Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [230]
Closely related to the center issue is the older issue of the flexibility and agility of the analytical corps. The analytical agencies have no reserve or surge capacity. Analysis is still organized around two basic structures: regional and topical offices. These are not mutually exclusive, but no intelligence service around the world has discovered a third organizing principle.
The problem stems, in part, from the fact that analysts have to be expert in something, which necessarily defines and limits the issues on which they can work. Creating a corps of intelligence generalists is impractical and dangerous. They will likely know a little about many issues but not much about any single issue. Successful intelligence analysis requires expertise, and long-term expertise is one of the major value-adds of the intelligence community. Thus, the problem is to maintain some level of flexibility or surge within this body of experts.
Surge is most important during crises, especially in areas that previously had a low priority. However, in giving a low priority to a particular issue or nation, the policy and intelligence communities have already decided not to allocate many resources to it. Short of either finding someone already on staff who has some working knowledge of the issue or dragooning others into working on it, not much can be done internally. A frequently suggested reform proposal is the creation and use of an intelligence reserve—a body of experts, either former intelligence analysts or outside experts, who can augment analytical ranks during a crisis.
Congress created such a reserve in 1996, but the intelligence community has not fully implemented it. Several issues are involved, one of which is security. Many outside experts do not have security clearances and may be unwilling to accept the restrictions they impose. Thus, they either are eliminated as sources or the intelligence community is required to find ways to tap their expertise without revealing classified information. Although the latter is not impossible, those responsible for security are likely to raise some objections. The irony is that these outside experts are useful because of what they know and not because they need access to classified material. It should be possible to tap their expertise and avoid the clearance issue entirely. Another issue is cost. The intelligence community does not budget for such contingencies—just as DOD does not budget for wartime operations during peacetime. As with the military, budget mechanisms—reallocations, supplemental appropriations—are available. The main impediment appears to be attitudes within the intelligence community.
Finally, there is the issue of redundancy in the three all-source agencies—the CIA, the DIA, and the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). The intentional duplication stems from two fundamental operating principles of the intelligence community: the distinct intelligence needs of different senior policy makers and the concept of competitive analysis. Unless one is willing to give up either or both operating principles, one must accept the cost of the redundancy. Neither the executive branch nor Congress is likely to abandon the concepts or to accept the idea of having a single analytical agency, which has been among the more radical proposed alternatives.
INTELLIGENCE AND THE IT REVOLUTION. A major and continuing source of reform ideas stems from the ongoing information technology (IT) revolution. Some