Reshaping Intelligence in an Era of Excess Information

Changes in technology and in the international system have transformed the intelligence business. For some areas, like Iraq, secrets still matter, but for most, there is too much information, not too little. Collecting information used to be the problem; now the task is selecting items of value from torrents of data. The challenge facing U.S. intelligence is no less than it was in the Cold War, but it is now vastly different for agencies coping with the transition to beyond the Cold War.

During the Cold War there was one key target--the Soviet Union. Now the world is one of threats that are dangerous and numerous but, paradoxically, hard to define. The bewildering array of threats includes drug traffickers, terrorists and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction--a list that is, and will be, difficult to rank. Moreover, the amorphous and unstructured nature of many of these threats makes it a challenge for intelligence agencies to locate and identify them accurately, or collect accurate information on their intentions and the magnitude of their capabilities.

The Soviet Union and its allies were closed societies, and thus U.S. intelligence agencies had a virtual monopoly on the information that was collected, whether by spies, communications intercepts or satellite photographs. While these tools and the collection of secret information remain important (need one look beyond Saddam Hussein’s Iraq for proof?) intelligence of the future will have to adapt to a world where information is exploding-- doubling in two years or less.

This increased information comes from Gregory F. Treverton, who directs the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND, is working on a book, “Reshaping Intelligence for the 21st Century.” Kevin M. O’Connell, who formerly worked for the National Security Agency, manages intelligence programs at RAND.

an explosion of sources that include commercial news services, commercial satellite imaging systems, the World Wide Web and experts and charlatans with direct e-mail access to top policy-makers. While secrets still will be important in some places, the disappearance of most “denied areas” and the multiplying of information technologies mean there will be far fewer secrets to collect. Whereas collection was the problem of the past, selection and validation will be the problems of the future. In other words, as the relative value of secrets declines, spying will become less necessary, and simply analyzing information will become far more important. Intelligence must play a major role in the processing of all forms of information for decision-makers--so policy remains based on knowledge, and not just data.

Basic shifts of both focus and resources are imperative if U.S. intelligence is to remain relevant. Among the priority issues that the intelligence Community leaders need to address are the following:

* Emphasize analysis over collection. The analytical functions of the intelligence community should be reinvigorated, even at the expense of new collection. Policy-makers need clarity--not more information. Collection of secrets will become less important, while the need for better analysis will increase. Moreover, analysis will need to move beyond immediate tactical questions to help policy comprehend a changed world, perhaps through modeling and simulations that take into account many different perspectives and futures. Issue-oriented centers within the Central Intelligence Agency, such as the nonproliferation center and the counter-narcotics center, should be given more analytic talent, and new analytic centers need to be created that deal with issues such as space and information security.

* Restore balance between military and civil issues. The intelligence community in recent years has stood up to the challenge of supporting new concepts of warfare developed in the Pentagon. This includes sharing intelligence with U.S. partners in multinational military operations and peacekeeping missions, as well as developing collection and dissemination mechanisms to support American troops and weapons in the field. Yet, devoting intelligence resources to supporting troops has come at the expense of supporting government agencies such as the State Department, whose job it is to forestall conflict. While “support to diplomatic operations” and other similar concepts are heard more in Washington these days, some substantial thinking and resources must be put behind them. Beyond diplomacy--where tactics have been greatly altered by the information age--new emphasis must be placed on intelligence support to economic, law enforcement and environmental communities, based on the nature of emerging international threats to U.S. security.

* Encourage innovation in technical collection. Information collection using satellites and other technical means will still be necessary to uncover information that foreign governments and other transnational actors seek to hide. Yet, the intelligence community’s current toolbox--satellites, listening posts and embassy activities--are well known by our adversaries. New technical systems must be developed with an emphasis on creative solutions to the community’s problems, and yet be flexible enough to adapt to new and emerging targets that will be the hallmark of the post-Cold War world. From incorporating new, commercial technologies for single-purpose collection, to the improvement of sorting and processing capabilities, to the collection of signals closer to their source, given encryption, the intelligence community will have to balance risk carefully and gain in pursuit of important technical solutions. Investments in technical collection must stress cross-discipline flexibility, rather than be wasted on more of the single-function collection systems of the past.

* Reinvigorate human intelligence. The nation’s spy service, the CIA Directorate of Operations (DO), is in deep trouble. A clear irony of the information age is that the explosion in the volume and sophistication of communications means that signals intelligence information just may not be available, or not available in time. Imagery may be thwarted by concealment or other traditional countermeasures, and intentions can rarely be read from photos. This means the DO needs to be reshaped and focused on the primary targets--terrorists and proliferators. The DO also requires a change in philosophy toward greater efficiency and accountability, as well as a change in operations--as the new targets rarely frequent the embassy cocktail-party circuit. Information technology can and should give the DO new approaches and abilities. Yet we should not delude ourselves about this newfound importance--human intelligence remains as difficult as ever.

These steps would begin to address the final challenge of the revolution in intelligence. Intelligence during the Cold War was a world apart, set off by compartments of tight secrecy. Now it must open up in both directions--both toward the concerns and security agenda of the policymakers it serves, and toward the world outside of private citizens and scholars, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. These are now not just occasional colleagues but are rather at the heart of how intelligence needs to do its job. That is true even in areas where secrets would seem to loom large--such as in terrorism or nonproliferation.