The Primary Value of Restoring a Healthy Relationship Between Intelligence Agencies and the Academic World is a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs

Abstract

The Primary Value of Restoring a Healthy Relationship Between Intelligence Agencies and the Academic World is a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs

Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, USA. mmandregg@stthomas.edu for presentation to the intelligence studies section of the ISA, March 25, 2002.

This long-winded title derives from two fundamental goals. On the positive side, I’d like to have better access to information resources of my national government, because my opinion on why wars start matters in various places and I’d like that to be better informed. I’ve studied the causes of war for 23 years, and written one, national award-winning book on the subject. But I am still like a child just beginning to understand. Watching about 30 conflict zones all the time leaves the single observer thin everywhere, and it would be great to have easier access to detailed information compiled by my government with it’s vastly greater resources.

On the negative side, there have been many intelligence failures the last few decades, some very serious with grave consequences for thousands or even millions of people, depending on how you count them. And it is very obvious from outside that distortions of perspective and data is the root reason why, brought on by the same system that keeps certain secrets so well. Examples include the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan with consequences obvious to all by now, the unpredicted fall of Iran, and later of the Soviet Union, and the ongoing failure really to comprehend why so many people around the world hate America despite many good things we have done. It is not all just envy, important though that factor certainly is.

So, there are the issues of accuracy of analysis, and of timely warning of dangerous events. Another, related question has occupied my time recently, prompted by discussion at these ISA meetings last year. How can we get more wisdom into the official products of national intelligence agencies?

To answer this question requires some awareness of how wisdom gets screened out of such assessments and recommendations. It is not a conscious process, that’s for sure – all involved are doing the best they can to serve their country within systems that often prevent success. Remembering that I have no security clearances and have declined to sign the nondisclosure agreements necessary for such clearances (to preserve my own clarity of thought, and credibility in polite society), I have reached the following conclusions among others. All involve, paradoxically, restrictions on information available to the professional intelligence analysts and executives who think that because they have special access to “secrets” that they must then have access to more data than the open world.

As Gregory Treverton has noted more eloquently, the obsession with keeping secrets tends to crowd out the goal of figuring out what is really going on and what to do about that.