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This electronic representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for non-commercial use only. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. This product is part of the RAND Corporation technical report series. Reports may include research findings on a specific topic that is limited in scope; present discus- sions of the methodology employed in research; provide literature reviews, survey instruments, modeling exercises, guidelines for practitioners and research profes- sionals, and supporting documentation; or deliver preliminary findings. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure that they meet high standards for re- search quality and objectivity. Toward a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs Deborah G. Barger Approved for public release; distribution unlimited This report results from the RAND Corporation’s continuing program of self-initiated research. Support for such research is provided, in part, by donors and by the independent research and development provisions of RAND’s contracts for the operation of its U.S. Department of Defense federally funded research and development centers. This research was conducted within the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD), a division of the RAND Corporation. NSRD conducts research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Commands, the defense agencies, the Department of the Navy, the U.S. intelligence community, allied foreign governments, and foundations. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark. © Copyright 2005 RAND Corporation All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from RAND. Published 2005 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 201 North Craig Street, Suite 202, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-1516 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org/ To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: [email protected] - iii – FOREWORD Intelligence is often considered to be the most secretive function in our government. Yet, during the past decade, more than a dozen public commissions and panels made recommendations on how to reform U.S. intelligence given the end of the Cold War, the changing nature of ournational security environment, the need to respond to increasing technical and analytic complexity, and a number of perceived intelligence failures, including those surrounding the tragic events of September 11, 2001. At a time when "transformation" is underway in defense and other areas of government, intelligence must keep pace or run the risk of increasing irrelevance and potential decline. And, in whatever form change comes, it must ultimately remain focused on the key goal of intelligence--outthinking and outsmarting our adversaries. Deborah Barger is a senior intelligence officer who was and continues to be passionately interested in the topic of change in the U.S. Intelligence Community. During her year-long fellowship at the RAND Corporation, she focused intensely on possible antecedents for a "revolution in intelligence affairs" (RIA) in the areas of defense reform (i.e., the revolution in military affairs), private-sector reform, and intelligence reform and development during the period following World War II. Because of the risk that the RIA would be too easily targeted by grandstanders and pundits, Deborah worked quietly, carefully, and methodically to understand the true nature of those reforms and how they might inform an RIA. In this endeavor, she was assisted by dozens of individuals both inside and outside government, who all have an intense passion for improving the U.S. intelligence enterprise. By design, Deborah's research provides no specific recommendations on how to change U.S. intelligence organizations, operations, or approach to technology. The reader who is looking for a "quick- fix"recommendation, such as to close a specific intelligence agency, to build a specific satellite technology, or to hire a specific group or class of analysts, will be unsatisfied with this report. What Deborah - iv – has done, however, is to develop a framework for how the United States should consider specific changes to our intelligence enterprise, based on how those changes would improve the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence. Under an assumption that an RIA may already be under way, in part because of prior study, Deborah offers an intellectual framework by which to consider past proposals for change as well as future ones. The framework offered here provides a pathway for continuous change in intelligence, even in an increasingly complex world. The framework should help intelligence leaders and managers to do the following: • evaluate holistically proposed changes to a complex system (i.e., avoid fixing one thing while inadvertently breaking another) • evaluate proposals for change objectively and from something other than a political or bureaucratic perspective • develop their own proposals for change, driven by rapid changes in the external environment (rather than failures) • follow an approach that will help the Intelligence Community succeed in actually implementing needed changes, not once but continuously. Regrettably, the limited public debate that takes place today on U.S. intelligence either focuses on fear or failure, or pits various constituencies against each other, such as the debate that has emerged on whether the Intelligence Community needs more collection or analysis. In today'scomplex world, the United States needs better and more of both, but U.S. intelligence also needs to be more creative, adaptive, and risk-taking in how it pursues those two activities. The people who are most aware of this are the men and women of the U.S. Intelligence Community, who have worked tirelessly to meet the needs of a growing number of intelligence consumers, even in the face of increased mission complexity and an unprecedented scrutiny of what they do and how they do it. The framework offered here provides not only an intellectual foundation for change, but also an argument that real change can result - v – only from the emergence of many pockets of innovation rather than from any single individual or organizational entity. Since the time that she authored this report, Deborah Barger has been given official responsibility for both understanding the sources of change across the U.S. intelligence community and for instituting change. We thank her for her dedication to this research and her devotion to improving the U.S. intelligence organization. Kevin M. O'Connell Former Director Intelligence Policy Center RAND Corporation - vii – PREFACE As the global war on terrorism continues to expand and the post- Cold War security environment remains in flux, both the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. intelligence have been thrust into the public spotlight, leading to renewed recognition of the importance of intelligence and the need for improvements in intelligence operations. The research presented in this report was conducted by Deborah Barger, a senior intelligence officer, during her Intelligence Community Fellowship at the RAND Corporation from September 2002 to August 2003. She advances the argument that a “Revolution in Intelligence Affairs” is needed to prepare the Intelligence Community to meet its future challenges. In this report, she presents a framework for how the United States should consider specific changes to its intelligence enterprise to improve its effectiveness. As such, this report should be of interest to intelligence professionals, students, scholars, and researchers alike. Data for this research project was gathered through a variety of unclassified sources including books, articles, and other documents; speeches; Internet searches; workshops attended by government and non- government officials; and one-on-one interviews with numerous intelligence officials, policymakers, former military officers, intelligence consumers, retired intelligence experts, historians, academics, and intelligence