Much has been written about intelligence failure, so much, in fact, that scholars are criticized for selecting on the dependent variable. That is, the intelligence studies literature generally explains the causes of failure, while ignoring what leads to success. This creates methodological issues that can hide what separates failure from success when it comes to avoiding strategic surprise attacks or other unwanted faits accompli.
Intelligence failure is rooted in the process of producing warning and analysis for officers and officials, which is commonly referred to by the term “intelligence cycle”. Much can go wrong in this process. Intelligence collection requirements might be mis-specified, the raw data collected might be planted as a deliberate deception, or relevant data might never be collected. Data also could remain hidden or unrecognized until too late, buried in the information tsunami created by the digital revolution. In terms of analysis, a Pandora’s Box of cognitive biases, organizational pathologies, and personal motives can sidetrack timely and accurate estimates, especially if the intelligence-policy consensus of the moment cannot account for emergent threats. Because stratagem and the gambits it enables are incredibly risky, they are often viewed by analysts as too “hare-brained” to be taken seriously, even when accurate evidence of some looming event is detected. It is also difficult to convince skeptical leaders that the opponent is undertaking a potentially self-destructive diplomatic or military initiative.
Despite the array of problems that bedevil analysis, scholars generally agree that accurate information, useful assessments, or even timely finished intelligence and formal warnings exist within the “intelligence pipeline” before instances of surprise and intelligence failure. For instance, the Director of U.S. Central Intelligence noted that before the 11 September 2001 terror attacks, the “system was blinking red”: analysts and law enforcement knew that Al-Qaeda cells were active in the United States and that some sort of operation was imminent. Nevertheless, they failed to translate this foreboding into timely action; they failed to bridge the chasm between intelligence analysis and effective policy response.
Bridging this gap between analysis and response is the critical factor that separates failure from success; intelligence analysts and managers must take responsibility before the moment of crisis to build a bridge to those who must act on warning. National intelligence communities must undertake four actions to bridge this chasm between warning and response.
First, intelligence assessments must fit strategic requirements. Strategies that require warning weeks or months before untoward events are doomed to failure if intelligence analysts can only provide a few days or hours of warning. Although this intelligence-operational synchronization should be the responsibility of intelligence professionals, strategists occasionally should consider if their expectations about warning are getting ahead of intelligence realities. Strategy must be synchronized with intelligence.
Second, intelligence professionals and officials need to agree on who receives warning, who will recognize the warning for what it is, and who will take appropriate action. Too often, officials and officers are unaware that they need to act in response to warning. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, for instance, assessments were disseminated to officials in Washington and Oahu, but everyone seemed to think that someone else recognized and understood the big picture and would respond appropriately. Disaster looms when intelligence producers and consumers simply assume that “someone else will take this for action.”
Third, the bridge between analysis and response is built on trust. Intelligence managers build trust with officials by explaining the strengths and limits of intelligence, while intelligence consumers build trust by discussing strategic objectives and requirements to build a common operating picture with analysts. Effective collaboration occurs when everyone is aware that everyone understands the threat and what is needed to defeat it.
Fourth, intelligence consumers must understand that specific event prediction is rare. Instead, they are likely to receive indications & warning intelligence, which is a general assessment indicating a movement from a routine day-alert peacetime posture, when the ability to undertake operations is limited, to a generated-alert posture, a time when the ability to undertake operations is increasing. Officials sometimes prefer to wait to see what materializes under these circumstances. Nevertheless, by the time things become cut and dried, it is generally too late to take effective action.
Bridging the gap between intelligence producers and consumers, between warning and response, is the key to intelligence success.
James J. Wirtz
Professor of National Security Affairs
Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, California
USA
jwirtz@nps.edu
