movement within the USSR Dimensions of Civil Unrest in the Soviet Union National Intelligence Council Memorandum 83-10006 April 1983 p 20 declassified 25 Feb 1994 '3 Godson Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards p 121-127 -42Dynamic Adaptation Cultural Adaptation There is no discernible professional culture an aggregate of supportive attitudes values and beliefs about the intelligence profession in the Intelligence Community There should be Presently there is only a collection of the different cultures of different agencies and subcultures within them that may episodically help but more often impede the common goals of the Intelligence Community A common culture of professionalism across the Intelligence Community will much enhance individual and component performance within and across the FI CI and CA professions All three of these mission areas require extensive interagency engagement Performance levels in all three can be enhanced or degraded depending on how speci c agency cultures and subcultures may support or impair cross-cultural meaning cross agency cooperation Old Paradigm Agency-centrism If there is a dominant theme in the diagnosis of the 9 11 warning failure it is the crippling deficiencies in information-sharing among agencies If some of the key however fragmentary pieces held by several agencies had been assembled earlier possibly might have imagined a preview of that terrifying September 11t puzzle 14 This kind of breakdown was also at the heart of the 1941 warning failure at Pearl Harbor 15 The subsequent creation of the Central Intelligence Agency was intended precisely to improve information sharing that had been impaired earlier by the deeply rooted institutional reluctance within the US Army and Navy At bottom that was a cultural problem in 1941 that was largely solved for a generation with the creation of the new CIA The fix wasn t permanent Cultural barriers between FBI and CLA for example traceable to the J Edgar Hoover era and remarkably persistent over the years in both agencies impeded vital F1 information sharing in 9 11 They are also often cited as a major factor in the notably poor CI investigations of the Ames and Hanssen cases and'in others as well Such agency-centric parochialisms have been notoriously resistant to change in spite of tOp leadership exhortations for many years to mend them at both agencies These are only the most egregious examples All intelligence agencies are af icted with deep cultural parochialism in varying degrees and efforts to build a community of intelligence organizations can never succeed without a corresponding national effort to build a community culture Such a cross agency culture can never be built unless specific agencies are willing mor are forced as the Goldwater Nichols solution clearly established for the US military to cede key authorities and prerogatives to some central governing or overarching supra-organization the Joint Staff in the case of the military New Paradigm Community Professionalism US intelligence sorely needs a culture of the intelligence professional Intelligence is a bona fide profession but it lacks the 4 See 9 11 Commission Report note 5 chapter 8 15 Roberta Wohlstetter Pearl Harbor Warning and Decision Stanford Stanford University Press 1962 -43- culture necessary to develop and sustain the required professionalism All agencies hire experts language country and regional specialists technical and technology specialists lawyers and contract and budget specialists and countless others None is hired as an intelligence professiOnal but each is expected to become one in due course Some succeed Many do not The expectation seems to be that over the years and with a little training peeple hired into the intelligence profession as experts in something else will also become experts in intelligence and their requisite intelligence skills and values will follow later This expectation is naive and remains unfulfilled Dynamic Adaptation In order to establish a culture of the intelligence professional the Community requires a program fashioned to build the necessary attitudes values and beliefs Such a culture should supersede the narrower cultures of the individual agencies It should emphasize the uniqueness and importance of the intelligence mission as the acquisition and analysis of secret denied information by secret means and the unwavering ethic of protecting intelligence sources and methods It should stress the necessity of combined interagency efforts including information sharing to succeed in all missions and the achievement of excellence as DCI Casey tried to foster in his time and the intolerance of mediocrity And it should seek to learn from previous intelligence failures and successes experienced throughout the Intelligence Community The overwhelming majority of intelligence of cers suffer from a poor understanding of the history of their own profession This must change A smart culture learns from its past 16 Establishment of a real community culture of the intelligence professional will require a massive long term education and training effort of unprecedented proportions This can be accomplished through the establishment of an Intelligence Community University Such a university will not have separate agencies as its constituent elements but rather a functional organization defined by mission Addressing expert and cultural training for the three basic missions its three colleges would be Foreign Intelligence large Counterintelligence medium-sized and Covert Action small 17 The F1 and CI Colleges should also cross train each other s students This would help ameliorate the unacceptable levels of CI illiteracy now found throughout the FI population as well as prepare CI specialists for a much expanded role in support of F1 operations and activities 16 The study of paradigms notes Thomas Kuhn is what mainly prepares the student for membership in the particular scientific community with which he will later practice Kuhn note 3 p 11 17 Each college would have separate schools to address its principal mission areas For example schools in the PI College would include Collection Analysis and Support such as TPED tasking processing exploitation and dissemination It should also have several target area schools such as Counter-terrorism and Counter proliferation The CI College schools would include Counter-espionage CI for El operations and Offensive CI Operations The CA College would include schools for Operations and Paramilitary Operations The next level down would be departments For example the FI Collection School would staff departments in each of the four collection disciplines departments in the Analysis School would include Political Analysis Military and so forth -44 'v-b r A key idea in the IC University concept is the organizational absence of agencies per se and the combined interagency training of intelligence professionals by mission area not by agency The University should train for unequalled expertise in all the intelligence professions It should teach and train from a rich history of intelligence successes and failures Perhaps most importantly it should nourish and transmit the values and ethics of a culture of the true intelligence professional much as the scientist descendants of Galileo and Darwin learn the values of their own professions Dynamic Adaptation The University should also conduct a kind of boot camp for new entrants at all agencies before the new entrants report aboard their agencies This training should help imbue the next generation of intelligence professionals with the appropriate values and ethics for the new Community culture requisite for the highest professionalism Through training and over time The IC University s alumni will assimilate the values of the intelligence professional broadly defined not the parochial identity of separate agency employees Its graduates will be intelligence professionals first then regional or technical specialists secondarily Their intelligence professionalism will be Community- focused not agency-centric To succeed a drastic reform in career services must follow Institutionalizing Intelligence Adaptation In order to achieve needed intelligence adaptation for the 2 century the Intelligence Community must establish a process of dynamic reinvention as the sine qua non for future effectiveness Broadly such a process requires three essential elements 0 Effective forecasting of emerging threats opportunities and major developments the most likely and least likely security environments for the 21st century 0 A process for identifying needed intelligence capabilities and resources that will provide the best match for the range of security environments forecasted 0 An institutionalized mechanism to formulate and implement sound intelligence policies to achieve the most effective Community capabilities optimally postured for a changing security environment The first requirement effective forecasting can best be achieved through a substantial dedicated futures-forecasting effort Yearly analytical products should seek near-term 1 5 years mid term 6 15 years and long term more than 15 years forecasts They should combine methodological rigor with genuine imagination and make extensive use of non-intelligence experts and resources Save for the edging Futures effort at the Sherman Kent School and the NIC 2015 and 2020 products this kind of forecasting ism non-existent in the Intelligence Community It should rank among the Community s most important processes and products The principal customer for these forecasts should be intelligence policymakers rst and national security policymakers secondarily -45- The second requirement linking needed IC capabilities withforecasted security environments is currently addressed among disparate components including the Community Management Staff here and there in the Community But this essential function must be much more focused and explicitly integrated into capabilities planning Presently future capabilities planning to the extent that it actually occurs seems mostly ad hoc is too decentralized and does not benefit from systematic forecasting Dynamic Adaptation The third requirement an IC policymaking process that actually formulates and implements IC-wide policies would be an entirely new function The current policy bodies the IC Principals Committee IC Deputies Committee and the more narrowly focused National Intelligence Collection Board and National Intelligence Analysis and Production Board are chie y advisory and have little teeth The new NID or whatever the new top intelligence chief is titled will need a real policymaking mechanism to govern the Community Whatever IC polic y mechanism emerges will attend to day-to-day management issues but the adaptatioh function dynamic reinvention will require a dedicated policy body with clout In order to achieve these goals the Community should create a new Intelligence Adaptation Council to monitor its posture and preparedness for threat warning and for understanding future security environments Its mission should drive the adaptation cycle that is ensure that the adaptation piece of intelligence policymaking is fully functioning as an integral feature of the Intelligence Community policy and planning process Unlike Darwin s evolution intelligence adaptation does not happen naturally The Intelligence Adaptation Council should have senior representatives from the principal agencies and centers within the Community from the Intelligence Community University and from academe and industry It should meet yearly to review and assess the year s forecasting products near- mid- and long-terrh and to evaluate the match-up between forecasted environments and planned or needed capabilities It will recommend to the top intelligence official any new needed capabilities or program course corrections redirections plus ups or terminations that are out of with sound intelligence adaptation for the emerging security environment All major Community budgetary strategic planning and policy guidance decisions will conform to the Intelligence Adaptation Council s recommendations or have to justify the departures Conclusions Bureaucracies are better at resisting change than leading it Not everything in US Intelligence needs to be changed But much of it does Without significant structural functional and cultural adaptation to 21$t century requirements the Intelligence Community will be hopelessly ill equipped to identify warn and characterize the complex and elusive threats we will face Failures are assured To ensure needed adaptation and to maximize the potential for greater successmadaptive mechanisms -46- Dynamic Adaptation such as the Intelligence Adaptation Council must be integrally built into intelligence institutions and processes To be fully effective the Intelligence Community needs nothing less than a full blown paradigm shift analogous to what Galileo and Darwin accomplished Neither astronomy nor biology has been the same since Lacking comparable intellectual giants in intelligence our paradigm shift will be less dependent on visionary scientists than on sound decisions and processes To succeed we must 0 Prioritize adaptive collection techniques that will defeat adversary denial and deception and will provide and policymakers with the unique value-added that only intelligence successful collection of denied information on such security threats as terrorism and WMD that cannot otherwise be acquired a Fully integrate self corrective mechanisms into analytical processes so that intelligence products are maximally reliable and that intelligence can be fully trusted as a basis for the Nation s most important policy decisions 0 Re-conceptualize counterintelligence for much-enhanced support of FI especially the vital and tragically neglected protection of sources and methods with significantly greater capabilities in counterespionage and intelligence validation enabled by greater CI centralization and much expanded authorities 0 Establish a key role for covert action in the global war on terrorism and in counter- proliferation especially targeting regions where anti-American sentiment is strong and growing but can hopefully be reshaped through soundly conceived CA programs - Engineer a comprehensive cultural adaptation throughout the Community through a new professional culture facilitated by a new 1C University structured to nourish the values ethics and expertise worthy of the 21St century intelligence professional 0 Institutionalize dynamic reinvention through a new Intelligence Adaptation Council that will ensure an IC adaptation cycle geared to learn and to acquire the intelligence capabilities that the United States requires for its security in the 21St century Individually accomplishment of any of these proposals would be significant Taken together they could provide the basis for a paradigm shift in US intelligence Even as they fall short of an intelligence counterpart to Galileo s and Darwin s respective impacts on science they will still better posture US intelligence for the responsibilities it must shoulder as new threats and uncertainties unfold The dynamic adaptation paradigm as outlined here could minimize surprise better support national security policymakers and even help shape the environments to come This paradigm should also help fashion a new community of intelligence professionals who would elevate US intelligence effectiveness to unprecedented levels -47- -49- The 2004 Galileo Awards Honorable Ment1on -50- Constellation Constellation kon ste-la shan n A brilliant gathering or assemblage American Heritage Dictionary I Concept As the national leadership wrestles with how to reinvent the country s intelligence apparatus and whether or not to rewrite the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 one alternative reform offers continued innovation of the Intelligence Community IC by the Intelligence Community and with little disruption to the daily functioning of the IC during a time of war The Constellation concept envisions establishing a second tier to the 1C comprised of approximately a dozen small interagency teams mandated by the Director of Central Intelligence DCI and National Intelligence Director NID to marshal the country s resources against the most difficult intelligence missions while drawing support and expertise from the existing IC agencies Some of the most talented IC officers would assemble for a brief period no more than 18 months to devise an operational and collection strategy to address a speci c challenge and to task the IC to carry it out Deliberate IC use of transitory task oriented teams would overcome the Community 3 biggest hurdle to dynamic reinVention the wiring diagram Temporarily removing select IC officers from their bureaucratic components and placing them into Constellation teams to tackle specific intelligence challenges is analogous to the skunk works project undertaken by International Business Machines IBM in the late 19703 that resulted in the invention of the Personal Computer Skunk works consisted of a handful of brightest and most creative employees Cloistered on Long Island New York to create a revolution in technology The Constellation concept seeks to produce similar innovations in the intelligence business by removing the barriers that divide the Community s brightest and most creative officers and placing them in an environment to reinvent the US approach to speci c threats The Constellation concept also resembles the DCI Task Force of the mid-19908 that addressed the Balkans crisis and North Korean nuclear revelations as well as Hard Target Board Tiger Teams that continue to pursue approximately 10 hard targets worldwide today The critical difference between the DCI Task Force or the Hard Target Board model and Constellation however lies in when and why the interagency teams coalesce The Constellation concept seeks to spur the IC at the first sign of an emerging threat so that the Community can establish a creative and coherent plan to maximize IC resources before the threat rises to the level of a crisis The Constellation model further -51- differs from the Hard Target Board concept in another important way in its authority to task the 1C agencies with speci c actions based on its newly devised strategy Constellation The Constellation concept views an emerging threat as an opportunity to readdress the approach to intelligence challenges The Constellation team would harmonize the capabilities of CIA DIA NSA and the military intelligence centers like NGIC with the FBI the Department of Homeland Security DOE and other agencies much like a conductor would conduct an orchestra ensuring a seamless and synergistic approach to the challenge In this sense the Constellation team would be the agent for dynamic change within the Community I Constellation teams would best serve specific non-traditional missions that cut across many disciplines and agencies in the IC and especially against hard targets where traditional IC efforts may have fallen short They would not however serve well against broad strategic threats like global terrorism or the spread hf nuclear technology Instead Constellation would be more tactical in focus Examples of threats that met threshold would include a specific al-Qa ida plot against the United States terrorist insurgent activity in one of the oil-producing nations or efforts by a single rogue nation or non- state actor to acquire weapons of mass destruction WMD By focusing on this level a newly created Constellation team would devise a plan to task direct and orchestrate the intelligence agencies and all of their assets to penetrate the hardest targets expose the most elusive plans and attack the most dangerous enemies The Constellation model does not advocate reorganizing the intelligence agencies Such reforms would risk replacing current bureaucratic inefficiencies with new ones Rather it seeks to harness the strength of the IC in mission-Speci c teams to address intelligence challenges as they emerge By creating these mergers on an ad hoc mission-speci c basis and disbanding the teams when the challenge has been met or the team strategy successfully has been adopted and implemented by the IC Constellation will instill within intelligence of cers a higher standard of performance and a strong sense of purpose II Justification A Community Divided A close look at the wiring diagram of any agency within the IC illustrates how it is divided against itself in its efforts to protect US interests Of cers that share similar areas of responsibility are separated from each other by teams branches of ces and directorates But the Community is further divided into a multitude of agencies all ostensibly sharing the same areas of focus To respond to our nation s most pressing security challenges the IC needs to rethink its current organization which will mean 52- redefining the concept of team and ultimately redefining the concept of intelligence officer Constellation Consider for example how some of the most dangerous threats to our national security terrorist groups and proliferation networks are organized In general the most prominent terrorist and proliferation networks are organized loosely and are highly opportunistic in their behavior The symbiotic arrangement that al Qa ida is establishing with inujahedin and insurgent groups and that proliferation networks enjoy with each other represents a competitive advantage over our national security apparatus By comparison the IC generally can be rigid compartmentalized and parochial The notion of coordination within the IC does not always engender images of cooperation and synergy Instead the term coordination can conjure thoughts of friction resistance and even intransigence Reorganizing the agencies within thefIC or creating new ones will not eliminate parochialism or coordination problems Rather the United States needs to capitalize on its many specialized intelligence agencies by orchestrating their disparate capabilities into a congruent responselto emerging threats By realigning the IC around the Constellation concept the United States can enjoy the same synergy as its adversaries and an enhanced ability to counter threats The Need To Rede ne Team Currently the friction that can be experienced between various teams in the IC often results from the phenomena of turf and the stovepipe Any number of teams within and among the agencies may claim a given threat as their purview turf and bring widely divergent approaches to bear in countering it based on their particular skill set or job description stovepipe This friction frequently results in a waste 'of government resources and a haphazard response to each intelligence issue Constellation however would alleviate the friction suffered in the IC by centralizing the government s resources into one team that provides a coherent response For one intelligence problem that surfaced in December 2003 there were as many as 15 teams throughout the IC attempting to tackle the issue six teams within CIA four teams at NSA three at NGA and one each at DIA and 0N1 Although several teams worked together collegially the disagreements and coordination dif culties between others routinely were enough to delay warnings to the President despite an impending threat Without perseverance the team spearheading the effort to warn the White House might have lost heart from the grinding coordination and abandoned its effort Alternatively the other dissenting teams involved might have simply overruled the lead team s assessment of the problem and prevented coordination from occurring In either scenario the IC eventually would have been tarred with another allegation of intelligence failure -53- Ultimately the lead team s efforts were validated and it provided highly accurate intelligence to the President and the NSC But those accomplishments could have come to the White House more quickly in a Constellation team A Constellation team addressing the same issue would have been comprised of officers from all five agencies CIA NSA NGA DIA ONI and as the mission leader within the IC the Constellation efforts would have been streamlined because coordination over the nation s response would have occurred within the one team Constellation The Need For A New Intelligence Officer By creating within the IC a small group of interagency task oriented teams Constellation would help to develop a new breed of intelligence officer Officers that have reached the full-performance level and have distinguished themselves among their agency peers would be given the chance to serve as more than Operations officers reports officers or branch chiefs When called to serve on a Constellation team they would step beyond their narrowly defined role to work with their community peers on all aspects of an intelligence issue to achieve speci c national security objectives In a sense Constellation would allow IC of cers to enjoy the latitude and involvement in the national security mission that some intelligence of cers have in smaller services For example an intelligence officer in a smaller country may be involved in clandestine operations to counter threats to national security but he she may also be involved in drafting reports and analyses of his her work for the Policy Community The officer may even help to position other intelligence assets to complement the operational reporting analytic or law enforcement aspects of the mission Within the IC the opportunity for such a well-rounded intelligence experience is uncommon Instead the relevant components of each agency tend to divide the national effort into its component parts Officers provide their contribution to the mission based on their job description much like workers on an assembly line The level of engagement for the individual of cer therefore may be no greater for a critical task than for a routine intelligence issue The benefits and disadvantages of each model are clear in the United States we have been able to afford a complex highly specialized officer corps but each officer has a very small role to play in safeguarding national security In a smaller country an of cer may be more of a generalist but play a much larger role in protecting his her homeland In a Constellation arrangement the IC of cer can enjoy the benefits of both models a highly specialized corps of officers focused on a specific threat to US interests with a broad mandate to ensure national security The mission oriented o icer is the kind of officer America needs but cannot develop through top-down agency reorganizations Instead by creating a uid and dynamic array -54- r of task oriented teams that spans the current IC structure Constellation will encourage officers to hone their skills within their home agencies to eventually serve a higher calling An intelligence officer that is encouraged to think in terms of his her mission in the broadest possible sense rather than in terms of a speci c routine set of duties is more likely to be engaged highly motivated and creative in his her approach to meeting the intelligence challenges facing America today Constellation A Two-Tiered System Is In addition to creating a highly focused highly motivated 'and more mission-oriented cadre of intelligence officers Constellation makes good business sense from a customer- focus perspective When the NSC Director for Nonproliferation requires information on the national response to Country X s suspected nuclear weapons program he or she needs a coherent and up to-date picture of the tactical situation Most importantly he she needs to be able to make one phone call to get a complete answer The current IC structure requires the director to make multiple calls or levy multiple taskings often requiring days of waiting for a response to all of his her questions In the new model the Constellation team that is charged with attacking that specific threat could provide answers to all of the director s questions virtually immediately Namely the Constellation team would provide the policymaker 0 its operational and collection plan 0 any operational or collection achievements 0 an evaluation of its available assets 0 and its current analysis of the issue It is important to note that the existing agencies would still have a Vital role to play in the Constellation model as the country s institutional knowledge base and repository for expertise Although the NSC would direct mission-speci c inquiries to the Constellation team it would look to the agencies to address some of the broader related issues The IC agencies would provide assessments of the competency of Country X s scientist cadre 0 the level of popular support for the regime 0 its current military readiness and alert status a and plans and intentions regarding the use of nuclear weapons Most important the existing agencies would have highlighted indications of the emerging nuclear weapons program triggering the creation of a Constellation team to counter it The two-tiered system then would encourage much of the strategic effort to reside in the existing intelligence agencies while the tactical response to a specific threat or emerging issue would come from a Constellation team -55- Constellation Maximizes Our Greatest Resource Our Of cers Constellation would reclaim the value of the most important yet currently inefficiently utilized resource The highly motivated imaginative and patriotic officers that comprise the IC currently cannot serve their country as much as they Would like to because of bureaucratic impediments A Constellation of interagency teams tackling specific national security missions would allow intelligence officers to prove that they are truly capable of full performance Implementation How Constellation Would Work Upon IC identification of an emerging threat to national security the DCI and or the N113 would order the creation of a Constellation team to address the threat The DCI would choose a Constellation team leader from one of the agencies based on the nature of the Constellation team s mission and the agency best suited in terms of speci c focus resources and assets to lead the mission The Constellation team would enjoy a mandate from the NID to task the agencies with any operational or collection requirements involving clandestine or national level assets to support the mission The team would consult regularly with the DCI and NID to ensure that its approach met the needs of policymakers The length of a Constellation team assignment would vary according to the nature of the mission and the accomplishments required of it by the DCI and the NID Some missions may be highly tactical in nature and require only a few months to complete Others may be more complex and last for a year or more A longer mission one that approaches 18 months eventually might devolve into a matter for the IC to accomplish provided the Constellation team had successfully realigned the focus of the agencies and orchestrated their efforts to handle the task Dissolution of the Constellation team would occur when the team leader notified the DCI that the threat had dissipated or had been defeated the intelligence warning of the threat no longer remained valid the team s action plan successfully had realigned the IC to address the threat or the threat had reached crisis level meriting creation of a DCI Task Force In the event that the mission devolved to the IC the leader of the disbanded Constellation team would serve an ombudsman role oating between the agencies to ensure the -55- mission continued to proceed according to the Constellation plan and the wishes of the DCI and NID Constellation How It Would Look Small Logistics Tail The size of a newly created Constellation team would depend upon its mission and the assets required to fulfill the mission Because each team can task the IC with specific collection operations or analysis to supplement its work and because each mission would be specific in focus most teams probably would require no more than two of cers from each of the relevant agencies A team of 20-25 officers therefore should be more than enough to handle any mission and allow for staffing issues that arise during longer assignments like when an officer takes leave travels or enrolls in training Housing the new team may prove a challenge because of the scarcity of office space in the IC However because most teams probably would be 25 officers or less finding space to house the team may be mitigated somewhat Another mitigating factor could be the ability for some members of the team to participate virtually especially if their contribution to the Constellation team requires intensive involvement of their home agencies The DCI would have the discretion to place the team based on availability of space and the needs of the DCI and NID to maintain close contact with the team Training The Mission-Oriented With a team of 25 officers or less the division of labor would be unconventional A Constellation team would emphasize removing the stovepipes that currently define most officers careers Instead a Constellation team would encourage an open-minded approach to the problem by having reports of cers help with the team s analysis by having collection specialists help plan the team s operations strategy and by having help review and validate available assets This crossbreeding of officers would include time permitting a smattering of one day to one week long training courses which already are available to IC officers according to their discipline As officers found the time during longer Constellation assignments they would enroll in brief training courses to polish the new skills they developed while on the team Although each officer still would bring his her own specialized skills to bear on the team s mission a technical collection specialist might be encouraged to take a course in HUMINT targeting 3 reports officer might enroll in a course on spotting denial and deception in imagery analysis and an all-source analyst might enroll in an asset validation course One exception to the team s training opportunities would be the clandestine service trainee curriculum which is too involved and specialized for the purposes of cross training Instead a brief tutorial in the principles of field operations would suffice in exposing the non case officer to the clandestine service Through this exposure to 57- other disciplines officers that serve in Constellation teams ultimately would develop the skills to become truly full-performance intelligence officers Constellation Creating A Tighter-Knit Community The professional experiences and values shared by Constellation team members would help to foster enduring personal relationships that would bring the IC closer together After a team had disbanded officers would follow related issues from their home agencies but would be more likely to contact their former Constellation teammates and team leader to confer on further developments The Constellation experience therefore would further encourage officers to shed the narrowly defined stovepipe approach to intelligence and would integrate them into a more holistic security network over the course of their careers Smashing Rice Bowls Just as Constellation would help to remove the phenomenon of the Stovepipe by encouraging team members to handle all aspects of the intelligence mission it also would remove the notion of turf by holding primacy within the IC on mission-speci c issues Because of the charter from the NID all tasking originating from a Constellation team would carry the same weight as a direct tasking from the White House Field officers managers of collection platforms and headquarters officers alike would be subject to NID level scrutiny in their support of the mission This arrangement would streamline the archaic processes involved in tasking national level collection platforms it would focus agency priorities and resources and it would ensure movement in the field Constellation In Action Small interagency teams would be able to focus IC resources on the most intractable and immediately challenging intelligence problems far more effectively than the individual agencies would through normal coordination Constellation teams therefore would best serve non traditional missions that cut across many disciplines and agencies in the IC Indications of a sale of North Korean long range ballistic missiles to Syria might be one example of where a new Constellation team would take the lead Counterproliferation officers and other experts from CIA and DIA would contribute their experience on the North Korean and Syrian accounts to identify targets for collection while NGA and NSA representatives to the team would use their intimate knowledge of national collection platforms topropose innovative collection strategies for both countries Military representatives would help to coordinate airborne and shipborne collection efforts off the coast of each country and if necessary support interdiction operations ONI and SOCOM officers may also be seconded to the team if a shipment appeared imminent and interdiction remained an option Meanwhile clandestine service officers would -53- orchestrate efforts to recruit sources with access to both countries missile programs to collect HUMINT to further guide the Constellation operation Constellation All of the IC agencies contributions to the action plan would occur in unison under the Constellation team s direction Another mission might involve pursuit of an al-Qa ida affiliated terrorist cell purportedly extracting uranium from mines in Africa Counterterrorism officers and African specialists would help the Constellation team identify the parties involved as well as their vulnerabilities Clandestine service officers and all source could help decide how best to attack the problem and provide ground truth once the site of the activity had been located Depending on the Constellation team s approach SOCOM officers may be part of the team to coordinate a joint military intelligence operation to disrupt the activity SA and NGA of cers could assist in the operatipn by providing continuous real time or near-real time operational intelligence on the intended target FBI officers and Department of Homeland Security officials would contribute to the mission by ensuring the cell did not have a presence in the United States Several other potential missions undoubtedly exist for Constellation teams to pursue some of them perhaps more dramatic or immediately threatening to US interests For those missions a business as usual approach could fall woefully short of ensuring national security In the post 9f 11 world the synergistic power of a Constellation-style approach to security threats is a force our country should not hesitate to employ Courage 0f Conviction A critical element to the successful implementation of a Constellation mission will be the courage of all intelligence officers including the DCI and ND to pursue aggressively the national security mission based on imperfect information None of the most important national security challenges facing America today involve clear-cut intelligence or ready-made solutions Our adversaries are increasingly more sophisticated in their attempts to hide their activities As such our leadership will need to act on indicators Vice explicit intelligence The DCI and N11 willneed to be forward leaning in establishing Constellation teams before Country develops a nuclear program or Arms Dealer sells fissile material to al-Qa ida if the United States is to counter such threats sufficiently About a dozen such teams analogous to the Hard Target Boards should be sufficient to address the most urgent missions without taxing the IC infrastructure But the transitory nature of the Constellation team should encourage the DCI and NID to lean forward in pursuing the missions that merit focused IC attention The advantage to the Constellation model of IC reform is that once a threat to national security has diminished either because the IC has realigned its assets in accordance with the Constellation team s strategy or because the indicators that triggered the formation of -59- a team no longer remain valid the team can dissolve with no disruption to the IC But the country s leadership must be willing to allow pursuit of speci c missions to counter perceived emerging threats at their inception in order for it to maximize the value of the Constellation model Ultimately effective leadership of the IC will depend upon the will to pursue the mission before all the intelligence has been gathered and to see the mission through until its officers are satisfied that the challenge is being or has been met Constellation IV Conclusion Constellation Is Nothing Long Overdue The concept of fusing the of different components into a hybrid unit is nothing new We see the technique applied in agriculture through genetic enhancement of crops in epidemiology through the use of live viruses to create vaccines and in businesses that create project teams under managing partners Most importantly however we see it in the organization of our most treacherous enemies and the most insidious threats to our security The establishment of a uid exible array of interagency teams that spans the Intelligence Community would allow the most talented and creative officers the space to depart from their bureaucratic stovepipes and reinvent the approach to the most important intelligence missions In so doing America would arm itself with a powerful tool to immediately address threats to national security and would instill within the intelligence officer corps a newfound sense of purpose -50- From Stovepipes to a Web From Stovepipes to a Web Adapting Intelink's Gated Communities for the Networked World The World Wide Web has given us astonishing communication abilities We can meet people from across the world that share our interests We can get news information from thousands of sources all of it current to the minute In under a second a modern search engine like Google can scan billions of documents to nd exactly what we're looking for and then make suggestions for related material Intelink was built to do for the Intelligence Community what the Web has done for the world electronically connect its members to information and to each other But ten years after Intelink's inception finding at other agencies is still a chore Many of the official assessments on Intelink are outdated soon after publication Its search engines give users seemingly arbitrary results that have little to do with their search terms The information management tools used by the Intelligence Community are years behind free technology available to the whole world Intelin is managed by layers of technical directors systems administrators Web designers and editors The placement and contents of each document are approved by several people The network is as neatly organized and regimented as a modern military You would think that this devotion to order and centralization would make it a more user friendly version of the Web which is a tangled mess of pages with no managed method of publication or cooperation Users can publish anything they want in almost any format they choose without going through middlemen They can remove content as quickly as they can publish it It is anarchy - But this anything goes culture is what makes the Web so much more powerful than Intelink Many agree that the open Web gives them more research power a more intuitive organization scheme and more communication capabilities than does Intelink This is unacceptable If Intelin is to have the advantages of the Web--dynamic easily located information and a lively interconnected community--its managers must instill in it the culture that has given the Web these qualities We must give the same thing that Internet users have their own personal space on the network where they are free to write and publish their knowledge ideas thoughts and questions to personal home pages Only then will Intelink begin to benefit from the technical and sociological benefits of the Web -51- From Stovepipes to a Web Intelink's Hierarchical Culture Intelink's technical standards are appropriately managed to stay up-to date with the World Wide Web's which are set by its own standards body the World Wide Web Consortium New technologies and programming languages are making information much more manageable and the Intelink Management Office sees that these are implemented properly by site managers But adopting the Web's technical standards is not enough Intelink must embrace the Web's fundamental democracy idea before it can take full advantage of the technologies it implements Both Intelink and the open Web are organized into Virtual communities of information Links are the critical pieces that determine which neighborhood a page belongs to On the open Web contributors freely place links to any page they like These pages likely have related content thereby creating a set of links and nodes -a web connected by common interests Its chaos is a result of its democratic d Centralized governance each person with Internet access has a right to publish and link to anything they like They can belong to as many neighborhoods as they want They can contribute expert knowledge learn from others or just watch in silence The result is the most dynamic community of people and information in the world an American orist and a Russian gardener can become business partners after meeting through their chess newsgroup A Canadian photographer learning about snorkeling can give a Jamaican scuba diver advice on underwater cameras Figure 1 A figurative View of the World Wide Web Users are allowed to fink to any page they want but will naturally build communities of information with similar pages The better sites receive votes of approval in the form of links from many pages 3-31Intelink however is a branched network 1 Instead of a web of pages the network looks similar to the organization charts of the agencies involved Finished intelligence products are designed coded and uploaded by unfamiliar with their content and their place within the grander scheme of the Community The result is a branched network with very few deep links that cross agency domainsa for instance a DIA analysis that links to an NSA source document There might be more physical bridges between DC area intelligence agencies than there are deep links between their ic gov domains So instead of being organized into communities of like co ntent a terrorism neighborhood a biological weapons borough et cetera Intelink is rigidly divided into sectors of pages seen mainly for the agencies and offices that own them Figure 2 And the lack of deep links makes them more like several gated communities instead of an urban cultural capital This practice perpetuates the image of US intelligence as a group of competing agencies instead of a true community of and collectors But Figure 2 is more than just a symbol of the communication gap It also has a serious impact on how our computers make sense of data From Stovepipes to a Web Figure 2 A figurative View of lntelink-SCI Roman numerals letters and numbers represent directorates offices etc Red Lines show how distant like pages are on Intelink making it harder for trying to find a page buried deep within a site It also keeps search engines from building logical communities -63- From Stovepipes to a Web Disconnected Deep linking is what gives modern search engines like Google their ability to make sense of the Web and find what you're looking for Links mean relationships Modern search engines judge a page's value and relevance to search queries based largely on links When one page links to another a search engine s crawler assumes that the two pages have something in common The number of links to a certain page the text of the link itself the words surrounding those links and even the number of times those links are clicked all factor into Google s formula Try searching for on Intelink You will get the home page of the National Reconnaissance Office as the first hit not because that's what the page claims to be but because many other pages on Intelink have voted for it by linking the letters to When the web of pages becomes as complex as the one shown in Figure 1 Google sees each page as a composite of not only its words but of the words on all of its linked and linking pages as well On the Web two communities that might seem completely unrelated can easily find something in common InSpired by the six degrees of separation theory which hypothesizes that every human on earth is separated by just a few acquaintances researchers at otre Dame University found that the diameter of the web the maximum number of clicks to get from any Web page to another- was about 20 2 Just like people the closer two pages are to each other the more they have in common The lesson is that once the virtual dots are connected it becomes much easier to connect logical ones When an analyst is a few logical steps from solving a terror plot it helps if his web page knows the web page that knows the web But because of Intelink's gated communities structure and lack of deep links its search engines cannot draw relationships between similar reports from different agencies The link path between them is too long for a search engine to see what they have in common Figure 2 Computers cannot see the connection between an FBI report on an Arizona ight school and CIA report on'student pilots in Florida- a connection that humans can only recognize in hindsight For the same reason a DIA document on North Korean nuclear proliferation will have more relevance to DIA's profile of Kim Jong-Il than to SA's own WMD assessment Disconnected Intelink s structure has social implications as well Before Google and the World Wide Web the Internet was used solely as a way for people to directly communicate with each other and among large groups It cultivated communities that became as close-knit as a suburban neighborhood This camaraderie is nonexistent on Intelink Its social culture is decades behind the one available through your home computer While sociology and -54 economics professors have projected the Web will mean the end of the nationstate the borders between Intelligence Community agencies are still strong From Stovepipes to a Web The problems of analyst to-analyst communication are more tangible than the abstract information theory discussed above They start with a difficult interface Finding your way to a page is reminiscent of a maze It usually involves guesswork as to which links to follow as there is often only one correct route through many pages An incorrect guess means retracing your steps Sometimes it seems like you re intentionally being sequestered from outside Unlike World Wide Web pages which usually offer an easy way to e-mail their authors most finished intelligence products provide nothing more than an obscure office acronym sometimes there's a phone number which may or may not have a name E mail addresses are rare Even then the address given may be fonthe agency's internal system leaving outside frustrated when their emails are returned as undeliverable another dead end in their reSearch As for online directories some agencies let you search for by name only which doesn't help when you're trying to meet new people Others let you search for obscure office acronyms that have an indecipherable connection to their analytical focus but rarely does a site let you drill down by regional and functional specialty and pinpoint an expert After two years at my agency I still run into new people from across the community that share my focus When I first realized that there were probably dozens of unknown writing reports on my subject without ever asking for my opinion they felt like competitors instead of teammates What are we achieving by electronically segregating our agencies Although exaggerated Figure 2 makes it easy to understand why the entire Intelligence Community has a communication problem Intelink s pitfalls are most obvious during crises Scenarios change quickly meaning that by the time an assessment has gone through the edit and posting process the information is already outdated One of the problems with a finished product's Intelink presence is that it is finished The situation could change drastically in the days months and years following its posting but intelligence law requires that the document s content remains the same deserve an opportunity to amend their past assessments and customers should not be relegated to outdated information A personal home page where an analyst can write thoughts and comments on past assessments and current crises would solve both problems A bit of self rule is vital if Intelink is to be as dynamic and agile as the World Wide Web Our must have a network that opens doors instead of locking them and one that values an intelligence product for its words not the agency that owns it Your Counterparts One Virtual Cube Over As an analyst some of your teammates are in neighboring cubes You can roll your chairs into circles and discuss breaking news and coming challenges But most of your -65- will From Stovepipes to a Web teammates are on opposite Sides of the beltway at different agencies The only way to share your thoughts with the whole group is to meet every several months for a midmorning conference This does not cultivate teamwork Daily communication is essential for a cooperative spirit between agencies The best but impossible solution would be to stick your counterparts into the next cube On the other hand could build their own online communities if given the chance All they would need is permission and a few megabytes of server space Linking their products to source documents similar analyses and the home pages of their counterparts would let this subcommunity of Intelink evolve into a true web of information connecting both related data and like-minded Figure 3 lnteltnk-SCI with the beginnings of a hypothetical online community North Korean counterproliferation have developed their own home pages and are now interlinking with counterparts pages and analyses making information on the subject easier to find for both humans and search engines Even with just one link established at are much closer to dozens of other throughout the community Agency home pages are also linking to each other -55 From Stovepipes to a Web A fundamental rule of any information management plan is that it will work only if the primary users support it This is achieved by giving them tools that they re comfortable with and use on a daily basis and by giving them a bit of control over' their information But past Intelligence Community programs have involved new software training sessions and thick instruction manuals along with costly layers of codewriters image editors and web designers 3 Implementing this proposal would be so cheap and simple it seems closer to a policy than a project The infrastructure and staff for an online community already exists All that is lacking is permission The average analyst will require only a few megabytes of space allowing every analyst in the country to store their information on a single Web server which would ideally be under the control of a neutral body such as the Intelink Management Office Some agencies already provide HTML editing software to all for the rest word processors can easily convert documents into HTML When the current generation of bloggers and Instant Messagers grow up to become the core of the Analytical Community a self publishing capability will not only be expected It will be their most comfortable form of communication If given permission to use it the only thing dividing the Intelligence Community of their day will be the Potomac River Endnotes 1 Watts Duncan Six Degrees The Science of a Connected Age New York W W Norton 2003139 2 Albert R ka Hawoong eong and Albert Laszlo Barabasi Diameter of the World Wide Web Nature September 9 1999 Volume 401 130-131 3 Martin Fredrick Top Secret Intranet How U S Intelligence Built Intelink--The World 's Largest Most Secure Network Upper Saddle River NJ Prentice-Hall 1999 -57- -53- I 2 w r'f' y 24 - A Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Transforming IC Mission Performance and Collection Evaluation Processes Executive Summary Exploiting auditing software in intelligence information systems IISs can multiply the productivity of Intelligence Community 1C decisionmakers and dramatically change the way the IC does business Audit log software captures detailed information about analyst- document transactions in the effect converting the 118 into an automated transaction processing system ATPS When combined with analyst demographic data and document metadata in the IIS audit log data can generate a host of new performance metrics of value to operations planning programming and budget personnel throughout the IC Because audit log data is objective behavioral data generated by in their daily work process about the value of documents in the it can be used directly in resource allocation processes unlike subjective opinion survey and value scale rating data Widespread availability of audit log metrics opens the door to greater use of modern quantitative management techniques including bene t cost analysis operations research and mathematical optimization approaches developed since World War II for addressing resource allocation and investment decision problems Use of audit log metrics in the IC should expand dramatically because of their high value and low cost ongoing audit log pilot project has already established the feasibility and practicality of such applications to intelligence problems Similar opportunities abound within the IC and the Community Management Staff This paper outlines the benefits to be derived from 1183 through the use of audit log software These benefits are real and substantial as demonstrated in pilot audit log program Together the audit log technology and its applications constitute a paradigm shift a major change in collection evaluation resource allocation and future investment activities in the IC The Transformative Power Of Audit Log Data Security auditing software can transform an 118 into an automated transaction processing system ATPS See box below A product of the information technology revolution of the 19905 ATPSs have been rapidly proliferating in the private sector and provide a medel for the application of audit log analysis to IISs Figure 1 shows a typical 118 with the collection systems that provide the data and the intelligence who use it The green line from the to the collection systems indicates direct feedback from to collectors about information needs and collection -69- Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis requirements This figure illustrates the intelligence cycle in which review HS information refine their information needs and provide feedback to the collectors who adjust their activities accordingly The information ow focuses on substantive intelligence problems including plans intentions actions and activities of key world political figures and their countries Automated Transaction Processing Systems ATPS Icons of the Information Technology Revolution ATPSs have become ubiquitous in American commercial society Supermarket ATPSs capture essential data about a customer s interaction at the checkout counter number of items amounts prices supplier names customer and sales person identities payment methods discounts etc This information is stored and forwarded to corporate data warehouses where it is analyzed for a multitude of purposes inventory control product mix and pro tability studies assessing advertising program effectiveness new product features evaluation and design pricing policy market segmentation etc Similarly ATPSs in hospitals libraries and salesrooms capture essential information about products and services provided at the level of individual transactions ATPSs have not seen widespread application in the Intelligence Community but their application has the potential to substantially change the way the IC does business Figure 1 IIS Showing Collectors and Primary Database Users Intelligence Information System Database 0 perators developers Collection Systems ATPSs Create High Value Data For Entirely New Customers Figure 2 shows the operation of some US but with audit log data analysisfally integrated as part of the oVerall system The audit log software creates data that can generate objective metrics on intelligence issue support and collection performance The audit log software automatically monitors and records individual analyst transactions -70 Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Figure 2 118 Showing New Class of Customers Exploiting Audit Log Data Intelligence Information System Database Operators developersi Program Budget with the documents in the IIS Transaction records are date time stamped and include information about the analyst the document and the document actions taken by the analyst 1 Figure 2 also shows audit log data -cornbined with analyst demographics2 and document metadata3 going to an entirely different set of secondary database customers including operators managers planning programming and budget personnel of both database subscribers and data providers The information ow depicts use of the data in the IIS This information flow constitutes an additional feedback loop from to collectors 1 Audit log records contain the user name document identifier type of user-document transaction and the date time of the analyst transaction on the document 2 Including user office team intelligence issue analytic specialization grade and years of experience 3 Including collection agency collector type document originator publication date date of receipt by the classification and document length -71- Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Intelligence Value Metrics Available From ATPS Data Because an intelligence analyst s time is at a premium the time expended the number and type of transactions he she makes with an 118 document re ects the value of that document The number of transactions an analyst makes on a document correlates strongly with the likelihood he she will cite it in finished intelligence Audit log metrics are available for every analyst and every intelligence report in the IIS and can be used to derive a measure of the intelligence value for each report Unlike most collection metrics that measure only the quantity of reports generated by a collector the audit log metric identi es and counts those reports that are highly valued and identifies the who bene ted from those reports Other metrics of interest include two measures of document display time number of documents saved 0 total number of analyst transactions including send export print or annotate transactions and the number of revisits to a document Averages per document analyst analytic group or time period may also be of interest Why Audit Log Data Is So Valuable Audit log data is highly valuable because of its distinctive characteristics and attributes - Audit log data extraction is non-intrusive it does not interfere with daily work processes and it is inexpensive to generate compared to other evaluation methods 0 Audit log data is objective 'behavioral and CUStomer'generated- CUStomel' basf i Value Intelligence Collection Evaluation Has of output measures like those derived from Traditionally Relied on subjective aUdit 10% data are the grail 0f Opinion Data of Limited Value to program budget analysis and resource Decisionmakers allocf tlon 13006536 Alfdit 10% data PdeeS Intelligence collection evaluation efforts a sohd basrs for estimating document use have traditionally centered on labor- value quantity and timeliness from individual intensive intrusive surveys data questionnaires focus groups and 0 Audit log data has numerical qualities that interviews which tend to provide permit mathematical operations essential to subjective anecdotal evidence or Program bUdget and resource allocatiOl- l categorical ratings of system use value decisions Unlike ordinal subjective categorical assessments audit log data can be used directly in benefit cost and resource allocation calculations in contrast to opinion survey data that merely informs resource allocation decisions 0 Audit log data is voluminousd and readily available for every issue analyst and timeliness and responsiveness to requirements These methods rely primarily on analyst memory or on impressions of what was relevant The rating scales employed are highly non linear which severely limits their use in cost benefit resource allocation or investment decision processes -72 Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis document associated with the IIS Timely document-by-document value metrics present new opportunities for collectors to improve their responsiveness to customer informatiOn needs and a new opportunity to reduce the intelligence requirements to reportin cycle time Audit log systems can now provide metrics and market research data to the IC that have traditionally been available only to industry and commercial enterprises including 0 Which groups of customers are using the HS and data from specific providers When and for how long are they are using the IIS and each of its intelligence reports What they are using the intelligence reports for Which intelligence reports are most valuable Which intelligence reports have very low usage or are not being accessed at all Audit log records represent a key untapped resource for inereasing collector and decision maker productivity without presenting an additional workload for intelligence IT program managers intelligence collection managers and senior intelligence of cials who gain experience in the use of this data will find it increasingly useful to support decisionmaking on mission and collection performance collection system utilization and general resource allocation For many purposes audit log'data can supplant labor intensive questionnaire based evaluation methods Substituting audit log analysis for these evaluation methods where possible can improve the productivity of the analytic workforce Uses or Audit Log Metrics And Data As shown in Figure 3 audit log data has a number of appliCations important to the Intelligence Community at multiple levels -73- Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Figure 3 Uses of Audit Log Metrics and Data in the IC At the level these applications include 0 Performance baseline trend and tracking information on Intelligence Issue and National Intelligence Priorities Framework NIPF mission accomplishment See Figure 4 for one of many audit log metrics that can be used as baseline information 0 Modeling the effectiveness of information sharing programs policies among agencies A comprehensive audit log database could provide an objective basis for assessing the effectiveness of information sharing and policy legal compliance -74 Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Crisis Using Audit Log High-value Analyst Document Accesses For Typical Crisis Involving Contact Forces Total Number of Documents Saved by Source For XYZ Issue 2004 Collector 1 Collector Collector Collector Collector Collector Interactions Collector Collector Collector Collector 10 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 1000012000140001600018000 Figure 5 Trend T racking Figure 4 Baseline Example At the Agency Collector Level audit log analysis has a large number of applications including 0 Baseline trend and tracking information on the quality quantity and timeliness of collection agency support to NIPF mission areas and intelligence working those issues See Figure 5 above for an example of tracking the number of high value analyst document accesses overtime for a typical crisis Audit records can be analyzed for long or short time periods to discern trends look for anomalies in usage patterns or focus on a unique series of reports or documents Audit log analysis can also provide collectors with insight into source productivity product use and value and changes over timeH especially during surge efforts and periods of crisis Audit log analysis of HS audit records during international con icts for example can be used to assess peaks or declines in usage as well as peaks or declines in reporting 0 Generation of timely feedback to data providers about analyst utilization and value of their products on a report-by report basis If provided daily audit log data could signi cantly reduce the intelligence cycle time and improve collector responsiveness to requirements Audit log record analysis can likewise be targeted to specific intelligence producers categories of documents and groups of users Specialized reporting for clearly defined time periods can also be subjected to audit log analyses Such analyses would allow producers to focus on potential problem reporting areas and initiate corrective actions in a timely manner For high volume intelligence collectors such as open source with a wide array of sources audit log data may for the first time provide objective measures of the value of their products to their users This information could greatly enhance the ability of high volume collectors to focus on customer needs reduce marginal and unread reporting and enhance their responsiveness to customer requirements -75- Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis 0 Market research data characterizing the customer base to database providers in terms of numbers of their intelligence specialization issue af liation and degree of interest in their reporting 0 Determining which 118 reports are not used by any analyst Audit log data permits documents not accessed by any 118 user to be easily identified and called New Documents Accessed and Not Accessed in April 2004 By Source 0 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70 to the attention of the data provider The percent not used is an important measure of collector performance See Figure 6 0 Estimating analyst workload devoted to information search retrieval and review functions on data in the HS 0 Hypothesis Testing Audit records can be seen as a vast new source of objective data with which to test cum hypotheses conventional wisdom and commonly asked questions about we Collector a Colleclor Number 0 Documents many aspects of the intelligence enterprise Using appropriate aggregate statistical techniquess audit log records Analys's Figure 6 Documents Not Used can be used for assessing the relative value of different product lines the relative importance of different sources the productivity of different production processes and detecting changes and trends over time Audit log analysis can provide valuable data to intelligence collectors seeking to assess the impact of their products For example are reading their products and if so which ones Does the reporting appear to be of value to the users This information can be critical to intelligence-production organizations facing serious resource constraints in meeting their responsibilities 0 Enabling bene t cost methods Perhaps the most important application of audit log data is enabling greater use of bene t cost methods in IC decision making and investment analysis regarding future collection and processing systems For example the value metrics available in audit log data can be combined with incremental cost data to generate a set of willingness to pay guidelines for use in evaluating alternative investments in future collection systems collection architectures and system expansion improvement alternatives Audit log metrics can play an important role in anchoring subjective intelligence value judgments elicited in decision conferences for building integrated cost effective intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance programs The abundance of objective intelligence value metrics from audit log data should also facilitate increased use of decision-analysis and operations research methods in the 1C Chi squared regressron of variance and covariance dynamlc modeling and other data analysis techniques -76- - Wu Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Audit Log Data Security The utility of audit log data ultimately relies on the data security procedures employed by the audit log project managers A well-designed and executed security plan that addresses audit log data usage data storage and the types of manipulative strategies that will be employed is critical to the success of any audit log data analysis program One key element of any security plan is identity protection IIS audit log data normally contain sensitive user identification data that should be sanitized by substituting numbers or codes for true analyst names Audit log data on individual users should never be released to managers or supervisors for individual user evaluation or for performance assessment purposes Such actions would carry the inherent risk of creating a marked change in analyst behavior that could severely compromise audit data integrity Pilot Project --Pioneering ATPS Application In The Intelligence Community - I 77- Intelligence Information System Audit Analysis Future Applications Of Audit Log Project 0 Analyst Training -78 Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis substantial delays Audit log data can be used to assess the relative value of sources cited in nished intelligence important because cited intelligence documents differ signi cantly in value and are often used for the partial or incomplete information they contain ATPS Potential Applications In The Intelligence Community And Homeland Security The Community Management Staff Should Establish Audit Log Standards for the IC Because ATPS applications are in their infancy in the IC the Community Management Staff should take the lead in establishing minimum audit log application software standards This would encompass the use of robust and exible auditing software in existing as well as new 1183 within the IC Without IC-wide standards many of the bene ts of audit applications outlined below will not be fully realized because of data incompatibilities Auditing software carefully designed integrated and tested to IC standards will provide maximum value to senior IC leaders 0 The Community Management Staff should propose an IC-wide audit initiative to facilitate the rapid exploitation of security auditing software as a way to improve I decisionmaking and the productivity of IC IISs Not all 183 will merit the investment but for those larger systems that do it Would be reasonable to expect significant improvements in the responsiveness of collectors to all source needs as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of collection systems Audit log initiatives at NSA and NGA for example would provide objective measures of the utilization value and timeliness of products generated by their systems Audit log initiatives for IMAGERY SIGINT and HUMINT should be seriously considered 0 The Community Management StanP should establish an I C-wide database consisting of the audit log data from every all-source analyst in the IC Such a database would enable collection evaluation and feedback data to collectors from the totality of all source in the IC and would be extremely valuable to collection managers program developers and resource allocation investment decision personnel The widespread use of such a database to support program initiatives and budget requests would be expected to increase the objectivity of intelligence decisionmaking and resource allocation processes while de-emphasizing the role of organizational politics 0 The Community Management Staff should establish a government-wide database of audit log data on policymakers use of nished intelligence reporting from all- -79- Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis source Audit log records from finished intelligence reporting delivered electronically to policymakers and intelligence consumers would be of continuing interest to issue managers and all-source The Community Management Staff should establish a pilot initiative to use IC audit log data in the production of long-term Strategic I Studies Often criticized for its lack of long-term historical and strategic future-oriented analyses the IC could benefit from the integration of audit log record databases from key agencies for the production of large-scale cooperative studies Such studies could provide the basis for a big picture look at information ow information usage and the value of the reporting to various analytical units within the IC It is conceivable these studies could also provide an objective basis for future changes to improve IC information handling sharing analysis and the IC organizational structure Audit Log Applications For Homeland Security Audit log analysis has significant applications for information systems deployed to enhance homeland security and improve the effectiveness of US defenses against the threat of terrorism With the current emphasis on increased information sharing for Department of Homeland Security DHS based networks--including the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI and other key Federal agencies--a robust audit log data analysis program could provide valuable insights into overall system usage patterns Given the wide variety of data available to DHS--including databases media reporting analysis mapping imagery and the large number of data recipients state regional local and selected private-sector organizations --a proactive audit log program would facilitate selective targeting of key user populations to ascertain the value of online offerings Audit Log analysis for a variety of homeland security systems would be particularly beneficial in View of dif culties inherent in conducting valid survey or questionnaire studies which may often have marginal response rates and accurately polling the diverse and geographically dispersed customer population for homeland security information Audit log analysis would generate data on the value of publications and reporting as well as provide a validated methodology for testing the usefulness and value of new or modified offerings with selected user groups Newly proposed homeland security systems or those undergoing substantial hardware software upgrades should be designed and deployed with enhanced auditing capabilities To be effective homeland security information must be accurately and effectively disseminated to those at the state regional local and private sector organizations who are best equipped to act upon it Audit log data analysis for homeland security information systems could provide system administrators and senior level agency managers and policymakers with the same types of usage andcustomer transaction data available through -80- Intelligence Information System Audit Log Analysis Conclusion Use of audit log record analysis as outlined in this paper represents a new opportunity for IC agencies to take full advantage of rapidly accelerating advances in computer technology The benefits of this methodology are real and substantial as demonstrated in the CIA pilot project Audit log analysis and its associated applications will result in a clear paradigm shift sparked by what we believe to be a technologically innovative approach to collection evaluation resource allocation and future investment activities in the IC The wide variety of information systems in the IC will provide a unique test bed to further validate this methodology and to expand the technology on which it is based While we recognize that changes of this magnitude in large organizations often occur slowly over time we look forward to future Community-wide initiatives that will provide the resources and the high level visibility to begin to fosterjthe development of IC prototype efforts that can be transitioned into production level mainstream programs -81- -82 Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft By a CIA f cer serving undercover overseas I Proactive National Security Current foreign policy exigencies and national security threats mandate a review of US intelligence analysis procedures and objectives Today s concerns are markedly different than those that faced many senior policymakers when they were working at the functional levels within the Intelligence Community IC or the broader United States Government USG Developing deploying and exploiting technical means to monitor known or su3pected activities by specific adversaries often with predictable modus operandi are very different than global threat and warning coverage against asymmetric threats and heretofore unknown entities For example tracking a specific Soviet boomer submarine is very different than trying to determine if a violent anti- American cell is forming in a basement somewhere in the world communicating via the Internet or transferring economic value through intangible and untraceable means In short the international security playing field has changed so must our team and its game plan The 1980 United States US gold medal ice hockey squad probably would not win this year s Wimbledon tournament Those decisionmakers who trained with slide rulers or studied communism may not be the best suited to assess tactical operations in a world of microprocessors or events in the Horn of Africa rather their intellect and foreign relations experience should be leveraged in concert with the relevant contemporary knowledge of their highly-qualified subordinates Regardless of the epithet used group think received wisdom tradecraft tradition standard operating procedures etc just because the USG did it that way yesterday does not imply that it is the best plan for today While no USG component can be appropriately blamed for wholesale nonfeasance or malfeasance in connection with the tragedy of 11 September 2001 some lessons can be learned from that harrowing experience The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI was not trained or mandated to conduct ex ante intelligence collection on foreign nationals or US persons The expertise lay in post hoc investigative skills that were second to none but the law forbade them from being employed without court orders or probable cause or possibly the lesser legal requirement of reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed or was imminent Central Intelligence Agency CIA and National Security Agency NSA officers on the other hand had strict prohibitions against collecting information about or studying US persons and purely domestic activities In essence the al Qa ida operatives training in the US could not legally be monitored by any USG intelligence or law enforcement entity prior to 9 11 -83- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft Some of those shortcomings have been rectified by the Patriot Act and others are sure to be remedied as a result of the 9 11 Commission s report and Congress s intelligence reform bill But those findings and their subsequent impacts will not be realized for years to come Reorganizing funding staf ng training and mobilizing a new national or homeland security apparatus will take years Perhaps by 2007 or 2008 the recommendations of the 9 11 Commission will be fully implemented and functioning Is one to believe that the international security playing field will not have changed again before that time With what certainty can Congress say that the terrorist threat will be the primary security concern in 2010 By the time the retroactively prepares to meet the exigencies of 2001 the game will likely have changed again and the USG will be ready to react once again our revamped Wimbledon players will march onto the pitch for a World Cup soccer game The last three years experiences have shown one thing clearly the USG is reactive in its national security posture and thinking The current IC structure is the result of the National Security Act of 1947 and the Central Intelligence Act of 1949 that were passed in the aftermath of World War II as a reaction to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor The future IC structure will be the result of new policies or statutes adopted in the aftermath of 9 11 as a reaction to al Qa ida Why does it take a new catastrophe for the IC to contemplate and guard against such new threats Is it a lack of intellectual creativity or sti ing bureaucratic hierarchies that prevent proactive national defense By proactive national defense let it be understood that this author does not refer to preemptive military strikes but to intelligence and security measures that safeguard against the next rather than the last threat Why not start preparing for the unforeseen exigencies of 2010 today Clearly the IC and the defense establishment have a long 'way to go in reinventing themselves to be one step ahead of the next adversary If the patriotic sacri ces and sel ess determination of our public servants in and out of uniform are a testament to this nation s resourcefulness and capabilities however then there is no doubt that the necessary objectives could be accomplished provided that the sights are pointed in the right direction Such a transformation of the US security posture will require a new approach to intelligence analysis as well as an attenuation of the American time horizon for foreign policy and intelligence planning Too much emphasis is placed on yesterday s failure the next Gallup poll tomorrow s press briefing and daily uctuations of the Dow Jones Most Americans only think in terms of 90-day scal quarters and US politicians rarely look beyond the next presidential election Such cultural social economic and political limitations poorly suit a nation that is embroiled in strategic competition with -84 Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft adversarieswhose time horizons transcend future or even past generations and centuries 1 II Getting It Right In'order to maintain US hegemony in the global arena the IC must systematically embrace change maintain a proactive posture and reward foresight First and foremost amongst the necessary changes is developing a professional culture that values rectitude above procedure As open public discussions have illustrated recent assessments about the existence of weapons of mass destruction WMD in Iraq the imminence of nuclear con ict between India and Pakistan in late 2002 and the gravity or nature of al Qa ida plots against US interests in 2001 all proved wanting The first two issues are Boolean in nature and logically exposed to verification or falsification The third proposition is more complicated but one can presume that few would argue the IC got 9 11 right Received wisdom in the Directorate of Intelligence DI is that it is acceptable to get the wrong answer for the right reasons In other words are not at fault if established tradecraft procedures and available intelligence reporting lead to inaccurate assessments The predominant focus in the D1 is placed on official chains of review inter-office coordination templates for analytic products institutional writing style etc In this author s humble opinion nothing could be more wrong The American public does not pay its intelligence to follow any pre-ordained playbook Nor does it care how many supervisors review an assessment or what rank those reviewers hold In many cases additional reviewers are only farther removed from both the analytic details and the kind of atmospherics that cannot be articulated but which lead to useful analytic judgments 2 What the taxpayers care about is whether or not the IC gets it right That begs two questions 1 How often is it possible to get intelligenCe questions right and 2 1 For two examples of this cognitive incongruity consider the lack of inflective tenses in the Chinese language and that nation s historically irredentist foreign policies and ii the way in which many Arabic males define themselves in terms of their progeny using the moniker Abu as compared to the Western patronymics that are so prevalent in America and Europe 2 For example in order for IC managers to substantively review an intelligence assessment they need to know everything that the primary read and did not read over the last few years What they chose not to include in the paper could be as important as what they did include In fact omitted reports that may never be read by any manager could run counter to the thesis of any assessment Second guessing the I people with thedeepest knowledge on a topic can be dangerous It leads to group think and static judgments Of course mentoring and teamwork play a role in developing good intelligence but the DI needs to trust its talented employees or else hire different employees whom it is willing to trust Further discussion under Section entitled Analytic Accountability will assuage concerns about very inexperienced being given too much authority -85- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft What methods lead to the most accurate results On the rst point the public must understand that intelligence analysis is an art and not a perfect science It deals with refining past or present truth from limited con icting and often deceptive data usually without the opportunity to perform controlled experiments or measurements and making predictions about the future 3 More realistic expectations coupled with vigilant efforts to produce ever-improving assessment capabilities would go a long way towards helping policymakers use intelligence wisely Switching to the second question regarding analytic methodologies it does not matter how you get the right answer but it does matter if you do not get the right answer Indeed the exact inverse of the DIS approach holds true Neither the White House nor the American public would complain if the CIA consistently and accurately predicted future world events with a ball yet they do complain when all of the DPS formal tradecraft procedures produce critical wrong answers Clearly a preoccupation with process turns the question upside down Why not focus on results Does one deposit one s retirement savings with an investment manager who promises to follow certain research methods or with the one who has consistently achieved the highest return for his investors Does one even ask what analytic methods the several brokerage houses use No most people look for a track record of success By eliminating attribution and hence accountability on most products the DI has lost its ability to monitor the most important metric of all namely who is getting it right What the DI really needs is a way to determine what methods or individuals produce the most accurate assessments or predictions over time Some commentators would counter that that is exactly what established DI methodologies are tried and true ways of getting the most accurate intelligence assessments possible Unfortunately not only is the current track record for those methods unsatisfactory but the paths not taken are rarely if ever recorded for comparison in a post hoc review Nearly always resource and time limitations lead to a single course of action being selected with all competing operations proposals or analytic approaches being sidelined and eventually forgotten Comparative statistics do not work or even exist in the DPS monopoly environment 3 Perhaps 300 is a good batting average in the intelligence game just like in baseball Boolean questions would obviously demand a better than 500 average that could be achieved through random guessing however issues such as Approximate the date for a possible coup in country Within one month may not lend themselves to very high success rates but may nonetheless be critically important to US policymakers 4 Several interesting CIA programs exist such as red-cell analysis and the Strategic Assessments Group in the DPS Office of Transnational Issues which try to provide avenues for counter-culture viewpoints or subject matters that are over the horizon This author lauds those initiatives and proposes that such strategic and outside the box thinking be incorporated into mainstream DI intelligence assessments -85- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft Disagreements over substantive assessments should be resolved in favor of those with the best record for accuracy not based on seniority political will or other procedural machinations In certain instances computer hacker events a 23 year-old analyst just may have more apposite knowledge than the DCI himself Reviewers can help ask the right questions and improve analysis but they should not trump analytic judgments regarding elds in which they are not pertinent intelligence experts at that time Analytic expertise stems from proximity to the first-order data and a proven ability to grasp and accurately predict substantive developments in that field 5 The rampant con ation of substance and process is the DIS greatest woe Most of a new DI officer s analytic training covers computer databases templates and formats writing styles chains of review organizational diagrams interagency communications and the President s Daily Brief PDB process in lieu of logic decision and game theory rational choice modeling probability statistics Bayesian reasoning human and other heuristic methods for turning incomplete information into probabilistic inferences Today s world does not produce many bright line rules and red ag intelligence reports IC should be trained to leverage the most rigorous epistemological tools for augmenting human inference deduction induction and abduction in order to analyze today s intelligence problems 6 Analytic Accountability Placing an increased focus on getting it right will entail more of an onus on junior officers to respectfully engage reviewers on issues of substantive concern For example many IC assessments sink to the least common denominator of agreement amongst all coordinating parties and are caveated into uselessness by the ambiguous words could may might or possible As the intelligence responsible for a portfolio and most intimately familiar with the current all-source reporting those individuals have an obligation to resist substantive claims that they disagree with even if there is not smoking gun evidence to prove their belief Too often junior themselves equate lack of experience or rank with lack of relevant knowledge Too often they quietly defer to senior administrators or operational colleagues who claim a monopoly on 5 Some commentators might contend that intelligence analysis does not or should not involve predictive inference This author would refer those critics to the overwhelming prevalence of terms such as likely possibly and probably in most DI products The questions What happened yesterday What is happening today and What in your expert opinion will happen tomorrow are inextricably linked in the intelligence profession Pericles queried the oracle at Delphi the President of the US turns to the IC 6 To give just one recent example the logical distinction between implications and biconditionals was apparently lost on policymakers when certain evidence of nuclear weapons development in Iraq surfaced The identification of dual use technologies that were necessary but not sufficient for WMD production was somehow misconstrued a logical proposition does not always imply its converse 87 Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft wisdom through either past experience or compartmented information In the end though all source intelligence analysis is a unique profession with its own purpose duties and required skill sets that are not fungible Ignoring that link or trying to replace that specialist with a reports officer or manager only weakens the entire intelligence chain The other side of that matter however is that the junior had better do their homework because a track record should be kept of their assessments should perform analysis not mere compilation and presentation of myriad intelligence reports produced and vetted by others That means making a substantive determination and taking personal responsibility for it just like any other skilled professional Producing an intelligence assessment should be taken every bit as seriously as prescribing a medication issuing a legal opinion certifying an engineering survey etc IC must be relied upon to reach determinations about the state of affairs of the world and be respected in their professional judgment If the management or foreign policy decisionmakers are not willing to rely on them then that proves the irrelevance of the and argues for either not employing them any more or replacing existing with expert who can be relied upon for their good judgment and who are willing to stake their professional reputations and their jobs on those judgments Looking back to the discussion in Section II above one must question how one could hold accountable for assessments that are so inherently difficult If one agrees that intelligence is an imperfect art then how can one expect even the best to get it right most of the time The answer comes to us from decision theory and probabilistic mathematics In cases of uncertainty probabilistic judgments are themselves valuable decisionmaking inputs Accurately assessed the simultaneous pursuit of two independent courses of action that each carry a 50 percent chance of accomplishing the same objective should yield a certain result In terms of intelligence analysis the IC should expect its expert to be able toassess uncertain states of affairs with a probability coefficient should be judged based not on whether something happens or does not happen but on their track record of applying correct probabilities to possible events past present or future Any event adjudged to be 100 percent likely should be expected to happen one half of the events adjudged to be 50 percent likely should come to fruition 7 7 Assessments could be divided into tiers perhaps in increments of ten percentage points and the respective percentage of the total number of propositions assessed to be in that tier should come to pass if the analyst is correct Alternatively if not enough propositions are adjudged to make tier-wise evaluation statistically sound then every assessment made by each analyst could be multiplied by its associated probability and summed in one algebraic equation In that case the final outputs most closely approximating the number of all events under consideration that actually occurred could help identify the superior although this method of evaluation would also be imperfect due to the possibility of -88 itRethinking Analytic Tradecraft over- or under-assessing the likelihood of events should be equally criticized because accuracy is what is most important to a decisionmaker Risk and uncertainty can be mitigated or hedged but inaccuracy cannot 8 Unlike intelligence collectors or the policymakers purview is to weigh options consider the utility of different outcomes and select courses of action Rational choice theory has incontestably shown that incomplete information multiple uncertain outcomes that carry individual probabilities is not an obstacle to effective decisionmaking provided that the probabilities are assessed as accurately as possible Despite our preferences we live in an uncertain world where few things are known absolutely without qualification Even the best natural scientists will admit that their method of hypothesis experimentation and abduction infers models of reality that are subject to future changes as additional information becomes available 9 If intelligence has the objective of divining truth about world5 events why does the IC not embrace the methods that have proven most useful and won dominance in all other elds of human study Let it be the role of the intelligence to assign probabilities to selected propositions and let policymakers add the utility values to the various outcomes in the decision function In that way experts in the field can speak definitively about what is or what can be without being politicized while elected leaders can decide what should be and take the necessary courses of action And in every instance the intelligence should be professionally judged and compensated based on how often their assigned probabilities match reality in retrospect Any analyst who could consistently and accurately state the percentage chance of events occurring would be worth her weight in gold in Las Vegas on Wall Street or in Washington DC Good decisions do not mandate certainty but a good foreign policy decision calculus does mandate accurate probability assessments Many intelligence officers equate their warning role with imminent danger and cables but surely proper installation of smoke detectors is every bit as important as if offsetting errors Nonetheless the two simplified schema discussed here illustrate the type of mechanisms that could be used to evaluate probability assessments 8 Using this method of accountability will discourage conservatism by who might otherwise underestimate all probabilities to avoid being penalized for claiming something that later does not come to fruition or is not verified ex post 9 The best historical example of the evolution of imperfect models was the pre-Copernican effort amongst geo centrists to explain anomalous planetary locations through increasingly complex series of epicycles Finally a much simpler heliocentric model was adopted in accordance with the principle of Ockham s razor -89- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft not more so than a last minute call to the re station The IC comprises highly educated experts but their judgments on future threats are rarely acted upon in tangible ways True finite resources and ongoing crises mandate attention but this author is not convinced that several hundred thousand well placed dollars today could not avert the need for several million tomorrow The ultimate questions become 1 Whose opinion about the future do you listen to and 2 How much credence do you put in or resources do you direct towards their distant warnings This Section has preoccupied itself with exploring a new method for determining an answer to the first of those two questions The second is a' matter of public policy based on the policymakers aversion to the probable impact the product of the trusted probability coef cient multiplied by its potential negative value An intelligence analyst should be judged and rewarded based on her ability to accurately assess extant or future scenarios 1 Elected politicians on - the other hand should take action to avert the outcomes that their constituencies find the most undesirable if such is indeed possible Analytic methods that worked in the 19803 may not be what works best today so why not use empirical evidence to prove what does work best One can be certain that even good strategies have finite terms of applicability dominance in game theory parlance By holding individually accountable evaluating their assessment records and placing preferential value on the future assessments of those with the best performance the IC could ensure an adaptive mechanism for producing the best inputs for each critical decision calculus at the policy level Analytic accountability would also provide signi cant and indisputable opportunities for performance-based compensation One can even imagine a situation where an analyst - who had a batting average of 750 in the IC and saved millions of US lives could be publicized and landed even under a pseudonym if necessary for security reasons as much as someone who can hit throw or catch a Spheroid with distinction Until are ready to be accountable they do not deserve that level of respect compensation or acclaim Until are made accountable the IC will not get it right as often as the American citizens deserve 10 The actual timing of the event is immaterial for the cognitive processes involved since in the absence of adequate information something happening today about which one will only later learn is intellectually equivalent to something that will happen tomorrow At any point in time an intelligence analyst is trying to infer a truth within the present state of information regardless of whether the subject matter is an event in the past present or future Only with complete information eyewitness accounts in the absence of denial or deception techniques does the tense of the proposition under study have operative value to the analyst -90- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft IV Meta-Level Analysis Once the procedural focus has given way to accuracy and accountability the question arises as to what propositions the should study and assess Clearly top-down assignments from policymakers and IC managers should be included Additionally should review the bottom-up intelligence that is derived from HUMINT SIGINT or other collection channels Finally themselves should generate some of their own taskings for as the foremost experts in the field under scrutiny they may have the best understanding of imminent concerns What makes the New York Times front page or a CNN sound bite is not always the most critical issue for national security Diverting analytic resources to respond to media claims or the political issue du jour may in fact be dangerous in some cases Intelligence failures are the result of one of four possibilities 1 errors in inductive or deductive reasoning in the presence of suf cient valid information 2 errors in vetting inaccurate information potentially from denial and deception efforts or genuine ignorance by the reporting source 3 insufficient access to accurate information or 4 inabilities to apply the necessary resources to matters Items 1 and 2 obviously represent analytic failures that are addressed by Sections II and 111 above and 3 might be mitigated if placed better requirements with collectors Depending on the circumstances and the nature of the target overcoming 3 may be very difficult however could still try to assist in devising new human and technical collection methods Item 4 seemingly rests beyond the realm of analytic failure but it actually forms the crux of the current challenge In a world of global information that is propagated reproduced and transmitted far faster than intelligence resources either human or financial -4 can be applied to process it failures to optimally allocate analytic resources are essentially analytic failures The IC needs to find ways to cut corners otherwise it will never keep pace with tomorrow s national security threats There are simply not enough intelligence operatives or to assign even one minder to every potential threat Failures to ask the right questions due to a preoccupation with existing or past concerns can prove a fatal error Indeed the very first analytic intelligence question must be What intelligence questions should the IC be asking Rather than persisting in an exclusive study of historical targets or recent catastrophes the DI needs to revamp its analytic tradecraft to detect the next question that needs to be examined more closely or investigated through additional collection efforts The previous intelligence posture for warning can be likened to a distant observer with a looking glass and a copy of ane s Fighting Ships He knew what he was seeking and had a point of reference his job was to identify the first glimmer of the adversary s mast on the horizon Today s world mandates a new approach more analogous to a cadre of seismologists chemists biologists physicists economists -91- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft statisticians etc all with very sensitive instruments standing motionless in an open field and observing in every direction Their objective would be to detect each and every anomalous event and then endeavor to explain its occurrence America s adversaries have leveraged technology to conceal their basic actions but they still leave higher order or meta-level footprints of their nefarious activities Communications financial transactions and operational logistics all necessarily leave some trail in a modern economy and the more esoteric the activity the more likely it is to stand out against the background patterns baseline data Mathematical functions can be analyzed to determine rates of change and other patterns and so too can human activities in the aggregate Just as derivatives in calculus permit the Newtonian mind to greatly expand its knowledge of how the natural world functions meta-level analysis permits the intelligence analyst to rigorously study global phenomena without even requiring specific rst-order data the substantive content of any particular intelligence datum It is time for more IC to move beyond the conceptual equivalent of arithmetic and algebra and embrace advanced methodologies in order to detect statistical anomalies that may highlight criminal terrorist military or espionage activities The second- and third-order derivatives of intelligence data are very difficult to obscure in an increasingly networked world Interestingly much of the desired data is already collected and processed -- just not by the IC Investors service providers industry management consultants public relations rms and government regulators all study the critical sectors in a modern economy While we live in a world that is uncertain in its specific events we live in a world that is highly predictable in its patterns of events The insurance industry produces actuarial tables on systemic events and research scientists rely on probabilities in the form of standard deviations 11 The time has come for intelligence analysis to make better use of similar methods and what is most required to permit such exploitation of meta-level data is an understanding of the baseline values and states of human activity on a global scale As stated above much of that information is already generated and recorded in the private sector 12 If an anomaly were detected but not easily explained then meta level analysis would suggest that the IC explore the issue further Perhaps then the would find a 11 If anyone doubts the efficacy of these inductive methods of inference he need merely consider the profitability of most insurance companies and casinos 12 Ironically the USG trails far behind the average credit agency insurance company brokerage house or online merchant in performing the role of Big Brother Through a combination of monetary incentives and service-oriented tracking methods the private sector already has far better monitoring capabilities Just consider the security feature offered by some credit card issuers that proactively declines charges to a card that a would be thief is trying to utilize in a country or region where the real customer has never traveled before all in real time -92mg '31 Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft sufficient explication for the anomaly but if not the investigation would need to continue and more resources would need to be applied to it This analytic posture however presumes a commitment to be proactive as discussed in Section I above rather than merely reactive It means studying items of interest before they become the foci of problems otherwise there will be no baseline measures and hence no way of detecting anomalies when they do occur Meta-level analysis offers a wealth of opportunity for determining where best to apply IC resources in an era where full time global coverage is simply not possible Information is produced replicated and transmitted so quickly that will never again be able to keep pace with all first-order developments The human mind has finally become the slowest link in the information chain The IC must abandon its old models that proved satisfactory in a nite information environment and adopt scientifically proven means of analyzing inordinate amounts of data about the world V Personnel Structure The observations in this Section may not resonate with senior IC managers who do not or no longer directly participate in meetings and labor on speci c projects at the functional levels within their organizations That is because the very presence of senior management itself necessarily dictates the nature of the meeting and restricts the likely participants to other senior or mid level managers Very rarely if ever are senior managers direct witnesses to the quotidian activities and basic assessments that ultimately determine both what information the senior managers themselves receive and the course of their organizations actions and impact -u or lack thereof on US foreign policy and world events The single greatest denial and deception success within the'IC is the handling of senior managers by division of ce and group chiefs Many scholars of information sciences will identify the greatest epistemological challenge as We do not know what we do not know 13 Upward information management and non existent checks and balances permit managers to filter the very evidence that senior management uses to assess lower level decisions Hence the opportunity costs of pursuing one avenue over another or not pursuing any avenue at all will never be reviewed as a matter of ordinary business This shortcoming is most harmful in areas where competing components have incentives to quash each other s programs or recommendations in order to obtain increased funding and recognition for themselves In the business of intelligence making the correct assessment or choosing the right operation to run is critical The CIA however is so preoccupied with its antiquated procedures that it 13 See for example the work of Professor Anthony Oettinger at Harvard s Program on Information Resources Policy Dr Oettinger is also the Chairman of the Intelligence Science Board -93- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft regularly overlooks the important substance at hand For example only a fraction of any DI analyst s time is actually spent making intellectual assessments She is primarily held accountable for properly following bureaucratic procedures and stylistic preferences while very little attention is paid to checking or recordingthe rectitude of her actual judgments The institutionalized inefficiency in the DI is nothing short of astounding The extensive rhetoric about Information Age technologies and real time intelligence simply cannot be reconciled with month-long coordination processes for products habitual photocopying by engineers or operational timeframes that conspicuously diverge from any normal business activity Although it once shared technological parity with the private sector the CIA is now only competitive with equally obsolescent foreign intelligence services As our national security threats increasingly come from non state actors who capitalize on real-time technologies and require Operational responses from the USG that are active on a similar timetable the dilatory procedures will prove fatal The unnecessary multiplication of professionals actually further inhibits productivity by requiring additional procedures to keep them all informed of relevant activities This is best exemplified by the super uous referent and liaison positions that separate professional working groups and impose even further delays By comparison few doctors consultants or accountants feel the need to hire go-betweens to manage their communications with their own colleagues or clients The inefficiency runs far deeper than bureaucratic red tape or understandably burdensome security requirements A brief examination of the DPS structure reveals an organization that is almost the perfect inverse of any other professional services provider Most investment banks consulting companies engineering companies accounting rms law firms medical offices and think tanks all strive to maximize the productivity of their professionals by offering them every assistance and maintaining a support staff which signi cantly outnumbers them If the DPS value added functions are researching writing and briefing then the individuals responsible for those activities should be encouraged to spend as much time as possible doing them not ling photocopying and filling in on-line forms Spending more resources on skilled support staff would both increase the productivity of case officers and engineers and also reduce the number of expensive professionals that are required to perform the mission Many private sector entities realized this economic truism and streamlined their organizations in the 19803 The CIA should not persist in paying computer scientists or Chinese linguists to perform clerical tasks that a well trained Secretary can do better and more cost-effectively Hiring highly trained secretaries and research assistants even at high salary levels would signi cantly increase the productivity of the expert in any group It takes both good management and good support to render the most honey from the worker bees -94- Rethinking Analytic Tradecraft the in this case yet the DI under hires and under-compensates those essential support roles VI Conclusion Analytic tradecraft should consist of identifyng future strategic threats and added emphasis should be placed on substantive accuracy not process In order to do the preceding those with the best track records should be acknowledged rewarded and more highly regarded in their future assessments particularly on issues where differing views are present Moreover many cognitive tools and methods exist that could serve as force multipliers for intelligence but they require a command of logic mathematics and statistics The powerful advantages of those means should not be underestimated or eschewed simply because they may be arcane to the bulk of intelligence who have liberal arts backgrounds Few individuals fully understand the intricacies of atomic fusion or fission but most can recognize their efficacy and impact By rethinking the very premises purposes and procedures of intelligence analysis the DI could regain the strategic initiative and guide the CIA and IC to a new position where it presages new threats and prepares the USG to defend against them all before the next tragedy occurs The DI must constantly evolve in order to remain a relevant and valuable national asset Ironically the DI fails to avail itself of many of the advantages of the very same liberal democratic ideals a free market for ideas competition etc that it espouses to safeguard and foster around the world The historical culture and organizational precepts deny it the full benefits of American ingenuity and determination even where the inherent secrecy of the intelligence business does not mandate such limitations Not every question can be answered or every outcome predicted but US intelligence should aspire to be more than a cadre of clandestine journalists An analyst s true value and purpose lies in her ability to correctly solve puzzles with incomplete information and to foresee implications While much effort is being spent to analyze intelligence failures at present little mention is made of the ongoing failure to ardently pursue new intelligence successes Inevitably today s failure to achieve strategic intelligence successes will manifest itself in tomorrow s acute intelligence failures -95 -95- i Science and Intelligence Analysis Science and Intelligence Analysis The Requirement for Critical Thinking Training in the Intelligence Community Slowly the satellite slews to the next target and begins a sequence of exposures Information is sent swiftly to the ground station and transferred to an analysis facility where the data are converted into a format humans can understand and then archived to be analyzed when convenient The information contained in the data les is significant to our understanding of the target of the observation Another day observing targets of intelligence value in a denied country Not quite In this case the telescope is observing a distant galaxy and the analyst is an astrophysicist But the initial guess was a good one Pure scientific research and in particular astronomical research is interestingly very similar to what the intelligence professional does on a daily basis I rst discovered this after a very short time working on my account in the Directorate of Intelligence Ibegan my professional career as a astrOphysicist an activity I continue today Having had an interest in science from an early age the scienti c method has been ingrained deeply in my I guess I shouldn t have been but I was startled at how similar the analysis I was doing for the CIA was to scienti c research and even more so to astronomical research Even the DI writing style is close to what we do for our scientific journals in the outside world of academia The Scienti c Method And Critical Thinking The scientific method is a process for understanding the universe around us that has been developed over more than two thousand years of trial and error The scientific method as we know it today first started making an appearance about 350 years ago A thumbnail sketch of the scientific method is the following An observation is made and then a hypothesis or theory is proposed to explain the observation The theory leads to predictions and experiments are designed with the intent of disproving the hypothesis and exploringthe predictions It is a common misconception that science and scientists try to prove their hypotheses Indeed many scientists do this I certainly have It is the easier route to follow Nonetheless the pure scienti c method is all about disproving a theory The experiments are planned sometimes over many years and are often -97- Science and Intelligence Analysis accompanied by rancorous debate But observations are eventually made and data obtained If the theory is disproved a new and better one is put forward one that must explain all the observations In practice an entire theory is rarely thrown out completely just modified to explain the new observations Ideally many independent scientists or groups of scientists are working the same issue attempting to obtain data and advance knowledge This competition is good as it keeps everyone moving forward and honest Also an observation that proves or disproves a hypothesis needs to be validated by independent researchers to ensure that no coincidences or errors have occurred Only after repeatedly performing the same experiment multiple times in multiple independent ways can we be certain that the experiment is correct In addition competition also means that there are multiple hypotheses advanced to explain the same phenomenon This is good too as it means that the best theory wins out over other less successful ones While an issue is being worked a scientist will always prefer multiple theories over a single one as a way to determine truth even though it may mean that the originally preferred theory does not work in the end and must be thrown out A researcher may be disappointed when a favored hypothesis is disproved but in the end this is okay because the goal isn t to be is to determine truth A correct theory trumps an incorrect one and is usually more interesting as well In the end after numerous cycles of theory observation experiment correcting the theory and repeating this process a number of theories may appear that explain things quite well and have survived the brutal process of attempting to disprove them How do we choose which one will become the accepted theory Well scienti c method pioneers thought of that too Actually William of Ockham a l4th-century British Philosopher and Franciscan monk thought of that Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate or Plurality should not be posited without necessity 1 This principle is now known as Occam s Razor What this means is that if there are two or more competing theories to explain a given phenomenon and both or all of them explain the phenomenon and everything associated with itmequally well the simplest theory is preferred Or as stated by Isaac Newton We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances 2 This is a very useful concept in science 1 From 2 Newton Isaac Rule 1 of The Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy from The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy trans A Motte London 1729 cf princ html -98- Science and Intelligence Analysis and intelligence analysis because without it you can formulate Byzantiner complex theories that explain every aspect of an observation but are so convoluted they have no basis in reality An example is given in Text Box 1 So that s the scientific method in a nutshell To be complete however I should add that what I have described observation theory experiment correction of theory new experiment and repeat the cycle while being what almost all scientists perform daily is not the ideal of the scientific method The purest way of employing the scienti c method is theory observation experiment correction of theory new experiment repeat cycle- that is the theory comes first In practice this is extremely difficult however and this pure form of the scienti c method is really only left to the geniuses among us Einstein for example postulated the Theory of General Relativity three years before his predicted observations were made vindicating the theory Another interesting thing about geniuses is that their theories rarely need to be corrected An example eff centered and Greek astronomer j Copernicus around and all the other planets observations quite complexity Ti Copernicus proposed 'differe solar system around-Which e'very'thiing e much simplerthan thef-iggeocentric one and Problems dueto thegiacft that copernicus true corrected in An example of the scientific method using General Relativity is given in Text Box 2 What is provided is a very general summary of an enormous subject An example of the scientific method employed for intelligence analysis is in Text Box 3 Making a habit of employing the scientific method in analysis also encourages the use of critical thinking that is not to accept observations at face value but to think actively about them and how they fit in with the bigger picture It was the key to solving the mystery of the TWA Flight 800 missile sightings as discussed later Critical thinking -99- Science and Intelligence Analysis should be employed constantly particularly in our everyday lives It affords the user an open mind able to change and spot opportunities that wouldn t normally be apparent -100 Science and Intelligence Analysis Intelligence Analysis Versus Astrophysics Back to astronomy which is the surrogate for the scientific method in this discussion and my surprise at how similar it is to intelligence analysis Research is research so why was I surprised What struck me most was the quality of the similarity between intelligence analysis and astronomical research Not only is the substance of research the same but so are the details Figures 1 and 2 show the scientific method and the Intelligence Cycle Note the similarities For Figure l the alternate path is shown with dashed lines The goals of both are to determine truth and disseminate knowledge For the Intelligence Cycle Figure 2 the Planning Direction bubble most closely corresponds to the Theory Hypothesis bubble of the scientific method Similarly Collection corresponds to Observation The Intelligence Cycle includes a Processing bubble that is implicit in both Experiment and Observation in the scienti c method Table 1 below shows these areas of similarity The most important point is that for both astronomy and intelligence analysis the researcher does not have direct access to the sources of data in all cases for astronomy in practically all for intelligence analysis This is what makes astronomy different from almost all other sciences yet so similar to intelligence work In addition to not being able to interact with the data there are very few data available in most cases for both astronomy and intelligence analysis Astronomy s limited data result mostly from technological constraints Intelligence analysis is affected both by technology and human social-scientific factors Limited data also means holes in the analysis in both cases And the data that one obtains are not always perfect but can be noisy The signal is not always clear in a literal Sense and also guratively especially for intelligence analysis There also may be false information present in both cases All of these issues make determining truth challenging Limited missing noisy data make interpretation difficult and more than one interpretation possible And everyone working the particular issue probably holds at least a different View It is in such cases where the scientific method works best When multiple scenarios are possible the scientific method allows workers in the field to explore all the possibilities cogitate over them discuss and debate perform new experiments and develop new techniques to obtain more and better data Often repeating this cycle multiple times is the only way to obtain consensus regarding what is being observed In intelligence analysis like astronomy a perennial goal is to obtain more and better data Sometimes we get it sometimes we don t But new and better data don t always enlighten us Usually we can refine our knowledge or the new data show us that we 4% Science and Intelligence Analysis were wrong all along and must make new hypotheses We must be prepared for this outcome and be Willing to change our views even if they are long-held and comfortable Table 1 Similarities between astrophysics and intelligence analysis Activity Astrophysics Intelligence Analysis Indirect access to target Distant objects Distant in denied areas covert collection Limited amount of data Telescope time is expensive Competing collection priorities no access Data can be noisy Weak signals interference Sparse con icting data make interpretation difficult Lack of data leads to best guesses based on informed judgment Many times the only possibility is a guess Many times the only possibility is a guess Multiple scenarios possible Available information may mean that multiple interpretations hypotheses are possible Available information may mean that multiple interpretations hypotheses are possible Multiple viewpoints held It s how science gets done Consensus is reached to give the most likely possibility It s how intelligence analysis should be done Consensus is reached in NIEs for example to give the most likely possibility New data make new hypotheses necessary New and better data may indicate that the initial hypothesis is wrong or needs to be modi ed This is the scientific method and how truth is determined New and better data may indicate that the initial hypothesis is wrong or needs to be modified This is how intelligence analysis should be done in order to determine truth New more and or better data don t always clear things up Absolutely the case here Usually they make things murkier Can make understanding murkier -102 Science and Intelligence Analysis Figure 1 The Scientific Method Cycle oeseava on Theoaw 7 7 HYPTOTHESIS PREDICTIONS Publications Figure 2 The Intelligence Cycle 5 DI SSEMINATI ON I 403- Science and Intelligence Analysis Text Box 3 Analysis of the TWA Flight 800 Crash A Scientific-Method Case Study The crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island on 17 July 1996 potentially one of the most lethal international terrorist acts perpetrated against the United States up to that date touched off the most extensive complex and costly air disaster investigation in US history Had it been the result of state-sponsored terrorism it would have been considered an act of war Early in the investigation the possibility that a missile downed the plane was considered highly likely because of reports from dozens of eyewitnesses in the Long Island area who on the evening of 17 July recalled seeing something resembling a flare or rework ascend and culminate in an explosion Even FBI investigators and CIA focused much of their early and costly work delving into this theory often to the exclusion of other theories that didn t seem to have the preponderance of evidence afforded by the independent eyewitnesses It wasn t until the scienti c method was applied rigorously to this investigation that it was demonstrated that the eyewitnesses had not indeed could not have seen a missile attack the plane see The Crash of TWA Flight 800 Solving the Mystery of the Missile Sightings Studies in Intelligence Volume 44 2 2000 What they had seen was the burning aircraft in various stages of crippled ight a er it had undergone an initial explosion in its center fuel tank Ultimately the FBI used work to suspend their criminal investigation What is less well known is that the accolades given to CIA by Congress and others following the suspension of the criminal probe were the direct result of CIA applying the scienti c method and critical thinking to their work So What I ve described at length the scientific method and how intelligence analysis is similar to science I hope I ve convinced you that the scientific method is important and science and intelligence analysis are similar And Ihope that it is becoming clear that intelligence analysis can be treated as a hard science that it can and should employ the scientific method in all its forms and nuances Moreover for the intelligence analyst and thus the DI and Intelligence Community research is the most fundamental thing we do a fact Ithink which is often overlooked It is the goal of all those operations we can t discuss and the motivation for -104 I Science and Intelligence Analysis developing technology many thought couldn t exist Research is what provides material for the products we churn out daily and for all the briefings we give So you can imagine my surprise when Irealized that the scientific method as such wasn t being taught at CIA n0r elsewhere in the Intelligence Community This oversight Ibelieve has enormous consequences for how intelligence work is done And I m not only talking about science technology analysis but all forms of intelligence analysis analysis of course but also political analysis leadership analysis economic analysis and so on At their most fundamental level they all should employ the scientific method What To Do In order to make sure we are doing research properly we need to inculcate the scientific method and critical thinking in all within the DI arid ultimately the Intelligence Community This process must start early in an analyst s career particularly if he she doesn t have a scienti c background If we do not initiate a relatively straightforward and simple scientific-method training process our analysis products and ultimately reason for existence suffer Lack of understanding this fact and failure to employ the scienti c method rigorously in our work has caused failures in our past and will lead to failures in our future See Text Box 4 for another potential problem Other organizational changes currently underway will be perfunctory if we fail to fix this fundamental process 105- Science and Intelligence Analysis Courses My suggestion then is for a two-pronged approach First we need to teach formally the scientific method and critical thinking Proper use of the scientific method takes years and comes from employing it everyday in the real world So over a new analyst s first five years there should be a series of courses dealing with these important issues However to begin an in depth course on the scientific method and how to apply it is vital These cannot be one-size-fits-all courses For example if a new analyst comes in already knowing the scienti c method they would only be required to take agency- specific courses Current analysis courses and sections of other courses deal in some way with these topics But and this is surprising given how crucial research is for what we do there exists no single course that teaches the scientific method and critical thinking and how to apply them to the everyday world of intelligence analysis As Heuer states most training of intelligence is focused on organizational procedures writing style and methodological techniques More training time should be devoted to the thinking and reasoning processes involved in making intelligence judgments Again the concepts will not be developed in a single one-week one-month or six-month course But a course that introduces and defines the concept is vital Preferably this course would be provided to new almost as soon as they arrive It would complement but be distinct from courses that explain our specific work in the Intelligence Community how to write brief etc Text Box 5 sketches a possible syllabus for such a course which would be anywhere from two weeks to one or two months in length A course such as the one outlined would be a good introduction to scienti c-method concepts providing theory and practice This intensive course could be followed by a series of literature survey courses designed to study the scientific method in action as well as case studies of failures caused by not using the scientific method discussing how the outcome could have been different if the scienti c method had been used properly 3 Heuer Richards Jr 1999 of Analysis p 178 CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence 106 Science and Intelligence Analysis Text Box 5 A Draft Syllabus for a Course on the Scienti c Method and Critical Thinking 0 Critical Thinking This section will evaluate a variety of grandiose and exceptional claims made in legitimate science and pseudoscientific realms to see how critical thinking is employed and what happens when critical thinking is lacking I The Scientific Method This section will explore the scienti c method study its historical development and learn how it is applied to scientific and intelligence analysis 0 Analysis This section will apply everything presented in the previous two modules to teach how to analyze data properly This will be the largest part of the course Alternative analytical methods and processes will be explored 6 In the Everyday World This final module will tie all the theoretical learning into how the material is applied to the everyday world of the analyst Many courses present excellent material that is never used by thestudent Since the goal for this course is the continual application of the material learned this module will explore how the analyst can incorporate these practices realistically in their work and home environments Existing employees obviously will have a strong background in research and the analysis we do However since employing the scientific method is a lifelong endeavor refresher courses will ensure that staff aren t falling into ruts and or cutting corners I believe a selection of three or four such courses designed for employees of differing abilities presenting critical thinking and the scientific method at a higher level and perhaps more suf ce in these cases These refresher courses would be offered at various times throughout an employee s career at 5 10 15 years etc 407- Science and Intelligence Analysis More Scientists The second prong is important but not as vital as the first Nonetheless it will help limit the requirement for extensive scienti c method in house training What Ipropose is the accelerated hiring of scientists and physicists in particular These new scientist employees won t be just for science and technology accounts but for everything we do Would they assent to this Yes In fact most physicists don t do physics but rather participate in other varied fields But why physicists A physics background is a well rounded one Physics teaches problem-solving skills and the ability to information It is one of the most popular degrees for managers looking for highly skilled labor in areas as diverse as finance and industry According to studies by the American Institute of Physics AIP surveys of managers with physicist employees not doing physics spoke highly of them and more often than not would rather go to them than employees having other backgrounds including more specialized job specific ones because of the physicists problem solving abilities and approach to problems 4 7 According to another study by the AIP a physics education provides students with a set of skills that are important including cognitive skills such as critical and analytical thinking and expertise re-gardin how to define a problem half the battlel 5 Moreover such an education provides students with experiences that develop important traits diligence creativity meticulousness persistence and self confidence And of course physicists have a strong background in the scientific method These are all skills necessary for the intelligence analyst and the work we do in the Intelligence Community Thus I would like to see more physicists in every area we pursue That is because the skills and traits listed above are fundamental Other skills such as leadership analysis political analysis and economics can be learned on the job and much faster if the employee already has the fundamentals Just ask the vast number of physicists and astronomers who have gone to work for Wall Street in New York and the City in London They quickly rose to the top in their elds surpassing economists who had been in these firms for years 6 Of course we need other experts too But we need more scientists than we currently have throughout the Intelligence Community In fact having physicists on the team will nicely round out and complement the analytical force available to be brought to bear on the problems we face 4 Physicsweb 5 June 1998 5 Czujko Roman 2004 American Institute of Physics presentation notes available on 6 New Scientist vol 158 issue 2132 May 1998 p 54 Author s private communications with colleagues and students 1990 2004 -108- Science and Intelligence Analysis Table 2 An approach to reinvigorating research and analysis in the Intelligence Community Prong 1 Teach critical thinking and the scienti c method New Employees Extensive course s on critical thinking the scienti c method and how to do analysis in general specifics for intelligence analysis Existing Employees A series of refresher courses designed for differing employee abilities and length of service Prong 2 Recruit and hire physicists as all-source throughout the DI and Intelligence Community Summary And Conclusions Research is the most fundamental thing we do at the Agency and in the Intelligence Community Data collection provides the fuel and our briefings and papers the product ofanalysis Yet we are not providing the proper background for our professionals conducting research A straightforward solution is to provide a strong and aggressive course structure teaching new employees how to conduct research and refreshing the concept for existing staff Reinforcing critical thinking in employees would be a side benefit of these courses enabling students to better confront the world around them and to make better decisions in everyday life Bringing in new employees who already possess many of these skills such as physicists will be beneficial as well In the scheme of things these suggestions are relatively simple and cheap to implement compared to other things we do The process does take time mas do all educational and recruitment endeavors so it must start soon But since it affects our most fundamental activities the consequences of not pursuing this course of action could have a signi cant detrimental impact on our work that will only increase over time -109- -110- Starting Over Starting Over By Carmen Medina CIA In this the season of intelligence reform recommendations for change are coming fast and furious Everyone has their favorite theory the Intelligence Community needs to use more technology it needs more centralization it would benefit from more competition it needs more accountability it could use more MINT it requires greater exposure to outside views In perhaps the most curious recommendation the 911 Commission notes on p 344 that the challenges of today and tomorrow require that we find a way to routinize even bureaucratize the harnessing of imagination on behalf of national security We would indeed be fortunate if bureaucratic processes could be counted on to generate imaginative concepts Many of the recommendations certainly the ones that form the framework for Congressional and Presidential action stress the importance of organizational change The restructuring even threatens to eliminate entire organizations such as the CIA Perhaps one of the reasons for the many recommendations and why they so often manifest themselves as contradictory pairs is that most deal with the externalities of the intelligence discipline rather than its essential core It would be analogous to a hospital desperately trying to x alarming fatality rates on its operating tables concentrating its reform efforts on the administration of the hospital and ignoring the doctors and nurses who do the work While it would be foolish to overlook the context in which the medical staffs operate it would also be negligent to assume that the processes used by doctors and nurses are without blame Only the most wrongheaded of organizational approaches would interfere with the work of talented motivated professionals employing optimum processes well-suited to the problems they face But even the best organization in the world will not save professionals who misdiagnose cancer for heart disease and apply chemotherapy when bypass surgery is called for So why is it so difficult to spot the process issues behind the organizational curtains Part of the answer no doubt is contained in the phrase intelligence reform All signi cant current proposals start from existing conditions They intend to build upon or in some cases build down from the status quo They all assume to one extent or another that many if not most of the processes that define the intelligence discipline remain sound These processes are just being executed incorrectly and the solution to that is new and better management and oversight To gain a different perspective indeed to compile a complete picture of what must be done to prepare for the challenges of today and tomorrow we need to approach the problem with a fresh mindset Instead of assuming that the existing Intelligence 411- Community needs to be reformed why don t we imagine the National Intelligence Community away What if we pretend in the autumn of 2004 that the US Government faces a dangerous and uid world without a defined intelligence discipline let alone a national community How would policymakers approach the problem then Based on a diagnosis of the challenges we face what would they think are the best things to do To prepare well for our future national security we must first expunge our past Starting Over Starting With A Blank Page If policymakers were tasked today with creating the first-ever national intelligence capability they would start by assessing the environment in which the USG will be operating what threats and opportunities will the world present to the Probably one of the rst things policymakers might notice is that the US in the future is unlikely to face a single peer competitor This of course is in marked contrast to how the policymakers would have assessed their environment in the late 1940s Instead the world of the future is likely to consist of several important countries or groupings that wield significant and in many cases growing power We are entering a new era of history where an unprecedented number of countries will hold important shares of effective power Among these would be China the European Union India Indonesia and Brazil Russia would be an interesting case because if our policymakers approached Russia without the conceptual hangover of the Cold War would they focus more on its nuclear weapons or on its status as a somewhat unstable country with vast energy reserves What would dominate their thinking The world would also be noteworthy for both its jagged sociocultural schisms and the transformative phenomenon of globalization Policymakers would likely be concerned that these two dynamiCs might be among the factors sustaining terrorism or at least creating the conditions that cause some individuals to engage in violence often against the West Most world governments would share the desire to prevent such violence and terror attacks They would also want to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction particularly to renegade countries or superempowered individuals But the status of a particular country as a renegade would be the topic of debate The policymakers designing the first Intelligence Community would almost certainly want to take advantage of all the technological capabilities available to them They would understand the vulnerabilities of computer networks and wireless communications but they probably would be hard pressed to imagine how an Intelligence Community could operate without these tools particularly given how essential modern technology had become for the military and for industry They would be unlikely to think it a good idea to have a National Intelligence Community that is less capable technologically in some respects than the neighborhood grocery store Indeed the thought would probably never cross their minds - 4% Once they had reached some conclusions about the context for their new Intelligence Community the policymakers would probably settle on some key processes which would be familiar to the intelligence professional of today The first Intelligence Community would need some capability to collect meaningful information Our policymakers designers would want some ability to analyze this information for meaning so that their new community could help them make sense of this dynamic world and given its volatility provide an occasional heads up on what might happen next particularly concerning terrorism and proliferation Finally the first Intelligence Community would need to communicate its ndings to policymakers already accustomed to getting their information quickly and whenever and wherever they needed it Starting Over Collecting Meaningful Information A collection system designed from scratch would be quite different from the one we have today As we think about how to change the Intelligence Community we tend to lose sight of the fact that many aSpects of the current collection system were designed to gather the specific information needed in the 1950s and 1960s i e during the height of the Cold War We also take it as a given that most of the protocols and processes conceived forty plus years ago still get the job done today and tomorrow We are probably mistaken Some of the most fundamental and familiar aspects of our collection systems include - Clandestine and or secret mechanisms The targeting of important officials likely to know critical government secrets 0 The assumption that we can generally anticipate what we need to know i e the concept of requirements 0 The ability to limit collection to a discrete set of issues in other words we don t need to collect information on the entire world A What is less well-known and appreciated is how each of these qualities is linked to the Cold War environment that led to their development Do they still help us grapple with the issues of today let alone future challenges Most legacy collection methods rest on the principle of secrecy but this characteristic is particularly acute for HUMINT Individuals serve overseas in capacities intended to disguise their principal motives for being there It is important to note how this element of secrecy is linked to the requirements of the Cold War era The individual collectors operate clandestinely because they are key targets of the host government which doesn t particularly welcome individuals who seek to gather its secrets It is well-known that the US and Soviet intelligence services were each other s principal targets during the Cold War -113- Starting Over But our policymakers starting from scratch given the threat environment they anticipate probably would not immediately assume they need a completely clandestine collection service They would want to collect secretly against some individuals no doubt but they would also place a significant premium on understanding how societies worldwide are evolving They would be interested not just in the views of elites but also in the views of ordinary men and women who might be tempted to support a terrorist organization Their collection priorities would call for getting some sense of how cafe society is evolving in Cairo and how university students think in Djakarta In this context access would arguably be more important than ability to operate in a clandestine nature Our policymakers would also be unlikely to assume their HUMINT collectors could somehow divine ahead of time most of what they need to know The uidity of the modern world and the increasingly globalized culture of the future would lead them to stress exibility and a nimble intelligence culture They would be reluctant to invest billions of dollars in collection platforms that could become obsolete overnight given rapidly changing technologies and evolving fortunes of countries These policymakers would understand that a country such as India could seemingly go overnight from poor planned economy to booming globalization hub They would want collection systems to shift almost organically to new priorities in fact their collection capabilities would so easily track the changing world dynamic that they would serve as a subtle early warning system Indeed our policymakers would worry that in the future trouble or opportunity could emerge from anyplace in the world They would want a collection strategy that would afford them the greatest coverage of the planet at the lowest cost including minimal infrastructure One more characteristic of the future world would in uence the shape of their collection systems Our policymakers would worry that the increasing use of identification technologies designed to capture terrorists such as biometrics and linked databases that could be accessed almost immediately by the most harried of customs officers would also make it problematic in the near future for individuals to operate under assumed identities The new collection officers would have to operate under the caveat that secrecy is so expensive and difficult to maintain that it should be used in exceptional circumstances against high-value targets A Collection Solution Given these strictures the very rst collection system might look something like this The USG Intelligence Community along with the intelligence services of many key allies would maintain informal but still of cial contacts with a range of individuals all over the world who would report on general developments they observed in their respective societies These individuals would be vetted but managed they would post their reports to protected Internet sites and on occasion he asked to respond to specific questions Rather than validating each individual report a time consuming and -114 at v 1 Starting Over expensive process the Intelligence Community would depend upon the multiplicity of sources to cross check their accuracy Some of these individuals might be employed by organizations such as RAND with contractual relationships with the government Is there an existing model for such a collection approach The financial risk analysisfirm The Eurasia Group based in New York City collects information using a very similar model They maintain a network of stringers around the worlduindividuals from many professions who are known to be keen observers of their societies The Eurasia Group by the way is one of the most admired firms in the New York financial community for the accuracy and insight of its future analyses Some might argue that the type of high-fidelity information needed by our new Intelligence Community could not be gathered by a group of enthusiastic amateurs no matter how talented For many issues we would need a more reliable group of professionals with near constant on-the ground experience reporting on the societies in which they operate This objection has its merits Luckily for our policymakers there exists already a worldwide group of dedicated professionals with the capability to observe societies almost continuously the policemen and women of the world These individuals today are charged mostly with maintaining law and order but they could also be asked to report what they see in their societies particularly at the non elite level They could appropriately organized and provided with the right questions tell us about the mood on the street the level of economic activity in neighborhoods the cohesion of cities the appeal of in ammatory leaders As farfetched as this model may seem elements of it are already apparent Police in Israel for example are trained to do more than fight crime they are taught to be keen observers of the communities they patrol to help detect early indicators of terrorism In January of last year police leaders from 34 countries went'to Israel to learn lessons on Law Enforcement in the Era of Global Terror 1 With most of its information collected through pervasive and relatively inexpensive observation processes the new Intelligence Community would be able to reserve clandestine and more expensive collection methods for those problems that required them Among these would likely be issues such as proliferation of WMD and the specific plans and intentions of known terrorist groups But the new collection strategy would be of particular help in understanding when societies enter into a pre terrorism stage a stage when the options available to US policymakers can often be more effective and positive Website of the Global Jewish Agenda a Publication of the Jewish Agency for Israel -115- Starting Over Analyzing Information For Future Meaning Our policymakers designing the first National Intelligence Community would now turn to the question of analysis Again they would want an analytic tradecraft well suited to the world of today Concerned with the rapid pace of change and not obsessed as they were in the 19403 with understanding the Byzantine Kremlin they would want a tradecraft that was well oriented to understanding the future How does this contrast with the analytic tradecraft employed by most intelligence agencies today Most observers would estimate that 90% of the tradecraft of analysis concentrates on how best to understand what just happened and its significance are quite experienced if not always proficient in writing instant histories In their first assignments they are usually provided with a stack of cables almost all of them describing an event in the past and asked to write a concise piece describing the development and its import The analytic profession has never devoted as much attention nor has it developed as much technique to address the future In fact many expert practitioners such as former Deputy Director Dick Kerr have often said that the primary job of the analyst is to explain not predict in large part because prediction is so difficult and risky When the future is discussed analytically it invariably takes one of three forms 0 A linear projection of current trends forward into the future Interestingly the word trend awhich sounds like it s about the future is really only reliably a description of the past 0 A scenario trio that borrows heavily from Goldilocks and the Three Bears too hot too cold and the ever popular just right 0 Or if are familiar with the scenario process developed by the Global Business Network a set of four possible futures each of which describes an extreme outcome so removed from the present day as to offer no obvious guidance to current policymakers - The designers of the first Intelligence Community would not find this tradecraft well- suited for much of the analysis they would need After all they would already perceive that on many issues such as the policies of West European governments or the persistence of state failure in West Africa they could obtain much of what they needed to know about current events from the media or their NGO contacts or their business acquaintances As they set about to design the first national analytic capability it wouldn t make sense to them to create yet another source of current information Instead they would probably be seeking some unique analytic value added that they couldn t reliably obtain from existing information networks Even though they would recognize the difficulty they would want to understand the future to identify when countries or societies are in danger of entering the pre terrorism phase and to give them a 116 heads up about new threats to national security and not just provide a running commentary on today s problems Starting Over An Analytic Solution Given this goal the first analytic capability might look something like this A group of would be specifically charged with developing and refining a more effective tradecraft for thinking about the future The mandate for our intrepid would be clear but demanding they were not just being asked to think about the future or gather expert opinions about possible outcomes Their job was to combine every possible approach from human creativity and imagination to advanced software techniques such as agent-based modeling into a coherent systematic process that would improve US prospects of identifying and understanding emerging issues and thus avoid strategic surprise As the first approached this problem they would find that some of their initial steps while not that difficult would yield measurable improvements For example the might begin by assembling and keeping up to date a master list of scenarios concerning all relevant international and national security issues This list could in fact serve a clearing function for government agencies wanting to plan strategically for the future Policymakers concerned that the US should always be optimally positioned to deal with emerging threats probably would prefer to turn to a common resource for a more complete picture of contingencies But our first could probably do more than just maintain a list of scenarios They could also develop ways to categorize and organize these scenarios Using either collaborative analytic approaches or perhaps some automated process could create landscapes that sorted the scenarios based on defined parameters The would probably develop not only a master landscape of scenarios but also landscapes that organized future scenarios dealing with a particular country or issue -117- Starting Over A Landscape of Future Scenarios Declining 0 National 0 Power Increasing Economic Interdependence Each dot represents a scenario arrayed against parameters a Hi I In the example above the center of gravity for the scenarios arrayed by the assumptions they make about the future power of nations and the interdependence of the world economy is located in the left half of the landscape This would indicate to and policymakers alike that most scenarios about the world economy anticipate only modest l future integration and that the level of integration is not particularly dependent on the power of nation states Landscapes could be developed on a periodic basis allowing 1 and policymakers alike to observe important could also compare 1 a scenarlo landscape developed from the thinking of US Chinese scholars With a landscape depicting the views of Chinese nationals on the same issues The differences a would be instructiveuseful as this approach could be our might be even more ambitious Using content analysis and categorization software they might be able to map sets of information for example one year s worth of relevant New York Times articles or reporting gathered by the worldwide web of policeman observers against the same scenario landscapes Over time this technique might allow to contrast the assumptions behind their scenarios against incoming information Signi cant discrepancies might suggest that it was time to rethink the assumptions behind their scenarios In the example that follows for example the yellow highlighting indicates how a particular set of information might map against this landscape of future scenarios This discrepancy warrants analytic investigation -118 A Landscape of Future Scenarios Starting Over National Fewer Increasing Economic Interdependence 7 Each dot represents a scenario arrayed against parameters Communicating Meaningful Findings To Policymakers Finally our policymakers would want to ensure that they had easy and timely access to the work of their new Intelligence Community If they were starting with a clean slate how would they want the Intelligence Community to communicate with them The policymakers might be motivated to develop a cemmunications process based on a few simple principles Intelligence should be timely There should be as little delay as possible between its - completion andits availability Intelligence should be interactive Policymakers should be able to quickly ask follow- up questions of or delve more deeply into topics that interest them Intelligence should be persistent Once the information is communicated it should remain available and convenient 'so that policymakers and their staffs can refer to it when necessary and track significant changes in analysis I Intelligence should be shareable Given the worldwide nature of many of the emerging threats and opportunities policymakers would want to know right away what information could be shared to rally allies and coax demurring governments Their expectation would be that most information is in fact shareable - A Communications Solution Given these goals the first capability to communicate findings to policymakers might look something like this 419- While one is tempted to place the emphasis here on information technology that would no doubt meet all the policymaker goals our new Intelligence Community would be better served by first deciding upon a classification and document-handling regime that was designed around the policymakers objectives and not around the interests of the collectors and Without a customer-focused protocol any information system would be slowed down by the persistent requirement to reconcile the policymakers needs with the unrelated logic of the classification regime Starting Over Classification and other document markings for our first Intelligence Community would easily show 0 Whether a particular item of information could be made available on secure wireless networks This category might include information up to the level we now describe as Secret Noforn 0 Whether an analytic team was available to answer follon-up policymaker questions 0 Whether the information would remain available in a policymaker repository and for how long Particularly sensitive information would protect itself through automatic purging software 0 Whether information was shareable as is with other governments At all times the markings would make the status and further use of the information immediately evident to policymakers The classification regime would facilitate not impede their timely use of intelligence - Escaping Our Past The way to developing an Intelligence Community capable of meeting future needs is to begin anew As long as we let ourselves be restrained by structures and practices that were created many decades ago for a very different world we will fail to adequately protect future US national security interests The National Security Act that created the CIA and established our national community was enacted in 1947 or 57 years ago To gain some perspective on how potentially misleading it is for us to accept decisions made then with anything other than grains of salt we need only to consider the world 57 years before 1947 If President Harry Truman had made his decisions about the first National Intelligence Community with 1890 on his mind our country and the world would have been poorly served Some of the suggestions in this paper may seem farfetched alien to how we think collectors or for that matter policemen should work But the professionals who began the Intelligence Community in the 1940s were courageous enough to take signi cant leaps of faith They too imagined activities and jobs that had never been done before But they accepted that the times required bold imagination We should do the same -120- Avoiding Intelligence Failure Avoiding Intelligence Failure An Approach to Recurring Self Diagnosis by Senior Managers By CMS Summary The elements of intelligence reform alone are not sufficient for the Intelligence Community to make progress in avoiding future intelligence failures There is a signi cant role for the senior managers to conduct recurring self-diagnoses of their organizations These self-diagnoses should be framed in terms of at least four factors centralization versus decentralization for Specific issues and tasks the extent to which theories are used as guides to data the organizational approach to handling uncertainty and the openness to lessons learned Background The US Intelligence Community is potentially on the verge of one of the most sweeping reorganizations in its history Expectations are high that the reorganization will correct deficiencies and ultimately pave the way for signi cant improvements in avoiding future intelligence failures However even at this late date after extensive analysis of 9 11 it is not obvious how the elements of proposed reform by themselves will help avoid future intelligence failures It is clear that changes in authorities and reporting relationships are intended to promote information sharing and breaking down stovepipes What is less clear is what mechanisms will be put in place so that more information sharing and fewer stovepipes help avoid intelligence failure What else is needed This paper will make the case that the desired results of intelligence reform including more information sharing and fewer stovepipes are necessary but not suf cient conditions for helping avoid failures More attention by senior IC management is needed in a specific dimension Even a complete overhaul of the Intelligence Community does not obviate the need to conduct repeated self-diagnoses over time IC managers need to be continually exploring the trends and features in IC processes that have the most potential to lead to intelligence failure in the future Such recurring assessments have the potential to support incremental organizational changes that will in turn improve the ability to understand trends and complex phenomena signaling coming events -121- Avoiding Intelligence Failure What Are We Trying To Fix A huge part of the current debate over intelligence reform emphasizes the importance of information sharing between elements of the Intelligence Community and the related need to break down organizational stovepipes What the current debate tends to miss for most commentators is that there are always trade offs between intensive effort within a given domain of expertise and activities that work across domains A complex organization with massive information ows in within and out will always be trying to seek a delicate balance between intensive work within a stovepipe and lateral work to communicate with other areas of expertise sources or needs for information To simplify the analyses of the House Senate Joint Inquiry and the 9 11 Commission 9 11 might have been avoided if within the IC FBI INS and others within the US Government there had been More information sharing including sharing across seCurity classifications - Better recognition of the importance of particular pieces or nuggets of- information 0 Better passing of nuggets up the chain of management The massive challenge of course is identifying which characteristics to pay attention to share what information with whom what are my criteria for recognizing importance in information when does a nugget merit passing up the chain of management When these kinds of questions are answered in a speci c context it amounts to successfully connecting the dots With the benefit of hindsight and the painstaking analyses of chronologies cable traf c and who knew what when by the both the Joint Inquiry and the 9 11 Commission many commentators now see 9 11 as avoidable For them it should have been sufficient that the information to connect the dots was somewhere in the system For those responsible for helping to avoid future intelligence failures the 9 11 analyses present a sobering lesson about how a great many individual lapses add up to systemic failure However the 9 11 analyses alone do not offer a de nitive way forward The factors that may have helped avoid 9 11 will likely not be the factors that will help to avoid the next or after next challenge Breaking down the specific barriers cited in the 9 11 reports certainly has merit and will improve the posture in the future for a specific kind of threat 1 Beyond that a general exhonation for more information sharing or better recognition or up chain passing also is not very helpful for practitioners There is simply no formula that applies across the complex range of activities across the IC to identify what to share with whom the criteria for recognizing importance and so on From this perspective mandating information sharing and breaking down stovepipes I Cordesman Anthony August 2004 The 9 11 Commission Report and Weaknesses Center for Strategic and International Studies 4% I I I - 5W Avoiding Intelligence Failure as part of intelligence reform can be only part of the solution in helping avoid intelligence failure The Organizational Roots Of Information Sharing To provide guidelines for IC managers trying to grapple with future intelligence failures it is necessary to go beyond the last worst example One way to do this is to try to relate the elements of connecting the dots to organizational factors IC senior managers need to be asking more often What are the organizational roots of more information sharing better importance recognition and better up chain passing of information for my own and other relevant elements This paper offers no definitive answer to the question To do so would require more insider knowledge about how organizational factors in uence information ows across the IC and in individual elements Such knowledge probably does not exist in a single spot anywhere in the Community This paper however does suggest that four broad organizational factors are major in uences on information sharing and the other elements of connecting the dots This is one way to begin to give some meaningful content to the notion that there is need for a change in culture The four factors in summary are 0 How centralized or decentralized an IC element is how much is the element focused internally to meet mission and taskings How much access do senior managers have to information brokers from other organizational elements How much access and in uence do such brokers have Are such brokers only from adjacent elements or also from those'far away in the organizational landscape 0 The extent to which an organizational element encourages or tolerates use of theories or alternative explanations of adversary behavior or events To what extent is there tolerance for coherent speculation on motives unseen connections or communications causes of behavior Is debate of competing theories encouraged or discouraged in the interests of a more straightforward message or nuggets of new solid information 0 An organizational element s approach to measuring and monitoring uncertainty How much do managers force themselves to think above the substantive complexity of an activity to ask themselves about sources of uncertainty Are managers focused on the right time dimension days weeks months years for the intelligence problem under their purview To what extent have the sources of uncertainty changed 0 Openness to lessons learned How does an element exploit the lessons of recent operations crises or salient activities to get insight into the good the bad and the ugly How widespread are solicitations of lessons learned How honest are lessons learned A key point here is that for each of the factors there is no right answer for all time and all elements The IC cannot complete reform and declare we have arrived Rather the right answer will vary even for a single organization over time Getting to the right answer has to be the result of continual assessment in the light of the element s mission and tasks the nature of the threats and where the element fits in the rest of the US -123- I Avoiding Intelligence Failure Government landscape The right answer for a given set of circumstances has to be determined based on the judgment of senior managers based on their recurring diagnosis The thesis of this paper is as follows If IC senior managers get used to seeing their own manizational elements in these terms and acting on their iudgments to vary these factors it will open the wav for incremental adiustrnents and contribute to avoiding intelligence failure This approach if institutionalized would recognize that avoiding intelligence failure is a game of inches of hundreds of incremental judgments Such recognition would be a major innovation in the way the IC does business Each of the four factors below is considered in more detail How Centralized Or Decentralized Is An IC Element For A Specific Issue The injunction of some commentators on intelligence reform to break down stovepipes involves complex trade offs To a great degree a stovepipe is where expertise sometimes highly specialized is recruited developed rewarded managed funded advocated and tasked Centralization of people and effort around an issue for example North Korean WMD allows for expertise to exist and grow and forms the precondition for information sharing with others At the same time some degree of decentralization including lateral or horizontal coordination is mandatory The consumers of intelligence tend to live outside the stovepipes Cross talk with people in adjacent or related areas of expertise can cause people within stovepipes to get a better grasp on what is actually happening relationships that they might not be aware of and other bene ts The key point is that eliminating stovepipes is not a true option Rather across the entire set of IC issues regions or interest and tasks there is a shifting mix of centralization and decentralization that needs to be adjusted Some of the trade-offs bearing on are as follows 0 Cultivating and maintaining subject matter expertise calls for specialization but specialization can result in parochialism inter-unit rivalry blockage in information sharing and concealment of dissent and alternative interpretations 0 The need to motivate and control personnel requires hierarchy but hierarchy can result in filtering in upward communication the perceived need to keep substantive experts in their place and isolated and a groupthink-oriented emphasis on loyalty to the sub unit 0 Proper coordination many experts many overlapping subject matters many trade- offs for attention and resources calls for centralization but centralization can result in top management layers that are overloaded and out of touch 0 Classified sources and methods often highly vertically-oriented can penetrate real that adversaries are actively trying to hide but can create a sub culture of ideas that sharing is always on a case by case basis secret sources are superior and that limiting access is a way to sti e dissent on interpretations -124- - - - Avoiding Intelligence Failure In some circumstances more specialization or vertical orientation is needed to sharply increase specialized expertise to pursue covert activities to encourage candor within a limited group or for other reasons Some organizations can become so coordination- oriented that they cease to have any real expertise in a given domain In contrast over time or in other circumstances more lateral contacts or involvement with out-of channel contact people are needed to broaden perspectives share concerns calibrate information sources introduce skepticism cross-fertilize views of narrower experts and other reasons How centralized or decentralized vertically or laterally oriented an organizational element should be at a given time is a matter of judgment How Are Theories Or Alternative Explanations 0f Behavior Or Events Factored In What information is shared deemed important or passed upWard in particular cases is likely to be driven in part by an organization s attitude toward theory or alternative explanations of phenomena or behaviors For example different theories on the level of cooperation between different Iraqi insurgents and the extent to which ideological or sectarian difference matter could serve to help air opposing viewpoints develop coherent views of conflicting data and promote sharing of concerns on anomalies Another possible example comes from the Senate s report on the prewar assessment of Iraq WMD The benefits of attention or openness to theory are various 0 Automated or web based forms of information ow access and storage create efficiencies but can also create an implicit doctrine of more is better to the detriment of interpretation or theories as guide for organizing or seeking information 0 Especially in an environment where there are massive volumes of in owing information theories can be powerful tools to organize information and to prioritize information needs Theories can be used as guides to data collection data needs data organization and interpretation and analysis Development of theories can help people t disparate data into a coherent picture highlight the need to bring other data into the picture and serve as the basis for further posing of questions even if there is a risk that the theory is wrong 0 Theories also can be a major dimension of cross talk between people from diverse elements of Community The different theories could serve as the basis for asking questions and discussion among people from diverse parts of the IC and US Government 2 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 2004-2940 7 July 2004 Report on the US Intelligence Community s Prewar Intelligence Assessment on Iraq redacted version pp 21 125- Avoiding Intelligence Failure Like centralization and decentralization there is no single once-and for all balance between use of theories and its opposite relying on raw and interpreted data and connecting the dots with yet more data The aspect of no right answer on the use of theory is well recognized in one of the classics on intelligence art of Intelligence Analysis In that book Richard Heuer notes There are both advantages and drawbacks to applying theory in intelligence analysis One advantage is that theory economizes thought By identifying the key elements of a problem theory enables an analyst to sort through a mass of less significant detail Theory enables an analyst to see beyond today s transient developments to recognize which trends are superficial and which are signi cant and to foresee future developments for which there is today little concrete evidence 3' Heuer also notes some of the problems caused by relying on theory Theoretical propositions frequently fail to specify the timeframe within which developments might be expected to occur if theory enables the analyst to transcend the limits of available data it may also provide the basis for ignoring evidence that is truly indicative of future events 4 The use of theory as way of organizing data and thought bears on the 9 11 Commission s critique of the IC needing to institutionalize imaginations As before reducing the risk of intelligence failure requires IC managers to get used to thinking in terms of varying the factors for their organizational element and others in current and projected circumstances What Is The Organizational Approach To Handling Uncertainty A third major factor bearing on the potential for distortion of information in the IC is the general approach by which the IC writ large and IC organizational elements handle the uncertainty of information Organizations can be more or less attuned and willing to revisit the major uncertainties that underlay the information coming into and leaving the organization and the kinds of factors internal and external that affect the uncertainty of the information Lack of use of mechanisms such as red teams devil s advocacy and 3 Heuer Jr Richards 1999 of Intelligence Analysis Center for the Study of Intelligence 35 5 ibid pp 36 5 The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 2004 pp 339 348 126- Avoiding Intelligence Failure competitive analysis were a prominent part of the Senate s assessment of the IC for Iraq WMDG A classic thinker on the sociology of information in private sector companies Arthur Stinchcombe provided insight into what managers need to pay attention to The maintenance of the quality of the ow of information is in general achieved by constant minding by people who know what uncertainty is to be analyzed where the news about it is to be got what causal units are subject to that uncertainty how to make the trade-off between currency of information and noise reduction what temporal span the decisions cover what degree of uncertainty different sorts of information are subject to who is motivated to distort the system What auditing or control procedures will work and who are the other experts to consult on all these questions 7 Many of the sources of untrustworthiness of information are faults in the incentive system for providing accurate information and accurate estimates of how one is likely to be wrong 8 This way of thinking about uncertainty in manufacturing also could apply to some aspects of work in the Intelligence Community It poses the question To what extent do which IC managers take the time to raise themselves above the fray of tasks and process to assess the sources of uncertainty affecting their element and seams with other elements Attention to the sources of uncertainty likely varies across the elements of the IC Elements involved in HUMINT for example are likely to be highly tuned to diverse sources of uncertainty Other elements may be less attuned In the effort to produce'daily usable product for whatever kinds of intelligence function there can be a tendency to become complacent about the sources of uncertainty or to focus attention to uncertainty to the inherent unknowns in the intelligence An alternative approach is to give periodic attention not just to the inherent unknowns but also to the uncertainty in the factors of production the characteristics of the process and people involved in producing the intelligence Thinking in terms of the more abstract factors of production may come naturally to many IC senior managers and may require a deliberate focused effort to achieve 6 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 2004-2940 7 July 2004 Report on the US Intelligence Community s Prewar Intelligence Assessment on Iraq redacted version pp 19-28 7 Stinchcombe Arthur L 1990 Information and Organizations University of California Press pp 17 3 1b1d pp 15 -127- Avoiding Intelligence Failure What Is The Level Of Openness To Lessons Learned Efforts to eke out lessons learned from prior activities assess them honestly and reasonably disseminate and debate the results can be a major tool of organizational self- diagnosis In an important sense efforts on lessons learned can knit together the preceding three factors experience from prior efforts can Show where centralization versus decentralization worked well or poorly how the use of theories did or did not contribute and help clarify if organization s approach to uncertainty was sound Such lessons learned activities are particularly important for war or crises To paraphrase a dated public service advertising Spot for the United Negro College Fund but applied to war or crises Data is a terrible thing to waste In war and crisis situations the organizational element is stressed the users of intelligence are stressed and the pace is typically much higher The potential for information distortions to arise is multiplied information not shared information not recognized for its importance information not passed appropriately up the chain and others After the fact it is critical to develop chronologies on who knew what when conduct candid interviews with intelligence consumers to determine what happened and how could it have been done better Not to collect and assess such real-world data such as is available from Afghanistan and Iraq operations is a waste because it misses a relatively painless chance to self-correct Part of openness to lessons learned is the willingness to take a 360 degree View of events including interviews with participants at the worker analyst level and up and down the chain of management within the scope of an organization For example the conclusion that an analytical misjudgment was the result of bias in analyst assumptions is unlikely to have been based on a 360-degree assessment 9 Extent Of IC Self-Diagnosis This paper has outlined four factors that could link organizational features to the elements of connecting the dots in the IC As noted above this approach requires IC managers to get used to thinking and making adjustments in terms of what the right answer is for their organizational element and others in the current and projected circumstances To what extent does the IC today conduct and act on self diagnoses of kinds described above This is probably a topic requiring another paper and it is difficult to generalize across the entire Community but some preliminary judgments are as follows 0 Since 9 1 there has been significant growth in the number of organizational elements increasing their lateral contacts The decentralization dimension has received major attention as a means of facilitating information sharing 9 In a given case analyst assumptions may or may not end up being the major problem but only after an honest assessment of the role of management the position the were put in and other factors 4% Avoiding Intelligence Failure 0 The senior management of the Intelligence Community seems to lack the ability or mechanisms to get organizational assessments on a recurring basis without the intervention of outside commissions and panels 0 There seems to be an IC bias against theory in favor of solid bits of new data volume of data and better means of categorizing and tagging data for ready access A of the disfavor in which theories are held may be the relative lack of debate in the Community over competing broad interpretations The approach to lessons learned varies by organization but outside the activities of the Inspectors General it is generally at a depressed level Community level lessons learned efforts tend to be rare Where lesson learned efforts are undertaken they sometimes serve the function of marketing good outcomes not serving as an input to self-diagnosis 0 The more formal mechanisms for self-diagnoses in the Intelligence Community tend not to direct attention to the organizational factors at work that could cause or contribute to distortions The two leading examples are the means for measuring effort against the National Intelligence Priorities Framework N IPF and the performance measures that are put in the President s Budget submissions The IPF is a major improvement in the way the IC tracks investment of effort over time toward major issues regions and threats However in directing attention toward the trends and patterns of effort across priorities the NIPF has less relevance toward the potential for information distortions in any specific priority The organizational pathologies that may exist between priorities also get relatively little attention in the NIPF The performance measures system that the IC is now including in Congressional Budget Justification Books is only a point of departure for more attention to organizational factors The system stipulates goals and putative measures of progress toward those goals but does not provide a framework for linking to organizational behaviors Conclusions And Recommendations An approach to avoiding future intelligence failures that relies only on macro structural changes in organizations missions reporting relationships authorities is intellectually suspect such an approach cannot easily explain how the intended result is supposed to work A successful approach needs to explain what mechanisms will be put to work to cause increased information sharing for example of the right kind at the right time with the right content The approach taken in this paper is to recognize that structural reform can help greatly but that the burden of helping avoid failures is with IC managers and making improvements is an incremental game of inches One way to guide managers is to focus on a set of factors bearing on how the IC writ large and individual elements organize and process information centralization versus decentralization for specific issues and tasks the extent to which theories are used as guides to data the organizational approach to handling uncertainty and the openness to lessons learned The -1 29- Avoiding Intelligence Failure course correction that might be needed at any given time will vary but the thesis of this paper is that the kinds of factors that need attention remain more or less the same The following table shows how the four organizational factors may contribute to the behaviors that more directly help avoid intelligence failures Relevance of selected organizational factors to behavior to help avoid intelligence failures X indicates relevant contribution of row to column Information sharing Importance Passing critical info recognition up chain Centralization versus decentralization Use of theory Approach to uncertainty Openness to lessons learned For example use of theory has the potential to allow for more coherent cross talk across subject matter domains and increase the chances of information sharing and recognition of information importance Openness to lessons learned is a means for IC senior managers to communicate priorities as well as giving people a sense of can go awry thereby contributing to importance recognition and passing information up-chain In one important sense for IC managers to adopt this perspective they would have to recognize that in complex organizations to include the IC distortion of information or intelligence is inevitable In a given circumstance factors such as centralization versus decentralization the extent of use of theory and the approach to uncertainty can be at the wrong setting leading to informatiOn distortion Even openness to lessons learned can become excessive if people become too backward-focused or risk-averse To adopt the approach discussed in this paper would require IC managers to take risks Adjusting an organization s operating features in the absence of external direction based on judgment on potential beneficial effects requires going out on a limb In addition there are inherent difficulties in making IC organizational elements agile enough to respond to the results of repeated self-diagnosis constraints involving budgets personnel policies security policies and inertia stand in the way However if avoiding intelligence failure is in fact an incremental game of inches achieved or not at the level of hundreds of IC managers then it is imperative to change The senior management of the Intelligence Community should be in a positidn to ask and answer questions about what -130 Avoiding Intelligence Failure factors in their organization or in seams with other organizations may affect their ability to connect the dots successfully at a given time even if IC agility initially appears to be limited Beyond cultural change with the content discussed above some Specific actions could be taken as follows 0 Formalize a discussion of the appropriate degree of centralization versus decentralization for a sample of high NIPF priorities or CTC or TTIC areas of expertise Develop actual graphic maps of the extent and access of lateral information brokers Undertake an effort to graphically map out the contacts with elements of the Department of Homeland Security 0 Establish a small NIC like entity in each relevant organization as means to 1 stimulate and solicit debate on theories and alternative explanations for major open analytical issues and 2 conduct reviews of draft outputs for the factors affecting uncertainty 0 Use the and forums to stimulate and solicit debate on theories and alternative explanations for major open analytical issues Pose questions to Issue Teams to describe the leading alternative explanations for major areas 'where there are con icting data 0 Establish a small Community-level organization to initiate guide consult on and review lessons learned efforts Coordinate closely with relevant and Service lessons learned activities Seek to hire people with or Services experience in lessons learned development 431- Avoiding Intelligence Failure References Cordesman Anthony August 2004 The 9 11 Commission Report and Weaknesses Center for Strategic and International Studies Etheredge Lloyd 8 1985 Can Governments Learn Pergamon International Library George Alexander L 1995 Bridging the Gap-Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy US Institute of Peace Heuer Jr Richards J 1999 of Intelligence Analysis Center for the Study of Intelligence The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 2004 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 2004-2940 7 July 2004 Report on the US Intelligence Community s Prewar Intelligence Assessment on Iraq redacted version Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attack of September 11 2001 Dec 2002 Stinchcombe Arthur L 1990 Information and Organizations University of California Press Wilensky Harold L 1967 Organizational Intelligence Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry Basic Books NY Wohlstetter Roberta 1962 Pearl Harbor Warning and Decision Stanford University Press -132- It s Not Rocket Science It s Not Rocket Science The Limits of Analysis and the Requirement for a Complement Summary This paper argues that it is a deeply ingrained Newtonian analytical mindset that causes intelligence to unconsciously but continuously misapply a linear behavioral template to their assorted subjects nation-states non-state actors etc subjects that are in fact inclined to nonlinear behavior This in turn promotes the illusion of predictability and consequently the likelihood of surprise Given this the article considers the basic behavioral characteristics of nonlinear systems especially their inherent unpredictability and dynamism -- and explains how the prevailing linear mindset and metaphors are less than ideal for dealing with those characteristics Subsequently the article explores how more applicable nonlinear perspectives might be cultivated so as to more realistically account for and accommodate that fundamental unpredictability For decades the US Intelligence Community has propagated the that it possesses analytical methods that must be insulated pristiner from the hurly-burly world of politics The scientific pretensions were established early on by Sherman Kent In his 1949 book Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy Kent argued that the truth is to be approached through a systematic method much like the method of the physical sciences This was at the time just after the war when economists urban planners and social engineers believed that human affairs could be understood scientifically and that the social sciences could come to resemble hard sciences like physics -- David Brooks The CIA Method and Madness The New York Times 3 February 2004 An Uncomfortable But Fundamental - Truth Gibberish rant Brooks just doesn t understand what we do These comments are a representative sampling of the reSponses elicited by the posting of the above-quoted passage on the DI discussion database And to be fair to the respondents quoted Brooks is indeed wrong on several counts not the least being his assertion that the Intelligence Community Central Intelligence Agency hereafter referred -133- to as the IC has scientific pretensions For the fact of the matter is that what the IC does is indeed science It may be empirical soft social science vice experimental hard science but it is science nonetheless It s Not Rocket Science That said however it is in this distinction that Brooks comes very close to an uncomfortable truth - namely that the IC does tend to approach its task as though it were a hard science The reason it does this is or ought to be obvious the IC is expected to be able to predict events and hard sciences lend themselves to predictability Not Kent Newton For all Kent s lingering in uence on the IC Brooks exaggerates when he says that it is due to Sherman Kent that the IC tends to apply hard science particularly linear approaches to its problem sets For the real culprit tendency is more the lingering in uence of Isaac Newton whose laws of motion have exerted such a fundamental grip on the Western worldview Given this observation and the fact that recognition must precede remedy this paper will begin by arguing that it is a deeply ingrained Newtonian mindset that causes intelligence to unconsciously but continuously misapply a linear behavioral template to their assorted subjects nation-states non-state actors etc subjects that are in fact inclined to nonlinear behavior 1 Second it will examine how this mindset promotes the illusion of predictability Third this article will consider the basic behavioral characteristics of nonlinear systems especially their inherent unpredictability and dynamism -- and explain how the prevailing linear mindset and metaphors are less than ideal for dealing with those characteristics 2 Fourth and nally this article will explore how more applicable less bounded nonlinear perspectives might be cultivated so as to more realistically account for that fundamental unpredictability 1 This largely unconscious application of a simplifying behavioral template is an excellent example of bounded or limited rationality a concept first advanced by Herbert Simon Because of limits in human mental capacity he argued the mind cannot cope directly with the complexity of the world Rather we construct a simplified mental model of reality and then work with this model We behave rationally within the confines of our mental model but this model is not always well-adapted to the requirements of the real world From Heuer Richards of Intelligence Analysis Center for the Study of Intelligence Washington DC 1999 pp 3 2 What this article refers to as a nonlinear system is more commonly and perhaps more accurately referred to as a complex system The reason for this use of nonlinear vice complex is that most people tend to confuse the distinct scientific meaning of the term complex having many interactions that can lead to untold changes in behavior as it would be used here with its more common usage that is synonymous with complicated having many components It s Not Rocket Science Square Peg Round Hole The term linear when applied to a system any grouping of components that together interact according to some rules so as to form a larger whole -- describes behavior of the whole which is additive that is to say equal to the sum of its parts 3 By extension a linear approach to understanding a system holds that once a system s component pieces behaviors are understood individually it is merely a matter of adding them all together in order to understand -- and consequently predict the system s behavior as a whole This analytical methodology from the Greek analyein meaning to break often termed reductionism linear reductionism or Newtonian reductionism after Sir Isaac Newton is by and large the default Western and certainly American approach to information processing The main limitation of this approach as the term reductionism suggests is that it only works well with systems that are genuinely reducible Since the components of linear systems do not change or adapt their fundamental behavior as interaction occurs the components of such systems and consequently such systems as a whole can be readily understood via reductionist approaches Moreover as a result of this constancy of behavior linear systems also tend to be susceptible to prediction and manipulation For example mechanical systems such as the solar system or ballistic missile systems rocket science as it were tend to be highly linear Consequently the movements of the planets and the trajectories of ballistic missiles are theoretically if not always practicably predictable and pliant However as a means for understanding predicting the behavior of nonlinear systems -- those systems in which the behavior of the whole is not necessarily equal to the sum of the parts linear reductionist approaches offer significantly less utility For one thing nonlinear systems are not readily reducible In nonlinear systems the behavior of the various components changes evolves and adapts as interaction occurs and consequently the components of such systems cannot be realistically considered absent or removed from one another For the purposes of this article and in marked contrast to what the prevailing mechanical metaphor -- balance of power tension inertia etc -- might lead one to believe a good example of a nonlinear system is the international system In that system the various components supra-national organizations nation states non state actors etc are also systems in themselves and their unique sub- 3 Plotted on a graph these types of equations form smooth lines hence the name linear For an understandable discussion of this that is particularly useful to the lay reader see Waldrop M Mitchell Complexity The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos New York Simon and Schuster 1992 pp 64 4 Although reductionism is usually associated with Newton since he effectively codified it with his laws of motion its roots go back to the ancient Greeks it was Aristotle who emphasized illumination through disaggregation -1 35- components nation-states individuals families social political commercial organizations etc are often systems as well I It s Not Rocket Science As a result of this system of systems character and the interactivity dynamism and adaptability that it leads to nonlinear systems tend to be messy and resistant to thorough understanding via excessively neat linear reductionist approaches Rather what is required is a complementary not necessarily substitute approach that is based on developing a broader big picture perspective -- what Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell Mann has termed a crude look at the whole or in a word a That said the development of such a perspective is usually more easily said than done Since is the antithesis of analysis and most Americans lack a well developed intuition the intuitive response when confronted with signi cant complexity numerous components interactions and feedback loops is to default to the artificial but comforting simplicity read predictability of linear reductionism And it is this resulting application of linear approaches and perspectives to what are essentially nonlinear systems that is a recurring theme of America s foreign policy analysis in general and its intelligence analysis in particular 6 I Illusions Of Predictability In addition to additivity linear systems also demonstrate identifiable cause and e ect relationships repeatability and proportionality between inputs and outputs properties that together render linear systems susceptible to prediction 7 And since prediction as mentioned earlier is expected of the IC a linear prism is inherently attractive to intelligence shouldering those expectations Nowhere is this more apparent than in the choice of terminology metaphor that tend to employ than when talking about the future The Newtonian term trajectory almost invariably attaches itself to any American discussion that involves prediction Formally defined the term describes smooth evolutionary continuous and thus predictable movements over time such as those of the planets in accordance with Newton s laws of motion By contrast the term does not apply to the abrupt revolutionary or discontinuoUs perturbations that inevitably - but 5 Gell-Mann Murray The Simple and the Complex Complexity Global Politics and National Security Washington DC National Defense University pp 19 6 This reductionist mindset is clearly illustrated in the terms with which foreign policy tends to be discussed For instance one often hears of foreign policy analysis or intelligence but rarely if ever of foreign policy or intelligence Moreover when is mentioned it is usually subsumed within the analytical context of organizing and summarizing information and not as a distinct intellectual approach or perspective 7 Czerwinski Thomas J Coping with the Bounds Speculations on Nonlinearin in Military A airs Washington DC National Defense University pp 8-9 -136- - un 5 1 4 i i It s Not Rocket Science unpredictably occur in nonlinear systems Given this it can be argued that the extensive use of this term is a manifestation of the constant mis app1ication of a linear behavioral template a template that allows for a system s past behavior to be projected continuously into the future Indeed this use of this term is really just another way of predicting continuity and in common practice these terms are often used in conjunction as the following quotation both explains and illustrates knowledge of why and how things have gone as they have day after day for years naturally inclines the analyst to estimate that developments will continue along the same trajectory It is always a safer bet to predict that the situation tomorrow will be like it has for the last dozen years than to say-that it will change abruptly 8 Emphasis added Terminologically consistent with the mechanical trajectories mentioned above America s foreign policy debate has long been framed in the largely linear and mechanistic terms of linkages levers inertia momentum tension etc In this context nations and such tend to be discussed as if it were a physical object that can be pressured pushed pulled or propelled An excellent example of this was apparent in the urry of commentary that surrounded the collision of an American surveillance aircraft and Chinese fighter in April 2001 Take for instance this editorial from the New Republic Also abounding was the bizarre notion that the United States has little or no leverage over China This is nonsense The United States buys 33 percent of China s exports China buys 1 percent of the United States exports This looks like a lot of leverage to us There is also the matter of China s membership in the World Trade Organization and of the Olympics that Beijing fervently desires to host and of the sophisticated weaponry that Taiwan wishes to acquire from America Levers levers levers For all its passion and apparent sensibility this passage s emphasis on leverage and levers is particularly useful for illustrating how linear templates when erroneously applied to nonlinear systems provide the illusion of predictability In particular this passage provides an excellent illustration of how when looked at through a linear prism a nonlinear system tends to take on the mechanical character that permits it to be discussed however artificially as though it were a ball of clay whose behavior can be predicted a la Newton s laws of motion 8 Betts Richard Fixing Intelligence Foreign A airs January February 2002 pp 49 9 The New Republic April 23 2001 -137- ONLY In the aggregate although these linear processes have their own logic the fact is that they really only provide their practitioners with arguments for a single possible scenario not the much wider array of plausible outcomes Thus in the broader sense the problem with such linear prisms is that they directly contravene Gell-Mann s requirement for a look at the whole and in doing so completely but artificially wash out the complex dynamism with its alternative outcomes unexpected effects etc that is inherent in the behavior of nonlinear systems It s Not Rocket Science Complex Characteristics Based on the unrealistically predictive illustrations above it should be clear that the characteristics of linear systems additivity evident cause and-effect repeatability and proportionality discussed earlier have limited utility when one is trying to think about predict the future behavior of a nonlinear system Consequently before the American debate over China can reasonably re ect reality it is necessary to illuminate the nonlinear complements of those linear characteristics These include Synergistic not additive First and foremost a complex system s essence lies in how the components interact not in any individual component These interactions can be direct or indirect obvious or subtle From an intelligence perspective this makes for a daunting and often messy challenge Take for instance the regional analytic divisions within the IC Sensible as it might seem for any number of reasons from simplicity to manageability to political expediency to impose such separations any such separation is unavoidably artificial In other words actions in Europe have consequences in Asia and to consider them is however understandable also artificial Uncertain cause-and-e ect This expansive interconnectivity and interaction makes cause and-effect relationships in complex systems ever changing and often uncertain While cause-and-effect tends to be predictable in linear systems it s usually a safe bet that pressing the accelerator will result in an increase in acceleration this is often not the case in nonlinear systems In fact in nonlinear systems probably 95% of the systems watched by the Intelligence Community cause-and effect is only clearly identifiable in retrospect This fact in turn helps explain why the IC with its predominantly linear lenses tends to focus on and excel at explaining what has already happened not what might happen Not repeatable The dynamics of any particular complex system are unique to its own specific combinations of components initial conditions interactions and timing Consequently the exact re creation or repetition of such dynamics in other instances is impossible From an intelligence perspective this is important because policymakers commonly seek policy precedents and the validation that they believe such precedents bestow This is dangerous in complex systems exact circumstances do not repeat 138 themselves 10 Therefore it is important that analogies not be over stretched In practice the benefits to be derived from the consideration of historical precedent often derive more from the recognition of contextual differences contrasts than from the illumination of apparent similarities comparisons This is especially problematic in a warning context since the dynamics of events that we take as our lessons simply do not repeat themselves Perhaps no better example of this danger exists than the 9 11 Commission Report which is so fixated on preventing a repeat of 9 11 that it almost ensures that we will be surprised when the next attack emerges from a different operational dynamic 11 It s Not Rocket Science Disproportionate input and output In order for any impulse especially one introduced from outside a complex system to prosper and ultimately reveal and or sustain its effect on a system s behavior tipping is the usual mechanical term applied to this it must at some point be reinforced by the system itself Without positive feedback on at least some level an impulse will not survive much less ourish or emerge in the face of systemic resistance Sometimes this process takes a significant amount of time This said the con uence of circumstances and timing cannot be emphasized enough No matter how carefully crafted or brilliant a particular policy might be both the moment and conditions must be opportune ripe if the desired effect or outcome is to result 12 Changing The Metaphor Changing The Mindset And The Reverse Evolution adaptation side effects interactions ripeness etc these are the terms and concepts of biologists and medical doctors not mechanics physicists or engineers This noted it ought to be clear that the ingrained mechanical metaphor is ill- suited to accurately re ecting and consequently dealing with nonlinear systems Instead what is required is a more apt metaphor that is firmly rooted in the life sciences For foreign intelligence this means learning to think converse and act more like the professionals in those fields For instance just as doctors need to think about interactions drug combinations side-e ects allergic reactions particularity patient specifics age weight blood type etc and timing stages of a particular illness age of patient etc so must intelligence Moreover and perhaps most importantly as a starting point for to build upon the prevailing mechanical lexicon trajectories leverage inertia momentum tension etc needs to be supplanted consciously to start unconsciously in time hopefully with a more biological idiom 0 As a philosophical basis for this assertion nonlinear systems theorists often point to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and his observation that it is impossible to step in the same river twice For an excellent side-by side comparison of Heraclitian and Newtonian metaphors principles and terminology see Andrew Ilachinski s Land Warfare and Complexity Part II An Assessment of the Applicability of Nonlinear Dynamic and Complex Systems Theory to the Study of and Warfare Center for Naval Analyses Alexandria VA 1996 pp 52 53 See Nassim Nicholas Taleb s Learning to Expect the Unexpected The New York Times 8 April 2004 2 Ripeness in a foreign policy strategic context receives exceptional treatment in Steven R Mann s Chaos Theory and Strategic Thought Parameters Autumn 1992 pp 54 68 -1 39- This issue of metaphor is bound to be controversial as many who read this will undoubtedly be inclined to dismiss it as much ado over what are merely figures-of speech or semantics After all mechanical terms and concepts like trajectory leverage momentum tension and such are now so infused into the foreign policy lexicon as to seem unassailable Such a dismissal however would be a mistake Metaphors are extraordinarily powerful in that they both re ect and reinforce the mindset from which they spring no matter how unrealistic that mindset may be Therefore as a second step after first recognizing the problem -- it is critical to get the metaphor as realistic as possible It s Not Rocket Science Toward A Complement Metaphors are only one way of modeling a complex system and changing them is only one step toward a more mindset Another type of modeling that is particularly well suited to explaining the behavioral patterns of complex systems is agent-based modeling ABM ABM uses computers to build models around multiple autonomous actors or agents nations companies individuals etc that are programmed to interact learn and change their behavior as a result Although still a relatively nascent eld such models tend to be quite effective at explaining nonlinear behavior 13 In addition to modeling metaphorically-speaking and or agent-based a fourth step toward a more approach will involve a dedicated effort to educate intelligence to think cornplexly nonlinearly This point cannot be emphasized enough since too much analytic training within the IC is focused on writing and nowhere near enough is focused on thinking Perhaps the assumption is that college educated employees already know how to think And while that may be true the fact of the matter is that the university system in the US is structured to merely reinforce linear thinking everything is divided into neat little departments and specialization is encouraged if not required Given this it is crucial that be taught to think differently like In particular after learning the fundamentals of linearity nonlinearity and complex systems would-be need to be taught the 7 principles of strategic thinking 14 1 Look at whole systems not just their parts The system is always bigger than you think 2 Complex adaptive systems are self organizing and pattern-forming What are the attractors that pull the system in question together 3 For an excellent discussion of this field see Jonathan Rauch s Seeing Around Corners The Atlantic April 2002 4 This formulation is from T Irene Sanders Strategic Thinking in a Complex World Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy 440 3 Small changes can create big results the so-called butter y effect What s perking at the edges on the horizon 4 Maps models and visual images make it easier to see connections relationships patterns of interaction 5 Scanning across disciplines forces agencies key to seeing subtle changes emerging conditions multiple perspectives integration of knowledge 6 Nonlinear thinking is critical to recognizing clues about changes in the environment 7 Perspective is important You have to know what you re looking at and place it in context It s Not Rocket Science Fifth and finally in addition to educating it is imperative that policymakers be educated as well - to both the complex nature of the problem sets after all they are Newton s children as well and to what can cannot reasonably be expected from intelligence To do this will require an integrated comprehensive and dedicated effort involving all four components recognition adoption of nonlinear metaphors use of ABM for illustrative purposes and appropriate education mentioned above Conclusion It s Not Rocket Science In conclusion it is not unfair to expect the cultivation of nonlinear perspectives to help alleviate but not eliminate the periodic blindsides that an excessively linear mindset has helped make all too common And while that alone would be an extraordinary accomplishment it is nonetheless important that the potential contributions of such perspectives not be oversold At the end of the day nonlinear systems such as those in the purview of the Intelligence Community are messy and inherently unpredictable That is a fact and nonlinear perspectives are quite simply not going to change it In the final analysis or hopefully then perhaps the most that can be h0ped for from nonlinear perspectives is a more blurred but nonetheless greater understanding of the many patterns possibilities and scenarios that the future may present Or to sum it up differently when it comes to thinking about innovation within the Intelligence Community so as to better anticipate not predict complex issues the first imperative must be to understand it s not rocket science - 441 442- The Intelligence Community of the Future The Intelligence Community of the Future NSA These days the world seems like a smaller and smaller place And yet the challenges to the US Intelligence Community IC only grow larger Today s unpredictable security environment is constantly evolving and the IC must adjust by reinventing itself as the Intelligence Community of the Future one that is exible dynamic and adaptable Presented here are three major areas in which the IC must fundamentally change in the coming years technology communication and demographic transformation Although each area is discussed separately they are interdependent and changes in any one area will affect changes in the other two The first section deals with the challenge to the IC of technically savvy targets in a rapidly changing technological environment It makes arguments for realigning resources based on a division between technologies in which the IC must lead and those in which the IC may follow eliminating duplication of effort by relying on commercial and open source solutions implementing a system in which technology is a primary driver of the intelligence system and changing internal system design methodology to promote organic and interconnected systems The second section discusses ways in which to strengthen communication Within the IC and between the IC and outside elements in industry and academia It makes arguments for harnessing emerging technologies for internal and external use creating a public space of knowledge building a culture in which job movement is the norm and nourishing a strong and capable middle management The third section addresses the impending and necessary change-over in the workforce from one dominated by those near retirement to one heavily represented by those in their twenties and thirties It makes arguments for taking advantage of the shift in population demographics accommodating a future workforce with a high turnover rate sustaining retention by fostering job exibility and increasing the in uence of young people and new hires and developing support services aimed at the younger generations Technology An analyst sits at his computer combing through the data he receives daily through his regular requests For awhile he s been noticing that the information about a particular target has been slowly dwindling Today there is no information at all As the target seems adaptable and technologically savvy he ponders the possibility that the target may be using a new type of technology that escapes the current intelligence system -143- The Intelligence Community of the Future Just down the hall a researcher studies a new technology that is rapidly gaining worldwide acceptance She has tried to encourage the intelligence system to adapt to this new technology by adding capabilities for it However she has been constantly met with stiff resistance being told that there are no available resources for a new technology that doesn t have any proven intelligence value The described parable of the analyst and the researcher illuminates a major shortcoming in current practices namely that the system is driven by customers who may have no knowledge about new and emerging technologies Even when customers learn about a new technology they may be unwilling to devote resources to it as it has an unknown intelligence value These problems only stand to grow worse as technological development accelerates Over the past fifteen years both the nature of US adversaries and the worldwide technical environment has undergone revolutionary change Meanwhile the IC has looked to a tradition of incremental change to adapt This is no longer sufficient Technology has metamorphosed over the past decade completely changing the playing field on which IC operations are conducted Cellular phones text messaging satellite phones instant messaging email voice over the Internet chat rooms and the world wide web have become ubiquitous the world over The combination of qUantity and diversity of technology now and in the future threatens to overwhelm the IC While the IC tries to maintain a tradition of being at the forefront of technology it must adopt a new perspective on its place in the technology world If the IC continues to try to be at the bleeding edge in all technical areas it will fail to keep up in any of them There are simply not enough resources to do so In addition the IC relies on monolithic processing systems and tools which require extended development cycles It commonly takes more than a year to incorporate systems and tools for newly identified technology into standard baselines In some cases the new technology is so revolutionary it requires the redesign of entire systems These unwieldy in exible systems stand in the way of producing timely intelligence The IC faces a daunting task in the years ahead It must address the internal strains that novel technology puts on current methodologies It must strive to understand all new and emerging technologies And it must develop a practice to incorporate major changes to internal systems and tools in timeframes measured in days and weeks instead of months and years Here are four proposals to do so The first major change that must occur is that a system of recognizing new and future technologies must be put in place and the system must be a primary driver for intelligence gathering The problem with the target only driven system is a chicken and 4% The Intelligence Community of the Future egg problem when it comes to technology The earlier example of the analyst and the researcher is a classic case Thus a system of recognizing new and future technologies must help drive the intelligence system alongside the traditional target-driven approach This can only be done with a strong amount of risk-taking after all there may be no intelligence value in a new technology or not any for a while Resources must be available for trying the unknown Secondly the IC needs to make a distinction between two types of technology the ones for which it must remain a leader and those for which the IC can follow at a close distance Resources for technologies in which it must lead should be directed towards promoting further advances in such technologies whereas resources for technologies in which the IC may follow should be directed towards partnering conferences education and training An example of the former would be the realm of The IC needs to be ahead of other nations ahead of industry and ahead of academia in its codes to maintain information superiority Even here however it must be acknowledged that the Internet has spurred an interest in outside of the IC and academia based on the profitability of e commerce And so even with technologies for which the IC must be a leader it must not turn a blind to developments on the outside An example of a technology in which the IC can follow is that of cellular technology The IC must understand cellular technology to garner the most intelligence possible from the medium But it can learn as much or more about cellular systems from experts in industry than by building its own cellular network and creating its own experts It is imperative that the IC partner with industry and academia to' the fullest extent possible to save money and manpower for the missions that can only be accomplished within the IC Classification systems with regard to technology knowledge need to be reassessed to enable the fullest amount of sharing possible The third major change that needs to occur with regard to technology deals with internal processing systems and tools The IC needs to stop duplicating effort that is already being carried out in industry academia and the open-source community Currently it is common for technical offices within the IC to develop new systems and tools in response to each new technology that comes along It has always worked this way and indeed until recently there has been little other choice Now there is a choice and the IC needs to actively make the decision to rely on commercial and open source systems and tools The advent of the Internet has given rise to online criminals - and to a community of companies academic institutions and individuals who have developed uncountable -145- The Intelligence Community of the Future systems and tools for tracking and stopping them These very same systems and tools could easily for developing intelligence In addition the open- source community which advocates the spread of unlicensed free software continues to write high-quality systems and tools that are easily modifiable and quickly available The utility of such free and versatile technology should not be overlooked and indeed the IC needs to actively encourage such partnering The switch from a build-it yourself mentality to a buy it trade for it or get it for free mentality will not be an easy one One of the biggest concerns will be in the area of risk A product that is created on the outside has the potential for malicious content beneath the surface However the risk is a necessary one and it must be actively managed The bigger risk is to fall further and further behind the technology curve The fourth major change must be a change in the design of internal systems The classic approach to designing any sort of technical system in the has been a top-down large scale design process This approach is not only slow and expensive but also it just doesn t work for the dynamically changing technical environment that today s world has become Designs for future internal sYstems must be organic and functional piece- wise limited and interconnected Current systems are monolithic and unwieldy They often perform current tasks well but are unmodi able for future tasks A better system implements many pieces that t together like Lego blocks Each piece is self-contained and performs a limited task Each piece also contains interfaces in order to fit together with any number of other pieces Thus a new task can be performed by taking several old pieces developing perhaps a new piece or two and putting them all together This is an organic system allowing easy inexpensive development of new pieces and quick response time to new technologies In implementing such an approach to systems design it is necessary to give up a few of the of older top-down-designed systems in exchange for new The new systems won t be perfect they will have aws but these aws will become less over time as the awed pieces are discarded and better ones created Control over the system by one office will be almost non-existent as the new system will encourage others to create and modify pieces But the new organic system may be migrated to over time It is imperative that the technological underpinnings of processing intelligence be made to run in a modular organic way so that it can keep up with the pace of technological innovation Communication Deep in the dark recesses of a government building sits an employee busily working on her widget She knows that the widget will be of great use in gathering intelligence and is growing excited as she nears completion on it She has spent the past six months getting -146- f 1 The Intelligence Community of the Future the details just right with help from her coworkers and support from her boss They all believe it will be a wonderful creation as well It s just too bad that none of them realized that a very similar tool had been built a year ago in another building in another agency While the public and the press harp about the lack of information sharing and an inability to connect the dots in regard to intelligence product the barriers to information sharing run across all disciplines in the IC Not only does intelligence product face all sorts of legal policy and classification issues but also technical information about the systems and tools used to collect and process intelligence remains unshared It is inexcusably difficult to find Community experts in all fields to find papers and - reports and to discover if duplication of effort is taking place When technical information isn t shared the IC ends up with many systems and tools that don t fit together very well The result is that the IC as a whole doesn t know what it knows And worse it doesn t know what it doesn t know The world has produced new technologies that make it ever easier to communicate and yet the IC sits idle filled with anxiety of the unknown risk of using them Companies are continually experimenting with new organizational structures and practices to increase communication amongst employees Yet the IC balks at such unproven ideas not wanting to offend a workforce that is accustomed to stable work life But the risk to national security of not overhauling the Community s internal communications is too great The IC must harness these new powers of technology and innovative workplace practices Here are four proposals to do just that First the IC must take advantage of new and future technologies to promote better communication within the IC and between the IC and the rest of the world Today communication in the IC for the most part relies primarily on internal networks of telephones and email the technology of ten years ago But communication can be vastly improved by taking advantage of newer innovations that are already standard in the outside world and by increasing access to the outside world in the workspace Such real time communications tools such as instant messaging and chat rooms would allow easy collaboration between elements at physically different locations Online forums focused on one topic could bring together people who would never otherwise interact spurring creativity and insight Already online learning has begun and could be expanded even further to provide training to employees around the globe Access to the outside world must be increased and encouraged Internet terminals while remaining separate from internal networks need to become ubiquitous In today s world the Internet is a fundamental tool like a pencil It is a powerful research implement facilitating work in all job descriptions It is also a primary medium through which to stay connected to outside partners and contacts As previously described these partnerships -147- We The Intelligence Community of the Future must increase in quantity and the Internet provides the communications link with which to create maintain and strengthen them One or two Internet terminals amongst fty people are insufficient just as one or two pencils amongst fifty mathematicians are insufficient Secondly the IC must create a public space of knowledge within its walls Being a traditionally compartmented organization the IC has always relied on one-on-one contacts to pass information from one place to another But as the necessity to increase intra-employee communication grows these limited strings of access will not be enough One common problem in today s IC is that of finding an expert in a given area Today this problem is solved by networking with one s colleagues until finding someone who knows someone who knows an expert In industry and academia experts are known not just through personal contacts but also through publishing The IC has no means of allowing Community-wide publication wherein the paper is available to and discoverable by anyone possessing a high enough security clearance Scattered libraries exist throughout the IC but the need to bring disparate information together is going to require that some sort of universal digital library be established Imagine an Amazoncom of the Intelligence Community where papers are searchable ranked by previous readers on quality and instead of a dollar amount appear with a reader s required classi cation level The paper can then be received in hardcopy or else downloaded as a digital version The third major change with regard to communications is to make movement a regular part of an employee s assignment Individuals must be encouraged to break away from their normal routines and offices to meet new coworkers and spread ideas It is critical that the 1C not spend resources on constantly reorganizing the workforce The workforce must be able to and willing to dynamically rearrange itself according to necessity New and innovative ideas indispensable for confronting today s target set and technological environment do not originate with people working alone doing the same job day to day Innovation comes from people exposed to new ideas and information who then apply them to what they already know or do It is therefore imperative that people be constantly exposed to new ideas and practices An outsider has the ability to question overlooked assumptions and suggest ideas that are outside the box of traditional thinking Different people are comfortable with different working styles and so a mixture of techniques will be necessary to encourage movement within the workforce One simple possibility is outlined here there are many others Encourage exibility in employees weekly working schedules As an example consider an employee who normally works in office X doing the same job day after day Now -148- The Intelligence Community of the Future allow this employee to spend Tuesdays in another office perhaps in another building perhaps in another component of the IC These Tuesdays will be spent as an intern learning about another aspect of the intelligence system Allow the same employee to spend Thursdays in a different office as a visiting expert on the information and methods of office X This employee is now acting as a pollinator bringing fresh perspectives to all three offices The employee is also increasing the communication amongst the offices building new contacts and increasing his own knewledge base Office X s manager may see the loss of the employee for two days a week as a detriment to the office But the bene t to the IC far exceeds the loss to the individual office If there are many such exible employees then no individual office loses out and the IC as a whole gains tremendously in order for the workforce to sustain dynamic change as part of its basis of operations the IC must create and sustain an incredibly papable middle management It may seem obvious but the managers directly above the average employee are the key to the employee s use of technology the employee s communications and the employee s exibility and adaptability Mid-level managers should be brought in and trained Specifically for their positions Employees should never be forced to decide between stalled upward mobility and a management track Conversely lower level employees with strong management potential should be identified early and encouraged to formally or informally apprentice with an accomplished mid-level manager Demographic Transformation In a small village somewhere in the Middle East sits a house The young man whose parents own the house has been fortunate to learn a fair amount about technology and has set up several computers in a front room which connect to the Internet He charges a small cash fee for the locals and for anyone else stopping through to use these computers to keep in touch with the rest of the world Right now in fact another young man is using one of these computers to chat with an associate in another country They re planning on blowing up a western embassy Although this is a made-up example the challenges to the IC it demonstrates are all too real Who are the best people to address these challenges They re not the career intelligence officers who know all about cold-war targets and strategy The ones to face tomorrow s IC challenges are currently studying for their semester midterms There is no better training ground for understanding the possibilities of today s communications technology than the college campus 'And there s no one more suited to a fast-paced dynamically changing work environment than young people The new adversary relies on a range of resourcefulness exibility adaptation to change mobility risk taking and creativity America s youth also encompass all these in addition to being extremely technologically competent The technology that -149- The Intelligence Community of the Future older employees need to work hard to master comes like second nature to students who have been immersed in it from grade school The Internet has revolutionized the skill sets needed to be a capable IC officer and it can be disconcerting to realize that in some cases those just out of college are more quali ed to deal with today s challenges than those who have spent a career in the IC Fortunately the next decade presents a golden opportunity to hire a great many of these youth Too often the focus of demographic transformation is on knowledge transfer from the retiring generation to the younger ones But as the target set and technological environment continually change it is just as important to sustain a workforce that can continually learn The focus of the upcoming demographic shift should be on molding the new working culture into one that takes the most advantage of the change on managing a constantly changing employee base and on retaining the best young minds through both procedural changes and redesigned support services Here are four proposals for doing just that the IC must take advantage of the unprecedented opportunity to hire a largely youthful workforcerAS large numbers of 1980 s-era hires retire in the next decade a void is created which as it s filled can drive a change in the Community culture This massive loss of people and therefore knowledge and skill has largely been seen as an upcoming obstacle But this obstacle may be overestimated new cultural norms in retirement and increasing longevity are encouraging retirees back to work This allows for a pool of knowledge and skill to continue to be available long after the employed p0pulation has transitioned to younger generations In addition to hiring a youthful workforce the IC must make major changes in order to retain the next generation of employees In fact retention will prove to be more difficult than recruitment In today s post 9 11 country patriotism is at a high and the IC has seen record numbers of applications However with an improving economy and new norms for career paths patriotism alone will not be enough to retain the necessary number of young people more than several years Secondly the IC must acknowledge and accommodate the new paradigm for working careers that comes with the next generation of employees The IC and the government as a whole has always been a haven for those who like comfort and security who desire to spend their entire careers within one agency or branch This has been beneficial to the IC in creating experts in intelligence matters and maintaining a core knowledge and skills base that lives within the minds of the employees That is all about to change The youth of today does not envision a career with one company or government entity rather today s careers are a series of varied jobs each a stepping stone along a career path that changes many times over the career -1 50- The Intelligence Community of the Future The implications for the IC are considerable and must not be ignored The IC must learn how to adapt to a workforce with a higher churn rate than in the past core knowledge and skills must be preserved while allowing for a steady stream of new hiresand resignees There are three possible benefits to be gleaned as well from an ever-changing workforce For one new ideas and perspectives will continue to flow into the IC Ties with outside entities will be strengthened as employees move between the IC academia and industry And lastly the new career paradigm also permits employees to leave one job and return years later after having worked elsewhere the learning that takes place outside the Community can be of great bene t when an employee returns Thirdly the IC must change internal procedures and traditional practice to encourage retention of youth The top-down hierarchy which leaves new hires and youth squashed at the bottom presents a challenge Recent hires are rarely heard because of the overwhelming and intimidating size and complexity 0f the IC And traditionally one must climb the ladder before making an impact or introducing a new idea In a dynamically evolving IC with considerable changeover in personnel this is especially undesirable The leaders of the IC must make a concerted effort to solicit the thoughts and Views of youth and recent hires The IC must also open its internal doors and allow employees much more exibility in career movement As stated the emerging work ethic is one of regular change and today s youth expect to be continually challenged continually learning and continually experiencing novelty One obvious way to increase retention will be to encourage rotations through the various components of the IC overseas tours and movement within individual IC entities A young employee who decides to move on and has the opti0n of moving to a different organization rather than just quit will be far more likely to stay and benefit the Community than one who doesn t the IC must develop support services aimed at a younger workforce Today s support services from health newsletters to financial seminars are mostly aimed at the boomer generation who make up the majority of the workforce While this is understandable the culture of the Community relies in part on who is addressed by these support services Clearly different stages of life present different personal challenges and the needs 'of youthful employees will need to be more seriously addressed in order to retain them Programs should be established or modified to assist new hires who come directly out of college While college prepares students academically it leaves them far short of knowing how to live in the real world ignoring such things as doing one s taxes living alone and understanding insurance to name a few Current seminars on retirement planning and saving for children s college tuitions should be supplemented with seminars on learning how to draw up a budget and getting out of credit card debt Emotional support services need to make an effort to reach out to young people who often -151- The Intelligence Community of the Future experience'high degrees of isolation and depression following the highly social environment of college Conclusion The IC is essential to the security of the United States It is therefore vital that it adjust to today s unpredictable external security environment in which continual change is the norm The IC must adapt to technically savvy targets in a rapidly changing technological environment It must strengthen communication within the IC and between the IC and outside elements in industry and academia And it must take advantage of demographic transformation to a youthful workforce In the Intelligence Community of the Future the researcher will find it straightforward to get the new technology noticed through use of an online inter-agency forum She will work with a developer to create a doodad that will process the new technology and direct derived information into the existing intelligence system Upon doing so the analyst will suddenly start receiving data about his target that had disappeared as the target had after all switched to new technology Together the three will write a paper about the technology the doodad and the target and publish it in the 1C library In the Intelligence Community of the Future the employee will not waste six months on recreating an existing widget She will be directed to an expert on widgets by a coworker she meets while doing an internship in his office one day a week Instead of wasting six months the employee will learn from a paper she finds in the library about the doodad which could bene t from being connected to a widget Using instant messaging technologies she will work across agencies with the developer and the expert to create a useful doodad widget that interfaces with other systems Her highly capable manager will write a glowing recommendation based on her work to help her secure the field assignment that she had been hoping for She will then set off bringing with her the recently gained knowledge and an eagerness to learn more In the Intelligence Community of the Future the widget expert will happen to be a twenty-four year old who did his college thesis on widgets In his two years in the IC he will have already built several types of widgets with parts he downloaded from the Internet All of these widgets will be put into a trial system with resources reserved for just such experimentation And though only one widget will eventually be successful the resulting intelligence will highlight the online conversation between the young man in the Middle Eastern village and his associate They will be arrested before they can place the bomb and hundreds of embassy employees will sleep soundly unaware of the tragedy they narrowly escaped And this is all because the US Intelligence Community was willing to dare to revolutionize its practices to meet the modern challenge -152- Let s Proceed to Plan Let Proceed to Plan Because It Will Support Plan Basic Agency Reform By Michael Mears CIA Plan A the status-quo Operation of the Agency is now off the table Rich discussions are underway of a transformational Plan ranging from reorganization to cultural change But what do we do with all the erupting thinking Do we let the bureaucracy neutralize these ideas or do we nurture and protect them The answer is to simultaneously launch an organizational safe harbor for out-of-the ordinary ideas Plan C which allows novel new management approaches new methods of collection and fresh approaches to analysis to ourish Plan The currently evolving Plan will contain in the-box solutions on how we organize manage and lead ourselves While the current discussion focuses almost exclusively on DCI authorities and reorganization Plan will entail much of what has successfully worked in other public and private sector organizational transformations and engage the workforce revitalize the management chain and start a serious effort to remove bureaucratic barriers The fact remains however that most transformation efforts in large organizations fail Organizational failure is costly in the private sector but inconceivable in the Intelligence business We have too much at stake and must deveIOp a way to simultaneously launch out of the box solutions safely away from the Plan changes Plan But what do we do with all the disruptive reform ideas suddenly challenging current intelligence philosophy A disruptive idea is one that calls for a signi cant change in the way the organization does its business contrary values processes organizational form or even non-traditional tradecra Most of the Galileo award submissions will be disruptive What do we do with the losing submissions Worse yet what do we do with the winning Galileo entries An award winning idea not properly implemented simply generates additional organizational distrust and employee frustration -153- Lone ideas no matter how good almost never survive their first anniversary in traditional organizations Research by Clayton Christensen author of the Innovator s Dilemma and the Innov ator s Solution shows that ideas radically different than the status quo have to be securely grafted at very high organizational levels for protection However the Community Management Staff in its present form is not equipped to be this hi gh-level protector since it lacks the line authority needed to resource monitor and grow disruptive ideas Let s Proceed to Plan In the intelligence world ideas falling under the control of directorate entities quickly take on the workplace values and practices of that directorate Creative units like the Center for the Study of Intelligence and Global Futures have a very difficult time functioning effectively within a directorate structure These units are ancillary to the directorate mission and spend a great deal of energy in self preservation activities The Agency s only serious anti bureaucracy effort the Improvement Team quickly withered and died from lack of resources when housed in a directorate Plan A Plan Plan Strategy Business as Reorganization Safe harbor for usual Transformation disruptive ideas In the box Out of the-box Projected Failure Possibility of Multiple failures Results stalling And successes A Laboratory For Quantum Reform The answer is to establish a permanent oversight board to analyze the ood of ideas springing from RIA groups CMS the Leadership Academy CSI Global Futures Red Teams and employees and to bundle them for protection into a new structure attached at a high level It is difficult to say speci cally where the Incubator Center should be attached because of the different IC organizational structures currently being proposed However it should be higher than directorate level and overseen by a senior executive strong enough to defend against heresy charges from senior managers in traditional mainstream units Creativity requires that all aspects of the Incubation Center differ from the existing directorate structure The Center should be established as a non-profit organization under the control and oversight of the IC or Agency much like In-Q Tel 4% Let s Proceed to Plan Experienced officers suggesting novel ideas and approaches to solve chronic intelligence programs might be funded over a five-year period to safely carry out their experiments These are ideas that would not normally gain traction inside busy directorates carrying out established missions but once developed could offer exciting future prospects for the Agency How are matured pilot projects brought back into the directorates In most cases to avoid organizational cannibalization they won t be Small creative units can remain inside the incubator or in rare cases be spun off as free-standing entities Actions For Success How do you give the Galileo ideas the possibility of success The rules for protecting these new structural forms and practices are similar to private sector lessons learned in fostering design and implementation of disruptive technologies 0 Above all provide a heavyweight shepherd for long-term protection Heavyweight is de ned as a senior executive suf ciently high to work across IC boundaries and because outcomes are dif cult to predict to manage expectations He or she must have the necessary power and mindset to override or reform existing culture procedures and process to foster experimentation De-couple from inefficient support systems by moving in some cases to non- government structures Inefficient processes cause employee time to be frittered away as identical problems are solved over and over Look for goods and service support for the incubator elsewhere 0 The new incubator organization must be autonomous and allowed to develop new culture and process New ideas are always disruptive and generate resistance Be observant as the existing system a mother hen of sorts will View this as a refutation of the current business model and culture and attempt to peek the baby chick to death 0 Furnish an impartial reform-minded expert senior support team to remove bureaucratic barriers This internal can defend against the not invented here antibodies found in every human organizational system Also appoint a blue ribbon oversight panel largely composed of non 1C officials 0 Allow failure and fail early Few organizations manage to learn from failure It is important to fail early both to learn important lessons and to re deploy human capital Follow Pareto s lead and allow the 80 per cent solution Rough and rapid solutions are OK -155- - Start with small Plan pilot teams and enforce selflessness humility and collaboration In addition to passion for improvement and open communications pilot team leaders should trust others be trustworthy and have a strong sense of direction They should have an ability and hunger to learn Let s Proceed to Plan Reward teamwork speed and prudent risk taking Pilot project leaders should select team members for attitudes and traits Use employees ideas to encourage initiative and to build trust Leaders can t know all the answers and must resist the tendency to defend their own ideas or views Extensive training should include external internships and conferences to continuously capture proven external co'ncepts Plan B like any large scale transformation will take years to complete and might fail Plan offers a relatively low-cost hedge by potentially generating quantum breakthroughs in intelligence approaches and performance Neither effort con icts with the other Can our national security afford to not buy this low cost insurance Whatever the outcome of the Plan reforms a little experimentation with Plan can t hurt -156-                     National Security Archive    Suite 701  Gelman Library  The George Washington University    2130 H Street  NW  Washington  D C  20037    Phone  202 994‐7000  Fax  202 994‐7005  nsarchiv@gwu edu