by Rob McRae, Director
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies
It is not without a degree of irony that interspersed with yet another allegation about the activities of the NSA, there are the occasional media reports about the unhappiness of political leaders with the intelligence they receive. During the past few months, the latest complaint of this kind was the apparent “failure” of the intelligence community to predict the rise of ISIS. Last year, there was similar unhappiness about the failure of intelligence analysts to predict Putin’s seizure of the Crimea.
What most politicians seem to want is the legendary “smoking gun”: intelligence that encapsulates what an individual leader, organization, or a state is really after, or planning to do. The context might be everything from international negotiations to the fog of war. But the smoking gun is legendary because it is so elusive.
There is another kind of intelligence that most politicians would also be prepared to describe as strategic. And this is the intelligence-based forecast. Many leaders regularly ask their intelligence organizations “why did you not tell me this was going to happen?” Why did you not tell me that Tuareg extremists would make a dash for the capital of Mali? Or why did you not tell me that Ebola would exceed the ability of the WHO to respond and spread so rapidly? If the intelligence community did provide such gifted forecasts, that would be truly strategic intelligence.
But intelligence analysts everywhere often regard the making of predictions as a mug’s game. It can be fun to predict the future, but it is almost always highly speculative and therefore influenced by personal views. At least that is the main criticism from intelligence experts. So it would seem that intelligence organizations are almost always bound to disappoint their political masters.
There is an exception to this rule, which most analysts are prepared to entertain: intelligence forecasts which are based on the assessment of long-term trends, – trends that can be identified and factually documented. These often turn up in government publications with names such as “Canada and the world in 2050”. However forecasts like this are rarely the bedtime reading of politicians.
The “smoking gun” piece of intelligence or information is always a possibility, and can be obtained in a variety of ways, from technical means through to diplomatic reporting. But that will almost always be, in today’s more security-conscious world, a combination of skill and good luck. It cannot be assumed that it will be there when you need it. A piece of intelligence can be strategic if it provides the missing piece of the puzzle. But if it is not in the right place at the right time, and sufficiently understood by those who make the decisions, it is also inconsequential.
Often a piece of intelligence can be bewildering unless you know where it comes from, the nature of the source, and how that intelligence fits into a much larger and more complex picture. So the assessment of intelligence is crucial to establishing its importance. Hence intelligence communities can provide a real service, and real strategic intelligence, by digesting the daily flow of information and integrating the pieces of the puzzle in order to offer insight into what is really going on behind the headlines.
In addition to a laser-like focus on current intelligence, being strategic really does mean going to the other end of the intelligence spectrum, – forecasting. Intelligence communities everywhere need to take on board the fact that there is an expectation at the political level that they need to do better in alerting leaders to fast-emerging crises. The answer is in part a matter of better and broader horizon-scanning.
However analysts should go beyond scanning to more regular forecasting, despite their many reservations. This is feasible with the right methodology, where the influence of personal views can be minimized. The best methodology is scenario-building, where two or three possible near-term scenarios are constructed based on our current understanding of the facts and the dynamic at play. As events progress, another two or three scenarios can be built based on the new circumstances.
This is a classic iterative process, which has two benefits: first, it educates decision-makers about the range of factors at play, and about possible futures; and second, it can interact with policy-making while maintaining the firewall between intelligence assessment and policy decisions. For example, scenario-building can say, “if you take this action, these scenarios might result”, and so on as developments play out.
There are bound to be unknowns, and therefore possible scenarios that miss the mark. But this process would integrate the policy and intelligence communities in ways that would be mostly productive and beneficial to both. It is never a bad thing for analysts to be aware of the policy preoccupations and policy options that are in play. It only increases their relevance, as long as it does not tilt the assessments so as to make them more “palatable” to policy-makers.
The demand for strategic intelligence, for forward-looking assessments, will only grow. Fast emerging crises are the order of the day, and will be a continuing challenge for future governments whether here or elsewhere. Not only are there seemingly more crises: some crises are impacting others in highly unpredictable ways. Hence only rapid scenario-building will respond to rapid changes in the international context. To do this successfully will require the different parts of the intelligence community to work together in new ways, i.e., inter-agency cooperation that is more horizontal. But it will also require more collaboration between the intelligence community and policy-makers.
Given the rapidly changing international context, it is therefore key that, within the intelligence community, priority be given to both current intelligence and to forecasting. Intelligence needs to be relevant and respond to the needs of our policy clients if it can hope to be strategic at all.