Toward a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs - RAND Corporation

162 Pages·2005·0.74 MB·English

by  Deborah G. Barger

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Toward a Revolution in
Intelligence Affairs
Deborah G. Barger
Approved for public release; distribution unlimited
This report results from the RAND Corporation’s continuing program of self-initiated
research. Support for such research is provided, in part, by donors and by the independent
research and development provisions of RAND’s contracts for the operation of its U.S.
Department of Defense federally funded research and development centers. This research
was conducted within the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD), a division
of the RAND Corporation. NSRD conducts research and analysis for the Office of the
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FOREWORD
Intelligence is often considered to be the most secretive function
in our government. Yet, during the past decade, more than a dozen public
commissions and panels made recommendations on how to reform U.S.
intelligence given the end of the Cold War, the changing nature of
ourn ational security environment, the need to respond to increasing
technical and analytic complexity, and a number of perceived
intelligence failures, including those surrounding the tragic events of
September 11, 2001. At a time when "transformation" is underway in
defense and other areas of government, intelligence must keep pace or
run the risk of increasing irrelevance and potential decline. And, in
whatever form change comes, it must ultimately remain focused on the key
goal of intelligence--outthinking and outsmarting our adversaries.
Deborah Barger is a senior intelligence officer who was and
continues to be passionately interested in the topic of change in the
U.S. Intelligence Community. During her year-long fellowship at the RAND
Corporation, she focused intensely on possible antecedents for a
"revolution in intelligence affairs" (RIA) in the areas of defense
reform (i.e., the revolution in military affairs), private-sector
reform, and intelligence reform and development during the period
following World War II. Because of the risk that the RIA would be too
easily targeted by grandstanders and pundits, Deborah worked quietly,
carefully, and methodically to understand the true nature of those
reforms and how they might inform an RIA. In this endeavor, she was
assisted by dozens of individuals both inside and outside government,
who all have an intense passion for improving the U.S. intelligence
enterprise.
By design, Deborah's research provides no specific recommendations
on how to change U.S. intelligence organizations, operations, or
approach to technology. The reader who is looking for a "quick-
fix"r ecommendation, such as to close a specific intelligence agency, to
build a specific satellite technology, or to hire a specific group or
class of analysts, will be unsatisfied with this report. What Deborah
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has done, however, is to develop a framework for how the United States
should consider specific changes to our intelligence enterprise, based
on how those changes would improve the effectiveness of U.S.
intelligence. Under an assumption that an RIA may already be under way,
in part because of prior study, Deborah offers an intellectual framework
by which to consider past proposals for change as well as future ones.
The framework offered here provides a pathway for continuous change in
intelligence, even in an increasingly complex world. The framework
should help intelligence leaders and managers to do the following:
• evaluate holistically proposed changes to a complex system (i.e.,
avoid fixing one thing while inadvertently breaking another)
• evaluate proposals for change objectively and from something other
than a political or bureaucratic perspective
• develop their own proposals for change, driven by rapid changes in
the external environment (rather than failures)
• follow an approach that will help the Intelligence Community
succeed in actually implementing needed changes, not once but
continuously.
Regrettably, the limited public debate that takes place today on
U.S. intelligence either focuses on fear or failure, or pits various
constituencies against each other, such as the debate that has emerged
on whether the Intelligence Community needs more collection or analysis.
In today'sc omplex world, the United States needs better and more of
both, but U.S. intelligence also needs to be more creative, adaptive,
and risk-taking in how it pursues those two activities. The people who
are most aware of this are the men and women of the U.S. Intelligence
Community, who have worked tirelessly to meet the needs of a growing
number of intelligence consumers, even in the face of increased mission
complexity and an unprecedented scrutiny of what they do and how they do
it.
The framework offered here provides not only an intellectual
foundation for change, but also an argument that real change can result
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only from the emergence of many pockets of innovation rather than from
any single individual or organizational entity. Since the time that she
authored this report, Deborah Barger has been given official
responsibility for both understanding the sources of change across the
U.S. intelligence community and for instituting change. We thank her for
her dedication to this research and her devotion to improving the U.S.
intelligence organization.
Kevin M. O'Connell
Former Director
Intelligence Policy Center
RAND Corporation

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PREFACE
As the global war on terrorism continues to expand and the post-
Cold War security environment remains in flux, both the strengths and
weaknesses of U.S. intelligence have been thrust into the public
spotlight, leading to renewed recognition of the importance of
intelligence and the need for improvements in intelligence operations.
The research presented in this report was conducted by Deborah
Barger, a senior intelligence officer, during her Intelligence Community
Fellowship at the RAND Corporation from September 2002 to August 2003.
She advances the argument that a “Revolution in Intelligence Affairs” is
needed to prepare the Intelligence Community to meet its future
challenges. In this report, she presents a framework for how the United
States should consider specific changes to its intelligence enterprise
to improve its effectiveness. As such, this report should be of interest
to intelligence professionals, students, scholars, and researchers
alike.
Data for this research project was gathered through a variety of
unclassified sources including books, articles, and other documents;
speeches; Internet searches; workshops attended by government and non-
government officials; and one-on-one interviews with numerous
intelligence officials, policymakers, former military officers,
intelligence consumers, retired intelligence experts, historians,
academics, and intelligence scholars. The research was
multidisciplinary, drawing lessons from scientific history, political
science, psychology, military theory and strategy, business theory,
organizational dynamics, biographical history, sociology, and change
management. The data presented in this report are current as of June
2004.
This report results from the RAND Corporation's continuing program
of self-initiated research. Support for such research is provided, in
part, by donors and by the independent research and development
provisions of RAND’s contracts for the operation of its U.S. Department
of Defense federally funded research and development centers. This work
- viii –
was done within the Intelligence Policy Center (IPC) of the RAND
National Security Research Division (NSRD). NSRD conducts research and
analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff,
the Unified Commands, the defense agencies, the Department of the Navy,
the U.S. Intelligence Community, allied foreign governments, and
foundations.
The views expressed in this report are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. government.
For more information on RAND's Intelligence Policy Center, contact
its acting director, Greg Treverton. He can be reached by email at
[email protected]; by phone at 310-393-0411, extension 7122; or by
mail at the RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa
Monica, CA 90407-2138. More information about RAND is available at
www.rand.org.