Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [207]
CONCLUSION
In the first decade after the end of the cold war (using as a benchmark the breaching of the Berlin Wall in 1989), the U.S. national security agenda remained largely unformed, not in terms of which issues mattered but which of them mattered the most, which would receive the highest priority over time (as opposed to immediate reactions to events), and what the United States would be willing to do to achieve its preferred ends. In the absence of clear definition, the intelligence community found it difficult to perform. Intelligence officials have a broad understanding of policy makers’ preferences and immediate interests, but these do not provide the basis for making a coherent set of plans for investments, collection systems, personnel recruitment, and training. The war on terrorism offered some clarity in that it has given one issue priority over all the others, although not to the same extent as the old Soviet issue. Moreover, the terrorism issue is different from the Soviet issue in many important respects, thus emphasizing the importance of the cold war legacy for the intelligence community, as well as the need to transcend this legacy.
Many issues in the new U.S. intelligence agenda share an important hallmark: the gap between the intelligence community’s ability to provide intelligence and the policy makers’ ability to craft policies to address the issues and to use the intelligence. This gap may even be seen in the war against terrorism. If the disparity persists, the intelligence community and its policy clients may become disaffected. Clients want to be more than just informed; they want to act (that is, to receive opportunity analysis). And intelligence is not meant to be collected and then filed away. It is intended to assist people in making decisions or taking action. This is not to suggest that the intelligence community will suddenly disappear. But it may come to be seen as less central and necessary—a provider of information that is interesting but not as useful as it has been in the past because of the changed nature of the issues. Moreover, the increasing tendency by high-level participants in the broader policy process (that is, the executive and Congress) to commission intelligence estimates and then use them selectively in partisan debates has considerable costs for intelligence. Over time, managers and analysts may be increasingly tempted to water down the assessments they write, making them blander and less pointed, largely as a self-defeating act of preservation.
KEY TERMS
battle damage assessment
bioterror
chatter
dominant battlefield awareness
ECHELON
foreign economic espionage
industrial espionage
information operations
JTTFs (Joint Terrorism Task Forces)
link analysis
network warfare
revolution in military affairs (RMA)
FURTHER READINGS
Writings on the post-cold war intelligence agenda remain somewhat scattered across issue areas, reflecting the nature of the debate itself.
General
Colby, William. “The Changing Role of Intelligence.” World Outlook 13 (summer 1991): 77-90.
Goodman. Allan E. “The Future of U.S. Intelligence.” Intelligence and National Security 11 (October 19961: 645-656.
Goodman, Allan E., and Bruce D. Berkowitz. The Need to Know. Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Covert Action and American Democracy. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1992
Goodman. Allan E., and others. In from the Cold. Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Future of U.S. Intelligence. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1996.
Johnson, Loch K. Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America’s Quest for Security. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Johnson, Loch