Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [144]
SETTING THE RIGHT EXPECTATIONS
During the briefings that each new administration receives, an incoming undersecretary of state was meeting with one of his senior intelligence officers on the issue of narcotics. The intelligence officer laid out in detail all the intelligence that could be known about narcotics: amounts grown, shipping routes, street prices, and so forth “That said,” the intelligence officer concluded, “there is very little you will be able to do with this intelligence”
The undersecretary asked why the briefing had ended in that manner.
“Because,” the intelligence officer replied, “this is an issue where the intelligence outruns policy’s ability to come up with solutions You are likely to grow frustrated by all of this intelligence while you have no policy levers with which to react. I want to prepare you for this at the outset of our relationship so as to avoid problems later on.”
The undersecretary understood.
COVERT ACTION. Covert action can be attractive to policy makers, because it increases available options and theoretically decreases direct political costs. Policy makers may assume that an extensive on-the-shelf operational capability exists and that the intelligence community can mount an operation on fairly short notice. The assumptions are, in effect, the operational counterpart to the assumption that all areas of the world are receiving some minimal level of collection and analytical coverage.
Policy makers of course want covert actions that are successful. Success is easier to define for short-term operations, but it may be elusive for those of longer duration. As a result, tension may arise between the intelligence and policy-making communities. The most senior policy makers tend to think in blocks of time no longer than four years—the tenure of a single administration. The intelligence community, as part of the permanent bureaucracy, can afford to think in longer stretches. It does not face the deadline that elections impose on an administration.
The intelligence community harbors a certain ambivalence about covert action. A covert action gives the intelligence community an opportunity to display its capabilities in an area that is of extreme importance to policy makers. Covert action is also an area in which the intelligence community’s skills are unique and are less subject to rebuttal or alternatives than is the community’s analysis. However, disagreement over covert action is highly probable if policy makers request an operation that intelligence officials believe to be unlikely to succeed or inappropriate. Once the intelligence community is committed to an operation, it does not want to be left in the lurch by the policy makers. For example, in paramilitary operations, the intelligence community likely feels a greater obligation to the forces it has enlisted, trained, and armed than the policy makers do. The two communities do not view in similar ways a decision to end the operation.
POLICY MAKER BEHAVIORS, Just as certain analyst behaviors matter, so do certain policymaker behaviors. Not every policy maker consumes intelligence in the same way. Some like to read, for example, while others prefer being briefed. Policy makers are better served if they convey their preferences early on instead of leaving them to guesswork.
Policy makers do not always appreciate the limits of what can be collected and known with certainty, the reasons behind ambiguity, and, occasionally, the propriety of intelligence. They sometimes confuse the lack