FIVE HUNDRED DAYS

Via Organization Theory and Collaboration Blog, I see that the DNI, has a 500 day plan to greater IC integration (hat tip Jesserwilson). OTC's "wilsonml" summarizes:

"Each of the focus areas has a set of core and enabling initiatives:

1. Core: treat diversity as a strategic mission imperative; implement civilian IC joint duty program. Enabling: formalize National Intelligence University; improve recruiting, hiring and retention of heritage americans; develop an intelligence enterprise exercise program; improve foreign language capability; strengthen recruiting relationships with colleges and universities; complete design, begin development of an IC performance-based pay system; catalog and connect IC human resource capabilities.

2. Core: enhance intelligence information sharing policies, processes, and procedures. Enabling: create a single information sharing environment; implement attribute-based access and discovery; provide collaborative information technology to non-IC partners; and establish a single community classification guide.

3. Core: create collaborative environment for all analysts; establish National Intelligence Coordination Center. Enabling: Develop common standards and guidance for HUMINT activities; strengthen foreign intelligence relationships; expand hard target integrated collection strategies; develop IC-wide collection management tools; strengthen analytic tradecraft across the community; improve and expand use of the National Intelligence Priorities Framework; and strengthen science and technology analysis capabilities.

4. Core: Implement acquisition improvement plan. Enabling: build an IC technology transition plan; complete the stand-up of the IARPA; establish a systems engineering and arhitecture group; and develop an agile acquisition requirements process.

5. Core: modernize the security clearance process; and align strategy, budget, and capabilities through a strategic enterprise management system. Enabling: analyze and improve IC relationships with clients; collaborate to protect privacy and civil liberties; identify a common core human resources information system; and improve the IT certification and accreditation process.

6. Core: update policy documents clarifying and aligning IC authorities. Enabling: Define Director of Defense Intelligence authorities, roles and responsibilities; update DOD intelligence agency charters; develop a capstone IC doctrine and lexicon; foster integration and collaboration in the IC legal community; harmonize IC policy on “U.S. Person” information; revise and enhance the national intelligence policy process; and submit annual intelligence authorization act proposal."

Sounds great in terms of reforming structure and process, if not strategic vision or analytical methodology. Ambitious. Perhaps it will come out better than the last well-intentioned 500 Day Plan to transition a massive and unwilling, Cold War era, bureaucratic superstructure.

Labels: dni, IC, intelligence, national security

  ¶ 10:05 AM 1 comments

  UNFOCUSED MUSINGS

I'm tired and mentally foggy but still have an itch to blog a little, so I'm going to do something I don't usually do outside of twitter - microblog!

Shloky was justly praised for Naxalite Rage. Not a conflict of which I know much about but Shlok will help get me up to speed.

Wikinomics is a book worth the time spent reading, despite my not being a fan of "business lit". It bridges those constraints to also be a " big idea" book.

Regarding the Mukasey hearings, the Left seems less interested in stopping intrusive electronic surveillance of Americans than it does of throwing up abstruse procedural delays to monitoring foreigners who are suspected Islamist terrorists living overseas in third countries. The Liberal Democrats in the House have so voted:

"Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter did something unusual however, in the hearing on legislation to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--she announced at the start of the hearing that no amendments of any type would be allowed for debate. Committee Democrats followed Slaughter's lead and voted against amendments to: authorize surveillance of those engaged in the creation of Weapons of Mass Destruction; authorize surveillance of foreign terrorists outside the United States; extend liability protection to telecommunications companies that relied on government directives and shared information deemed necessary for protection from terrorist attack; and, allow a debate on the Bush administration's alternative."

Hat tip to Bruce Kesler.

This is why, despite everything the Bush administration has done wrong in Iraq, that the Democrats still have a " national security problem" with the public. Frankly, they always will ,so long as the Boomer-Left remains generationally dominant in that party.

Labels: book, IC, intelligence, kesler, national security, rambling, shloky, wikinomics

  ¶ 8:13 PM 5 comments

  THE SIREN CALL OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

Via Kent's Imperative, I learned that George Friedman of Stratfor is now blogging. KI also has a critique of Stratfor itself, a taste below:

"Stratfor thus stands somewhat apart from the rest, as an independent shop in continuous operation for over a decade. But in that decade, its track record has been exceptionally unsteady. It first made its bones during the Kosovo crisis, with unique new information sources (in an area where few shops had anything at all) and the occasional innovative but solid analytic line. Its attempt to act as a “global” shop in the mould – and even, boastfully, claiming competition with – CIA, did not fare so well over subsequent years. Occasionally, they have a good piece. But often their analysis reflects their hiring strategies, which Friedman himself proudly holds up as an ideal model – the selection of young students, fresh from university, with no prior intelligence experience. Stratfor claims this allows them to build new analysts with no “bad habits” that might have been learned in the intelligence community. However, it ensures that they have a workforce that will always lack substantive experience, creating a shallow bench on accounts. This can be quickly and professionally fatal on hard targets, or when they step into areas in which existing analysis is a career long affair for an entire analytical sub-specialty (such as oil market dynamics). While we are great believers in the value of the beginner’s mind, and of the importance of Smoking Mirror, we think Stratfor’s approach goes a bit too far."

Personally, I have never been as high on Stratfor's products as other bloggers in the foreign policy/intel/military/national security area (nor have I ever slammed them, for that matter), my preferences running toward RAND, The Jamestown Foundation, PINR and several other think tanks. I tend to mentally segregate Stratfor in an unnamed category alongside Seymour Hersh and Yossef Bodansky but many rungs above MEMRI and the DEBKA file. I'll read what they had to say and go "Hmmmmmm...." Perhaps this is unfair; I candidly admit this arises from an intuitive prejudice or instinct on my part rather than any kind of systematic analysis and if anyone cares to argue otherwise, I'll give them a fair hearing in the comment section.

I'm not really intending to post on comparative value of analytical sources, however. What I found interesting in this bit of information was that Dr. Friedman, already having a substantial platform in Stratfor, arrived at the conclusion that blogging would, nevertheless, be a value-added activity for his ROA ( "return on attention"). Why ?

My guess is the interactivity and connectivity/network-building of blogging is a qualitatively different medium for broadcasting information from the very Web 1.0 Stratfor. One that reaches an audience of potential allies, not mere consumers of information.

Labels: analytic, blogging, IC, intelligence, kent's imperative, Stratfor

  ¶ 7:37 PM 5 comments

  APPLIED NEUROLEARNING

My copy of The Mislabeled Child by Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide, that I ordered through work last spring, finally arrived the other day ( Use private sector Amazon.com, the book arrives in a few days. Use an educational bureaucracy and it arrives five months later). I have been looking forward to reading this for some time ( literally).

The Drs. Eide, in addition to being authors, clinicians and researchers, also have two excellent blogs, The Neurolearning Blog and The Classical School Blog, where they share their professional expertise and deep interest in enhancing learning for children, particularly those in outlier populations with special needs. The Eides have been less active in the blogosphere this year but The Neurolearning Blog is one of my few daily "must reads".

It's a moderately thick text with an impressive bibliography for a book written for laymen rather than specialists. I look forward to diving in and learning something new!

Labels: attention, blogroll, book, brain, cognition, creativity, education, eide, ideas, intellectuals, intelligence, metacognition, science, teaching

  ¶ 6:14 PM 0 comments

  AN INTELLECTUAL CALL TO ARMS

Justly praising The Small Wars Journal, Kent's Imperative raises an idea up the flagpole. Who will salute ? "Micheal Tanji...Tanji....Anyone....Anyone ?"

I'll kick in something of journal quality, outsider's perspective of course, if that will help fill space. I strongly suggest, however, inviting some ex-DCI's for the launch issue. Also, Baer, Scheuer, Bearden.... Christopher Andrew or another " popular" historian of intelligence for name rec, street and academic cred ( umm..maybe Tanji and Scheuer shouldn't be in the same issue). Mix people on the MSM radar with unknown but great IC insiders.

If you ask 100 and get 10, you're viable.

Labels: haft of the spear, IC, intelligence, kent's imperative, small wars journal

  ¶ 9:53 PM 0 comments

  MICRO ROUND-UP ON THE CIA'S IG REPORT

Here's the news story.

The SWJ Blog links to the IG Report executive summary. (PDF)

Here are a few reactions ( originally, I planned a wide spectrum of blogospheric opinion but found too much of it to be simpleminded, partisan, blather, so I stuck with the available informed commentary):

Haft of the Spear:

"They are basically saying that not only were parts of the system broken, anyone with half a wit should have been able to see that and take action (or at least raise an alarm). That no one bothered says that either leadership was not all it was cracked up to be, or that the way the system treats squeaky wheels is such that no one - witless or not - thought raising a stink was worth the risk. Stupidity and fear, fortunately, are not excuses."

Sic Semper Tyrannis:

" The CIA like the DIA failed miserably to penetrate the apparatus of the takfiri jihadi networks. Such penetrations would have enabled the US to anticipate coming jihadi actions.
Once again it will be said that penetrating these groups is "too hard to do." Rubbish. I know better. Why were these groups not penetrated?

Timidity. Fear of Risks, Bureaucratic inertia. Poor leadership at the top in all the significant organizations. Has anything changed? I doubt it. If it had, bin Laden would be dead by now."

When a system is fundamentally broken you do not need to simply look for loose bolts or missing parts or even a new mechanic ( though firing an old one might be a useful message to send to their replacement) - what you do is find some engineers and a drawing board.

Labels: al qaida, CIA, defense, foreign policy, IC, intelligence, national security, terrorism

  ¶ 8:19 PM 2 comments

  JUDGMENT DAY

An interesting confluence of information has crossed my computer screen in the last 24 hours.

Fabius Maximus was kind enough to send me a PDF, "Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks" by Eliezer Yudkowsky, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. It's a very interesting paper on analytical thinking - or s even though a number of the points made by Yudkowsky I have seen previously made elsewhere ( the blogosphere revels in hyperactive disconfirmation biases). Their central cognitive philosophy - "....the one whom you must watch above all is yourself", is spot on.

Secondly, over at Kent's Imperative, one of the Kentians, let's call them "Most Formal Prose Kent" had a highly congruent post to the Yudkowsky paper, "The sins of analytic methodologists ":

"There is an increasingly common conceit that reliance on the analyst - subject to, cognitive bias, information overload, and human fallibility – can be engineered out of the process of doing intelligence. Instead, certain methodologists would substitute organizational structures, workflow re-organization, and the introduction of supposedly superior quantitative metrics in order to create a new standard for “answers”. The underlying thrust of these efforts is to reform intelligence activities towards a more “repeatable” process, often described by industrial or scientific metaphors such “foundry” or “lab”. These typically originate from the engineering and technical intelligence disciplines, and are usually directed as criticism of typical all source efforts – particularly those grounded in social science fields or qualitative methodology.

...The fundamental flaw in many of these methodologists' efforts is that they are essentially reductionist attempts to force the difficult and oft-times messy art of intelligence entirely into the narrow box of its scientific side. While there is a place for scientific approaches, particularly in the grounding and validation of assessment, the inherently creative, non-linear, and even non-rational elements of the profession can never be completely discarded. Most recent intelligence failures have occurred, not due to a lack of precision in judgment, but from a lack of imagination in identifying, describing, and forecasting the uncertain dynamics and emerging complexities of fast-changing accounts."

Sagely described.

Clear thinking is difficult. Few of us begin by checking our premises or, sadly, our facts. Even in the domain of the concrete and verifiable factual information, so much rides on our implicit opinion of what exactly, in terms of data points, constitutes a " fact" that we are usually off-base before we begin. Even if we are cognizant of these variables from the inception of forming a question, we might be horrified to discover, with some dogged investigation of the finer details, how fuzzy at the margins that even our peer-reviewed, "valid and reliable", facts can be - much less the breezy assertions delivered by the MSM.

Then, more to the point of the KI post, there is the hasty selection of particular, reductionist analytical tools that a priori blind us to the nature of the emergent unknown that we are trying to understand. We become prisoners of our chosen perspective. One problem with human perception is that there is no guarantee, having recognized the existence of a novel dynamic phenomena, that our perception represents the most significant aspect of it. Much like conceptualizing an Elephant in motion from blind contact with it's eyelashes. Or it's feces.

Human nature is a perpetual rush to judgment. We must rise above that.

Labels: analytic, bias, cognition, counterintuitive, fabius maximus, gaussian, IC, insight, intelligence, kent's imperative, psychology

  ¶ 7:08 PM 0 comments

  ADDED TO THE BOOKPILE

Labels: 21st century, book, cognition, education, futurism, horizontal thinking, howard gardner, insight, intellectuals, intelligence, psychology, theory

  ¶ 10:15 AM 6 comments

  ANALYSIS IS A TWO-EDGED SWORD



The other day, Dan of tdaxp objected to my appreciation of logic as an analytical tool in the comment section:

"Humans are pretty terrible logical reasoners, so relying on logic doesn't do much. Expertise comes from analogical reasoning, which allows faster processing, more reliable rejection of bad options, and effortless cognition in general."

I agree with much of Dan's statement. Most people are highly illogical and emotional in their decision-making process and not a few, though still a minority of the population, remain concrete thinkers their whole lives. We could not get anything done without cognitive automaticity kicking in to gear; having to consciously, sequentially, reason out the steps of every action would leave us exhausted before breakfast. My only quibble with Dan would be to replace "expertise" with "insight" or "creativity" as many variables, including the effects of chance, go into accumulating an experential base of knowledge. That is a minor divergence, for like Dan, I am an advocate of the benefits of synthesis, analogies, metaphors, horizontal thinking, metacognitive reflection and intuitive cognition - those forms of thinking that are generative of new insights.

I have also seen many complaints recently in the blogosphere about the negative effects of analytical thinking, if overused or abused, in these cases by lawyers, the profession most noted for elevating analytical reasoning above the factual variables to which the reasoning is to be applied. Here's one:

From Kent's Imperative:

"Worse yet, we detect a discernable strain of legal thinking which now seeks to impose restrictions not only on the collection of information, but on its use. The idea that a warrant might be required to search against previously accumulated foreign intelligence materials sounds absurd, but recent legal opinions appear to have laid the groundwork for such an argument in future cases. This would also be very nearly absolutely fatal in the context of fusion and collaboration for homeland security intelligence purposes (particularly if critical elements of the intelligence picture are obtained from foreign intelligence activities of DOD and other agencies, as if often the case.)

We have long maintained that the mindsets of the lawyer and the intelligence professional are diametrically opposed. The first seeks to present a structured picture through adversarial argumentation, and by training attacks to exclude evidence from the picture to support a particular viewpoint. The latter struggles to understand puzzles and mysteries, and to assemble a coherent narrative in the face of incomplete, conflicting, and deceptive information in order to support the decision-maker’s choices regarding courses of action. Allowing the lawyers to dictate further the key aspects of the world of intelligence – and allowing intelligence activities to be framed into an “investigative” basis rather than continuing inquiry into matters of standing interest – will be the death of the profession."

Analytical thinking is a tool for reductionism. It helps you take the watch apart and explains how the gears fit together. It can identify broken parts and quantify performance. Analytical thinking works well in this instance because a mechanical watch represents a closed system with limited boundries. What analytical thinking can't do, being an interruptive, destructive, activity is conceptualize an alternative way to tell time or arrive at Einstein's insights about Relativity. For that you require a constructive, generative, pattern of thinking.

Used incorrectly, and analytical thinking often is because more people can analyze than synthesize well, it can destroy group dynamics and productivity through " paralysis by analysis". The downsides of all options become the most significant variables and opportunities are lost. Used correctly, to fine-tune, trouble-shoot, tweak and better adapt, analytical thinking can prevent disasters.

Labels: analogy, analytic, cognition, horizontal thinking, intelligence, kent's imperative, logic, tdaxp

  ¶ 7:31 PM 4 comments

  BRIEF MUSINGS

I'm preparing to leave town on another trip and find myself overstretched in terms of time but I have to note that Kent's Imperative had some intriguing posts up ( hat tip to Michael Tanji) , about which I'd like to offer a few comments:

"Life at Google from an outside perspective"

Aside from seeing how uber-techies live and making me nostalgic about past years of reading defector-dissident Soviet bloc lit, I'd like to highlight this passage regarding a KI suggestion to the IC for personnel reform:

"A chance for line level workers to do the kind of intel they want to do (versus the latest crisis they have been thrown into), at least part of the time? Or to contribute to the literature of intelligence? (Modeled along Google’s 20% time.)"

My unqualified guess is that this would increase the productivity and prescience of the IC by roughly the same proportion that expanding private farming helped the Chinese economy under Deng Xiaoping. People typically generate their most valuable insights about those subjects which they are both curious as well as passionate - i.e. earlier in the learning curve than the status of graybeard authority ( once you think you know everything, you tend to stop learning).

The bar to doing this is not a manpower shortage but a middle-management fear of subordinate autonomy. Forcing a talented subordinate to do irrelevant busywork confirms a manager's authority and power. Autonomous subordinates who do self-directed productive work tend to confirm the irrelevance of middle-management. Few managers have the psychological wherewithal to be adept facilitators, mentors or coaches of gifted employees as an efficient "management" outlook is an inimical perspective to generating creativity and sustaining " unproductive" exploration.

"Regional versus functional issue accounts"

From a historian's perspective, a cool post ( perhaps less interesting to others). Some historiography, lots of methodology. Money quote/conclusion:

"As for our opinions on the great divide between the two kinds of houses, we find ourselves veterans of uniquely transnational issues, having been subject to every manner of surge and task force and working group and crisis cell, in the most unusual of niches. We prefer to see small, aggressive, ad-hoc structures comprised of both analysts and operators from a wide range of issues and regional desks with interests and equities in the same target which overlaps their accounts. Only then, by throwing everything against the wall in a structure short lived enough to avoid its own bureaucracy, and disconnected enough to be (at least partially) immune from the day to day politics within a given agency or office, have we found the kind of answers we sought regarding the great questions of process.

We strongly believe such radically unstable and short lived environments are most effective because they are the very manifestation of Schumpeter’s process of creative destruction. It is certainly no way to create a sinecure, nor even to build a long term career path – but it is the best way we have found to generate new and innovative approaches and answers to hard target problems, and to the problems others have not yet begun to identify let alone address."

Hear, Hear! Very strong agreement in a John Arqilla-esque vein.

It will happen but not until after several more disasters force that kind of transformation or an unusually bold and subtle visionary implements it on the quiet. There is far too much bureaucratic inertia because the vested interests prefer paralysis in which they hold the reins to successful action where they become recognized for the marginalized support staff they really are.

In my turn, if any KI gents happen upon this post, I suggest they look here. From this acorn of an idea, an oak will grow. Mark my words.

Labels: analytic, CIA, haft of the spear, IC, ideas, innovation, insight, intelligence, kent's imperative, networks, social networks, synthesis, tanji, theory, visualization

  ¶ 8:25 PM 3 comments

  INTELLIGENCE, PUZZLES AND MYSTERIES



Gregory F. Treverton writing in the latest issue of The Smithsonian:

"Risks and Riddles"

"During the cold war, much of the job of U.S. intelligence was puzzle-solving—seeking answers to questions that had answers, even if we didn't know them. How many missiles did the Soviet Union have? Where were they located? How far could they travel? How accurate were they? It made sense to approach the military strength of the Soviet Union as a puzzle—the sum of its units and weapons, and their quality. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of terrorism changed all that. Those events upended U.S. intelligence, to the point that its major challenge now is to frame mysteries....

....Puzzle-solving is frustrated by a lack of information. Given Washington's need to find out how many warheads Moscow's missiles carried, the United States spent billions of dollars on satellites and other data-collection systems. But puzzles are relatively stable. If a critical piece is missing one day, it usually remains valuable the next.

By contrast, mysteries often grow out of too much information. Until the 9/11 hijackers actually boarded their airplanes, their plan was a mystery, the clues to which were buried in too much "noise"—too many threat scenarios. So warnings from FBI agents in Minneapolis and Phoenix went unexplored. The hijackers were able to hide in plain sight. After the attacks, they became a puzzle: it was easy to pick up their trail. Solving puzzles is useful for detection. But framing mysteries is necessary for prevention. "

This article, though written for a general audience, struck a number of chords with me. Specifically:

* "Noise" is an important consideration in an era of attention scarcity economies. Eliciting a surge in " white noise" by unrelated third parties ( say disinformation that sends pro-lifers off on a media campaign and in turn, energizers their pro-choice enemies to respond, diverting the attention of the general public to "X" degree) is useful camoflague. Purpleslog had a deservedly well-received post at Dreaming 5GW on " the Puppetmaster" as a "5GW Archetype". Such a mentality would cultivate media noise the way the KGB once set up and subsidized endless Communist front groups in the West.

* Uncertainty is relative. Some "mysteries" are more decipherable with a change of perspective, scale or temporal framework; others represent questions of deep uncertainty. Imaginative scenario planning exercises can help pattern recognizers familiarize themselves with latent possibilities ( Neo-Eurasianism ? Pan-Turanism ? A derivatives-driven implosion of globalization? Eco-extremist bioterrorists longing for planetary genocide?).

We need radical thought experimentation.

UPDATE:

IT security expert Gunnar Peterson has already covered this base well but from a different angle:

"Vulnerability Puzzles and Mysterious Threats"

"Risk differs from uncertainty in that risk may be measured and managed whereas uncertainty may not. Risk management efforts hinge on this important distinction because it highlights differences where a team may be more proactive. For instance, many vulnerabilities are known, hence they may be measured and managed whereas the threats to a systems contain a greater degree of uncertainty in that the threat environment contains numerous elements such as threat actors that one’s organization can not directly control."

Labels: 5GW, analytic, cognition, Ic dreaming 5gw, intelligence, theory, uncertainty

  ¶ 9:15 PM 3 comments

  DOES THE IC NEED TO FIND THE "TEACHABLE MOMENTS"?

From Kent's Imperative:

" The potential implications of this study are of interest not only to those that must manage the effective instruction and mentoring of the next generation of analysts and officers, but there are tantalizing suggestions that similar dynamics may be at work when finding a successful briefer. Given that most decision-makers tend to be more extroverted, and outcomes oriented, the tendency of these individuals to rely more heavily on rapid conclusions drawn from initial thin slice impressions weighed against their own knowledge and experiences, is likely to be even more pronounced than the average student."

Educators have a concept among themselves, known as " the teachable moment" that is somewhat difficult for most outsiders to grasp (though sucessful salesmen, preachers, orators and litigators may recognize it). There is a particular place in time when a presenter of memes and the entirety of the audience to which they speak can meet and, for an instant, merge. Perhaps an accurate descriptor might be " synchronized cognition". In any event, like a wave, where there had once been darkness there is light; where ignorance had ruled, suddenly, insight reigns transcendent.

These moments are rare though accomplished instructors have a record of igniting them. Some became legendary life-influencers. Carroll Quiqley's lectures at Georgetown on the nature and historical legacy of Platonic philosophy, the classroom antics of uber-physicist Richard Feynman , Chicago philosopher Allan Bloom's master-mentoring of his students all were directed to a larger point and yielded ripples of effect far beyond their classrooms that have outlived these scholars themselves.

The IC is of course, not quite the same thing as an academic setting but the cognitive aspect is not unrelated and the stakes are far higher as briefers deal with top level policy maker "customers" who themselves, often, have an impressive store of experience and analytical capabilities of their own ( and very little time available to engage with the briefer). It was probably a fairly nerve-wracking experience for a CIA analyst to have to brief Secretary of State George Schultz with unwelcome news. Or a Zbigniew Brzezinski or any number the more formidible personalities of the Cold War era. Yet at times, briefs created historical tipping points such as the NIE that predicted a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, IMINT analysis of U-2's flying over Cuba and most famously, George Kennan's "Long Telegram" which was less a diplomatic cable than an analytical tour de force by the leading Soviet expert of the Foreign Service.

Briefing has it's teaching aspects and if briefs of unimpeachably solid intelligence are not creating the impact that the substance merits, then it might be time to study techniques of delivery instead of writing off poor results and a lack of influence to "politics" alone.

Labels: academia, analytic, CIA, cognition, cold war, consilience, history, IC, intelligence, kent's imperative, teaching

  ¶ 7:47 PM 0 comments

  MUSINGS ON THE CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE

Read a few things this week that gave me pause on the subject of intelligence.

Kent's Imperative - "Network analysis in historical contexts"

The Small Wars Council - " Blackwater Brass Forms Intelligence Company "

Bill Sizemore - "Blackwater brass forms intelligence company"

Total Intelligence Solutions, inc.

The longitudinal implications here are very interesting.

First, the privatization of American professional intelligence by companies former CIA and other IC veterans is the " white" mirror-image of the " black" downsizing and privatization of Eastern Bloc intelligence professionals during the 1990's where you had ex-KGB mafiya clans and ex-Yugoslav pros running international safecracking rings.

The cream of this group ( typified by TIS) will always be closely tethered to the official IC by virtue of steady Federal contracts and media scrutiny. The problem is going to be with the marginal PIC's of uneven or uncertain performance which, before too long, will be found in some decidedly "gray" areas in order to maximize profit ( or sustain financial solvency).

The antics of the subpar quarter are what may bring about loud calls for regulating an industry that exists primarily because of the prior legal constraints and bureaucratic compliance that has calcified the official IC. This in turn will lead to the use of unofficial, sub rosa, networks that are pulled together ad hoc and paid off of the books, possibly by private sources.

Assuming this is not being done to a considerable extent already.

Labels: blackwater, IC, intelligence, kent's imperative, pmc

  ¶ 7:45 PM 3 comments

  JACKSONIAN AND OTHER RESPONSES: EXTENDING THE CONVERSATION

Bruce Kesler at Democracy Project asked me to respond in greater detail to the critical feedback that the post on Modern Foreign Policy Execution sparked, in particular, Dave Schuler's post that I linked to yesterday and to a detailed treatise by Kurt Hoglund at The Jacksonian Party. Bruce has kindly put my remarks up in his post "The Difficult We Do Today; The Impossible Just Takes A Little Longer" where he expounds on the need for reform of foreign policy structure to be a task for which we must take the long view but for which steady pressure must be applied. Bruce explains:

"Schuler’s skepticism is warranted, but self-limiting. As we used to say in the Marine Corps: The Difficult We Do Today; The Impossible Just Takes A Little Longer. That’s not meant to infer that our foreign policy become Marine-like in spirit, but to suggest that focus and organization coupled with faith in mission will overcome.

....I believe that although difficult, and the impossible will take a bit longer, that one inevitable result of our current troubles will be the development of a flatter interdepartmental foreign policy and execution that will be much more informed, prescient, coordinated, and effective."

I agree. This is going to be politically difficult because we are proposing taking some power away from senior Washington mandarins - both in the positive as well as the liberum veto sense - and moving it to the experienced field hands who will be collectively given the financial independence ( perhaps by initiating " foreign policy block grants" instead of line-item departmental appropriations) and tasking authority to accomplish foreign policy objectives. If ever seriously proposed by a president ( even in watered down form), there will be an epidemic of apoplexy inside the beltway and every knife will come out to stop this reform from becoming a reality. Nevertheless, the weight of cultural evolution, technological innovation and globalization will continue rushing forward in the world whether bureaucrats like it or not. Networks are here, friendly and hostile and they must be engaged.

Regarding Mr. Hoglund's post, the "Jacksonians" occupy an aggressive but "swing" position in American politics according to the taxonomy developed by Walter Russell Mead ( a subject Dave has previously explored in his informative posts here and here). Their attitude might be epitomized by the military writer Ralph Peters - they are seekers of clean and clear victories and have scant patience for the building of nations. Despite my being more " Wilsonian" than is Hoglund, he has keyed on to the same problem that I have discerned (frankly, the current foreign policy process is going to produce mediocre results regardless of whether the president is a neoconservative adventurer or a dovish isolationist - the bureaucracies pursue their agendas under every president). An excerpt from "Taming the Turf Wars ":

"The topics cited in the Article I cover in Reforming the Intelligence Community, which looks at the massive and internecine 'turf wars' as the main problem for the IC and getting the best cross-specialization INTEL available for multi-level analysis and then synthesis of knowledge. This would require not only a complete overhaul of how work is approached, but remove the Agencies from the 'product ownership' area and put them into a 'skills management' role. By enforcing the idea that certain types of INTEL can stand alone, the entire IC is dysfunctional as there is no lower level cross-agency working system. Thus each Agency gets its own view of the INTEL it *has* but no ability to synthesize across many Agencies and outlooks. Here non-traditional INTs such as economic and agricultural forecasting would also come into play for a full synthesis of necessary knowledge types available. By removing the Agency fiefdoms and making INTEL gathering and analysis a shared Community Level activity, the internecine turf wars are removed and Agencies are judged on how well they manage contributed skills within the Community at large, not how much work product and viewpoint they turn out. This does require moving clandestine ops back to something directly under Presidential control, like the old OSS. They can be sent to gather specific INT needs, but only with full knowledge and approval of the President."

Aside from my remarks that Bruce has published, the National Intelligence Council is supposed to help in the synthesizing process and was somewhat more aggressive in doing so, reportedly, under NID John Negroponte. Assuming that was the case, that synthesis is being layered on top of the analytical process, like frosting on a cake, rather than occurring in the mixing of the batter by the analytical " cooks". There people out in the blogosphere with direct experience working in the IC and the NIC who are better placed than I to comment further here.

A further point on synthesis, I had envisioned these field teams be appropriately IT-networked so as to allow continuous virtual as well as F2F collaboration. Critt Jarvis at Conversationbase, himself a former member of the IC community, responded with a post "Modern foreign policy execution needs mass collaboration", tying my idea to the principles enunciated in the networked book Wikinomics and to Dr. Barnett's A-Z Ruleset. Further and deeper exploration of the topic of the intersection of the IC with the tools of IT can be had by diving into the archives of Haft of the Spear and Kent's Imperative, both of which I heartily recommend.

Labels: foreign policy, glittering eye, intelligence, kesler, tech, the jacksonian party, wikinomics

  ¶ 8:41 AM 3 comments

  ZENPUNDIT GUEST POST AT DEMOCRACY PROJECT

Through the kind invitation of my friend, columnist and former FPRI analyst, Bruce Kesler, the well-regarded blog, Democracy Project, is running a guest post "Modern Foreign Policy Execution" by your humble host, subtitled "Instead of Crowning a New Czar, Bush Should Ignite A Revolution", where I offer some suggestions for changing the decidedly broken interagency process for foreign policy. A brief excerpt:

"Secretary Rice rattled cages at Foggy Bottom by prioritizing Iraq assignments over the “old boy” network and PC concerns that dominated past FSO assignments, making official the informal practice that prevailed under Secretary Powell. Resistance by diplomats and bureaucrats to working in dangerous locales that are critical national security priorities remains unacceptably high. This is partly due to reasonable safety concerns but also stems from political opposition to administration policy and simple resistance to a synergistic mindset that requires housing “other agencies” in “their” embassies. Even the DIA has been credibly accused of holding back Arabic linguists from Iraq duty and of having managers who retaliate against analysts with Arabic skills who volunteer for Baghdad duty and of enforcing a “groupthink” company line in analysis. Frankly, this is no way to run a foreign policy in a time of peace, much less one of war. "

Read the rest here.

A personal aside: Bruce is a veteran of the Vietnam War and he has both an interest and some healthy skepticism toward the many newer military theories. One of those is 4GW, which I believe has utility for analysts, historians and statesmen as well as for military professionals. While I write about 4GW with some frequency, it is properly associated with William Lind, Martin van Creveld, Chet Richards, Thomas X. Hammes, "Fabius Maximus" and other writers featured at the excellent and always thought-provoking Defense and the National Interest.

Labels: bush, Democacy Project, diplomacy, foreign policy, intelligence, kesler, military, national security, networks, state department

  ¶ 7:59 PM 3 comments

  WISE AND STUPID CROWDS, CREATIVITY AND THE IC



So much to try and speed-read through after my brief respite from the blogging treadmill...

One of several posts that caught my eye today was by Steve DeAngelis at ERMB on "Groupthink: Good or Bad?"; not simply because I am a regular reader of Steve's and of Tom's but because the premium put upon organizational and individual creativity in the next quarter century will put the high octane in the term " information economy". That an "edge" thinker, with the "insider" prominence of Steve, is paying attention to creativity as a subject, bodes well.

[Parenthetical aside: Creativity has two poles. Dr. Richard Florida, whose blog I also enjoy reading, represents analyzing the effects of creativity in the societal and global aggregate. The individual, cognitive processing, aspect of creativity studied by Dr. Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi is equally, important to understand. The two perspectives, in my view, need to be comprehended and integrated for creativity to be properly cultivated, as they are intimately interrelated]

Steve writes:

"When groupthink becomes the dominant paradigm in a business it can crush innovation. Innovators rarely worry about group cohesiveness or getting along. They might not all be clear-eyed pragmatists either. Janis notes that groupthink results in the lack of realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. Innovators may be willing to take alternative paths but often those courses of action are not very realistic either. Since the invention of the Internet, critics have started to think about and define groupthink differently. They talk about the power of the many to outthink the few. Patti Waldmeir, writing last year in the Financial Times, discussed this other side of groupthink ["Why groupthink is the genius of the internet," 9 August 2006]. She begins with a short history lesson and a question:

"Friedrich Hayek, liberal philosopher and economist, was born in the 19th century. Did he accidentally predict the genius of the internet? Back in 1973, when not even the average nerd knew about the net, Hayek was writing: 'Each member of society can have only a small fraction of the knowledge possessed by all and ... civilisation rests on the fact that we all benefit from knowledge which we do not possess.' That certainly sounds like a manifesto for blogs and wikis and all the other smart collaborative tools of the information society. Like democracy, they are based on the wonderfully egalitarian notion that even the lowliest among us has something useful to contribute. But can that possibly be true?"

Of course, defining groupthink as "collective wisdom" is far different than defining it as everyone thinking alike. That, however, is how Waldmeir has chosen to define it."

Interesting. I'm not familiar with Waldmeir but my two cents here is that "groupthink" and "collective wisdom" share the common trait of collectivity but are not otherwise the same cognitive phenomena. The latter, as a market-like function, relies upon the sum of socially atomized interaction; the former is socially integrated interaction, a network or a hierarchy ( or both) which are very different from a market, at least those markets with no or minimal barrier to entry.

The problem with "groupthink" is not the formal or " official unwritten rule" requirement for everyone to march ideological lockstep. That characteristic is one easily recognized ( and cursed) by those participating within the system which enforces it. For relevant examples, read the historiography of Soviet Studies dealing with " nomenklatura", defectors and dissidents from Kravchenko forward, if not earlier. The real dilemma, the cognitive sticking point where the true damage is done, has to due with the institutional variety of what social historian Lawrence Goodwyn termed "the received culture". Another useful but highly inexact set of terms might be "worldview" or "paradigm", but writ small.

Any analytical journeymen who values his intellectual integrity is adept at spotting the ritual nonsense of their organization and compensating accordingly. A far more difficult task is self-awarenes in terms of discerning the implicit assumptions in which we have all been inculcated by experience and design. "The wisdom of crowds" functions primarily because anyone is able ( theoretically) to join the crowd at any moment. When that is no longer possible, the crowd grows increasingly stupid as the scenario upon which it is asked to pontificate, broadens and lengthens.

This has implications for America's intelligence community. The Cold War has left a peculair counterintelligence legacy known as " the background check", if you aspire to certain positions in the national security, defense and intelligence communities. It is expensive and redundant and, in many cases, periodic. It served a purpose when the US squared off against the Eastern Bloc. Today, the economic effect of this CI legacy is to slow the velocity of " new blood" into the IC and particular appointive positions to a crawl, which effectively " dumbs down" the "crowd", even in those instances in which the IC managerial hierarchy permits a "crowd" to function. Which, if you are a faithful reader of Haft of the Spear, you realize, ain't much.

Here's a wish, from a humble citizen out in flyover country, directed toward the uppermost G-somethings flitting around the new NDI: have someone with both real experience and political juice tackle revitalizing the creativity of the IC analytical process. I say " process" because I do not see this as a " people problem" but a bureaucratic one, the analysts have, as a group, good educations and fine brains.

Look for new ways to use them. Vigorously engage outsiders. Make the political case for novelty in methodology to both politicians and the public. Experimentation at this juncture beats cautious perfection.

Labels: creativity, deangelis, IC, insight, intelligence, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, richard florida

  ¶ 8:33 PM 1 comments

  ON BIAS AND THINKING

I'd like to juxtapose a couple of interesting posts that I have read this week that have bearing on how we select information that subsequently shapes our thoughts.

At Complexity and Social Networks Blog, Maria Binz-Scharf asks "How does the way we process information relate to how we search for it?". A key excerpt:

"Some days ago I attended a talk on human information processing by Thomas Mussweiler from the University of Cologne who spoke at the Columbia Business School. Mussweiler and colleagues conducted an impressive number of experiments on the mechanisms and influences of individual information processing. A simple example would be to ask you to determine your best athletic performance. You have two basic options: 1) You think of every single athletic moment in your life, i.e. you engage in absolute information processing, or 2) you compare what you recollect as some of your best performances to a given standard, e.g. a famous athlete’s performance (or a famous couch potato’s performance). Not surprisingly it turns out that comparison allows to process information in a more efficient manner.

Mussweiler went on to talk about various factors that influence the comparisons we make, most importantly the standards we employ for comparing information. His experiments used a technique called “priming” to activate certain standards – for example, subjects were asked to judge a trait in a person. The result shows that priming a trait concept (such as aggressiveness) will induce the subject to judge the target person according to that trait. In other words, once activated, standards are spontaneously compared to the target person."

This is very interesting. "Priming" would be an efficiency mechanism for rapid mental screening of a large number of things. It is also a "bias mechanism" that would strongly predispose you to see some evidence of what pattern you are looking for, even if it does not exist. It would be very much like the " Framing" of George Lakoff in its effect.

How to deal with that effect, our own unintentional biases or being targeted by zealous Lakoffian framers ? Metacognition might be a helpful technique, as suggested in the post "Strategic Learning: Metacognition and Metamemory" at The Eide Neurolearning Blog . The Drs. Edie write:

"High level strategic learning often requires constant self-regulation and error monitoring strategies, metacognition (thinking about the thought processes), sometimes specific memory techniques (metamemory or conscious thinking about memory)."

Such self-regulative monitoring provides a mental check against racing ahead with a dubious but attractive premise. It would also tend to derail the the likelihood of the amygdala becoming overly engaged in the heat of the argument and turning us into red-faced, sputtering, arm-waving, buffoons with a surge of emotionality.

Cross-posted to Chicago Boyz

Labels: bias, binz-scharf, cognition, eide, emotion, framing, horizontal thinking, intelligence, priming

  ¶ 7:47 PM 4 comments

  CALLING FOR AN IRON BROOM AT THE IC

Michael Tanji blasts "business as usual" in the intelligence community in a post at Threatswatch.

"All of these and countless other tales of institutional woe in our national security system can be traced to bad management. Those who share this view and have first-hand experience are loathe to call it “leadership” because leaders would have long since found a way out of the mess our hard- and soft-power institutions find themselves in. People who were on the job in national-security positions before 9/11 will readily divulge that nothing substantial has changed in the past five years; they probably log more hours, but the administrivia is as thick as ever and the security, budgetary and procedural morass – not to mention inter-agency in-fighting - is just as bad as it has always been. Those who joined after 9/11 have no frame of reference, but the fact that many are opting to vote with their feet indicates they know a bad thing when they see it.

....I have waxed and waned about the need to purge current management because it can be dangerous to paint with too broad a brush. However, this latest round of stories about business as usual in our national security apparatus has forced me to cast off any misgivings I might have harbored for throwing out a very small baby in a great volume of tepid, fetid bathwater. We should thank those who have served honorably for their time, energy and sacrifice, but their time is over."

Read all of it.

Labels: haft of the spear, intelligence, reform, tanji, threatswatch

  ¶ 10:40 AM 0 comments

  NIE NOT NEW

The much disputed Iraq NIE key judgments summary was released in an unclassified PDF version with a description of changes in analytical methodology. These were mildly interesting to me but any intel wonk types hoping for the addition of bold, untried, new analytical techniques are going to be disappointed. What was added should help enhance clarity for non-professional readers and make any artificial, imposed, analytical consensus look more...well...marginally artificial and imposed.

As for substance, the document is remarkable for its lack of surprises. There are complaints that the NIE has not taken into account the results of a successful surge campaign on Iraq. That is true, but the surge is a tactical manuver by the U.S. military that will not change the underlying strategic dynamic among Iraqi factions. It would simply create a zone of decreased conflict level and a breathing space for a negotiation of a political solution, it is not a political solution in itself. Someone actualy has to take advantage of what a successful surge provides.

The realism about the limits of regional actors (Iran, Syria, Turkey, KSA) to influence various Iraqi factions is worth highlighting as diplomacy, while useful, is not going to be a silver bullet, even if you assume the good faith of all interested parties. In my view, these states can offer real assistance (if they were inclined ) to the U.S. in containing Iraq's problems from spreading, but that's about the best that could be expected of them as it hinges on their own self-interest.

NIE LINKS:

Haft of the Spear

Labels: analytic, intelligence, iraq, mideast, nie

  ¶ 7:17 PM 2 comments