According to the insipidly overused quote by Clausewitz, war is the continuation of policy by other means. If the main instrument of foreign policy is diplomacy, one is left with the truism that the same policy may be conducted sometimes by diplomacy, other times by warfare.
A popular speaking point goes that, for a given conflict, “there is no military solution, only a diplomatic one”. This may be a useful soundbite for strategic communication, but from a Clausewitzian point of view, it is based on a misconception. Diplomacy and warfare are not mutually exclusive alternatives, but rather two different means to the same ultimate end, typically defined as existential interests of the state, such as the survival of its people and constitutional order.
In the context of military conflict, diplomacy can therefore be seen as a service branch that precedes, ties in with, and follows an active, kinetic phase in hostilities. In Northern Europe, the current mood music plays to the oversimplified tune of armed service branches and risks neglecting diplomacy as an essential tool in the box, a critically important tradecraft for all skilled and successful states.
Practically every armed conflict is preceded by diplomatic efforts. Equally, intense diplomacy takes place during every conflict: coalition-building with allies, sympathizers, and fence-sitters, and back-channel negotiations with adversaries, sometimes even with the enemy itself. And finally, every war comes to an end with some version of a diplomatic solution, be it a ceasefire, an armistice, or a proper peace treaty.
In the context of armed conflict, intelligence involves the collection and analysis of information to support tactical and strategic decisions. The underlying assumption is that key decisions should always be based on the best information available. In military intelligence, the end users – or policymakers – are typically field commanders, but they may just as well be politicians, diplomats, or intelligence professionals themselves.
In a way, a diplomat’s point of view to intelligence is that of both a practitioner and an end user. In the first role, diplomatic tradecraft tries to reveal information about allies’ and adversaries’ motives that are otherwise hidden, sometimes by deliberate secrecy, other times, in plain view, by the sheer cacophony of the public space. A diplomat’s objective is therefore much like that of an intelligence professional: to separate the relevant facts from lies and irrelevant noise and prepare those facts to leaders in a digestible and actionable format.
In the latter role, as end users, diplomats use intelligence as information for implementing foreign policy. In knowledge-based decision-making, intelligence typically supplements other types of information.
Importantly, as information, intelligence carries no specific value apart from its validity. The operational usefulness on any information lies in its accuracy, not in the method of its collection.
In the professional and public discussion, it is often implied that intelligence constitutes a special kind of information, one that carries inherent value for policymakers. This idea is exacerbated by the fact that most experts who speak about intelligence with authority are, like me, themselves members of a professional class that is heavily invested in the tradecraft. In other words, part of the tribe.
For the end user, this can be treacherous. Intelligence is a notoriously difficult tradecraft. It may provide critically important, timely information, or just as well lead to useless or even dangerous directions. For a real-life policymaker, it is often impossible to recognize the difference until the benefit of hindsight.
When intelligence is flawed, the risks for strategic policymakers become enormous. The case of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003 is a prime example.
In my own professional career as a diplomat, I have both profited from accurate, masterful intelligence, and suffered from analysis that has been fundamentally flawed. In August 2021, pertinent HUMINT about a coming suicide attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate saved not only our mission, but quite possibly lives of my team members, potentially including my own. A few years earlier, outdated and inadequate security risk assessments of Finnish children in ISIS detention camps in Northeastern Syria delayed their repatriations, prolonged their exposure to a radicalized environment, and increased the long-term security risks for the Finnish society.
Both were products of highly capable teams of analysts, with vastly different outcomes for the end user.
A professional, analytically ambitious discussion about intelligence is all the more important when it recognizes that the value of information isn’t in the method of its collection, but whether it’s good or bad.
Jussi Tanner
Director General for Consular Services
Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
