Lessons from forty years of intelligence analysis
This is a very cool piece from a deputy director at the CIA (not the Culinary Institute of America) about enduring lessons from a life spent doing the daunting, exciting, thankless, frustrating, fascinating task of briefing foreign policy makers on the state of the world.
There are some who say the United States is a declining power or that it is the source of many of the world’s problems. Time will tell on the first question, but I believe the United States is a force for good in the world, and how powerful a force depends as much on our knowledge as on our military and economic might. I tell intelligence analysts I teach that more often than not they are the source of that knowledge. It is their professionalism and tradecraft that provide checks on the system, light the way, and leverage US power. All the dollars spent on intelligence—the collectors in the field, the technical systems, and the lives at risk—are for naught, unless that knowledge comes together in what analysts do every day.
As the deputy executive director at the CIA, I addressed each class of just-promoted CIA Senior Intelligence Service officers, and each time I asked for a show of hands of those who believed they would never see WMD used on US soil in their lifetimes. The question always startled them, and I never saw a single hand raised. We cannot afford to accept anything less than the pursuit of perfection. We cannot accept anything less than holding ourselves to the highest standards. We cannot accept anything less than our best effort every time, every day. The potential consequences are too great.
And I know it is damn hard. Intelligence analysis is less fun than a policy rotation or an overseas assignment. It is less honored and romanticized than other aspects of the Great Game. It is frustrating. It is exhausting. And even the best efforts will be picked at. The analyst’s work will be criticized by the knowledgeable and the ignorant alike. It will even be demonized at times—independent of its quality—and it will always be hostage to the politics of the moment.
But—and I say this with my four decades of perspective—what intelligence analysts do has impact. It matters. I have seen the quiet victories of intelligence and the mistakes averted, and I have seen critics become advocates because of what analysts do every day.
I have personally attracted a lot of attention for my public critiques of the culture of intelligence in America and Western Europe. If I have been critical, it is because I agree with this gentleman that intelligence as an organization practice has tremendous value. To me, it is the backstop against totalitarianism, the defiance of authoritarian rule – one that relies on reason and critical thinking more than sheer power. Intelligence does matter. More people need to think deeply about this.
