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manager would decline these opportunities. But decisions still have to be made about how much effort to put into preparing one discreet entity (the PDB) and how much goes into broader and perhaps deeper products. Analyses that go into the PDB or any other morning intelligence publication are nonurgent enough to wait until the next day. If the items reported on were crucial, they would be briefed to the president and other senior officials at once. DNI McConnell has instituted “deep dives” as part of the PDB process, where time is set aside on a regular basis to go into some issue in depth. But given the fact that the PDB is crafted to the personal preferences of each president, a major change in the PDB process is not likely to happen until the inauguration of the next administration in 2009.

CRISES VERSUS THE NORM. One way in which requirements are set is in response to crises. Crisis-driven requirements represent the ultimate victory of current over long-range intelligence needs.

Given the limited nature of collection and analytical resources, certain issues inevitably receive short shrift or even no attention at all. And, just as inevitably, annual or semiannual requirements planning regularly fail to predict which of the seemingly less important issues will erupt into a crisis. Thus, the planning exercises are to some degree self-fulfilling—or serf-denying—prophecies.

Analytical managers must find a way to create or preserve some minimal amount of expertise against the moment when a seemingly less important issue erupts and suddenly moves to the top of policy makers’ concerns. The intelligence community has only a small collection reserve, no analytical reserve, and a limited capacity to move assets to previously uncovered but now important topics. Assets therefore move from hot topic to hot topic, with other matters receiving little or no coverage.

Despite the problem of defining requirements and the vagaries of international relations, the intelligence community is on the spot when it misses an issue—that is, fails to be alert to its eventuality or is unprepared to deal with it when it occurs. In part, the high expectations are deserved, given that one function of intelligence is strategic warning. But strategic warning is usually taken to mean advance notice on issues that would pose a threat to national security, not regional crises that might require some level of involvement. Such crises strain the image of the intelligence community as well as its resources, because policy makers in both branches and the media tend to be harsh—sometimes fairly, sometimes not—in their view of misses.

One difficult aspect of dealing with crises that has arisen in recent years has been the demands of the combatant commanders (called CoComs—the four-star officers who command U.S. forces in Europe, the Pacific, and so on) for intelligence support from national intelligence collection assets. The issue is one of conflicting priorities. The CoComs are responsible for huge swaths of the globe and react to unrest in any of the countries in their area of responsibility (AOR). However, policy makers and intelligence officers in Washington. D.C., may not have the same sense of urgency about events in some of the smaller states and those that have less affiliation to the United States. Thus, there is a difference of perspective and perception. Efforts have been made to wean the CoComs off their desire to call upon national assets for any and all emergencies in their AOR and to rely more on their own, admittedly less capable, theater intelligence assets.

THE WHEAT VERSUS CHAFF PROBLEM. The wheat versus chaff problem, although part of collection, ultimately becomes an analytical issue. Although much that is collected does not get processed and exploited, the amount that does is still formidable. Even in the age of computers, few technical shortcuts have been found to help analysts deal with the problem. The intelligence community has adopted some software programs to assist in parts of information management, such as text mining