As long as I can remember – more decades that I care to admit — the collection agencies and the Pentagon have driven developments in the Intelligence Community (IC). Analysis, especially strategic research, was always considered their red headed stepchild, a necessary evil, but not a real player in the decision-making process. Certainly, providing intelligence to the warfighters should come first, and those in charge have built a collection capability second to none. Despite the billions and billions of dollars spent since the 1970s and all the data collected, however, I have never met a policymaker satisfied with the reporting they receive from the IC. They appreciate being kept up to date on events around the world, what I call classified news, but in addition they have hundreds of questions especially about developments in China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. They don’t have time to find answers themselves. Instead, they look to the IC to supply them. Unfortunately, we have been out of the answer business for over thirty years.
It has nothing to do with the caliber of analysts in the IC. Those doing all-source analysis at CIA, DIA, and INR, the major contributors to the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), are in terms of recruitment the pick of the litter. No, the problem is what we ask them to do – only current reporting. One produces classified news in reaction to data received from the collection agencies and the availability of any relevant open-source information. An event occurs that triggers an analyst to provide his or her best guess of its importance and what it means. If they are lucky their explanation makes it into the PDB. The key point is that classified news is a reactive exercise. It can’t, for example, answers questions such as the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian military. A current reporter can give you opinions, on such topics, especially one who has been on the relevant account for several years, but you dare not ask for the evidence he or she used to reach their conclusion for fear of being shocked and accused of politicizing the process.
The goals of collectors and analysts contain many similarities, but their philosophies of intelligence differ considerably. For the collector, quantity of data remains supreme. Collecting more bits of information increases the chances of avoiding surprises, especially given that policymakers place a high priority on effective warning. For the policymaker just any kind of warning, however, won’t do. Whether they articulate it or not, strategic warning indicating that something might happen doesn’t suffice. They want tactical warning – who, what, where and most importantly when an event will occur. Historically, when it comes to tactical warning, luck has proven decisive, and an important reason why there are so many so-called intelligence surprises. We often get the who, what, and even the where right. The biggest hurdle, and the element most dependent on luck in getting things right – the when – proves to be the single most important factor in a policymaker’s decision to take action.
Current intelligence analysts, the ones who produce classified news, approach their work with a mindset similar to the collectors. Much depends on the amount of data streaming in from the collection agencies. The sheer volume of material produced daily, however, creates its own dilemma. I often describe it as a tsunami of information flowing in where separating the wheat from the chaff becomes a constant challenge. Secondly, the intake of information by the collectors rarely coincides with the top daily priorities of the policymakers. It provides an excellent overview of overnight events around the world but is often sparce or repetitive when it comes to the three or four issues most on the minds of senior policymakers on any given day. What’s worse, should a crisis linger for any appreciable amount of time, policymakers know as much if not more on their issue of special concern than do the current reporters. As a result they often give more attention to raw collection reports than the opinions of all-source analysts increasing the prospect for cherry-picking data points that coincide most closely with their own analysis of the topic at hand. In addition, policymakers rarely want to receive information narrow in scope. Unless you can say something useful that applies, for example to China’s military writ large, as opposed to an obscure combined arms training exercise in the Central Military Command, the chances of it making the cut for the PDB would be extremely slight.
For research analysts asking the right question begins the process not last nights’ input from the collection agencies. Moreover, the knowledge necessary to answer the tough questions policymakers treasure depend on micro studies narrow in scope. Rarely, do researchers in any field make major breakthroughs with one big project. That is certainly true in the field of intelligence studies. More frequently it is an accumulation of knowledge produced by various contributors sometimes over years that eventually meets the expectations of the policymakers.
Unfortunately, the IC disbanded its research capability over thirty years ago. With considerable time and effort, the IC could get back in the business of anticipating and answering policymaker questions, but I see no signs of any such change. Indeed, I see no indication that the leadership intends to make such an effort or even recognizes the importance of strategic research in improving the quality of its reporting. It clings to the shortsighted view that if an analyst is not working on something that can immediately be provided to a policymaker or warfighter is by definition unimportant and therefore a waste of time.
In truth we have far more current reporters today than needed to provide top quality and timely classified news to senior officials. In my experience considerable duplication of effort exists among all-source analysts seeking to have their product selected to appear in the PDB. I truly believe that three-fourths of the current reporters could be sent to the dark side of the moon, and nobody but their immediate family and friends would realize they were gone. Ideally, some number of these excess analysts could be given strategic research assignments. I would move two-thirds of the analysts to research (knowledge creation) leaving one-third responsible for producing classified news. If as I suspect there is little chance that we will reconstitute our strategic research capability, moving the unneeded classified news all-source personnel to the collection agencies as reports officers makes a lot of since. Failing that budget cuts might be in order.
Jewish messianism has been spreading its poisonous message among us for nearly two thousand years. Democratic and communist universalisms are more recent, but they have only strengthened the old Jewish narrative. These are the same ideals . . .
The transnational, transracial, transcultural ideals that these ideologies preach to us (beyond peoples, races, cultures) and are the daily diet in our schools, in our media, in our pop culture, in our universities and on our streets, have reduced our biosymbolic identity and ethnic pride to their minimal expression.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are death cults that originated in the Middle East and are completely alien to Europe and its peoples.
Sometimes one wonders why the European left gets along so well with Muslims. Why does an often openly anti-religious movement side with a fierce religiosity that seems to oppose almost everything the left always claims to stand for? Part of the explanation lies in the fact that Islam and Marxism share a common ideological root: Judaism.
Don Rumsfeld was right to say, "Europe has shifted on its axis," the wrong side has won World War II, and it is becoming clearer by the day . . .
What has NATO done to defend Europe?
Absolutely nothing.
My enemies are not in Moscow, Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh or some ethereal Teutonic bogeyman, but in Washington, Brussels and Tel Aviv.
https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/pardonne-mon-francais-va-te-faire