It's been a while since former veteran intelligence officer * Michael Tanji has posted here at DANGER ROOM. *We're glad to have him back.
**The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently released their new vision for the future of the spooks and spies community.
And, shockingly enough, it's actually pretty smart -- sparking a bit of optimism for those who think serious change is too long in coming.
It's a more far-reaching document than I have seen come out of the IC
(Intelligence Community) in the past. The parts about supplying intelligence to everyone from the Departments of Health and Human
Services to international organizations to private sector and non-governmental organizations were especially heartening.
That said, it still doesn't reach far enough. Everyone in the IC
likes to say that we're in a period of unprecedented and extensive change. If that's the case, I'd expect the response to match the challenge. Some suggestions:
- Reducing the size and workload of various agencies. Too many agencies are doing too much of the same thing. Some competition is good, but internal community competition isn't real competition: its cannibalism. If it doesn't deal exclusively with classified information, give it to a university or think tank or contractor. If you are in the information business you ought to be using the best resources period -- not duplicating an existing effort simply because its people are not cleared. That's particularly the case with OSINT, open source intelligence, which so many now say is the source of first resort.
- Focus and streamline agency missions. If the community is truly going to a mission-centered as opposed to an agency-centered operating model, then smaller and more focused (perhaps even fewer) agencies are the future. If the primary reason for existence is some sort of collection platform or capability -- satellites or flesh-and-blood information -- stick with it and ditch the rest. Signals and imagery
collection is unique and valuable; associated analysis is valuable as well, but it doesn't need to be done in a strictly SIGINT
or IMINT house. When every agency is a mini-CIA, specialty is diluted unhealthy competition arises. - __Open the OSC to outsiders.
__ If OSINT truly "holds more promise" and is
"critical to the future success" of the IC, then it's time to tapping OS-Analysis as well as collection. Some vetting is necessary of course. But the emphasis here is not on
"clearing" people from a security sense; it's making sure you're getting people with the experience, insight and intellectual chops to make a contribution. A "trusted" blogosphere if you will. It's time to stop pretending the IC has a lock on brains, and that pretense may be in fact be fading. - Reform publication and productivity. Full-color, finished products with an agency seal on the top (whether hard or softcopy) are dinosaurs. They are not timely, only nominally collaborative and limited in scope, scale and functionality. If any consumer globally cannot access it via the appropriate wiki (a nod to classification issues); if any analyst cannot update it in near-real-time; if it is not interactive, it does not provide decision advantage or on-demand capability, and it does not allow you to effectively manage your knowledge. Working exclusively online is also a more effective way to track meaningful contributions and effective collaboration; solving critical aspects of the workforce management and reward /retention problems.
- __Accountability. __ Short of wholesale, radical change, the IC is still a bureaucracy of bureaucracies and bureaucrats (in the best sense of the word) will only implement reforms if there is incentive to do so. This means every reform agenda item has to be the only agenda items people need to comply with. If faced with doing what will drive a promotion, raise or bonus and what is nice to do if there is time/resources/energy, people will always do the former over the latter. Unless there is a hard cut-off on these issues, there will always be a very good (in an individual's eyes) reason for not making it happen.
- Seek and promote innovators. Hiring an outside thinker like Rod Beckstrom is an interesting test case. But it's too little, too late. We should have 4-5 years worth of examples of the IC plucking the visionaries and innovators from outside and inside the community (pulling a Marshall when necessary) and putting them in key positions to implement change. The standard pipeline and process for promotion does not reward the sorts of "trouble-makers" and disruptors that are going to bring about the equivalent of Google or Firefox to the intelligence business.
I've read a lot of these documents in the past, even lived through some of them. The end-results were always mixed and usually fell far short of the aim point. The fact that the drafters actually put some fairly radical and far reaching words down on paper – and it made it to the final version – suggests to me that there is a serious shift in thinking underway. Talking about it and making it happen are two different things, but in a business where words on paper are used to justify a wide range of legitimate and questionable actions, this is as close as we're going to get to nailing theses to the church door.
-- *Michael Tanji, cross-posted at ThreatsWatch.org*
