Therefore, through numerous examples, we see how intelligence is paramount in scenarios of warfare but does not win wars on its own. This also means that states and generals should not overly rely on intelligence because it can never be a hundred percent accurate and winning a war or gaining the upper-hand in a battle requires much more than foreknowledge.
Although intelligence is important aiding generals and armies to win wars, it also helps statesmen to formulate foreign policy. Foreign policy is simply explained as the activity whereby state actors act, react and interact. Foreign policy has been termed a boundary activity. The term ‘boundary’ implies that those making policy overlap two environments: an internal or domestic environment and an external global environment. The policy-makers and the policy system stand therefore at these junction points and seek to mediate between the various interpretations. Conventional wisdom might want to suppose that foreign policy is made on the basis of rational calculations of advantage and disadvantage with the policy-makers acting as a unified system. This is, to say that policymakers use the findings of intelligence organizations to gain insight into the capabilities and possible reactions of other states in order to formulate a policy which gives them an advantage. Intelligence plays a major role in the policy-making process but it is interesting to see the extent of the influence of intelligence in foreign policy making. Does Intelligence, in fact, ‘shape’ foreign policy?
Alexander George in “Presidential Decision making in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice” asserts that to formulate optimum policies in any given circumstance, decision makers formulate questions, and then seek out information sources that will get them info information that allows them to make what he terms “high quality decisions.” Such decisions are where “[decision makers] correctly weigh the national interest in a particular situation and chooses a policy or an option that is most likely to achieve the national interest at an acceptable cost and risk.
“As a governmental function, the intelligence process and product are normally shrouded in secrecy. As an intellectual enterprise, the mission of strategic foreign intelligence involves understanding past events, accurately interpreting current conditions, and predicting the future. The product, or result, of such intellectual efforts can be an influential factor in foreign policy decision making. Adding to the complexity of the subject is the fact that intelligence techniques have been utilized for a wide and disparate variety of foreign policy functions in war and peace, ranging from espionage for the purpose of collecting secret data needed by analysts, to interference in foreign elections, and through deception and sabotage, to political assassination and paramilitary adventures.”
The importance of intelligence in foreign policy formulation is the equivalent of a chess player knowing his or her opponents next move. If the opponent’s next move can be found out beforehand, the player could formulate his or her move according to the opponent’s move, thereby having the strategic advantage. In foreign policy formulation, covert intelligence into the actions and possible reactions of other states could prove important in formulating a successful foreign policy and also help in implementation of that policy. For example, if intelligence organizations get information that a state would react in a bad way to a particular policy change, policy-makers would look to change their policy in order to avoid strife between other states. This would then help to implement that policy successfully.
“The proper relationship between intelligence gathering and policymaking sharply separates the two functions. The intelligence community collects information, evaluates its credibility, and combines it with other information to help make sense of situations abroad that could affect (U.S) interests. Intelligence officers decide which topics should get their limited collection and analytic resources according to both their judgments and the concerns of policymakers. Policymakers thus influence which topics intelligence agencies address but not their conclusions they reach. The intelligence community, meanwhile, limits its judgments to what is happening or what might happen overseas; avoiding policy judgments about what (the United States) should do in response.”
Intelligence has an important but not conclusive role in support of the policymaking process. In his report to the 1996 National Performance Review, then-Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch stated “The United States intelligence effort shall provide … [decision makers] with the necessary information on which to base decisions concerning the conduct and development of foreign defence, economic policy, and the protection of United States national interests from foreign security threats.”Intelligence agencies collect information, process and analyze it; they then disseminate analytical products to officials throughout the government. Policymakers, however, base their decisions on a wide variety of factors, including available intelligence, but also on their own assessment of the cost and benefits of a course of action or inaction, considerations of geopolitical objectives, ideology, available resources and diplomatic risks are some of the variety of factors well beyond the purview of intelligence agencies. Even when official justifications for a chosen course of action highlight the conclusions of intelligence estimates, there are usually multiple factors involved. Intelligence may be good or bad and policies may be good or bad, but in the real world good policy may be made in the absence of perfect intelligence and sound intelligence may not preclude making poor policy. “This is not to say that intelligence is irrelevant to policymaking, but that it is invariably imperfect because hostile foreign countries and groups work hard to mask their capabilities and intentions, and many factors are inherently unforeseeable. Also, intelligence agencies do not always perform at maximum effectiveness.”
As for the extent of the influence of the intelligence community on policy makers, the heated debate about the United States entering Iraq is interesting to evaluate. Put quite simply, the argument is two-sided: did America and her coalition of allied countries step-in to Iraq after intelligence sources said Saddam Hussein had capabilities to launch Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)? Or did the policy-makers act on a pre-determined plan to invade Iraq and use intelligence as a way of legalizing their policy?" If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war-or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath.” In my opinion, The United States had a pre-determined plan for Iraq and used intelligence findings to legalize their intervention and assure the American public that what they were doing was for national security. If this was he case, then intelligence did not shape foreign policy; it merely acted as a way of proving that the policy was legal because the state was acting in the interest of national security. Paul R. Pillar in his article “Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq” talks about the relationship between Intelligence and foreign policy saying, “The Bush administration’s use of intelligence on Iraq did not just blur this distinction; it turned the entire model upside down. The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting and evidently without being influenced by and strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq…. As the national intelligence officer for the Middle East, I was in charge of coordinating all of the intelligence community’s assessments regarding Iraq; the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war.”
Leaders and policymaking officials make key foreign policy decisions and have an “intense commitment to the success” of their policy, according to the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in an article on the relationship of intelligence and policymakers. If intelligence challenges the assumptions of policy, Wolfowitz suggests that intelligence must emphasize the evidence, laying out the facts and their relationships. The analyst should also be prepared to defend their position.
The role of intelligence in foreign policy making and implementation can be seen in cases such as the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the in Vietnam War. When U-2 a spy plane belonging to the United States Air force took photographs of missile silos and bases in Cuba, policymakers decided on a blockade of Cuba to prevent any more Russian troop build-up and to stop the missile bases from being operational. Here, there are two main area of discussion. One is how foreign policymakers in the United States used the intelligence they had gathered to successfully put a stop to the USSR’s placement of missiles in Cuba. Although intelligence proved paramount, American foreign policy towards Cuba and USSR at that time was not the best of friendships anyway. Intelligence did not, therefore, make foreign policy but merely helped policymakers to identify what had to be done and aided them in the process of adjusting and implementing foreign policy. The other is how the USSR tried to use their intelligence sources to gain a launching pad for their missiles in Cuba. In the Vietnam, policies by the Americans were made without any consideration about what intelligence reported. The book “CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes 1962-1968,” by Harold P. Ford talks about how intelligence estimates were deliberately slanted to suit policymakers. Ford criticises showing how many failures in intelligence and its misuse by policymakers “noting particularly how some ranking agency officers skewed estimates to tell President Johnson what he wished to hear."
Policymakers have to rely on information to mitigate uncertainty, and they heavily rely on data and analysis from the intelligence community for that support, but this reliance can create friction with several key fundamental unwritten-laws of the intelligence community. The problem lies with the term ‘support’ which “for policymakers means a shared and active interest and, if necessary, advocacy [of a policy] … which runs counter to the intelligence community’s long standing position not to advocate any policy.”The intelligence community strongly holds that taking an advocacy role by shaping foreign policy instead of the policymaking people will destroy the perceived reputation of intelligence for being objective, which is vital to preserving its credibility as an information support body. Intelligence does not shape policy; it only facilitates the making of a successful foreign policy and its implementation. Henry Kissinger told senators considering his applications for Secretary of State in 1973 that “Anyone concerned with national policy must have a profound interest in making sure that intelligence guides, but does not follow, national policy.”
The Intelligence community always operates hand-in-hand with policymakers. Without this close relationship, the intelligence community would not know what to search for and policymakers wouldn’t know what the intelligence community was searching for. Talking about the American Intelligence-policy connection, Richard N. Haass, Director for policy planning staff in the Department of State says, “Intelligence is knowledge and analysis designed to assist action. Information and insights that do not “assist action” remain lifeless. Successful intelligence, therefore, requires a mutual understanding between policymakers and the Intelligence Community that is all too often lacking. Policymakers need to ensure that the Community is not working in a vacuum, that analysts know what is on our minds and what questions we need answered. At the same time, members of the Intelligence Community have a responsibility to seek out policymakers, understand their concerns, and tell them what they should be paying attention to. It is important to tell policymakers what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.” This shows that intelligence would not achieve anything if it operates separate from policymakers and the foreign policymaking process. The closer the relationship between policymakers and the intelligence community, the better the understanding will be and therefore, intelligence would be more relevant and foreign policy would be more informed and thus, more affective. It is thought that if intelligence is too close to policymakers, it could become influenced and biased to what the policymakers want them to find. “Although [intelligence community’s] distance from policymakers may be needed for objectivity, closeness is needed for influence. For most of the past quarter century, intelligence officials have striven for greater closeness, in a perpetual quest for policymakers’ ears. The lesson of the Iraq episode, however, is that the supposed dilemma has been incorrectly conceived. Closeness in this case did not buy influence, even on the momentous issues of war and peace; it bought only the disadvantages of politicization.” Analysts must constantly, persistently, and, if need be, annoyingly press to get close to policymakers and peer over their shoulders to see what is on their agenda. And when they see that something critical is missing from that agenda or when policymakers are neglecting an issue that analysts know to be relevant and significant analysts must impress upon policymakers why they should pay attention to it. Although policymakers rely on intelligence, for a policymaker, “the [intelligence] analyst whose product casts any doubt on the probable success of the policy becomes a member of the enemy camp.”
Jake Blood, in his book “The Tet Effect: Intelligence and the Public Perception of War” talks about Sherman Kent’s views on intelligence and objectivity says that “Proper relationship between intelligence producers and consumers is one of the utmost delicacy .Intelligence must be close enough to policy, plans and operations to have the greatest amount of guidance, and most not be so close that it loses its objectivity and integrity of judgment…The analyst cannot afford to buy in to current policy; to do so would bias the analysis. But at the same time Kent believed that the analyst could not afford to work in a vacuum; the analyst needed guidance. The raison d'être for intelligence is to be used in the making of decisions. Leaders make decisions. Intelligence must know and understand what issues are being wrestled with and what information is needed to help the leader make their decision. Intelligence, like a book that is never opened, has no purpose unless it is used”.
“Intelligence agencies cannot operate in a vacuum. Like any other service organization, intelligence agencies must have guidance from the people they serve. They exist as a tool of government to gather and assess information, and if they do not receive direction, chances are greater that resources will be misdirected and wasted. Intelligence agencies need to know what information to collect and when it is needed. They need to know if their products are useful and how they might be improved to better serve policymakers. Guidance must come from the top. Policymaker direction should be both the foundation and the catalyst for the work of the Intelligence Community.” Intelligence is too often regarded as “someone else’s responsibility” because it is distanced from the policymaking officials and think-tanks. Also each separate intelligence agency must have a close relationship between each other. This would understandably avoid overlaps and each intelligence organisation could specialize in a particular area, therefore being more effective.
Policymakers who constructively use information to the best of their ability always try to obtain as much information as possible to support their decision making process, and traditionally have used the intelligence community as their most valued source. History has shown that policymakers to succeed need support from intelligence. For many policymakers, “if intelligence analysts do not do the work of keeping up with developments overseas that the decision makers need to know about, [the analysis] does not get done.” It has always been in the self-interest of policymakers to seek out the relevant intelligence analyst who supports them, informs them, and helps them keep up with a broad range of developments they could not possibly follow on their own. Richard N. Haass says in “Supporting U.S foreign policy in the post 9/11: Policymakers and the Intelligence Community” that “The Intelligence Community produces good literature, but in order to produce results, analysts have to get much closer to the policymakers. This is not so much a matter of bureaucratic structure or organization as it is of practice and professional culture. I appreciate the tradition in the Intelligence Community that insists that analysis should be insulated from policymaking in order to prevent politicization. But, in my experience, an even greater danger to intelligence analysis is irrelevancy. The Intelligence Community’s product can be less relevant than it should be because analysts do not understand what is really on the policymaker’s mind, so they address the wrong questions— or, when they have the right questions, their intelligence fails to have the impact that it should because their answers do not reach the policymaker in a timely fashion or digestible form.”
Policy officers and leaders normally have much knowledge in their own right, so that union of knowledge to action is only in part limited to occasions when intelligence submits its interpretations to the policy mind. “There can grow a more continuous relationship of intelligence to policy, a relationship in which the two sides seek a running familiarity with each other's needs and views, and in which the contribution of intelligence is cumulative and organic.”
Therefore, we see that intelligence does not operate in a vacuum. There is always interaction between the intelligence community and the policymaking officials and departments. Put quite simply, the intelligence community needs to know what to look for and the policymakers should know what the intelligence being gathered is about; at all times. Although, as stated above, some consider that intelligence and policymaking should be distanced due to the fact that intelligence could get politicised or influenced by political-minded persons, it does not mean that intelligence and policymaking should be or is completely separate. In reality, intelligence cannot operate in a vacuum. As a good example for this, Allan Evans, in an article for “World Politics” says that “If the intelligence system is functioning properly, its relationship also goes far beyond occasional or intermittent contact with policy over a self-contained "problem." In Departmental staffs, intelligence officers theoretically maintain almost daily contact with their operating opposite numbers. They may in actual fact participate widely in the network of staff meetings and working groups which generate concerted policy reactions and initiatives in the face of the world's changing contingencies.”
As a conclusion, one could say that, although intelligence does not win wars, does not shape foreign policy and does not operate on its own, it still proves to be an inseparable part of the process of the making and application of policies. “The general effect of intelligence knowledge is (also) to incline national governments to behave better, in international security terms, than they would without it. Most of the intelligence collection that contributes to this knowledge operates over long distances and is unspecific in its targets. Intelligence as a whole tends to improve international society and does not introduce new tensions within it; it is an unprovocative form of national power.” Although intelligence does not win a war on its own, we see that it proves vital to know what the enemy’s plans might be, and, coupled with good commanding, intelligence could increase the chance of victory. As on the battlefields, intelligence also plays a major role in the foreign policymaking process, but only provides useful information to policymakers who shape foreign policy decisions. Intelligence never operates in a vacuum and always operates in close contact with policymakers. Therefore, intelligence and the intelligence community’s tireless work is vital for policymaking and implementation of foreign policy; in peacetime and in warfare.
Bibliography
-
Micheal Herman ,Intelligence power in peace and war., 1996, Cambridge University Press, UK
-
Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice , 1980, Westview Press, Colorado
-
Allan Evans ,Review: Intelligence and Policy Formation. World Politics,( Vol. 12, No. 1.) Oct., 1959
-
L. Keith Gardiner, Studies in Intelligence, Volume 33, Number 2, “Dealing with Intelligence-Policy Disconnects,” 1989 , Central Intelligence Agency, McLean, VA.
-
Jake Blood, The Tet Effect: Intelligence and the Public Perception of War, 2005, Routledge, Oxon
-
Harold Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962-1968, 1999, U.S Government Printing Office.
-
John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to al-Qaeda, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 2003
-
Richard N. Haass, Supporting US Foreign Policy in the Post-9/11 World ;Policymakers and the Intelligence Community, (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article01.html)
-
Lorne Teitelbaum, (dissertation) The impact of the Information Revolution on Policymakers’ Use of Intelligence Analysis, 2004, Pardee RAND Graduate School. (http://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/2005/RAND_RGSD186.pdf)
-
Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq, Foreign Affairs, 2006
(ttp://www.foriegnaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html)
-
U.S Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearings, “Nomination of Henry A. Kissinger”, 93rd cong., 1st session, (Washington D.C)
-
John Deutch, Direction of Central Intelligence, speech to the World Affairs Council, “The Future of U.S. Intelligence,” 1995
-
George T. Tenet, Consumer’s Guide to Intelligence, DIANE Publishing Comp., 1999
-
Richard Best Jr., U.S Intelligence and Policymaking; The Iraq Experience, CRS Report for Congress. 2006. (http://italy.usembassy.gov/pdf/other/RS21696.pdf)
-
The Need for Policy Guidance (www.gpoaccess.gov/int/pdf/int007.pdf)
-
Ronald H. Spector, Does Intelligence Make and Difference?, Reviews in American History, Vol. 14, No. 3. 1986
-
Walter A. McDougall, [Untitled], The Journal Of Modern History, Vol. 58, No.4, 1986
-
Bantarto Bandoro, Interplay between RI foreign policy and Intelligence, Jakarta Post, 18th Feb 2004
-
Judith Miller, A Battle of Words over War Intelligence, The New York Times, 23rd Nov. 2003
-
Roger Hilsman Jr., Intelligence and Policy-Making in Foreign Affairs, World Politics, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1952
-
Richard N. Haass, Policymakers and the Intelligence Community in this Global Era, Remarks to CIA Strategic Assessments Group Annual Conference, Delaware, 2001.
-
Jack Davis, Paul Wolfowitz on Intelligence Policy-Relations, Studies of Intelligence, Vol. 39, No. 5, 1996
-
Harry Howe Ransom, Strategic Intelligence and Foreign Policy, World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 1., 1974
John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to al-Qaeda, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 2003
John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to al-Qaeda, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 2003
Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice , 1980
Harry Howe Ransom, Strategic Intelligence and Foreign Policy, World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 1., 1974
Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq, Foreign Affairs, 2006
. George T. Tenet, Consumer’s Guide to Intelligence, DIANE Publishing Comp., 1999
Richard Best Jr., U.S Intelligence and Policymaking; The Iraq Experience, CRS Report for Congress. 2006
Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq, Foreign Affairs, 2006
Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq, Foreign Affairs, 2006
Jack Davis, Paul Wolfowitz on Intelligence Policy-Relations, Studies of Intelligence, Vol. 39, No. 5, 1996
Harold Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes, 1962-1968, 1999
John Deutch, Direction of Central Intelligence, speech to the World Affairs Council, “The Future of U.S. Intelligence,” 1995
U.S Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearings, “Nomination of Henry A. Kissinger”, 93rd cong., 1st session, (Washington D.C)
Richard N. Haass, Supporting US Foreign Policy in the Post-9/11 World ;Policymakers and the Intelligence Community
Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq, Foreign Affairs, 2006
L. Keith Gardiner, Studies in Intelligence, Volume 33, Number 2, “Dealing with Intelligence-Policy Disconnects,” 1989 , Central Intelligence Agency, McLean, VA
Jake Blood, The Tet Effect: Intelligence and the Public Perception of War, 2005, Routledge, Oxon
The Need for Policy Guidance
Lorne Teitelbaum, (dissertation) The impact of the Information Revolution on Policymakers’ Use of Intelligence Analysis, 2004
Richard N. Haass, Supporting US Foreign Policy in the Post-9/11 World ;Policymakers and the Intelligence Community,
Allan Evans ,Review: Intelligence and Policy Formation. World Politics,( Vol. 12, No. 1.) Oct., 1959
Allan Evans ,Review: Intelligence and Policy Formation. World Politics,( Vol. 12, No. 1.) Oct., 1959
Micheal Herman ,Intelligence power in peace and war., 1996, Cambridge University Press, UK