T2 B21 Lederman- Open Sources 1 Of 2 Fdr- Robert D Steele- Reports And Presentations On Osint 783

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OSS '97 Opening Presentation Mr. Robert D. Steele, OSS CEO I

Intelligence in the Balance: The Strategic View 1 2

3

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II

The End of Bureaucracy & The Rise of the Intelligence Organization 1 2 3 4 5 6

III

Slow to grasp concepts of smart nations and intelligence organizations Must extend concept of national intelligence to embrace rest of government including state and local governments and the rich resources of the private sector—business, media, academic, and individual citizens Must strike a better balance between: • national, commercial, and tactical systems • collection and processing • secrets and open sources • technology and human expertise • counterintelligence inside of and outside of government We cannot do this without a national information strategy and the investment of at least one billion dollars a year in a national open source intelligence architecture, and one billion dollars a year in an electronic security and counterintelligence architecture which protects our intellectual seed corn.

Bureaucracy is the anti-thesis of organizational intelligence Organizational intelligence requires voluntary, self-organizing teams of committed intrapreneurs, each able to access global rnulti-lingual, multimedia information essential to achieving new insights Only free-spirited volunteers linked in a loose network, have the staying power to see through major intellectual and cultural change The intelligent organization harnesses both the knowledge of its sources and the knowledge of its consumers—it creates a larger community Facing reality depends on full access to the truth—and truth is not, as our keynote speaker notes in his book—always kind. Although truth is liberating, it is also destructive, for it destroys olds myths and old habits. Ultimately, we must combine open-minded visions with the strength of character to abandon and dismantle that whose time is past.

For the President's Eyes Only 1 2 3 4

Who is the consumer? President? Congress? Public? Allies? Are we in the business of collecting secrets? Or informing governance? Is the intelligence process secret? Or can it be shared? What role—what urgency and what funding levels—should we be seeking for unclassified intelligence support to diplomatic operations, to coalition operations, to combating transnational crime, and to national economic competitiveness as well as global environmental sustainability?

IV

Improving National Security and National Competitiveness 1

Virtual Intelligence Community • Majority of expertise in the private sector • Majority of expert knowledge is neither published nor online • Acme of skill is to "know who knows" and to be able to create "just enough just in time" tailored intelligence to answer the question • Data is raw text, image, or signal • Information is data collated and of generic broadcast interest • Intelligence is information tailored to support a specific decision • Most "intelligence" is not and need not be classified • Secrecy is like caviar—a little bit is wonderful, too much smells

2

Information Merchant Banking • Extends process of intelligence to rest of government and the private sector—requirements analysis, collection management, source validation, action-inducing presentation • Distinguishes between roles of the analyst and of the searcher— dramatically empowers librarians with the resources to discover, discriminate, distill, and deliver open source information • Institutionalizes the process of "knowing who knows" by creating an international open source "Moody's" guide, with appropriate evaluative reliability • Extends and assures government levels of electronic security to the private sector, to include anonymity—complete security is the foundation for complete openness.

3

Information Peacekeeping • It is the active exploitation of information and information technology to achieve one's policy objectives • It's three elements are intelligence, information technology or "tools for truth", and electronic home defense to protect intellectual property • It is not standard information technology in support of conventional diplomatic or military operations; it is not traditional psychological operations relying on deception; it is not covert action operations; and it is not clandestine operations. • Information peacekeeping relies on providing low cost unrestricted access to truthful information, and on assuring open connectivity between all interested individuals. • Information peacekeeping and open source intelligence operations require reliable electronic security that is not handicapped by imposed government "back doors".

4

Information Strategy • Connectivity, Content, Coordination, Communications Security

V

Miscellaneous Thoughts

Open source intelligence is not a discipline. It is a sub-discipline within each of the major disciplines, providing commercial imagery, foreign broadcast monitoring, and overt human intelligence as tip-off, context, and cover in support of the all-source process. Open source intelligence can be all-source in the sense that finished intelligence production which is unclassified can be used to meet critical needs in support of diplomatic and coalition operations, law enforcement, and business. We must distinguish between open source intelligence (OSINT) and validated open source intelligence (OSINT-V), the latter being unclassified intelligence that has been validated by all-source analysts will full access to all pertinent classified sources. Intelligence is not synonymous with secrecy. Data is collated into information that is of generic interest and generally broadcast—intelligence is information that has been tailored to support a specific decision by a specific person at a specific time and place. [I realize that all will not agree, but it's time we got away from classified encyclopedic broadcasting and more into day to day decision-support.] The open source revolution begun in 1992 in the aftermath of the first Open Source Task Force has failed. Although both the U.S. and several allied communities have toyed with open source initiatives, all are a strategic failure and generally only lip-service has been paid to the need to give analysts improved access to open sources. The exclusion of the librarians from the open source planning process, and its dominance, at least in the U.S., by a technical infrastructure, has been one reason for the failure. We must distinguish between human analysis expertise, human search & retrieval expertise (the librarians' forte), and technical support. The most promising technical solutions are now not in collection, but rather in processing. The technologies for discovering, discriminating, distilling, and delivering information that has been clustered, weighted, mapped, and visualized, are the next frontier and not properly pursued despite a decade of lip service. Electronically available information (both the Internet and the far more substantial commercial online sources) comprises less than 20% of what we need to know. The center of gravity for intelligence analysis is the human expert, and the vast majority of those experts is in the private sector and wants nothing to do with either the intelligence or the defense communities. We must rapidly develop new means of interacting with this expertise, to include a dramatic increase in our expectations regarding academic training, private sector accomplishments prior to hiring, and foreign language skills proven in the host country environment, also prior to hiring.

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Tuesday, 20 July 1993 TALKING POINTS FOR THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE Subj: REINVENTING INTELLIGENCE IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION 1. The Age of Information has radically altered the balance of power, both between nations, and between institutions. As AJvin Toffler articulated in is his book PowerSoft: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the £dge of the 21st Century (Bantam, 1992), information is a substitute for time, space, cjpital, and labor. 2. Your intelligence community, and indeed all your counterpart intelligence communities around the world, are in a state of shock, whether they realize it or not. The major nations have intelligence capabilities oriented toward the industrial age and the Cold War; the minor nations have intelligence capabilities oriented toward the agricultural age and internal security. Around them has exploded a robust commercial capability to collection, process, analyze, and dissemination unclassified information, or open source intelligence (OSCINT). This commercial capability is often superior to classified capabilities, and sometime the only capability available for specific targ6tS or topics. 3. Your immediate challenge, within the intelligence community, is to "reinvent" the entire community, and make major changes in the relationships between the disciplines (HUMINT, IMINT, SIGINT, and OSC1NT), between the organizations stove-piped around those disciplines, and between the analysts and the consumers of intelligence. Radical changes are required-it should be of grave concern to you that 90% of what your consumer reads is unclassified and unanaiyTed. To deal with these challenges you will have to instill a sense of adaptability of mind unfi adaptability pf Q.rgaft'7^rJOP throughout the community. Attached is a list of nine steps you could take immediately. 4. There is a grander vision, however, which we believe you should discuss with the President and the Vice-President, and that pertains to the role of the intelligence conmiyilfv. and its cofl^derable 8f|||lU8l budgetf in the context of the National Information Infrastructure, the national "information commons",

17*1

and the urgent requirement for a national knowledge strategy. Attached is a list of five areas for your consideration 5. Your counterparts, at least in Sweden, France, England, and Italy, are interested in creative discussions about the possibility of using NATO as the basis for an JntgPV^ft113! encyclopedic intelligence e,x,c,frffflg? pgreerpent witb clear burden-sharing arrangements regarding unclassified maps, orders of battle, and economic matters. You should consider sponsoring a NATO or at least a UK/US summit on "reinventing intelligence". 6. The is prepared to support you in bringing together two small working groups focused respectively on the internal and the external vision, and to report to you within 30 days the recommendations of these individuals. Access to classified materials will not be required. a. Among the individuals we could invite, in addition to anyone whose advice you particularly desire, are Richard Helms, William Colby, .... b. For the external working group, we would recommend, at a minimum, Alvin Toffler, Harlan Cleveland, Paul Strassmann, Peter Drucker, Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Jay Keyworth, Steven Adriole, and Robert Steele. 7. We would also like to draw on selected members of the intelligence community. Among those that we particularly desire to include are Gordon Oebler, Jack Devine, Boyd Sutton, Ross Stapleton, Andy Sbepard, Francisco Fernandez, and Greg Treverton. We propose dress rehearsal briefings be delivered to Joe Nye.

INTERNAL CHANGES

1)

Expand your consumer base to include all Departments of government /

MONEYMAKER: Approach other Departments first, offering to bring to bear intelligence sources and methods. 2)

Redefine national security to provide for integrated examination of domestic policies MONEYMAKER: Target the Vice-President, the Economic Council, and selected Congressional committees with proposals to bring intelligence sources A methods to bear on domestic issues using unclassified data fulfy releasable to public.

3)

Shift to gap-driven collection and eliminate priority-driven collection which leads to repetitive collection against the same targets day after day while ignoring major gaps in Third World encyclopedic intelligence MONEYMAKER: Conduct rapid IR&D survey of gaps among consumers in various Departments and in Theaters (perhaps even include selected Ambassadors), then develop White Paper proposals to rapidly resolve gaps using unclassified sources.

4)

Integrate analysts and consumers, analysts from different disciplines, and analysts and operators-this could be a "virtual" integration, using encrypted electronic mail and file transfer MONEYMAKER: Using existing assets, develop a prototype'virtual Embassy 'focused on a specific country, or a "virtual NSC" focused on a specific topic, and demonstrate how your team can reach out and pull in anyone, any information, in near-real-time.

5)

Recapitalize the infrastructure-CIA's "capture" by IBM, and its decision to "modernize into the 1970's", is the talk of the town. Get Paul Strassmann to serve as your Chief Information Officer for a year MONEYMAKER: Ensure you have a "campaign plan "for ongoing recapitalization of your own infrastructure, have a White Paper showing

how you can serve as an interim "core" service supplier and model as specific agencies move away from mainframes and toward distributed model. Demonstrate that pushing information out to the private sector and letting them maintain it is actually cost effective aM contributes to national competitiveness. 6)

Establish a Deputy Director for Open Sources, someone with real authority, and create a Center for the Exploitation of Open Sources (CEOS) where all new analysts must master OSCINT before going on to classified sources. Admiral Shaefer has 75,000 square feet of empty space in the new building at Surtland, and is ideally suited as your Executive Agent in this arena. MONEYMAKER: Put forward a White Paper on how you can create CEOS, funded by the private sector. What you get: first shot at new analysts, first shot at existing unclassified databases in government.

7)

Demand an accelerated security review-most senior observers around town agree that 90 days should be enough. Did you know mat the Office of Security is threatening to cancel clearances of industry analysts who travel to the Soviet Union to exploit open sources? MONEYMAKER: Put forward a White Paper, with a press release and copies to Congressional staff and the Presidential Inter-Agency Task Force on National Security Information, articulating a proposed new security strategy for national security information, to include a redefinition of what constitutes national security information, and a change of focus from unauthorized dissemination of secrets to "missed opportunities" and interruption of services (fragility of system). Become the "duty expert".

8)

Encourage Joe Nye in his plan to nurture competitive public analysis; the F Street facility could hold both a "forward" element of the National Intelligence Council, and an Office of External Liaison specifically charged with managing (and funding) the external element of the open source program in coordination with other non-intelligence agencies which have major investments in external research facilities

MONEYMAKER: Establish a corporate "tiger team* to mirror the National Intelligence Council person for person, god. a very tight support staff responsible far outreach to each of the major information sectors: universities, libraries, business, private investigators & information brokers, media, government fmcluding state A local), defense, and intelligence. Their outreach should be international. 9)

Accept responsibility for all intelligence, and seriously study why military intelligence manning and training is so mediocre. Jim Clapper, if be does replace Adm Studeman as DDCI, is the man for the job. MONEYMAKER: None. Avoid like the plague.

EXTERNAL CHANGES

1)

Abandon all thoughts of industrial espionage. The brightest minds from your community met at Harvard for the Intelligence Policy Seminar in December 1991 (Greg Treverton was one of their instructors) and concluded that a) there is no such thing as an American corporation; b) if provided with industrial espionage corporations would tend to reduce their investment in research & development; and c) the best thing you could do for businesses and individuals in the U.S. is to invest heavily in open sources. MONEYMAKER: Do a White Paper on corporate open source intelligence requirements, interviewing selected Chief Executive Officers in major industries including the aircraft building industry, automobiles, textiles, andphamacueticals. Inventory existing U.S. government holdings, identifying data conversion and release obstacles. Work with Congressional staff to include legislation and earmarked funding for a $250 million prototype collection!dissemination effort.

2)

Along those lines, consider having your Deputy Director for Open Sources sit as an observer to the National Economic Council, and manage a one billion dollar a year OSCINT program intended to both meet the needs of the intelligence community and the policy-maker, and be releasable to the public "information commons" of such interest to the President and the Vice-President. MONEYMAKER: if and when Congress actually starts to consider a National Knowledge Foundation, or the DC1 gives the Open Source Coordinator some serious power, be ready to use your team to show how you can serve as a bridge between the community and the information commons, but bringing in information on any topic without leaving an audit trail to the requirement, and discreetly disseminating the information collected by the community without showing its origin (i.e. that it was of interest to the community when collected).

3)

In keeping with your tacit responsibility to aid the Vice-President in developing the National Information Infrastructure (Nil), improve your representation to those working groups, and designate your Chief Information Officer (who should be of Deputy Director status) as the

senior intelligence community point of contact for Nil. MONEYMAKER: Follow the Nil, and establish a reputation as the "duty expert' on the content of the information commons, and on innovative proposals for increasing the content of the commons by expanding the notion of burden sharing to include unclassified information collected and held by other governments, and by facilitating a WAIS-like distributed architecture which integrates universities around the world, corporations, private libraries and so on-in other words, build on the Nil concept by identifying "firstphase' and "second phase " content holders that should be given priority attention by the Nil. \) Recognize that the content of the 'information commons" will have a great deal to do with the competitiveness of the Nation, and that Secretary of Labor Reich is correct when be points out that we should support individuals who work within our borders, regardless of nationality. You should take the lead is freeing unclassified information from the "cement overcoat" of intelligence, and in working with other government agencies to radically reduce classification and radically increase the dissemination of information collected and produced by the government, to the "information commons. MONEYMAKER: Best to avoid, unless you have a good handle on what unclassified information is in each of the compartments. If that is the case, then snowing the compartment owner how to "clean" the unclassified information and put it back into the commons could be profitable. 5)

Recognize that in the age of distributed processing, it is vital that you harness and nurture the full power of the "information continuum" of the Nation: K-12, universities, libraries, businesses, the increasingly capable private investigative and media communities, government at the federal, state, and local levels, and the national security sector. Yjm can help the Vice-President "reinvent* intelligence by providing funding and leadership to break down the iron curtain between the sectors, the bamboo curtains between institutions within the sectors, and the plastic curtains between individuals within institutions. "Central" intelligence will not survive this era. Accept t^e fac{ th^t the academi^ and business

/YO

never trust fte intelligence gnn)RVnity Agree to the realignment of $1 billion a year from the National Foreign Intelligence Program to the National Infrastructure Initiative to fund the National Knowledge Foundation, in independent agency responsive to the intelligence community but completely open to the external organizations whom the Vice President must harness if he is to nurture our Nation's "information commons". MONEYMAKER: Consider the possibility that the DCI may not want to release the money entirety to a separate entity, but would be satisfied is a major corporation already trusted by the community were selected to manage the National Knowledge Foundation. Consider a White Paper showing how you would staff the Foundation and possible allocations of the funds to distributed centers of excellence. If possible, include costbenefit analysis with suggestive figures for increases in employment, profits, trade, competitiveness, etcetera, which would result from the efforts of the Foundation and its supported network of de facto external intelligence research nodes.

ist

SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: NATIONAL SECURITY & NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS Proceedings, 1993 Volume I

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Gordon Lederman From:

OSS CEO Robert D. Steele Local Broadband [[email protected]]

Sent:

Saturday, March 20, 2004 4:31 PM

To:

Gordon Lederman; Kevin Scheid; Lorry Fenner

Subject: last one....on common mistakes well known in 1993 another one, I forget where this was published, but the bottom line is that a number of us were very public, very specific, very articulate, and no one in the US 1C wanted to hear it. I think the 1C especially, and the USG more generally, TUNES OUT TRUTH and "blocks* iconoclasts from a hearing. It has become the *anti-thesis* of an intelligence community--! am even seeing articles starting to emerge that suggest that the classified world makes one certifiably insane and out of touch-there is actually some truth to that, my own Directorate of Operations having been obscenely proud in the 1980's of having the highest alcoholism, adultury, divorce, and suicide rates in the USG. In any event, the bottom line is that the 1C is not committed to knowing the truth, it is not committed to "Global Coverage", it is not commited to ethics of intelligence, and it is not committed to the public interest.

3/22/2004

What is the Secretary of Labor trying to tell us that the Director of Central Intelligence needs to help his staff to understand? CORPORATE ROLE IN NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: SMART PEOPLE + GOOD TOOLS + INFORMATION = PROFIT

by Robert David Steele-Vivas Vice-President Al Gore, totally loyal to President Bill Clinton and discreetly avoiding the limelight, is never-the-less the "core" performer in the Clinton Administration. Our national competitiveness-and the profits of many corporations managed and owned by U.S. citizens—depend heavily on the outcome of Al Gore's efforts to "reinvent government", and to create a National Information Infrastructure (Nil). Both of these efforts depend in turn on many players, both in and out of government, but two of the players could have an especially substantive impact on how America does business as we enter the era of information warfare: the Secretary of Labor, and the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, whose thoughts on this matter are presented in his recent book, Ihs Work of Nations (Vintage, 1991) has it right: the only way to increase our competitiveness is to invest in our people, providing them with continuing education, the

best information handling tools money can buy, ready connectivity to other experts, and virtually unlimited access to information. Product, market sector, the nationality of the individual employee, even the activities of "Friendly Spies", are distractors. Alvin Toffler, Peter Drucker, and others have clearly established that in the age of information warfare, information is not only the ultimate source of power, but is also, as Toffler illustrates so well in PowerShift (Bantam, 1992), a substitute for time, space, labor, and capital. Information, or better stated, information tailored to a corporation's specific requirements,

Robert David Steele-Vivas is founding President & Owner of OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS, Inc., an organization dedicated to increasing the quality of content in our "information commons" as a means of improving both the effectiveness of government and the efficiency of the private sector.

i.e. intelligence, is both the core input and the core output of the successful and hence sustainable corporation . The Director of Central Intelligence, James Woolsey, is under pressure to find ways to increase direct support to the U.S. business community by national intelligence agencies. He is however being led down the wrong trail by his staff, focusing on how to provide industrial espionage services overseas and on how to disseminate classified information on foreign threats to our businesses. Instead, he should be focusing on what national intelligence can do to radically increase—in full partnership with the private sectorthe robustness of our "information commons". There are those who believe that no less than one billion dollars a year should be realigned from within the intelligence community budget, in order to fund this critical element of the Nil. Avoid the Cold War Mistakes of the Intelligence Community Mistake #1: Ignore the Rest of the World ((Little People, Other Industries, Pollution, Etcetera)

One of the reasons the U.S. Intelligence Community finds itself in such turmoil, unable to satisfy many demands for its services, is because it was formed in 1947, and added to its capabilities in increments in the 40 years since then, with just one serious target: the Soviet Union. From satellites optimized for repetitive looks at Soviet missile silos, to a clandestine service and an analysis community geared largely to chasing Soviets and writing about Soviets, the existing U.S. intelligence community is simply not trained, equipped, or organized to deal with the kaleidoscope of fleeting threats and opportunities, many in the Third World, some in Europe, which can no longer be ignored. Many corporations are in a similar situation, structured and staffed to build a specific product, for a specific market, relying on a specific natural resource. Most of these corporations to do not treat information as a corporate asset, do not have a Chief Information Officer (CIO), do not have a longrange strategic intelligence plan, and have committed themselves to "no win" situations, trying to keep short-term costs down and shortterm returns up, against foreign competitors who are fleeter of foot when it comes to substituting labor or capital from one country for

another's. Where the intelligence community has failed-as has the private sector —is in laying down a global unclassified information collection, processing, and dissemination grid which can be used to produce economic intelligence that is timely, easily disseminable, and actionable. The practical outcome of this failure is that senior U.S. government policy-makers--and their corporate counter-parts-are making decisions based on less than 2% of the available information. A simple illustration will lend credence to this statement. Imagine Country "X" as having a typical Embassy or corporate office. That office, for bureaucratic, resource, and other reasons, is unlikely to collect more than 10% of the available information which might be of interest to a wide variety of consumers with distinct interests throughout the entire government or the corporation. Worse, of that 10%, roughly 80% is "spilled" enroute to corporate headquarters, either by being classified, by being sent to only one recipient with no capabilities for central filing, or by being put into a medium (e.g. hardcopy with many attachments) which does not lend itself to electronic broadcast.

Governments and corporations which do not optimize their field collection, and digitize their field reporting, are violating the first principal of Paul Strassmann's "Corporate Information Management" (C1M) concept: onetime data entry, corporate-wide accessibility. Where the U.S. Intelligence Community can make a contribution, in partnership with the private sector and, indeed, with the intelligence services of other countries, is by helping establish a "National Information Management" (N1M) approach to unclassified multi-media (imagery and signals as well as print) multilingual information. In brief, U.S. government and the U.S. private sector should cooperate to the maximum extent possible in securing for our national "information commons" the maximum possible amount of unclassified multi-media multilingual information. This means avoiding redundant collection and processing, and it means much improved electronic connectivity between unclassified government databases and non-proprietary corporate databases. It probably means a totally new approach to data structure and data security by all organizations in government and in the private sector.

Mistake 92: Assume Your Chosen Consumers Are Happy There is anther mistake made by the intelligence community which may also be found in those corporations that do make an investment in "competitor intelligence". That is, to assume, without any basis, that the "pearls" of intelligence will be recognized and appreciated by the managers whom intelligence has chosen to smile upon. The reality is that classified or competitor intelligence is less than ten percent-some would say less than one percent—of the daily information intake of a senior government or corporate executive. What does this mean? // means that fully 90% of the information reaching a senior executive is both unclassified and unanalyzed. The intelligence community, preoccupied with producing "secrets", has over the years abdicated its originally envisioned role, that of "informing policy". As "open sources" (what most people call public information) have exploded in richness and accessibility, the intelligence community has been left behind, locked in its vaults, smug in a "virtual uBreality" of its own making. Competitor intelligence in

the private sector, in part because of the weakness of many corporations in the strategic planning arenas, appears to reflect a similar myopia, and does not make as strong a contribution to strategic vision and corporate reengineering as it might. Mistake #3: Assume the President's Happiness is the Only Measure of Success Finally, in addition to assuming that its "hand-picked" consumers would pay attention to its intelligence products, the intelligence community has failed over the years to recognize new consumers or new priorities between consumers. This has in part been caused by, and validated by, a continuing emphasis on the President as the ultimate consumer of the multi-billion dollar U.S. Intelligence Community. The President, however, does not implement policy, and more often than not the President does not even realize a policy opportunity has come and gone. It is the individual action officers in the scattered departments of government (or, in industry, the individual customer representatives and product engineers) who are on the firing line day in and day out. They have no "standing" with the U.S.

Intelligence Community, and one suspects that their "gold collar" knowledge counterparts in industry don't get much day to day support from such competitor intelligence operations as might exist.

illuminate the playing field for policy-makers, keeping them appraised of the economic warfare practices of other nations and nongovernment groups including conglomerates;

"Intelligence", whether national or corporate, must support decisionmaking throughout the organization, at every level and at every location, not only at the top.

3) A routine provision of intelligence information from the government to the private sector would in all likelihood lead to a reduction of private sector investment in research & development, and a consequently unhealthy dependence on the government for "leads" from other nations' efforts—nations which have historically not been as effective as ours at creative thinking (and often much better than ours at implementation and exploitation); and

Why National Intelligence Should NOT Provide Industrial Espionage Services Some of the brightest minds in the U.S. Intelligence Community met at Harvard on 14 December 1991, in the context of an Intelligence Policy Seminar, to discuss "National Intelligence and the American Enterprise: Exploring the Possibilities". Although a general consensus could not be established, here are four observations from one participant: 1) There is no such thing as an "American" enterprise, and therefore classified information cannot be conveyed to private sector enterprises with any justice or consistency; 2) The most important use of classified information is to

4) The best thing we could do for "national" competitiveness, irrespective of the nationality of owners, managers, or workers in specific enterprises, is to have a national knowledge strategy, one which creates a government-private sector partnership that radically increases the availability of open source information to every citizen, entrepreneur, and indeed, every foreigner fortunate enough to have access to the American data "supermarket". Bottom line: government needs to focus on providing information not services.

Information Continuum: "From School House to White House"

The information continuum of the Nation, every element of which should be in the constant service of national competitiveness, runs "from school house to White House". Our national information continuum includes K-12; the universities; the libraries (public and private); businesses large and small; the media; the "rest of government", including not only the departments of the federal government long ignored by the national intelligence community, but also state and local governments, many of which have representatives in foreign countries; and of course the national security community as traditionally defined, including the Department of State, the Department of State, the National Security Council, and the President of the United States. Secretary Reich, in The Work of Nations, dismembers existing fiscal and monetary policy myths, and with them many of the myths of corporate competitiveness. He focuses instead on the importance of transitioning from high-volume low-cost mass production, to highvalue tailored production. The following quotations are instructive:

"The new barrier to entry is not volume or price; it is skill at finding the right fit between particular technologies and particular markets. Core corporations no longer focus on products as such; their business strategies increasingly center upon specialized knowledge." "In the high-value enterprise, profits derive not from scale and volume, but from continuous discovery of new linkages between solutions and needs." (Emphasis added). When Secretary Reich talks about the new web of enterprise, and the web of knowledge, he is really talking about corporate and national intelligence-intelligence as an and process, rather than intelligence as 1. Q. This is what Secretary Reich is trying to tell us that the Director of Central Intelligence is having difficulty understanding: in the age of information warfare, it is the organization with the widest web for gathering information, with the most skilled and knowledgeable employees, with the best means of communicating, and with the most efficient capacity for acting on information and taking advantage of new information, that will be competitive-and by being

/ft

competitive, raise the competitiveness of the Nation.

are policy matters that are not yet on the "official" Nil table.

Nowhere is it written that intelligence must be classified. In fact, what we have learned from 40 years of secrecy is that the classification of information is fraught with danger, for it protects ignorance, misleads policy, and often costs far more money than anyone had every anticipated. Openness, by contrast, is profitable. The coffee houses in Silicon Valley, where competing engineers meet unencumbered by their lawyers, are living proof of the power of openness in creating winwin corporate advances in information technology, and commensurate profits.

They are, however, of vital interest to U.S. corporations, and urgently require a joint governmentprivate sector campaign plan. The plan should include our schools. An essential premise of any NIM plan must be that all individuals in this Nation produce as well as consume information, and that many of them are capable of producing intelligence, not just data or information. One can define data as the raw elements of information, isolated pieces of information. Information one can define as collated data, of generic value. Intelligence, in contrast to information, is tailoigd to the needs of the specific consumer for whom the data was collected and the information collated. Intelligence, in contrast to information, is immediately actionable because it has been tailored to the interests, objectives, and actual resources or capabilities of the consumer.

Where we have failed as a Nation is in establishing a national knowledge strategy. Alvin Toffler addresses this in his forthcoming book, War and Anti'WarT which includes a special chapter on this specific topic. Vice-President Gore's efforts with the Nil are a good beginning, but they are, at least at this time, nothing more than a telecommunications architecture. What we put over those lines, how we collect it, and how we manage it (e.g. changing copyright and patent law, using security software to ensure compensation to intellectual property owners)~these

If the information continuum is our lever, then national competitiveness appears to turn on two fulcrum points, one internal, one external.

lit

Internally, we appear to require a national connectivity plan and a national information exchange system which enables every person having access to that system both to consume information, and to produce and disseminate information. Corporations must be able to tap in easily to the diverse talents contained in our universities, and indeed in some of our high schools. There is a quid pro quo here: the universities can collect some information and process some information (e.g. graduate student translations of selected competitor nation technical publications), but our corporations must also contribute collected and processed information to the "information commons".

Again, the corporate world has a responsibility here as well. If we understand and accept the N1M concept, then foreign multi-media multi-lingual information collected and processed (e.g. translated) by U.S. corporations and citizens must also be entered into the commons. One can only speculate as to the enormous redundancy between corporations, and between the private sector and the government, with respect to what the U.S. Intelligence Community calls "encyclopedic intelligence", i.e. basic information about foreign countries, companies, personalities, systems, and conditions.

Externally, the U.S. Intelligence Community, and all elements of the federal government represented overseas, have an obligation to enter into the "information commons" all unclassified information which has been collected at taxpayers expense.

There have been many articles, and many speeches, equating business with warfare, competition with combat, sales personnel with "front line troops". There has also been a natural tendency in the business community to adopt the traditional military-industrial perspective on secrecy, on maintaining high barriers to entry, and so on.

The failure to introduce this information into the commons, which by definition is electronicdigital--may force the issue of whether or not a substantial portion of the U.S. intelligence community should be privatized.

On the Matter of Openness

Where Alvin Toffler really distinguishes himself from other pundits of the day is in focusing on knowledge as an inexhaustible resource; a resource easily shared,

**?

re-usable many times over; a resource able to support "win-win" approaches to competition. What is happening here is that "world is becoming mind", and the principles of cybernetics are replacing the principles of physics as the governing "rules of the game". In cybernetics, a closed system is subject to entropy. In cybernetics, success, and particularly success in adaptation and survival, comes from having a shorter faster feedback loop than your competitor, and from having as many sensors as possible. Those corporations that spend 80% of their information capital on keeping the barn door closed are going to lose to those corporations that spend 80% of their information capital on bringing as many people through the door as possible. In the age of information warfare, "security" comes from being so good at dealing with information that you have formulated your strategy and set implementation in motion before your competitor realizes the opportunity for innovation even exists. And you must do this many times over, day after day, product after product, without ever missing a beat.

On the Empowerment of People It has always been fashionable to give lip-service to the claim that "people are our most important asset". More often than not, this has been an out and out lie, belied by abysmal working conditions, non-existent tools, and oppressive management oversight levied on our "best & our brightest". Robert Carkhuff, in The Exemplar (Human Resources Development Press, 1984), invented the term "gold collar" worker, or "knowledge worker", and set forth the basic principles for managing smart people in the age of information warfare. These are not new ideas, although some of the hot properties on the lecture circuit would pretend they were. Before Carkhuff there was Harold Wilensky, with his Organizational Policy: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry (Basic, 1967), and before Wilensky there was Chester I. Barnard, with The Functions of the Executive (Harvard, 1938). And others. The difference between their times and ours is that now we must mind them, or lose our place in the world.

Corporate Intelligence Strategy Of all the books available in the fields of intelligence, information, strategy, marketing, and management, the best, the one that captures how a corporate intelligence strategy can leverage good people into a protected and profitable productive capability, is Carkhuff s. His principles are simple: 1) Emphasize data availability to the employee (this includes, in today's terms, digitization of hard copy and automated routing/flagging of data); 2) Emphasize global unrestricted data flow (i.e. provide online connectivity between employees and everyone else, in and out of the corporation); 3) Emphasize decentralized data exploitation (applies to both collection and production); 4) Emphasize data-based policy (includes automation of historical memory and insistence of fresh "reviews of the bidding" prior to each major milestone in any given program); 5) Emphasize increased data products and direct access by the

consumer to organized data (don't collect what you won't process, don't process what you won't disseminate, organize data to serve the end-user executive, not the intermediary librarian or analyst); 6) Emphasize top-level focus on optimization of employee productivity through insistence on best tools, best training, best data, and elimination of middlemanagement obstacles to direct communication between your "gold collars". The Bottom Line: We Have Seen the Enemy and He is Us What does this all mean? It is fairly straight forward, and in total contradiction to everything they ever taught us in business school. 1) Invest in your best employees, even if you don't like the way the dress, talk, or act. Smart people can only get smarter and more profitable, if you give them the training and tools and connectivity to information that they require. 2) W_hit you make or sell is not as important as bow good you make it, how fast you sell it, and how quickly you can change over to making something completely different.

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3) The private sector is now recognized as comprising the hulk of the national intelligence community; YOU are part of the national information continuum; and YOU are a major player in establishing your national competitiveness. 4) Education and intelligence are two sides of the same coin. To be competitive, a corporation must be thoroughly integrated into our educational establishments on the one hand, and fully supportive of a national intelligence effort on the other.

5) National intelligence is not going to be helpful to U.S. enterprises unless the private sector focuses on and accept the need for a government-private sector partnership, and the private sector takes the lead in discussing these issues and opportunities with Members of Congress.. 6) We have a national intelligence community spending approximately $28 billion a year, and a national "virtual" intelligence community spending approximately $500 billion a year, and both are in disarray. Reform must start in the private sector.

SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: NATIONAL SECURITY & NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS Proceedings, 1993 Volume I Link Page Previous

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The Role of Grey Literature and Non-Traditional Agencies in Informing Policy Makers and Improving National Competitiveness Return to Electronic Index Page

ROBERT DAVID STEELE

A Critical Evaluation of U.S. National Intelligence Capabilities United States national and defense intelligence capabilities, while strong in many respects, are unbalanced because of their excessive emphasis on technical collection, inadequate human and open source collection. They are completely unsuited for and constrained in analysis and dissemination. Also unbalanced are their direction and responsiveness to the full gamut of consumers of intelligence, across all departments of government, and at all levels: strategic, theater, tactical, and technical. At the same time, how the United States "does" intelligence is fundamentally flawed. On the one hand, intelligence professionals keep their consumers at arm's length. In fact, the intelligence community itself long ago decided which consumers would have the "privilege" of being supported. On the other hand, the intelligence community has completely ignored the flood of unclassified information reaching the consumer, arrogantly assuming that the consumer would pay greater heed to its classified "nuggets." This aloof attitude has led consumers to rely far more on the 90 percent of their information that is unclassified and unanalyzed.

Robert David Steele has had more than 18 years of experience in intelligence, including service as Deputy Director of the United States Marine Corps Intelligence Center. He is president of Open Source Solutions, Inc.. a non-profit educational clearinghouse advising governments and businesses on how to improve their unclassified intelligence sources and methods. 173

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PART I: GETTING IT RIGHT - "A BIRD'S EYE VIEW" «

Significant intelligence community restructuring is underway, responding both to the lessons learned from Desen Storm and Desert Shield and to mandates from Congress inspired by severe fiscal constraints. There is also a sense that all is not well with national intelligence support to military operations and with certain aspects of defense intelligence. The next two years will offer a unique opportunity for reflection and revitalization. In evaluating the degree to which the intelligence community as a whole may need realignments and redirection, the focus here is on the four levels of executive action: strategic, operational, tactical. Four major areas of intelligence may be distinguished irrespective of discipline: direction, collection, analysis, and dissemination. This matrix may be applied to every executive department without exception, thus creating a Rubric Cube of green, yellow, and red perform ance indicators, or "best guess" grades. The intelligence community can be "graded" according to how well it does each of the major functions of intelligence in relation (1) to the level of analysis (and the consumers who need that level of analysts), and (2) to how well it serves specific departments of government. For instance, the U.S. Departments of the Interior, Education, Energy, and Agriculture have been poorly served. Even though this performance has been based on presidential priorities which focused national intelligence exclusively on the interests of the National Security Council and the Departments of Defense and State, a deepening of the consumer base is now obviously required. The United States is not doing well in relation to eight non-traditional consumers of intelligence: Justice, Agriculture, Interior, Education, Energy, Commerce, Defense, State. Figure 1 illustrates a gross evaluation of how the United States is doing now against the old threat and (in parenthesis) against emerging Third World, nonconventional threats including non-military threats and circumstances. Naturally, these grades could be argued by virtually anyone, but I feel that this evaluation is not unrealistic, given the changing definitions of national security. Each box in Figure 1 has two distinct grades or evaluation marks: the top mark is the "school grade" for how the U.S. is doing against conventional (e.g., Soviet) targets of interest to the traditional consumers of intelligence. The bottom mark, in parenthesis, is an evaluation of how the U.S. is doing and likely to do in the absence of major restructuring, against non-traditional targets (e.g., global environmental and energy targets, non-proliferation, potential epidemic disease, demographic trends of international import) of concern to those who have not traditionally been allowed to sit at the njgh (able of intelligence. At the strategic level, most important is the analysis of unconventional threats and opportunities. NTERNATONAL JOURNAL OF

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Direction

Collection

Analysis

Dissemination

Strategic Level

C (D)

B (O

C (F)

D (F)

Operational Level

C (D)

D (F)

B
B (C)

Tactical Level

D CF>

C (D)

D (F)

D (F)

Technical Level

B (C)

B (C)

C (D)

B (D)

Quick Looks

FIGURE 1. intelligence Evaluation Matrix

At the operational level, the concern is with the United States's lack of an effective system for monitoring stability in close coordination with the Country Teams and with an eye for non-military problems. This is particularly important because the multitude of influences causing regional stability are non-military and often cloaked in cultural intangibles against which U.S. intelligence analysts simply "do not compete." At the tactical level, the United States is unprepared to deal with the four warrior classes it must deal with in the future: (1) The High-Tech Brutes similar to the United States — those relying on expensive technical capabilities and huge logistic trains. (2) The Low-Tech Brutes such as narcotics traffickers and tenorists — those presenting the "needle-in-lhe-haysiack" problem. (3) The Low-Tech Seers such as the Islamic Fundamentalists or Asian gangs operating within Western cities — those whose "weapons" are of a cultural kind and difficult for a Westerner to understand and address. (4) The High-Tech Seers such as highly skilled and knowledgeable computer engineers — those whose ultra-sophisticated "weapons" lie in their ability to penetrate the most advanced computer and telecommunications networks.

The United States has spent 40 years building command, control, communications, computer and intelligence (C4!) systems designed to wage conventional battle with the High-Tech Brutes (enemies and potential enemies). These largely static capabilities (the North American Treaty Organization's C4! architecture comes to mind) are relatively useless in confronting the other three warrior MTELLIGENCE AND COWTERIHTEUJGENCE

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classes, or environmental disasters requiring close collaboration and the sharing of "intelligence" by military and non-military organizations, including international relief organizations. At the technical level, the United States still does not offer the policymaker responsible for acquisition decisions a basis for evaluating the true utility, susuinability costs, and return on investment for major systems. Most of them are geared to fighting a high-tech warrior class and completely unsuited for engaging the other three warrior classes. Most intelligence products are limited to specific weapons systems, topics, or countries, and are couched in terms of the target, not in terms of the decision requiring support In one instance, as the senior U.S. Marine Corps civilian at the (USMC) Intelligence Center, I was unable to persuade my uniformed colleagues that we should be producing annual unclassified reports for each mission area (e.g., artillery). These would have informed the General Officer responsible for that mission area about regional "averages" (gun size, prime mover weight, general range achieved in exercises rather than on the drawing board) as well as environmental constraints such as cross-country mobility and bridge loading data. With such annual reports, these General Officers would be far better equipped to consider (and often reject) proposals for "bigger and better bangs" that are simply not supportable in the context of the expeditionary environment — a context almost always absent from the United States's national intelligence and defense intelligence products. The United States is also not ready to provide near-real-time technical intelligence support and ad hoc countermeasures in a computer warfare environment. Its scientific and technical intelligence capabilities are static, based in large centers within the United States, and organized for long-term analysis of conventional weapons systems which develop linearly over long periods of time. The U.S. is completely incapable of routinely providing rapid tactical assessment of a technical threat, and quickly developing technical countermeasures. As the U.S. intelligence community evaluates national and defense intelligence capabilities, four major and quite distinct consumer groups for intelligence must be kept in mind: (1) Departmental planners and programmers, who require both strategic generalizations (rather than a flood of detailed reports about tiny parts of many problems), and "political-military" information heavily laden with information about" plans and intentions." (2) Regional theater planners and programmers, who require applicable generalizations, and very detailed mobility information. The U.S. Country Teams are not well integrated into a regional planning process. Civilian disasters and disorder, which could have been anticipated and addressed with civilian programs, often are allowed to proceed, for a lack MTEftNATONAL JOURNAL OF

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of "action-inducing" intelligence, to the point that military action is required. Since the military did not budget for these contingency operations, the military budget is annually turned topsy-turvy as the various services are "taxed" to pay for operations that could have been avoided had the policy-intelligence system focused on costs and benefits of what General Alfred M. Gray, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, called "peaceful preventive measures."1 (3) Tactical commanders require both (a) "vanilla" orders of battle (sometimes called "bean counting." which U.S. intelligence analysts do very well) and (b) in-depth understanding of lustainability, availability, reliability, and lethality/accuracy issues (much harder to do, so the analysts generally don't). Tactical commanders also require maps with contour lines. This may well be the single greatest "intelligence" deficiency. Of 67 countries and two island groups of interest to the Marine Corps in 1988, there were no (zero) 1:50,000 tactical maps for 22 of them; for another 37 countries there were dated maps (i.e.. not reflecting roads and airfield or urban areas constructed in the past ten years) for capital cities and ports only, not for the maneuver areas. The rest for which broad coverage was available (e.g., Cuba and North Korea) were ten years or more out of date, and therefore suffering from the same lack of accurate cultural feature information.2 The smartest thing I ever heard a Marine Corps intelligence officer say was: "I don't care how much order of battle data you have, if I can't plot it on a map it is useless to me."3 (4) Systems designers and project managers. The United States does well enough at initial System Technical Assessment Reports (STAR), but three concerns remain: (a) no intelligence process exists to support higher-level decisions about whether a system is really needed in terms of cost-benefit or likelihood of utilization, (b) no process exists to assure that expensive and technically complex systems are supportable by planned C4I systems. For instance, fast-moving aircraft with limited loiter times and precision missiles do not have the "sensor-to-shooier" framework (or the digital mapping data baseline) with which to be effective in most of the world, (c) Severe deficiencies exist in the United

'General Alfred M. Gray, "Global Intelligence Challenge* in the 1990'c," American Intelligence Journal (Winter 1989-1990). pages 37-41. printed in U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, INTELLIGENCE: Selected Readings — Book One (Marine Corps University. Marine Corps Combat Development Command. AY 1992-93). 2USMC Intelligence Center, Overview of Planning and Programming Factors for Expeditionary Operations in the Third World (Marine Corps Combat Development Command, March 1990). The three unclassified volumes are Overview, Supporting Documentation, and Country Profits. 3Col. Bruce Brunn, USMC, then Director of the USMC Intelligence Center, speaking to the Council of Defense Intelligence Producers at their 1992 meeting. IKTEUJGENCEANDCOUWrERIWTEUXENCE

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Stales's ability to introduce updated intelligence information into the systems design and acquisition process.

EVALUATION OF STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES A persistent problem at the strategic level (Figure 2) is the overemphasis on the "top 100" policymakers in the traditional national security arena, and a relative lack of attention to the needs of action officers who fonnulate strategic plans, recommend programmatic actions, and identify opportunities for advantage. Also, because of the focus on the "inside the beltway" group, American doctrinal, architectural, and technical capabilities for secondary dissemination of multimedia intelligence have not been satisfactory (until recently).

* Strategic Level —

Direction. No trocking system for consumer scrtisfoctlon, no outomoted integrated muttidiscipiine requirements database, non-traditional consumers not well represented

—

Collection. Superb but ossified capability with limited utility against emerging threats

—

Analysis. Cut-and-paste community, a few bright lights kept under tight control, too many young people with little idea of life overseas, limited language/cultural skills

—

Dissemination. Cumbersome compendiums of limited utility to day-to-day decisions . Strategic Level Problems

EVALUATION OF OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES U.S. operational capabilities (Figure 3) have existed for so long under the premise that the Soviet Union was the main enemy that, even in theaters where virtually the entire area of operations consists of Third World countries, the United States has paid little attention to developing encyclopedic intelligence for campaigns and contingencies. For example, many nations have glaring disaster KTERNATIOMAL JOURNAL OF

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problems on the horizon: environmental, medical, and demographic. This should be cause for concern and for much greater remedial action than I perceive to be the case.

•

Operational Level Direction. Self-imposed overemphasis on "worst case' threats continues, complete lock of focus on basics such as Third World mapping data and communications Intelligence Collection. Virtually no support for human contingency requirements, limited low Intensity conflict Indications and warning capability Analysis. Highly motivated and responsive analysts In the joint Intelligence centers Dissemination. Excellent dissemination to the theater headquarters, very poor capability to support theater (forward). Joint Task Force commanders, or Country Team members FIGURE 3. Operational Level Problems

In addition to the lack of encyclopedic intelligence (most of which should be unclassified) there is a very limited capability to deal with these pressing issues, in pan because of a severe shonage of analysts who are fluent in Third World languages. The likelihood that U.S. analysts might have actually lived in the country they purport to understand is indeed remote. Finally, the United States is severely deficient in the day-to-day communications, computing connectivity, intelligence sharing, conferencing, and intelligence exchanges needed among theaters, country teams, and parent agencies at home, and coalition partners abroad. The United States learned these lessons again, the hard way. in Bangladesh, during Operation Sea Angel. In that operation, Lieut. Gen. Harry Stackpole, commander of the joint task force sent to render humanitarian assistance and deliver staples throughout the country, found that his C4! system, designed for tactical military communications in a combat situation, was not suited to imeragency coordination requirements (including MTELUGENCEANDCOUNTERIKTEUJGENCE

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interactive voice). He could not communicate well with foreign military, foreign government, and international relief organizations.4 Finally, when Stackpole asked his intelligence officer for information about disaster conditions, the officer reputedly said: "General, we only do threat intelligence." A new J-2 was soon found. EVALUATION OF TACTICAL INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES During the war in Southwest Asia (i.e., the Gulf War) the U.S. service intelligence centers, notably the Army's Intelligence & Threat Analysis Center, performed heroically. Although numerous improvements are underway, such as the transition to digital backbones, the U.S. is not yet ready for global joint interoperable intelligence, nor for combined and humanitarian operations. Its personnel are simply not trained, equipped, or organized for coalition operations. This is particularly true with respect to the communication and computing of tactical intelligence (Figure 4). EVALUATION OF TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES During the next decade two major deficiencies in technical intelligence — sources and methods — will require continuous policy attention. Open sources, although better-exploited by the technical community than any other group of producers, remain a virtually untapped resource of enormous potential, while also being extremely cheap (Figure 5). As various Third World nations and present-day allies choose in the future to confront the United States over several issues, American deficiency in open sources exploitation will be recognized as critical. This deficiency cannot be corrected without a broad partnership between the government and the private sector. Once corrected, significant dividends will be reaped in terms of improving private sector competitiveness without classification constraints. Current U.S. methods, by contrast, emphasize highly sophisticated modeling and simulation techniques, and pay very heavy attention to technical countermeasures issues. They have almost completely excluded intelligence 4U.S. theaters

commands have either a regional focus (such as the Atlantic and Pacific Commands) or a functional focus (such as the Transporution, Space, and Special Operations Commands). Country Teams are the Embassy principals representing the major functional agencies (State, Defense, Commerce, Othen) in each country where an official U.S. presence is maintained. Pvent agencies, themselves fragmented into smsller fiefdoms, constitute the third pan of the coordination triangle. If we add to (his C4! morass allies, regional coalition partners, international relief organitations, and host country government and private sector parties with whom C*l ties are necessary, the difficulties of non-traditional campaign planning become apparent. KTERNATCNAL JOURNAL OF

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Tactical Level —

Direction. From whom? How? At the mercy of notional capabilities not designed to support the tactical commander, with a theater staff between the tactical units and the national organizations

-

Collection. Adequate organic capabilities with exception of wide-area Imagery; ground reconnaissance skills (basic patrolling) appear to have atrophied; completely Inadequate prisoner handling and Interrogation capabilities even when Including capabilities In the reserve

—

Analysis. Mixed bog, with personnel generally consumed by volumes of traffic and additional duties — they are overloaded with raw data and poor hardware and software. Science and technology analysts fare somewhat better, but generally very poor abilities to do intelligence preparation on the battlefield against unconventional opponents.

—

Dissemination. Secondary Imagery dissemination problems will be fixed eventually, but the lack of a realistic communications architecture to support multimedia intelligence broadcasts as well as digital mapping data suggest this will be a showstopper. Vulnerability to high energy radio frequency and other computer warfare techniques will persist.

FIGURE *. Tactical L*v»l Problems

about operational geography and civil properties (road networks, hospitals, airfields) of the utmost importance in determining the general utility, reliability, mobility, and sustainabiUty of U.S. systems across a range of countries, not just a single country where the "worst case" threat and benign terrain are assumed. In a declining fiscal environment, when the external threat itself is changing rapidly, there is no finer or more important means of responsibly reducing acquisition costs than by modifying technical analysis methods. The goal is to develop intelligence, more meaningful selective procurement, and the surgical employment of U.S. capabilities.

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* Technical Level •

Direction. The mechanisms are wett-estobllshed and the scientific and technical communities know how to get what they want but they do not always ask the right question

•

Collection. Very good against the denied areas, less so against emerging technical powers and our present-day allies

•

Analysis. Too much emphasis on technical countermeasures and single system threat assessments, but virtually no strategic generalizations to support cost savings In major acquisition areas by focusing on sustoinabilrry. reliability, and mobility across regions and systems

•

Dissemination. Adequate, In part because the customer occupies a fixed site. As technology becomes more complex and computer warfare becomes endemic, 'tactical technical* intelligence capabilities will be deficient TOURE 5. Technical Level Problem]

Radically altering the relationship between the analyst and the consumer by substituting the concept of distributed analysis for that of distributed production is important, as is including the analyst as a member of the policy team.5 Legislation might not be the vehicle by which to resolve some of the intelligence community's deficiencies, but the restructuring efforts of both the Secretary of Defense (through the Assistant Secretary responsible for these matters) and the Director of Central Intelligence, are helpful in forcing an evaluation and discourse upon certain aspects of U.S. intelligence structure and its approach to the task of performing the national intelligence function. One final comment: the Vice President of the United States and his competent staff have studiously avoided (1) scrutiny of the intelligence community and (2) integration of the intelligence community into the information policy and 'An evaluation of the two bilk from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and die House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence it provided elsewhere. See my articles "The National Security Act of 1992," American Intelligence Journal (Winter/Spring 1992); "Applying the New Paradigm: How to Avoid Strategic Intelligence Failures in the Future." American InitUigence Journal (Autumn 1991); and "Intelligence in the 1990's: Recasting National Security in a Changing World." American InieUigence Journal (Summer/Fall 1990). IfTERNATONAl JOURNAL OF

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budget discussions which are underway in association with the National Information Infrastructure (Nil). This is a serious mistake. The intelligence community has never come to grips with the fundamental question about its purpose: is it in the business of producing "secrets"? Or is it in the business of informing policy? In my view, the intelligence community is a vital part of a larger national information continuum that runs from U.S. elementary and high schools and the universities, through private and public libraries, business and media centers, "rest of government" information, and directly to the White House, "from school house to White House."6 The Vice President, as de facto Chief Information Officer, has a personal interest in the training, equipping, and organizing of the intelligence community. From the community's budget, $1 billion a year could be reallocated toward something along the lines of a "public intelligence agency." Integrated into the Nil, it could provide basic encyclopedic intelligence about all manner of topics to government action officers (most of whom are not cleared for secrets), private sector enterprises, individual citizens, and, inevitably, citizens and organizations elsewhere in the world. In this manner, the Vice President and the intelligence community could make a significant contribution to the effectiveness of the U.S. government and the competitiveness of its economy and its citizens, while also contributing to the general prosperity of the global community.7 PART II - HOW THE U.S. "DOES" INTELLIGENCE

The Basics of Intelligence Analysis Any executive or legislative action to improve national and defense intelligence capabilities must address not only authority and organization, but also perspective and objectives. Only then will the United States be able to accommodate the changed nature of the "threat," the changed fiscal environment, including an an*This latter phrase is an adaptation from David Otbome and Ted Oaebler's Reinventing Government: Hew ike Entrepreneural Spirit it Transforming the Fubtie Sector From Schoolnouse to Siauhouse, City Hall to the Pentagon (Addison-Wcitey, 1992). David Otbome U an advisor 10 President Clinlon and an influential participant in the Vice-President's task force to evaluate and "reinvent" the U.S. federal government. Several books discuss the "privatization of intelligence," including Alvin Toffler's PowtrShifi (Bantam Books. 1990) and his forthcoming book on information warfare and national knowledge strategies litkd War end Anti-War, u well as Jon Sigurdson and Yael Tagerud (ed.), Tke Intelligent Corporation: The Privatization of Intelligence (Taylor Graham, 1992). This last book is dedicated to Slevan Dedijer (• member of the editorial board of the MIC), a former member of the Office of Strategic Services, who has been very influential in developing this area of both scholastic inquiry aid business practice. 7Both Vice-President Gore and Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown have been invited to speak at Mr. Steele's forthcoming Second International Symposium on "National Security & Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions," to be held in Washington, DC, 2-4 November 1993. WTELLIGENCEANOCOUNTERINrEUJGENCE

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ticipated decline in intelligence manpower of major proportions, and — last but certainly not least — magnitude changes in the public information environment Before considering "intelligence" and its purposes, some basic definitions, such as those developed by Jack Davis, one of the grand masters of analysis and a recently retired member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service, should be reviewed. The following basic information regarding terminology, the differences between producers and consumers, and the barriers to analysis, owe much to Davis's course on "Intelligence Successes and Failures." and to another course he helped establish, the Harvard Executive Program's "Intelligence Policy Seminar.'* In each definition in Figure 6, analysis is there to inform the customer, to aid the customer in preventing or defeating threats, and in exploiting opportunities. "Current intelligence" is put in perspective, as are the shortfalls of "research" production planned in relative isolation from the customer's decision milestones. If a policymaker does not read the product nor talk to the analyst, all the authority and money in the world are not going to alter the practical outcome of restructuring. Different Mental Maps. Different Objectives

The experience of generations of analysts is articulated in courses the CIA offers its own analysts and participants from other government organizations (Figure 7). To understand why intelligence so frequently fails to impact on policymakers or decisionmakers — even when "utlored" intelligence products are known to reach them — the differences between the intelligence professionals (the analysts) and intelligence consumers (the policymakers) must be recognized. This difference, an important element of intelligence failure, is vital to understanding my recommendations. Two additional descriptions of these differences are found in Figure 8. Changes in organization, the authority of the DCI, even significant increases in the amounts of money invested in additional collection and information technology capabilities, are all irrelevant if the United States cannot change the basic relationship between the analyst and the individual consumer in every department and at every level.

•Other than classroom materials prepared by Jack Davis, and those at Harvard by Richard Neustadt. Ernest Msy. and Gregory Treverton, no one has consolidated these perspectives into a simple public article. I used an earlier version of this article as background reading in a course on -Intelligence and the Commander," that I help teach at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. MTEANATONAL JOURNAL Of

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INT£LUGENCt ANALYSIS

The process of producing written and oral assessments designed to improve the pollcymaMng process by helping policy officials better understand and deal more effectively with current and prospective national security Issues. Including opportunities as well as threats to U.S. interests. ESTIMATING

The means by which intelligence professionals address aspects of national security Issues that cannot be known with fuH confidence and thus require conditional judgments, interpretation of the evidence, and inference. INTELLIGENCE SUCCESS

Support to the poiicymatcing process that has the potential to assist policy officials to avoid or mitigate the damage of threats to U.S. Interests and to enhance the gain from opportunities; that is, assessments that are timely, insightful, relevant, and attentiondemanding. INTELLIGENCE FAILURE

The inadequate preparation of policymakers for an Important threat to or opportunity for U.S. interests, because of the absence of timely and attention-demanding assessments or the presentation of flawed assessments. FIGURE 6 Basic Terminology

Jhe Academic View of Differences

An "Intelligence Policy Seminar" for general officers and Senior Intelligence Service officers was recently offered under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Intelligence and prepared by the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, Gregory Treverton, then associated with the Council of Foreign Relations and now Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. This organized and thorough look at the differences between producers and consumers held clearly that, until the United States changes the way it "trains, equips, and organizes" intelligence analysts (and other elements of the intelligence community) to "fit in" with consumers and impact on consumers, no

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Int9ttlg»nc0 Producer Believes sound policy starts with International realities "Expert* on specific topics. Immersed In their complexity

inJ»JV0«nc« Consumer Believes sound poflcy starts with U.S. political realities Political generallsts want solutions, simple ideas that sell

• Emphasizes foreign constraints, what U.S. 'cannot* do

Wants to focus on U.S. opportunities, art of the doable

« Gravitates to most likely perceived outcome

Wonts to understand desirable and undesirable alternatives

« Prefers to be authoritative and avoid speculation

Wants to know or at least discuss the 'unknowable*

« 'Objectivity* first!

Get the job done!

•

"Whose Side Are You On?*

• We Know What You Need *

FIGURE 7. Producer versus Consumer. Version I

• • • • « «

Analyst*

fotteymaktn

Facts/Disengaged Objective "Balanced* View Long-Term View Descriptive Employer-Driven Protect Information International Focus Perfect ion/Accuracy Written Compendiums Facts/Things Tenure/Continuity Generic Audience Single Output

Beliefs/Accountable Intuitive Agenda-Driven Short-Term View Action-Oriented Constituency-Driven Use Information Domestic Focus "Good Enough* /Utility Oral Shorthand People/Personalities Short Tours Specific Audience Multiple Inputs

. Producer versus Consumer. Venton II

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amount of consolidated authority at the DC1 level will be effective in curing our ills. The Policy Staff View The third and final version of these differences, reflecting the realities of policy staffers at senior levels at the Department of Defense, was ably articulated by Sumner Benson — a former CIA senior analyst (Figure 9). When evaluating the intent and utility of the two congressional bills, the analyst should be thinking about how to increase the intellectual and the political "authority" of the analyst in terms of credibility and consumer respect. As Andy Shepard — a senior analyst manager now serving on the Community Management Staff—has noted elsewhere, such authority must rest in part on the analyst's direct access to the consumer, and a corresponding familiarity on the pan of the analyst with the consumer's day-to-day, as well as mid- and long-term concerns. Changing the organization, funding, and authority of the DCI will not significantly alter This fundamental deficiency in the U.S. national intelligence community. The analyst focuses on oil-source INTERNATIONAL DATA while the policymaker focuses on DOMESTIC POLITICAL ISSUES OS the primary criteria for decisionmoking. The analyst focuses on (and Is driven by community managers) producing "PERFECT" products over a lengthier timefrome while the policymaker requires 'GOOD ENOUGH* products Immediately. Analysts continually run the risk of having ZERO IMPACT because their review process delays their product to the point that It is overtaken by events.

The analyst is accustomed to INTEGRATING oil-source information at the CODEWORD level, while most policymaker staffs, and especially those actually Implementing operational decisions, hove at best a SECRET clearance. "A secret paragraph is better than a codeword page,' The analyst and community management focus on SUBSTANCE and ACCURACY while the policymaker focuses on POLITICS and PROCESS, on arena where disagreement con be viewed as insubordination. Even If new Information is received, POLITICAL considerations may weigh against policy revision. FIGURE 9. Producer vmm Conmmw. V«nlon III

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ROBERT OAVDSTEEU

Barriers to Useful Intelligence Analysts The barriers to analysis, namely differences in perspective, can also be looked at in generic terms, in the context of institutionalized barriers to intelligence success. In each case, the complexity and confusion of the environment being analyzed, and the limited U.S. capabilities in communication, lead to distorted and erroneous perceptions by both intelligence producers and consumers (Figure 10).

Signal Bani^t International — complexity of world affairs; multiple interests and actors; national cultural differences; impact of U.S. actions.

International — ambiguity of Information- noise; paradigm bios; deception; domestic collection confusion or gaps In understanding.

PO//CK — misperception of foreign actors (policy mirroring); wishful thinking; policy momentum.

Policy — threat distortion; distrust of analysts; hoarding and manipulating of Information.

Organization — resource limitations; emphasis on authoritative publications and predefined missions and rotes; fragmentation of missions, functions, knowledge, and data.

Organization — mixed management signals If not active subversion; resistance to alternate views; Information choke points (both Internal and external).

Analysis — substantive biases and cognitive traps; parochialism; monasticism; lock of exposure, to the real world.

Analysis — arrogance or overconfidence If not naivete, tunnel vision; resistance to outside views and priorities.

FIGURE 10. Borrim to InWIlgenc* SUCCM

Such barriers, though relatively well understood by students of intelligence, have not yet been systematically addressed by either legislative charter or executive organization. Whatever legislative or executive initiatives taken in this MTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

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watershed year of restructuring must be founded on a solid understanding of this dimension of the problem. Those responsible for crafting the National Security Act of 1992, or radically revised Executive Order 12333. must understand that increasing the authority of one person, the Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI), will not mitigate these predominantly cultural circumstances, and may well exacerbate the situation. Each of these barriers has doctrinal, architectural, and technical remedies of one son or another. In all cases the two key ingredients for improving the chances of intelligence success lie in personal relationships — the relationships between individual analysts and consumers on the one hand, and the relationships between analysts and their immediate managers on the other. Further afield, in the collection management and individual functional areas of support (imagery, signals, human, and open-source intelligence, communications and computing, training, and security) equally divisive and counter-productive disparities in perspective between those "doing" and those "receiving" will further enervate the intelligence community. A final illustration (Figure 11) establishes a foundation for remedial action. This simple yet powerful illustration has been explained to generations of analysts and managers without apparent impact on the way the intelligence community does business. Note that the intelligence community is but one of many competing influences, lacking the political influence, economic incentives, or persona] appeal that can be better brought to bear by other constituencies. There is no short-term or personal cost to the policymaker when intelligence is ignored! Intelligence failures are more often than not policy failures, and especially failures of character or process — failures in the definition of the problem or acceptance of the cost of good intelligence. The Marine Corps teaches that intelligence is an inherent function of command — yet the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, or the Commandant of the Marine Corps — and their three-star subordinates — do not come to grips with the fact that Marine Corps intelligence is in desperate straits as a result of years of neglect by the operators. Operators are unwilling to assign talented people to this field, unwilling to give up a few riflemen so that tactical intelligence billets can be properly filled, unwilling to allocate training dollars to ensure good intelligence training, unwilling to integrate the intelligence professional into the operational planning cycle, unwilling to represent the Marine Corps at Navy and other flag forums where vital resource and joint doctrinal decisions are made.

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PottHclont Executive Leadership Legtstatrve Leadership Personal & Professional Staffs Government OfRclak Department Heads Assistant Secretaries Program Managers Message Traffic Private and Public Sector Lobbyists Executives Citizen Groups Pollsters Individuals

Media CNN/C-SPAN Newspapers Wire Services Rodio/TV Pool Reporters

P O L 1 C Y M A K E R

Personal Family Intimates Church Clubs Aiumni

Foreign OMclcrit and Organization* Diplomats Counterparts Correspondence

Independent tetearchen Think Tanks Academics Authors Foundations Laboratories Intelligence Community CIA

NSA/DIA State Services

FIGURE It. Competing Influences on the PoHcymoker

No organization is monolithic — each has its own fragmented culture to worry about. It is not uncommon for members of one Directorate or Bureau of Division or Service to carry entirely contradictory messages to individual policymakers, all ostensibly from the same organization. In brief then, national and defense intelligence managers are in charge of a vast conglomeration of fragmented resources, created in a piecemeal fashion over time to serve an even vaster array of consumers, most of whom do not really care one way or the other if intelligence is on their table. Only after a failure is the refrain, "Where was intelligence?" heard. Finally, the intelligence community is caught in a constant identity crisis over whether it is in the business of producing "secrets" or of information policy. WTEWaTIONAl JOURNAL OF

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Roughly 90 percent of the "input" to i policymaker's mind is both unclassified and unevaluated or unanatyied in relation to classified sources. Certainly the policymaker and his/her staff will attempt to integrate all of these inputs, but the people who are trained at "aU-source fusion" and supposedly understand and practice analysis methods for a living are completely out of the loop on 90 percent of the "intelligence" to which the policymaker actually pays attention. The customer base for intelligence analysis must not only be expanded but the intelligence community must be forced to undergo a radical and comprehensive "make-over" in which open sources are truly the "source of first resort" (a marvelous phrase coined by Paul Wallner, the Director of Central Intelligence's Open Source Coordinator), and intelligence analysts are comfortably fitted into the total information flow and process that feeds the policymaker on a day-to-day basis. Such is a foundation. Listed are a a few modest areas where legislative or executive arrangements may help break down some of the traditional barriers to intelligence success, and improve the ability of the dwindling numbers of analysts to render insightful, relevant, and attention-demanding judgments which prepare and encourage policymakers for their full range of planning, programming, and execution responsibilities. Measures to Re-engineer Intelligence

Each of the four groups of ideas in Figure 12. as labeled, corresponds to one of the barriers of analysis outlined earlier in Figure 5. CONCLUSION

Who is the customer? What do they need? How can they be sure of getting what they need? These issues have not been considered as fully as necessary in executive restructuring efforts, nor have they been adequately addressed in the proposed legislation. Most individuals contemplating improvements to U.S. national and defense intelligence capabilities appear to be thinking about block and wire diagrams and funding authority, when they should be thinking about truly changing the way business is done as indicated in Figure 13. The intelligence community must take full advantage of rapidly expanding sources of unclassified information, while also empowering its dwindling work force. If the United States does not come to grips with these basics, then neither the executive initiatives nor the proposed congressional legislation will make any real difference in its national security or national competitiveness.

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•

ROBERT OAVD STOLE

International Signal Barriers • Mondated Inter-agency sharing of Information at multiple levels of security. •

Required overseas assignments for most analysts.

•

Radically expanded clandestine human Intelligence and overt Information collection efforts.

• Policy Signal Barriers •

Annual Congressional review of "threat* In relation to each departmental activity. I.e., required 'state of the world* report as precursor to congressional review of President's budget.

•

•

Full Integration of analysts into each Department and country team policy process. Organization Signal Barriers • • •

•

Congressional and executive Intelligence 'Ombudsman.' Increased emphasis on cross-program oversight by functional area. Establish 'return on investment' program evaluation process (not just for weapons systems, but for Intelligence capabilities).

Analysis Signal Barriers • Mandated Inter-agency training and foreign travel for most analysts. •

• •

Increased exploitation of foreign and domestic subject experts In development of competing 'open source* analyses. Mandated direct consumer contact with analysts. Regular evaluation of analyst and product relevance and Impact on decisionmaking to Include critiques of format, medium, and timing of delivery. Figure 12. Remedial Provttons

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Expand the customer base Redefine national security Integrate analysts and customers Recapitalize the infrastructure Fully integrate open sources and products Rgur* 13. Prescription Tot intMlQence SUCCMS

A great deal is "right" with U.S. intelligence, of course, and many unsung heros have proven themselves developing "work arounds" in extremis. But the reality is that U.S. intelligence has built up an enormous and relatively cumbersome intelligence community which has gradually isolated itself, both from its consumers, and from the "real world" of cultural complexity, fastmoving events, and changing priorities. Neither the role of the private sector as an alternative source of "national" intelligence, nor the need to substantially improve the ability of nations, organizations, and individuals to exchange "intelligence" at will, in fluid coalitions of the moment, have been addressed here. Therein lies the future.

MTELUCENCE AND COUNTEfllHTEUJGENCE

VOLUME I, NUMBER 2

SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: NATIONAL SECURITY & NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS Proceedings, 1993 Volume I

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APPLYING THE "NEW PARADIGM": HOW TO AVOID STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE FAILURES IN THE FUTURE by Robert D. Steele Mr. Steele is a senior civilian employee of the Marine Corps with experience as an infantry officer and Foreign Service officer. He holds two graduate degrees and is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Marine Corps or the Department of Defense.

This article focuses on three concerns of mine which are central to ensuring (hat the restructuring effort is meaningful. First, what "sins" of strategic intelligence persist in the face of restructuring? Second.howmustthenature of the individual intelligence analyst, their working conditions, and their relationship to policy-makers change if we are to avoid strategic intelligence failures in the future? And third, how must we relate defense intelligence restructuring to a broader national effort to establish a truly national knowledge management and information technology strategy, a strategy to empower our enterprises and schools while enabling our government to make informed policy decisions in all areas? Here are the major sins we are committing today: (1) Excessive collection of technical intelligence (including much too much emphasis on repetitive collection against higher priorities instead of baseline collection against lower, e.g. Third World, priorities); (2) Cursory attention to both open source collection, and the need for a American Intelligence Journal

modest and redirected expansion of our Union and major economic powers. To clandestine human intelligence collection be clear on this problem: capability; (a) It will continue to be diffi(3) Severe shortcomings in cult for our policy-makers and senior control over intelligenceresources - those intelligence managers to focus on the responsible for billions of dollars in each need for changed priorities because our year's budget have no capability to intelligence and foreign affairs commuevaluate relative returns on investment nities are at least two generations away across programs or elements of the in- from fully understandingtheThirdWorld telligence cycle, and no adequate and dimensions of change outside the mechanisms for ensuring government- political-military and transnational ecoowned capabilities are shared and not nomic environment. We do not have an adequate methodology for studying the duplicated. preconditions and precipitants of revolutionary change (including ideo-cultural, techno-demographic, and natural-geographic change), and no indications and warning (I&W) capability suited to this ...there are shortcomings challenge. in evaluating relative re-

turns on investmentacross programs or elements on the intelligence cycle...

(4) Mindset inertia. We still have very senior bureaucrats and appointees insisting that we maintain our traditional priorities against the Soviet Page 43

(b) Our entire intelligence structure, our designs and methods, do not lend them selves to being restructured andreconsb'tuted. It is as if, after decades of learning how to build Cadillacs, our very fine Cadillac, accustomed to traveling the same super-highway back and forth, must suddenly be taken apart and put back together as an off-road vehicle able to deal with the treacherous terrain and back roads of the Third World. It is Autumn 1991

obvious we not only need to pay much more attention to different "designs and methods", but that the fastest way to create our off-road vehicle, given our lack of resources, is by melting down and recasting some portions of (he community in their entirety. (5) Lack of accountability among acquisition managers and the intelligence professionals who support them. We spend billions on complex weapons systems which cannot be supported by existing or planned communications, computer or intelligence capabilities. Thissinalsomeritselaboration: (a) Many of our acquisition managers and action officers want nothing to do with classified information their offices are not cleared to hold what they would want to hold; they tend to assume that once the Required Operation Capability (ROC) is approved that the "threat" ticket has been punched; they don't understand the intelligence community or how to make it work; no one has sponsored many of them for appropriate clearances; and they have no process for prioritizing their needs for ongoing threat support to their respective life cycles. (b) Our concept for providing intelligence support to acquisition is flawed. We tend to focus on the technical lethality aspect of the threat, while ignoring the equally if not more important aspects of tactical reliability, operational availability (and mobility), and strategic sustainability. It makes sense to have capabilities able to deal with worst-case scenarios - it does not make sense to burden expeditionary forces with mainstream conventional weapons systems if cheaper, more mobile, and more easily sustainable alternatives are available. (6) Finally, our worst sin, a lack of commitment to people. Our grade structure, working condition, and turnover rales (both job reassignments and resignations) leave us with a largely "un-expert" analysis population whose historical memory is both conventional (what is in the files) and of shortduration. Weare American Intelligence Journal

not growing the kiiul of analyst so immersed in their topic thai [hey can sense change and underlying analytical trends and anomalies. When someone says "protect the people in the budget", what they mean is "keep as many serfs on board as possible". They do not mean "nurture our best, give them time and money for travel, training, and reflection, protect them from day-to-day 'musthave update'calls". Our personnel strategies, some of which seek to keep personnel costs down by having a "bulge" in the most junior analytical ranks, do not provide the career opportunities needed to keep the "best and the brightest" focused on analysis for an entire career, and literally drive people away from analysis and toward "management" or administrative positions, if not out the door entirely. We compound this sin by failing to provide the analysts we do have with the tools they need to manage raw multimedia data and carry out higher-level analysis tasks including pattern analysis and modeling. In combination, our existing tools, training policies, and production requirements perpetuate the "cut and paste" syndrome. This is all pan of a broader national failure, my final concern.

In short.we have done nothing to improve the quality of life for our individual analysis, and little to improve their intellectual reach, in a broader context, outside the intelligence arena, we have failed to use federal funds in the knowledgemanagementarena to support, direct, and synergize private outlays in the commercial and academic sectors. Our nation is significantly behind its potential in exploiting the available knowledge in the world, and the available information technologies, and this is a "grand strategy" failure of enormous proportions. Within intelligence, we will continue to have strategic failures so long as we continue to intellectually shackle and starve our diminishing population of analysts by failing to act in the two areas offering very significant returns on investment: the integration of now-operational advanced information processing technologies into a single standard analysis "toolkit" exportable to any enterprise; and the development of a multilevel and multi-media database architecture which seamlessly merges classified and unclassified data, and extends the analyst's reach to every corner of the globe.

The six sins discussed above come together in our failure to develop a national knowledgemanagementstrategy and a related national information techfnology strategy. We spend too much on ^classified collection which we cannot Jprocess in time, and not enough on open {source information, including foreign [scientific and technical literature vital to lour national competitiveness. We have done well at linking a vast array of different computer databases and capabilities, but at a huge cost in terms of people (and maintenance dollars, and without significantly improving the individual analyst's access to data. We have failed completely at developing a standard advanced analysts' toolkit (workstation with integrated application), and we are therefore wasting millions building hundreds of different workstations and application packages which provide slightly different implementations of the same generic functionality at thousands of sites throughout the world.

As an aside, let me note my support for those initiatives sponsored by the Federal Coordinating council for Science, Engineering, and Technology ("Grand Challenges: High Performance Computing and Communications"), and the related "computer superhighway" concepts coming off the Hill. Both reflect our national tendency to focus on "big problems" and "technical solutions". Where my emphasis differs from these two major initiatives, in a complementary way, is through my focus on "enabling tools" which givelargenumbersofpeople greater access to data, rather than great computingpowertoafewselectscientists and their acolytes.

Page 44

What is to be done? (1) Adopt David Abshire's idea of an Advisor to the President for LongTerm Planning, and make that individual the Presidential champion of a national knowledge management strategy, workAutumn 1991

ing in concert wiUi the Office of Science f (4) Establish a new National and Technology Policy and other inter- Information Agency (NA1) which folds in the National Technical Information ested parties. Service (NTIS) of the Department of (2) Establish a Senior Inter- Commerce, the Foreign Broadcast InAgency Group (SIG/C4I) tasked with formation Service (FBIS), the Joint directing resources toward a global C4I Publications Research Service (JPRS), system that provides multi-level security IheDefenseGateway Information System access (to include foreign nationals with (DGIS), and the Defense Technical Inno clearances), integrates multi-media formation Center (DTIC), while also databases, and establishes a standard ad- folding in and revitalizing the Federal vanced analysis "toolkit". The Informa- Research Division of the Library of tion Handling committee (IHC) and the Congress.andcreatingahewconsolidated Advanced Intelligence Processing and joint government-business Center for the Analysis Steering Group (AIPASG) Exploitation of Open sources (CEOS). should serve as focal points for inter- Such a national investment could be agency coordination while the SIG/C4I fruitfully directed to: provides a decision-making forum and » (a) Engage in "competitive ensures that the external investments in communications and unclassified com- analysis", using only open sources, as a puting arepart of an integrated continuum means of challenging the assumptions of of government-private sector spending. the remainder of the intelligence comUse the Defense Information Systems munity regarding the value of extremely Agency (DISA), the Intelligence Com- expensive and fragmentary classified munications Architecture(lNCA)Project, sources; and and the Joint National Intelligence Development Staff (JNIDS) as executive f (b) Emphasize directsupport to agents for implementing a national national and private research endeavors, 'cnowledge management campaign plan, /with a view to stimulating and reinforc.iavethenew Advisorto thePresidentfor Jing business and academic research and Long-Term Planning chair this group, •development in all domains. with an assistant to serve as Executive Secretary. (5) Establish an Open source Committee under the Director of Central (3) Use the Corporate Infor- Intelligence, to serve as a focal point for mation Management (CIM) initiative to intelligence community collection and begin exploring inter-agency solutions processing of open source information andmechanismsfor fully integrating open (which would include multi-spectral imsource and unclassified databases into a agery as well as public signals, unclassiglobal C4I architecture. Provide a fied documentation, and open debriefings mechanism for conveying to Comptrol- and interviews). Utilize military intellilers theevaluationsand recommendations gence personnel and capabilities in of the IHC and AIPASG as a means of peacetime to"jumpstart" the open source accelerating the retirement of inefficient collection and exploitation process - this installed bases while consolidating re- will help the military because many of the sources to attack generic problem sets. In Third World intelligence gaps stemming particular, end the isolation of intelligence from our obsession with the Soviet Union systems from all other C4 systems - C4 can be filled relatively quickly through must improve its personnel security lev- systematic, legal, and overt access to els and adjust its approach to accommo- unrestricted foreign information. date intelligence, but intelligence systems managers must understand thattheir days (6) Consider reorganizing the of pipeline management and compart- Central Intelligence Agency to provide mented resource allocation are over. for four distinct capabilities: a national intelligence analysis capability with nu-

merous intcr-agcncy collection management and analysis centers along the lines of the existing centers focused on special topics; a consolidated clandestine operations agency with its own communications and computing capabilities but integrating tactical SIGINT, necessary technical support and a new separate Office for Military Contingencies manned jointly by military and civilian personnel; a national technical intelligence agency to manage overhead technical collection systems; and finally a national intelligence research and development (R&D) agency under a new deputy director responsible for consolidating and managing the now fragmented intelligence R&D efforts scattered among different services and agencies.

...the vast outpouring of multi-media, multi-lingual knowledge has presented us with an enormous technical and intellectual challenge...

Knowledge is power. Technology has broken down the walls that previously required vast technical and human endeavors to isolate nationally vital information about plans, intentions, and ^capabilities. At the same time, the vast outpouring of multi-media multi-lingual knowledge has presented us .with an enormous technical and intellectual challenge, one worthy of the samekind of national attention occasioned by past energy crises. There is still a role for clandestine human collection and covert technical collection, but it must be more tightly focused. Our emphasis must shift from collection to analysis, from indiscriminate collection to integrated processing, from analysts as assembly-line producers chained to their desks to analysts as observers and partners in the national decision-making process - not making policy, but informing policy.

L American Intelligence Journal

Page 45

Autumn 1991

Finally, we must shift away from a strategy of producing highly classified compendioms of information for a few select 'customers, and toward maximizing public access to basic knowledge in all areas Lof endeavor.

restructuring will cure some ills and bring on others; our greatest challenge continues to be one of strategic vision - if we can change the way we view analysis and their role in the daily decision-making process; if we can adopt a national knowledge management strategy, accelThe sins of intelligence will air erate our integration of national C4I sysways be with us in one form or another; tems, and address the open source chal-

lenge; then we will have accomplished a far more fundamental and constructive "restructuring" - applied a "new paradigm". This strategic interpretation is consistent with the present restructuring plans, butof far greater import to how our Nation "does business" in the future. ********************

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Autumn 1991

FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: NATIONAL SECURITY & NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS Proceedings, Volume I - Link

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Gordon Lederman From:

OSS CEO Robert D. Steele Local Broadband [[email protected]]

Sent:

Sunday, March 21, 2004 12:47 PM

To:

Gordon Lederman; Kevin Scheid; Lorry Fenner

Subject: GOP Task Force Got It In 1992-No One Wanted to Listen Bodansky, staff director of the GOP Task Force on Terrorism, who went on to write the book on Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America (published prior to 9-11, but no one wanted to listen), wrote the attached and presented it to my 1992 conference. From 1988-2001, a succession of DCIs, including the current DCI, turned a blind eye to lower tier festering issues, including terrorism, and refused to listen to all of us who were sounding the alarm about either terrorism (Bodansky) or our loss of perspective on being thorough and professional about how we carried out the business of intelligence (Steele at first, others joining over time).

3/22/2004

BILL McCOLLUM FLORIDA CHAIRMAN

VAUGHN S FORREST

DANA ROHRABACHER CALIFORNIA CO-CHAIRMAN

YOSSEF BODANSKY DIRECTOR

MEMBERS

DONALD J MORRiSSEY LEGiSlAT.vE DIRECTOR

CHIEF OF STAFF

WILLIAM BROOMFIELD. MICHIGAN CHRISTOPHER COX. CALIFORNIA JOHN T. DOOLITTLE. CALIFORNIA ROBERT DORNAN. CALIFORNIA GEORGE W GEKAS. PENNSYLVANIA BENJAMIN OILMAN NEW YORK JIM LIGHTFOOT IOWA BOB LIVINGSTON LOUISIANA DAVID O'B MARTIN. NEW YORK FRANK 0 RlGGS. CALIFORNIA JAMES F SENSENBRENNER JR WISCONSIN

TASK FORCE ON TERRORISM & UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE HOUSE REPUBLICAN RESEARCH COMMITTEE ' U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON. D.C 20515

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE. MAINE C w BILL YOUNG FLORIDA

THE GOP TERRORISM TASK FORCE: RESEARCH TECHNIQUES & PHILOSOPHY

A Paper for the First International Symposium on NATIONAL SECURITY & NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS

Washington, DC 1-3 December, 1992

JAMES E GEOFFREY. II EDITOR SCOTT BRENNER PUBLIC AFFAIRS 1622 LONGWORTH BUILDING 202/2250871

THE GOP TERRORISM TASK FORCE: RESEARCH TECHNIQUES AND PHILOSOPHY

Since its establishment nearly four years ago, the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare has been able to provide a stream of accurate and detailed information to its Members and other key offices of government through its Task Force Reports. These Reports cover numerous subjects, concentrating on the main crisis points throughout the Third World and Eastern Europe. Indeed, the Task Force has had several "scoops" over the years of which it is particularly proud, including the manipulation of the Afghan resistance by fundamentalist Islamist elements, the use of chemical weapons by Vietnam in Laos, forecasting the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, and the discovery that Iran had obtained nuclear weapons from the Islamic republics of the former USSR. However, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this track record is that all of the research material was obtained through open sources. In this research, the emphasis is always on the use of indigenous source material, that is, material produced by and for the interested local populations, institutions and authorities. These publications, predominantly foreign language publications, constitute one of the best sources for obtaining an understanding of the political and social forces at work in the Third World. In this context, it should be noted that the Task Force does have access to unique sources throughout the world, including principly individuals on site, but that these sources operate outside the official establishment. These sources are therefore not too different from the confidential sources used by many reputable journalists. This all said, the Task Force's very existence stems from Washington's increasing recognition of the importance of the Third World and of the danger of state sponsored terrorism to Western interests. This is important because, as the Third World adjusts to the dynamic forces of nationalism, tribalism and religious and ethnic fundamentalism, the danger of a backlash against the West will intensify. Furthermore, these problems have been complicated by a dangerous trend in the strategic political development of Washington's self-proclaimed "New World Order" which is viewed in the Third World as little more than the proclamation of a "pax Americana." Indeed, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union,

many Third World leaders see a unique opportunity to consolidate their positions as regional leaders. Thus, most of them perceive the United States as a threat to their ambitions and will therefore be tempted to make the U.S. a target of agitated Third World populations. In this connection, the employment of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons by these Third World leaders and their allies cannot be ruled out. Meanwhile, other major powers, primarily Western Europe (especially France), Japan (with South Korea, Taiwan, etc. in tow,) and a Russian dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), are competing with the United States for access to the Third World's markets and raw materials. With these resources so crucial to the world economy, and with the United States increasingly at odds with the other trading blocs over these resources, local regimes may be inclined to exploit great power rivalries to their own advantage. Taken together, all these trends, mixed with an increasing ideologization of the Third World, clearly point to an increased risk of anti-Western terrorism and violence, as well as to the build-up of Third World war machines to challenge Western military predominance. These are factors that the United States cannot afford to ignore. Moreover, because of the interests that the United States has in the Third World, and because it is today the world's only remaining military superpower with global interests, increased US military and diplomatic involvement in the developing world is almost inevitable. This means, of course, that it is imperative for the United States to understand and comprehend the Third World, particularly its military and ideological components. The record of the Terrorism Task Force leaves no doubt that this can be done. The key to the Third World, however, will mean that intelligence gathering will have to be done less by "bean counting" through technical means and more through "on-the-spot" analysis. This "professional factor" will therefore be the most important resource for knowledge of military and security issues. Simply put, weapons do not grow on trees and military experts are not usually found amongst the tribes of the deserts and jungles of the Third World. All of these have to come from somewhere and therefore emphasis will have to be placed on tapping intelligence sources who are involved in what will be a massive transfer of weapons and expertise from the former Eastern bloc to the Third World. An intelligence network designed to cover this issue, combined with a greater understanding of indigenous Third World cultures and problems, holds the key to understanding the postCommunist world. The Task Force recognizes this fact and understands that it will therefore be necessary for the intelligence community to change

expectations about the kind of data that intelligence will be able to provide in the future. Specifically, it is impossible to have a complete picture of any major topic on a timely basis. Concerning the crucial developments in the Third World, such as the acquisition of weapons including nuclear weapons, the development of terrorist networks, the involvement state sponsored terrorism in the Third World and technology transfers, the availability of data will be conditional on the ability of sources to get around and see past the security precautions taken by governments. Almost all matters of interest to the professional intelligence gatherer will occur within a larger context. Nuclear weapons acquisition will have to be visible in order for the acquiring state to gain a deterrent over its potential opponents, but not so obvious as to provoke a response from the great powers. Terrorists strikes will not only be aimed by the state against its perceived opponents in the West, but amongst the various competing factions within given states and organizations. Thus, even the most visible events will reverberate with secret undercurrents that will affect the balance of power in the Third World. These undercurrents will only be recognizable and comprehensible if viewed through the prism of the Third World's various cultural and strategic perspectives. This will require attention to daily events, including some of the seemingly smallest and most mundane matters. For example, did a given leader wear a certain ceremonial sash at a state meeting? Did a leader change his emphasis on who his enemies are by some small change in language? In a closed society these seemingly unimportant matters may speak volumes to the perceptive observer who is well versed on the cultural underpinnings of his subject. Thus, the researcher must be constantly attuned to all of these "vibes" and must record them, even if it is unclear what significance they will have. Of Course, to some degree, it will not be possible to recognize the significance of events except through the eyes of natives in the region of concern. Thus, indigenous source materials, both written and oral, will be of crucial significance to any intelligence gathering effort. No amount of technical data gathering will be able to convey the logic and significance of events. In this environment, there will be no such thing as a "key" source. Even access to a supreme national leader will not be enough. For especially in the Third World, even a despotic totalitarian leader will not have total control over his country. In the tribalized, balkanized Third World, a national leader will not often know what various segments of his country's populations are doing or how they are organized. Furthermore, given the

sycophancy and cronyism that often surrounds leaders in the Third World, self-deception will be prevalent and verification of data will only be possible on a comparative basis. Thus, knowledge of a situation from the "ground up" will be indispensable. The ability to see things "as the natives do," to put oneself in the shoes of given people, and to understand why a people will react to events as they will, these will be the keys to a successful intelligence gathering effort in the post-Cold War era. As already noted, much of this will be possible with open sources. These sources provide the ability to notice the small "vibes," to correctly read the "dialogue" between key players and to accurately asses actions. Thus, the key to intelligence data will be a current reading of events done on a continuous basis. Of course, open sources will only go so far, and specific details will still need to come from special sources. Background material provided by such sources will enable the researcher to narrow the scope of his studies, to be specific about given actions and to make optimum use of limited communications assets. This kind of material will allow the researcher to "fill in the blanks" and draw as complete a picture as is possible in a Third World context. The result of this complex process will be excellent intelligence. In the case of the Task Force, with its comparatively limited resources, it has proven amazingly successful and has led, as has been noted, to not a few "scoops." When implemented by a reconfigured American intelligence community, with its enormous human and material resources, it will provide a treasure trove of data that will be crucial to understanding the world in the post-Cold War age. This "on the ground" technique, combined with the researcher's two most important tools, patience and perseverance, are the weapons by which the nation will secure its future in the volatile Third World. by Yossef Bodansky & Vaughn S. Forrest (This paper may not necessarily reflect the views of all of the Members of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. It is intended to provoke discussion and debate.)

FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: NATIONAL SECURITY & NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS Proceedings, Volume I - Link

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INTELLIGENCE IN THE 1990'S: RECASTING NATIONAL SECURITY IN A CHANGING WORLD by Robert David Steele

Robert Steele, the senior civilian participant in the creation and management of the new USMC Intelligence Center at Quantico, has served in a variety of assignments both in and out ofDoD. His views, while personal and not official, are consistent with those of his Commandant as published in our Winter issue, and are a refreshing demonstration of strategic and forward thinking among our mid-level career intelligence professionals in the civil service. "I am constantly being asked fora bottom-line defense number. I don't owofany logical way to arrive at such figure without analyzing the threat: without determining what changes in our strategy should be made in light of the changes in the threat; and then determining what force structure and weapons programs we need to carry out this revised strategy." -Senator Sam Nunn

tional threat is generally associated with a government, conventional or nuclear in nature, represented by static orders of battle, linear in the development and deployment of its capabilities, employed in accordance with well-understood rules of engagement and doctrine, relatively easy to detect in its mobilization, and supported by generally recognizable intelligence assets.

The "war on drugs", and our concern over arms control (not just verification of Soviet reductions but also control of nuclear and bio-chemical weapons proliferation in the Third World) are both representative of these The emerging threat...cannot be new threats.

This article will discuss the changing threat in terms of six challenges critical to our over-all national security assessed...by our existing capaposture in the 1990's. To adapt intelli- bilities. gence to our new threat and fiscal environments, we must make radical and comprehensive changes in how we manThe emerging threat, by conage and conceptualize intelligence. trast, is non-govemmenial, non-conventional, dynamic or random, non-linear, Our Environment with no constraints or predictable docWe find ourselves in a multi- trine, almost impossible to detect in adpolar and multi-dimensional'environ- vance, and supported by an unlimited 5th ment in which a critical distinction must column of criminals and drug addicts. be drawn between the conventional The conventional threat lends threat and the emerging threat. itself very well to conventional intelliThis distinction, first presented gence collection capabilities which inJic Commandant's article in the Win- clude a strong ability at stand-off techniter issue, is straight-forward: the conven- cal collection, and a fairly methodical, AIJ

repetitious, and largely bureaucraiicized way of doing "analysis"; the emerging threats, in sharp contrast, simply cannot be spotted, assessed, fixed, and neutralized by our existing capabilities.

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Narcotics, in both the intelligence and the operational worlds, must be seen as representative of a "type" threat, not as an odious and undesirable distraction from the "real" threat

Narcotics. Js a 'type' threat...not a distraction from the 'real' threat. The multi-dimensional nature of change in our multi-polar world must also be considered as we evaluate how best to meet these threats.

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DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE

SIX AREAS OF CHALLENGE

Political-Legal Socio-Economic Ideo-Cultural Techno-Demographic Natural-Geographic

Meeting Needs of Public Programs I&W Methods for New Threats Theory & Methods for CI/OPSEC InfoTech Strategy Requirements System Resource Realignments

Intelligence must be much more than simply political reporting or military Order of Battle "bean counting". Intelligence must be able to identify emerging sources of power and emerg ing sources of instability in each dimension, and forecast their rate of change. Our emphasis on the need to modify our "world view" and our definition of what merits attention from our intelligence community in no way reduces the importance of continued attention to the Soviet Union. Three areas in particular must be acknowledged: - First, we must continue to monitor the strategic nuclear threat. - Second, intelligence must be capable of monitoring "plans and intentions" of the Soviets in the decades ahead. Wemustbe prepared to identify regression and deception, e.g. perestroika and glasnost may have a mirror image as a STRATEGIC DECEPTION, as a means by which the Soviet Union can establish its technological depth and regain its competitive edge. - Finally, the flowering of democratic and opposition movements in Eastern Europe and Soviet Republics call for much more intelligence on the ground inside the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, and a much greater sensitivity to the socio-economic, psychological, and cultural factors which were previously overshadowed by the military threat from the Warsaw Pact. Having established in this way the environment within which intelligence must operate in the 1990's we can now outline each of the six challenges and what it means for our intelligence structure and the allocation of resources in FY 92-97 and beyond.

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program of Third World intelligence analysis and forecasting is needed if we arc to justify long overdue and underfunded peaceful preventive measures in this vital area of concern and potential." (emphasis in the original)

Warriors pray for peace. General MacAnhur made this point with unusual eloquence, and it remains true Challenge Number One: Meeting the today. The task of the warrior is made Intelligence Needs of Public Programs more difficult and costs the nation much more in the lost lives of its sons and Today there is insufficient daughters as well as simple economic emphasis on defining and meeting the cost if prc-rcvolutionary conditions arc intelligence needs of overt civilian agen- not identified and dealt with through cies, law enforcement activities, and "peaceful preventive measures". Monitoring corruption associated with our contingency military forces. military assistance programs, identifying This point has major fiscal popular misconceptions about our Naimplications well beyond those of con- tion that should be corrected, and undercern to defense force structure managers. standing the true and often unarticulated needs of Third World countries are exThere are two major fiscal tremely important tasks that intelligence strategies that intelligence must sup- can undertake in defense of our over-all port: first, the strategy of "spending national security. smart", and investing in cheaper peaceful civilian nation-building capabilities Intelligence must help us make as early as possible, rather than waiting investment decisions and evaluate our for situations to deteriorate to the point programs, with special emphasis on oven that military intervention is required; & covert programs focused on "nationand second, the strategy of fighting a building" and/or the furtherance of our truly "total war" in which we recognize national interests. that a failure on our part to be competitive in the international trade & financial Challenge Number Two: Indications markets is tantamount to losing a "real" & Warnings of Revolutionary Change war. Our intelligence and foreign Selected public programs not affairs communities have demonstrated necessarily associated with "national only a limited understanding of revolusecurity" in fact offer an exceptional tionary change, no methodology for "return on investment" in terms of en- studying the preconditions, precipitants, hancing our strategic depth and our posi- and actualization of such change, no tion overseas. General A. M. Gray, Commandant of the Marine Corps, recently emphasized the need for "more and better Third World intelligence...(so) corresponding resource allocations can be appropriately balanced". He went on to say: "If threat is a factor in determining national investments in security assistance and foreign aid, then a more aggressive

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We have paid insufficient attention to open sources... framework for ensuring collection and analysis priorities respect the importance of all the dimensions within which revolutions can occur, and no indications & warnings (l&W) capability suitable to this challenge. There are several contributing factors:

Summer/Fall 1990

Firstly, we have never been comfortable with intangibles, and even less comfortable with abstract concepts and ideo-cultural meaning. It is far easier to count beans and compare things than it is to try to understand people, especially people whose entire psycho-social fabric is alien to our own.

and the development of an infrastructure for capturing and exploiting the vast outpouring of print and voice information about the Third World as well as more developed and technologically competitive nations such as West Germany, Japan, Singapore, and Brazil.

opportunities for dealing legal active blows to our present and future opponents. Failure in either area will cost billions over time and will hamper our ability to understand and correct our own vulnerabilities at home.

Challenge Number Three: New TheThe community has done well ory & Methods of Counlerintelligence Secondly, our planning, pro- in developing a capability for strategic Closely related to our severely gramming, & budgeting system (PPBS) warning of attack by a major governmendeficient clandestine HUMINT capabiliperpetuates this tendency: only very tal nuclear and/or conventional force, ties and our lack of understanding of large, obvious, "tangible: treats have in largely because of the relatively static foreign entities is our virtually complete and linear manner in which these capathe past been acceptable justifications for major planned investments. All other in- bilities are developed, deployed, and vulnerability to penetration by representatives of non-governmental groups posvestments, for instance in the Third prepared for employment ing a non-conventional threat to our naWorld, have generally been ad hoc responses to crises, and therefore poorly These facilitating conditions tional security. conceived, coordinated, and effected. do not hold for the emerging threat. We must, quickly and compreThe threat today and in the 1990's is Thirdly, our national skills lean often not clearly associated with a hensively, begin addressing the threat to the technical, and away from the government, "it may not come in con- posed by individuals seeking our technihuman factor. We have become soenam- ventional forms," its bearers are not cal secrets for economic warfare; by ored of our overhead technical capabili- constrained in any way, and their ac- individuals suborned by criminal organities that we have failed to balance our tions may be dynamic or even random zations, terrorist groups, and religious as the frenzy of the moment moves cults; and by individuals whose motivathem to action. Their capabilities do not tions we may never fathom, but whose We need an entirety new theory develop in a necessarily linear fashion reliability can not be determined with any and structure of counterintelli- because they draw their weapons from all assurance by our present system of backsources, including commercial enter- ground invesu'gaiion. gence.. prises, and their motivations are not well We need an entirely new theory enough understood to permit any kind of and structure of counts-intelligence (CI) reliable forecasting. tremendous signals and imagery intellicapable of dealing with both the exgence (SIGINT/IMINT) collection abiliA great deal of work needs to be panded access of representatives of forties with a commensurate processing done in this arena, in terms of both sub- eign governments, and the more pervaability, and capped that with a compara- stantive research, and designs & meth- sive and subtle threat from a virtually tive abdication in the arena of human ods. Among the approaches that appear unlimited "5th column" of criminals and intelligence (HUMINT). Heavy reli- to offer some merit are those of cognitive narco-terrorists. ance on foreign intelligence & security mapping, social network theory, psyservices, and officers under official cholinguislics, and good old-fashioned This will require an unprececover, does not constitute a serious listening by experienced diplomats, offi- dented degree of cooperation between clandestine HUMINT capability. Such cial representatives, business and aca- national agencies (including economic a capability requires years to develop, demic personnel, and agents in place. and financial agencies), private industry and patience, a trait for which we are not (including especially high-tech firms and noted. Our lack of commitment to strong Even more fundamental is the financial institutions), and law enforcelanguage programs, longer tours, and desperately needed commitment to rea- ment agencies. non-official cover mechanisms facilitat- lign existing and future intelligence reing access to every level and dimension sources toward basic analysis (not necesIt will require a totally new and of foreign societies and non-governmen- sarily production) outside the standard comprehensive approach to the managetal groups will continue to frustrate pol- political and military spheres, and in the ment of information about people, an icy-makers attempting to improve our Third World. approach which must integrate legal national capabilities for "low intensity safeguards through the development of onflicl". We must take initiatives, not simply de- artificially intelligent "expert systems" fend ourselves. Our methods of I&W and the partial automation of Inspector Lastly, we have paid insuffi- should lend themselves to identifying General functions. cient attention to open sources (OSINT), opportunities for advantage as well as AD

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Summer/Fall 1990

We must also completely reevaluate what we want to protect, and what we mean by "confidential", "secret", "lop secret", and "sensitive compartmenied information" (SCI). The system is so fragmented and inconsistent that even the most loyal individuals have difficulty taking it seriously. Although efforts have been made to address these issues, we simply cannot resolve the contradictions of counterintelligence without an overarching strategy that includes personnel compensation and quality of life issues as well as a comprehensive approach to the management and security administration of both electronic and hard-copy information across agency boundaries. We must move quickly to develop an effective means of organizing and "lagging: our electronic records with essential information about their source, classification, and control parameters, and we must develop inter-agency methods of electronic sharing which maximize our exploitation of information while affording us much greater automated auditing and alert capabilities essential to identify unauthorized or inappropriate diversions of knowledge. We must carefully redefine both intellectual and physical properties that we wish to protect, with special reference to both technology and our own national infrastructure (water, power grids, lines of communication). We should pay particular attention to "critical" nodes in our technical systems which would if sabotaged or penetrated render irreparable harm to our gross national production and general security & public welfare capabilities. We should be less concerned about the "illegal" export of technology advanced information technology applications and capabilities, for instance, are developing so fast they have usually left the country years before they can be added to the "dual use" list of controlled items. More to the point, information technology (to take one example) evolves so fast that whatever is stolen is AU

This situation is largely of our out-dated within 6-18 months, and off the market within 36 months. We are better own making; Service and professional off concentrating on staying ahead fragmentation has been allowed to conthan on keeping the other folks behind. tinue within a resource-rich environment where inter-opcrability and interWe must recast our domestic as changeability of information technolowell as our international security re- gies (and related multi-discipline datasources to better blend the efforts of those bases) were not required. The infrastrucresponsible for law enforcement, physi- ture within the Department of Defense cal security, background investigations, has at least a modicum of cohesion; the offensive counter-intelligence, and op- same is not true for the array of law erations. Counter-intelligence cannot be enforcement, civilian government agentreated as a separate discipline in isola- cies, and private enterprises, including tion; it must permeate all aspects of na- universities, which have had little occational operations in the same way that sion in the past to require direct electronic "administration" crosses all boundaries. connectivity. Now we are discovering that knowledge is indeed power, and that "Operational security" the shorter the loop in exploiting knowl(OPSEC) requires much greater empha- edge, the more competitive our Nation. sis, especially in the countemarcotics We must get serious about cyarena and particularly in the execution of interdiction operations. We have given bernetics, and exploiting knowledge in the narcotics community years in which relation rather than in isolation. This to build up billion-dollar war chests and requires the development of a national capabilities that in some cases exceed our electronic information & records manown. We must be much smarter about agement architecture that goes far behow we plan and conduct operations in yond the existing plethora of database management applications and isolated this environment. proprietary or domain/agency specific As with I&W, CI must protect databases. Every traditional function of the nation against the massive costs asso- "hardcopy" records management must ciated with treason and compromise, or be automated and integrated into every with terrorism unleashed on our popula- organization's knowledge management tion and infrastructure. Financial & architecture. economic counterintelligence should Reliable and tested multilevel ' become a recognized sub-discipline. For the latter to be successful, there must security operating systems are critical to be a closer working relationship between our national knowledge management government and the private sector, a strategy and must be fielded before a willingness on the part of the private sector to identify and correct its areas of vulnerability, and a national recognition OPSEC requires much greater that international finance &, trade compe- emphasis, especially in the tition is the "second front" of the 1990's counternarcotocs arena... (drugs & terrorism comprising the first front). Challenge Number Four: Developing an Information Technology Strategy We need a national information technology architecture and management infrastructure that integrates telecommunications, computing, and analysis, and enables the full exploitation and integration of data from human, signals, imagery, and open sources. 32

serious program of cross-Agency and federal to private data sharing & exploitation can be considered. Much greater emphasis at the policy level is required on this topic, for without this capability four of the six challenges cannot be fully addressed. It bears comment that multilevel security may finally enable us to link operators directly to analysts, and break down the "green door" that has Summer/Fall 1990

isolated intelligence for so long from its knowledge management tools imperative; the primary way we will be able to consumers. improve our national productivity in In addition, it is critical that the the 1990's is with a major national Services, agencies, and private industry investment strategy focusing on adwork closely together to avoid at all costs vanced information technologies and incompatible interfaces and applications automated knowledge exploitation. that have in the past restricted the transfer of data between applications and be- Challenge Number Five: Establishing tween users. A total commitment by all A Responsive Requirements System information technology vendors to "open systems" is vital to national We need a national intelliproductivity and competitiveness in gence requirements system that is the 1990's. useful in the management of resources; is cross-disciplinary, autoAn important element of this mated,&"zero-sum";andisresponsive information technology or knowledge to individual customers, allowing them management strategy must be a commit- to (rack the satisfaction of their requirement to fund a global program to capture ments by discipline, topic, country, or and make available to both government timeframe. and private industry those essential open source print and voice records necessary There are a number of contribto compete in all dimensions on interna- uting factors, some of which are being tional life. This will satisfy the addressed, some of which will take years President's desire to help U.S. business to work out. while avoiding the dangers inherent in attempting to pass classified information The greatest problem lies in the o selected enterprises. complete fragmentation of intelligence management over-all; between disciAs outlined by General Gray in plines, between major management arhis article, this would include digitization eas, and between levels and types of of newspapers and journals from Third organizations, each committed to doing World countries (and should include business "it's way". technical journals from such countries as West Germany and Japan); the establishment of a central repository of governFRAGMENTATION OF ment-owned open source data bases such INTELLIGENCE MANAGEMENT as those developed by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS); A naDisciplines tional program to digitize hard-copy recIMINT ords pertinent to our national interests in SIGNINT the Third World; and expansion of the HUMINT OSINT Defense Gateway Information System (DG1S) to include management of the Decision Areas latter initiatives. U.S. business overseas can make a significant contribution by assuming responsibility for digitizing open sources in specific countries or technical areas. The data entry problem is so large, only private assumption of this responsibility will permit the national •ategy to succeed.

Design & Methods Funding Collection Mgmt Production Mgmt

Levels of Effort National Theater Departmental Country Team

The downward trend of our demography makes an investment in A1J

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We have absolutely no way of evaluating our "return on investment" by intelligence discipline or by element of the intelligence cycle. The continued fragmentation of the intelligence community into disciplines with their own "pipelines" for tasking of subordinate units and reporting of information back to their headquarters will make serious all-source fusion a virtual impossibility unless, as General Gray points out in his own article: "Capabilities must be integrated both vertically and horizontally inter-agency policies and practices must be developed which permit the fusion of We have absolutely no way of evaluating our 'return on investment' by intelligence discipline or by element of the intelligence cycle. information at every hierarchical level, beginning with the Country Team. Atthe same time, we should avoid redundant processing of the same information by every agency and service." It is vital that the existing requirements system, which includes means of specifying topics of immediate interest to policy-makers as well as priorities for topics of mid-range and longer-term interest, be automated and structured so that all capabilities at all levels are working in consonance with one another. Whilesomedisciplinesare undeniably more effective than others at obtaining partkular types of information, they should be managed in unison and at the lowest possible level. The second greatest difficulty is the absence of a clear consensus within the community over the purposes of our various requirements documents and processes. Although a document exists to forecast future intelligence requirements and is intended to guide investments in new designs & methods, in fact Summer/Fall 1990

it is both moribund and nothing more - at policy-makers can certainly impose this point - than a rehash of the imagery "emphasis" on the individual disciplines, requirements document from which it and gel what they want if it is collectable with existing resources, they cannot was born. expect to receive the kind of information, There is no over-all manage- including "plans & intentions" and tactiment of funding trade-offs between cal readiness information, for which disciplines or between elements of the years are required to develop agents in collection cycle. We still spend too place, or sophisticated technical collecmuch on technical collection and not tion systems, or sophisticated artificial enough on clandestine HUMINT or intelligence applications and related the processing of imagery, signals, and knowledge bases. human intelligence. We spend virtuWe simply cannot have topics ally nothing on the single most valuable (and cheapest) source of intelli- of current interest driving what should be gence, foreign public print and voice the five-year priorities plan, and no serious twenty-year plan. What should be media. happening is that current requireCollection and production ments should drive collection and management continue to be dominated production by existing resources; the by the owners of the respective discipli- five year plan should drive the reasnary collection resources, or the owners signment of existing resources and the of the analysts. This is a major reason development of mid-term new capawhy we have redundant or unprocess- bilities; and the twenty year plan able collection, and redundant produc- should be driving the development of tion. The community has made great completely new designs and methods strides in eliminating redundant produc- unconstrained by existing technical tion, but it will not meet with full success collection preconceptions, and withuntil there is a cross-agency, cross-serv- out regard to existing "standard operice mechanism for balancing collection ating procedures". versus production, and for balancing the needs of the Theater Commander-in- Challenge Number Six: Realigning Chief and each Country Team with the Resources in an Era of Radical Change needs of national policy-makers and other consumers. There is limited experience in managing resources in a declining fiscal There is another subtle miscue environment while simultaneously idenbuilt into the system: there is no provi- tifying emerging threats and rapidly realsion for weighting first-time collection locating resources to meet those threats. and production requirements over those Perhaps of greater concern, we appear requirements that may have a higher reluctant to establish a flexible process over-all priority, but against which volu- for fulfilling this fundamental requireminous efforts have been made in the ment. The bitter resistance of both the past As we seek to address ever-changing issues and make our intelligence structure more responsive to our needs Congress has shown a strong for new data, this feature must be estab- inclination to direct innovative lished. solutions... Lastly, we come to the problem of distinguishing between limeframes for the management of intelligence resources (i.e. on-year, five-year, twentyyear). This is important in each of the decision areas: design & methods, funding, collection management, and production management. Although the national A1J

mainstream military and the intelligence community to such concepts as "low intensity conflict", "special operations", the exploitation of " open sources", and support to law enforcement agencies, all portend an era of bureaucratic helpless34

ness and inertia precisely at a time when innovative, flexible, cooperative efforts are going to be critical to our success and our Nation's security. On the positive side, Congress has shown a strong inclination to direct innovative solutions where it must and where it has not been able to gel constructive proposals from the beneficiaries themselves. The negative side of this is that appropriated funds are meaningless if not properly and rapidly obligated, and the budget executed. With the best of intentions, and no resort to such historic

We urgently need a streamlined budget execution process... gambits as impoundment, the lead agencies can fail to expend funds for lack of strategic planning & programming talent, and for lack of responsive and flexible procurement & accounting capabilities. The 1990's will be characterized by extremely short resource management cycles in which some initiatives will move from conception to obligation to expenditure in under a year. The "war on drugs" is an ideal opportunity to develop, test, and refine 3 new process for allocating resources and restructuring capabilities under revolutionary conditions. In order for ihe shortened PPBS cycle to be effective, top-level managers must be willing to delegate authority down to the project and program management levels. The execution requirements for the realignment of manning, training, procurement, facilities, and operations & maintenance are simply too complex and time consuming to permit top-down micro-management. We must introduce the same "mission type order" style to our PPBS process as we expect on the battlefield. We must eliminate as much of the paperwork and documentation as possible, and drastically reduce requirements for toplevel approval of lower-level adjustments in organization, equipment, tasks,

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and production where these arc consistent with strategic guidance. In the computer Held, the "rapid prototyping" approach has much to offer all of us as an example, in sharp contrast to the system acquisition and life cycle planning approach which is so detailed and lengthy that the system is obsolete before it gets to the production line.

Conclusion

The six challenges facing national intelligence in the 1990's arc all linked together- success in one will serve as a catalyst for success in another, failure in any will stymie success in all. All have a direct bearing on the fiscal health of the nation as well as the soundness of its national security structure in the 1990's and the 21st Century.

We urgently need a streamlined budget execution process in which the individual responsible for the mission has full obligational authority over funds earmarked for that mission; e.g. the Director of a new Intelligence Center or Joint Task Force should

We must recognize that "warfare" has once again gone through a major redefinition - we must now compete with other nations in the context of a "total peace" in which the tools for peaceful competition are every bit as important to national security as the tools of war. If intelligence does not meet the needs of 'Intelligence' cannot limit itself our "front line", the civilian agencies to stereotypical perceptions of implementing peaceful preventive measures and enforcing the law, then our dewhat is and is not a threat... fenses will continue to erode, and no amount of investment in "strategic deterrence" and conventional military forces be able to establish a grade & skill mix, will suffice. hire people, buy equipment, contract for •xiemal assistance, and make structural We must place a great deal more changes to assigned facilities without emphasis on understanding all of the being bound by inappropriate regulations dimensions of power and change, and and entrenched preferences of the parent especially conditions in the increasingly organization's civilian personnel, auto- lethal and volatile Third World. Without mated data processing, and other estab- an entirely new methodology which aflished staff elements whose processes fords us indications & warnings of revohave grown too complex and time-con- lutionary change in every dimension, we suming while contributing little of sub- will be vulnerable, in the "worst case", to stance. One must stress that this in no bio-chemical and technical terrorism as way exempts the obligating official from well as less threatening but ultimately oversight and accountability. more costly losses of initiative in various non-military arenas of competition. Put another way: if Congress authorizes and appropriates ceiling "Intelligence" cannot limit spaces and funds for a particular activity, itself to stereotypical perceptions of the activity director should not then have what is and is not a threat. Intelligence to fight on a "second front" with his or her must inform decision-makers about own bureaucracy, slugging out each per- every aspect of human endeavor upon sonnel and procurement action through- which good order and the prospects out the budget execution - nor should the for a prosperous future depend. Intelactivity director have to fight on yet a ligence must identify emerging sources "third front" against Departmental and of power and opportunities for advanService financial administrators bent on tage as well as threats. "taxing", redirecting, and restricting earmarked funds. The other side of this coin is counts-intelligence and operational security. An entirely new theory and entirely new methods of counterintelliAU

35

gcnce arc required. We must reassess what it is we want to protect, and we must reassess the threat at all levels, to include special emphasis on both domestic and foreign non-governmental actors. We must institute comprehensive new means of coordinating and controlling our law enforcement, intelligence, and counterinieliigence resources, to include oversight mechanisms and the firm protection of the rights of our citizens. If we do not design and implement this new and comprehensive program, then we will leave at risk our most precious strategic assets: our population, our infrastructure, and our scientific & technical leads. None of the above three challenges can be met without developing an information technology strategy which is national in scope, comprehensive (integraung telecommunications, computing, and production across government and private industry as well as academic lines), and visionary. We simply cannot afford to perpetuate the continued fragmentation of systems development and continued investments in labor-intensive computing systems which do not optimize the integration of available applications and capabilities. We must aggressively pursue means of exploiting all available sources of data, both classified and unclassified. The establishment of a responsive requirements system within our government, one which acknowledges the importance of open sources and also focuses resources on gaps rather than We cannot be content with simply 'cutting back' across the board. Realignments must occur, and occur quickly. repetitive collection against the same static interests, is critical to the development of informed national acquisition strategics and the articulation of national interests. Ifwccannof'shortenourloop" in the acquisition and exploitation of knowledge, we simply will not be able to Summer/Fall 1990

identify multiple challenges and oppor- from base a full forty percent - twenty per tunities within our multi-polar and multi- cent to new initiatives tailored to the dimensional world in time to be effective. emerging threat, and twenty per cent to BASIC research & development in critiLastly, if we are to meet the first cal areas such as artificial intelligence, five of these challenges, we must develop cognitive mapping, and the general thea process for realigning resources in this ory of cybernetics. We must also protect era of radical change. We cannot be the mission/program manager respondcontent with simply "cutting back" ing to strategic direction from Congress across the board. Recognizing new and the President, and buffer them from needs, developing new initiatives, and intermediate authorities seeking to funding research & development in all undermine if not destroy new initiatives. dimensions will be critical to our strategic longevity. The complexity and lethality of the emerging threat, and the severely constrained fiscal environment within Realignments must occur, and which we must plan for national security, occur quickly. We in the national intelli- require vision, energy, a commitment to gence community should plan on giving cross-agency and service cooperation, up any increase over base, and taking and an understanding of Third World

perspectives, such as we have never been willing to muster. Top down strategic guidance will probably not be forthcoming before FY 92, if then; in the interim, "bottom up" common sense, and individual efforts to move in these directions when we can, may be our best means of continuing u> earn the "trust and confidence" of our President and our public. We in the intelligence community, like it or not, must play a leadership role if then national security community is to responsibly decide how to train, equip, and organize its forces and capabilities for the 1990's. ********************

GTE

GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS CORPORATION Electronic Defense Communications * Intelligence Communications Architectures * Systems Integrator for: - PORTS Imagery Communications - Wideband Multilevel Security Systems * Intelligence Communications Interface Design (Ada) * INFOSEC / COMSEC Systems * LPI/LPD Special Communications Systems Intelligence Communications Center 9400 Key West Avenue Rockvitte, Maryland 20850 Tel: (301) 294-8517

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Summer/Fall 1990

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DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTIVITY IN THE 1990'S: EXECUTIVE OUTLINE R. D. Steele

Special Assistant U8MC Intelligence center 18 May 1991

Budgetary constraints, competing Service requirements, and the projected drop over the next 20 years of qualified applicants will reduce the number of people available to perform defense intelligence missions in the 1990's. If defense intelligence is to meet the challenges of the 1990's with a smaller workforce, the productivity of the remaining people must be dramatically improved. "Productivity" can be defined as the optimization of knowledge, time, product mix, process mix, and organizational structure to accomplish the mission. Building blocks for productivity increases include: -- As Individuals Quality of new hires and retention of most productive workers1 - Quality of tools provided employees 1 To some extent the issue of attracting and retaining quality employees goes in a vicious circle: good people are needed to create good products which in turn justify funding of good tools which in turn attract the best people. At this point a strategic "leap of faith" is needed; only top-level support for a ma-ior investment in the RECAPITALIZATION of the intelligence infrastructure will lead to adequate intelligence capabilities in the 1990's and beyond.

Quality of training & education as veil as general work experiences provided each employee1 Quality of employee interaction with customers (policy-makers/commanders) Quality of employee access to data (both open source 6 classified, in all media - hard & soft text, voice/ imagery/ graphics 6 mapping data) Quantity and criteria of compensation/ allowing employees to properly support a family/ own a home/ and fulfill personal goals —

As Members of a Group -

Facility of interaction among employees (including voice & electronic mail/ ready identification of others with common requirements & interests)

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Quality of employee management (including reduction of middle management positions and INCREASE of management attention to strategic direction)3

2 The importance of travel as well as training & education cannot be exaggerated. Under current circumstances employees are deprived of travel opportunities both because of budgetary constraints/ and because the false urgency of "current" requirements causes their managers to cancel travel in favor of day to day production. The intuitive understanding essential for analysis & forecasting can only be developed in the field. Training & education are the other half of the equation - it is foolish to expect good analysis from individuals whose professional frames of reference are ten to twenty years out of date; only a strong program of continuing education will keep analysts current - the best analysts WANT more training. 3 There is no reasonable prospect for most military intelligence officers of achieving general officer rank; there is also no reasonable prospect for the best qualified civilians to achieve super-grade status. Intelligence cannot solve this fundamental lack alone; both civilian and military intelligence professionals must be integrated into operational and policy

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Flexibility t timeliness of recognition system (including both tangible cash and intangible award system)4 Over-all quality of employee environment (including especially the provision of parking/mass transit, health/shower facilities/ and a commitment to a non-smoking environment) Flexibility & timeliness of position management permitting rapid re-training/ re-location, or outplacement for unproductive employees5

The employee of the 1990's will be the "knowledge professional" (sometimes called the "gold collar worker"): such an individual cannot be directed or managed in accordance with standard operating procedures; they are productive only to the extent they feel responsible for and are interested in their work; —

management's challenge will be to create an effective

positions in such a way as to permit them to both impact on operations and policy "from the inside", and to qualify for general officer/super-grade status as generalists, not just as intelligence professionals. 4 Civilians are warriors also. Defense civilians should be eligible for all awards and medals, and recognized as frequently as their military brethren. 5 Experts in human productivity such as Peter Drucker and Robert Carkhuff emphasize that there is no such thing as an unsalvageable employee - virtually everyone wants to excell and be recognized. Too frequently employees fail because management cannot afford the time or the expense of properly training, equipping, and organizing individual employees. Defense Intelligence in the 1990's must devote resources to recapitalizing its human element. EEO gains can be protected by emphasizing EEO priorities in relocating i retraining specific individuals.

channel for their productivity, determining "what" they do and "who" they communicate with, and to concentrate less on specifying "how" they work.

In the Age of Information: productivity increases come from handling information more efficiently;' humans win remain the primary means of transforming raw data into information; and --

•

improved information technology applications are the primary means of enabling humans to be more productive at this task.

Strategic directions which should be pursued include: —

Emphasize data availability to the analyst (both in terms of timeliness ft comprehensiveness) -

Digitization of hard copy inputs

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Open source exploitation strategy

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Automated routing/flagging of relevant data

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Multi-level security and cross-Service, crossAgency on-line data access7

' Stress must be placed on the fact that this does not mean more production, it means better more relevant, timely, and ACTIONABLE production. 7 The trade-off between security & the value of free access to information can be reduced through the implementation of multi-level security programs and the development of artificial intelligence programs which routinely sanitize & declassify information for possible human validation & release. In cases where "sources & methods" are involved, it is possible to use REVERSE POINTERS which inform the owner of the sensitive information of a query, permitting a tailored response as appropriate. Right now the multiple pipelines of unintegrated information (both by intelligence discipline and by organization) are shackling the ability of our government to understand the

—

Emphasize global unrestricted data flow - Online connectivity between Country Team, analysts, and policy-makers - Complete review & restructuring of defense communications to eliminate dedicated channels and accommodate digital mapping data, video teleconferencing, secondary imagery dissemination, and multi-media electronic mail - Analyst access to "operational" traffic - Automated sanitization as required

—

Emphasize decentralized data exploitation - Decentralized collection management with priority to the Country Team and Theater Commander - Decentralized production management with emphasis on "living" documents and databases

—

Emphasize data-based policy -

Automation of "historical memory" through digitization of pertinent records and creation of selected expert systems

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Insistence on valid updated "threat" being considered at each milestone in acquisition process as well as force structure and training evaluation

Emphasize increased data products and direct access by consumer (policy-maker & tactical commander) to organized data - No more collection for sake of collection; new systems must program resources for processing & dissemination - Mo more production for sake of production; "type" products are less important than capability to emerging threats of the 1990's.

desktop publish answers to specific questions in near real time* Policy-maker must be able to access intelligence electronically/ in near real time/ and must be able to "drive through" intelligence data at different levels (e.g. hypermedia branching) Importance of top-level emphasis on the optimization of employee potential cannot be over-stated: Quality of individual employee will affect frequency & depth of "sparking" and intuitive insights Quality of tools provided each employee will affect quantity of data reviewed/ reliability of review/ and quality of analysis process Quality of training provided each employee will affect currency and breadth of analysis Quality of employee access to customers and data will affect relevance and timeliness of analysis as well as accuracy of analysis Facility of interaction among employees will reduce redundancy and inconsistency while increasing crossService/ cross-Agency joint perspectives

* Among other implications/ this suggests that "current" production is over-emphasized/ as is the requirement for analysts to "produce" a hard-copy publication. Much more could be done in developing a cadre of both military and civilian analysts and foreign area officers who work together to create country or region-specific "skunk works" able to develop long-term strategic and operational understanding of core issues. The ability to quickly answer any specific question based on both intuition and depth of understanding should be prized above the ability to put "data dumps" out the door. Today we emphasize products which force the consumer to choose what to read and what to believe; we should be moving toward a "live" interaction between consumers/ analysts/ and information which leads to education, insight/ and dialogue.

—

Quality of employee management and over-all quality of employee environment will affect retention rate and productivity

Specific recommendations for improving productivity of defense intelligence employees: '—

Quality of People

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Implement a joint Civilian Intelligence Personnel Management system (CIPMS) and convert all civilians to a single joint Defense intelligence career pattern Provide early retirement incentives for civilians

in select Defense intelligence positions which either require sacrifices beyond the norm (e.g. clandestine HUMINT)/ or which must be realigned to permit creation of new capabilities - As productivity improves within Defense Intelligence, reduce dependence on external assistance - channel savings toward improved tools, training & travel, and compensation -

Increase funds available for civilian pay and allocate those funds on a meritorious basis rather than as an across the board pay increase

- Provide for each analyst to spend at least 30 days a year in training and/or travel to foreign countries - Provide for each analyst to procure personal copies of professional books and materials as desired and to retain such materials —

Quality of Tools - Establish a generic intelligence analyst's workstation along the lines of the CATALYST Project at the Office of Scientific £ Weapons Research, Central Intelligence Agency* - Provide central system planning & procurement

' There is no equivalent Defense Intelligence example. Neither DODIIS CMW, EMERALD, LATIN, SIMS, KISS, RAPIDE, nor Other systems are as mature in either their functional requirements or their integration of artificial intelligence applications.

assistance to the ten new intelligence facilities10; do not rely on DIA/DS for this service - E8D/MITRE and CATALYST could "bootstrap" tool situation -

Increase funding and accelerate schedule for development of multi-level security system enabling global on-line connectivity of operators, analysts, and non-government experts"

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Establish an Open Source Committee at the Intelligence Community Staff level

- Fund a global program of open source exploitation (perhaps jointly with business) which leads to the near-real-time digitization of foreign SST and general interest publications

—

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Establish a central repository for open source data (perhaps jointly with a major university) which enables the business and academic communities to increase national productivity through online access to foreign information

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Establish a standard optical disk dissemination media and work toward minimizing hard-copy products

Quality of Management & Environment

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Encourage managers to facilitate direct analyst access to individual policy-makers and commanders

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Train managers to serve as bridge-builders and communicators

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Compensate managers based in part on independent evaluation of their subordinates' production Establish as a critical performance objective for all managers the task of recapitalizing their tools in order to maximize employee productivity

" USMC INTCTR, USCG INTCTR, TRANSCOM, SPACECOM, FORSCOM, NORAD, JTF 4, JTF 5, JTF 6/ NNIC. 11 The absence of multi-level security systems remains the greatest obstacle to most of the productivity initiatives discussed in this paper; without multi-level security the analyst will not be able to fuse all-source intelligence and will not be able to communicate with analysts at other agencies and useful but uncleared points of contact outside Defense Intelligence.

8

Ensure minimum space and amenities standards are adhered to in accommodating intelligence personnel; Move as much of the intelligence infrastructure as possible outside the national capital area in order to restore basic quality of life for most employees11 Establish a standard analytical vork environment consisting of furniture and equipment including a personal printer and access to a production copier/ a high performance scanner, and distributed processing capabilities Bottom Line: Objective management of intelligence in the 1990's with require firm emphasis on quality: in people/ in tools, and in access to and sharing of data within the government. Expenditures must be evaluated in terms of their contribution to over-all defense intelligence productivity/ not simply in terms of relative cost within isolated services or Agencies.

11 This goal does not conflict with the equally important need to increase analyst interaction with consumers. Direct online consultations and secure voice access• as well as videoteleconferencing and routine visits to the KCA, will permit achievement of both goals.

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