The following was taken from the Wall Street Journal, brought to you through cut-and-paste from the Early Bird News (courtesy of the Department of Defense). I felt that it was important enough to just bring it to you with minimal comment, but I know greywar (for one) is going to like this one. (Apologies to anyone who was looking for a book review for anything written by Eric Olson.)
Wall Street Journal
October 19, 2004
Pg. 19
Through A Shattered Glass, Darkly
It's fashionable these days to talk about "intelligence failures" -- both the 9/11 Commission and many in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, lament "failures" with 9/11 (for example, "Think of the Battlefield," editorial page, Oct. 7 and "Isolate or Liberate?" editorial page, Oct. 4) and supposed failures in Iraq. Many have proposed changes in the organization structure of the intelligence community (IC), called for cultural change in the CIA, and sought changes in the CIA's leadership.
Change is generally good and some of these measures may help -- but we should not be so naïve as to believe that a new organization, a new leader, a new structure will permit us to know everything. That these changes or any others will prevent these so-called-failures in the future is a myth and shows a lack of understanding about knowledge management. The fact is that there is more information being created in the world today, every day, than existed ever before in human history. The IC challenge is to collect it (with some very restrictive rules), decode it, translate it, decipher it, sort it, collate it and analyze it -- all in near real time -- to determine if the information rises above a threshold or that there are links between the pieces of data which warrant decision-maker attention.
Some have likened the task to putting together the pieces of a puzzle. In truth, it's more like piecing together shards of glass from a large, shattered picture window, a window that is mixed up with hundreds of other shattered windows and with other pieces of glass that don't belong to any window.
We should worry about the consequences of "failure to know." The IC analyst of the future might be inclined to lower the threshold on what he provides to decision-makers so that they know everything he knows, and so he can say, "I told you" when facing the next 9/11 Commission. The decision makers of the future could be overwhelmed with so much "spam" that they have very little knowledge -- much like the bulk mail in our own personal e-mail accounts. Or worse yet, instead of IC judgments, they may choose to filter the data based on their own compass and in the absence of IC filters/summaries, they may make the judgments themselves. Or they may be inclined to ignore most of it. Or the IC may lapse into a language of qualifiers -- using such phrases such as: could, may, might, possibly, may possibly, and believe (vs. know). All of this takes us down paths much worse than we are on today.
Finally, we do a disservice to the professionals in the IC to continue to refer to not knowing something as a "failure." We will not, nor should we expect, to know everything, and I can absolutely guarantee there will be "failures" in the future. We should thank the IC for the many "finds" they have made, the many lives they have saved, and their sacrifice, many times in blood, for our nation. I, for one, am grateful for their service.
Lt. Gen. Michael M. Dunn, President, National Defense University, Washington
(The opinions above are those of the writer alone and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the National Defense University.)
Editor's Note: The editorial referred to appeared in the Current News Early Bird, October 7, 2004.