IC Structure Changes Paper

Intelligence Community

Intelligence Community 1

Intelligence Community

Alfreda Dunlap

Liberty University

Course NSEC501

Professor Michael Perez

Date 8/16/20

I attest this submission represents my own work, and not that of another student, scholar, or internet source. I understand I am responsible for knowing and correctly utilizing referencing and bibliographical guidelines.

The Major Changes in the Intelligence Community

Introduction

The United States intelligence community is an organized, complex, large structure that operates pursuant to several directives, policies, orders, and laws. The essence of the intelligence community is the national security. Its primarily role is providing relevant and timely information to the United States’ warfighters, decision makers, and policy makers. Accomplishing this mission entails disseminating, analyzing, processing, and collecting intelligence that is commonly referred to as the intelligence cycle. The intelligence cycle drives the daily activities of the intelligence community. In this cycle, the agencies or individuals who consumes intelligence relay their need of information to the requirements ranking committee of the intelligence community (Jensen III, McElreath & Graves 2017). The intelligence community is made up of different departments that are all linked to the national security. They include the national security agency, defense intelligence agency, and the defense airborne reconnaissance office, among others. The roles and the structure of the intelligence community have evolved over time. The advancement in technology, including the emergence of the artificial intelligence, has also triggered changes that have a significant impact in the operation of the intelligence community. This paper analyzes those changes right from the revolutionary war and explore their impacts on the intelligence community’s ability to support the president of the United States (POTUS). Comment by michael perez: Citations required

The evolution of Intelligence Community

History

The roles of the intelligence as a function of the United States government is often considered as a product of or to have emerged from the cold war. These functions are much of what are currently referred to as the intelligence community. It was established and developed during the prolonged period of the cold war. Besides, intelligence has generally been among there core functions of the government since the foundation of the republic. Its structure and roles dates to time when the United States was participating in the cold war. During the revolutionary war, George Washington was keen on using intelligence together with a consummate practitioner of every stakeholder in the intelligence. Intelligence began as an organization made up of top individuals who helped Washington to recruit and run several agents, establish multiple spy rings, mount a wide campaign to deceive the British armies, examine the raw intelligence collected by Washington’s agents, and devise secret means of reporting.

The national intelligence has been a tool of the executive arm of the government that appears to be a key tool in influencing the operations of different administrations (Zota & Oana 2016). Intelligence regained its prominence during the Cold War where both the confederate and union leadership valued intelligence information, railed at the press for leaking intelligence to the rivals, and established their spy networks. The confederate forces created the signal and secret service bureau with a major goal of accessing the northern newspapers. The department of the navy, state, and war, on the union side maintained a well-coordinated service. Confederated messages were decoded by the union codebreakers and they got to know that New York was the main center for manufacturing the plate for confederate currency. The first professional intelligence organization was created by the union force in 1863 and was named the bureau of military intelligence. This organization was headed by the commander of Potomac army and its primary roles include evaluating the strengths and activities of the confederate army based on sources such as the infiltrations of the navy department and the confederacy’s war. This was recognized as the best run intelligence operation globally during the cold war. The bureau of military intelligence was disestablished towards the end of the war. Following the disestablishment, the service secret was established to combat counterfeiting. Comment by michael perez: Citation required

Major changes in Intelligence Community

Analysis of the cold war was used to operate in the vertically incorporated intelligence system that mainly focused on monolithic target. The evolution in the nature of the target has forced analysts to develop a better comprehension of it. However, the contemporary environment of the target has largely changed with threats increasing significantly. These threats are diverse in nature. Sorting information for relevance is the most critical tasks of the intelligence analyst since they have become exploded in complexity and amount. The timelines are highly compressed and the demand for intelligence clients has become more diverse, immediate, and numerous. While interaction intelligence community between clients and analyst used to be strongly discouraged, it has turned out as the new norm.

The current operation tempo poses substantial pressure on intelligence systems and makes it hard to create time for the intelligence community officers to self-develop, mentor, and think on their own (Walsh 2017). It is currently a necessity for analysts to be networked instead of the previous relatively solitary process. The intelligence community and the nature of intelligence systems and practice is continuously undergoing some changes in both their capacity and coverage in a bid to continuously adopt the new changes. Policy makers in the intelligence community have realized that it is challenging to achieve comprehensive and directed change in the entire country. This has motivated them to shift their focus and address intelligence issues from a strategic perspective. The adopted strategy includes budget management, priority setting, strategic documents guiding planning, as well as new coordinating systems. It has also moved ahead and included the establishment of the position of national security advisor who provides leadership and direction to the national security community.

The lack of sufficient evaluation strategy in the intelligence community makes it hard to make accurate judgement on how far the strategic perspective approach has both harmonized other approaches to adopt new strategies and adjusted intelligence to meet the challenges posed by security environment. The changes in the intelligence community are also occasioned by the alleged intelligence poor performance, the bad publicity, scandals, accusations of politicization of intelligence, and failures (Jensen 2019). For the case of intelligence failure, the entire intelligence community feels the pressure to change. While changing and reforming the intelligence community, substantial resistance to change is experienced from both the internal and external environment. The intelligence community often disagrees with the diagnosis of the intelligence issues while considering intelligence failures as policy failures. Most of the solutions in the intelligence community are imposed without serious considerations of the opinions from the expert intelligence.

Some of the changes in the intelligence community has been triggered by the international financial situation that has led to cutting of intelligence budgets in different states and the development of strategies for stabilizing resources in environments that experience continued growth in intelligence tasking. The intelligence community is being forced to perform most of its tasks with fewer resources. This is among the negative changes experienced in the intelligence units. It is becoming more difficult to manage downsizing while managing an apparently, unavoidable, and insatiable appetite for intelligence. Besides managing changes to analytical methodologies, operating procedures, and culture will be more challenging considering the fiscal realities of the current security fatigue and change fatigue in different agencies within the intelligence community. The other important change that the intelligence community together with the relevant intelligence agencies must deal with is the context of oversight of their activities. The current nature of oversight of activities differs greatly from the early time when intelligence community was newly established.

Traditionally, intelligence has been covered in secrecy with intelligence activities safeguarded from public view by both draconian and convention laws prohibiting disclosure of methods and sources, as well as information and the survival of the intelligence agencies. The continued cases of exposure of illegal activities by intelligence agencies in different fields, the changing nature of targets, and the occurrence of intelligence failures that have drawn an ever-increasing number of organizations into the system of providing assessments and information have all joined efforts to bring the intelligence community into the public view (Pecht & Tishler 2018). The advancing nature of the new information environment of the pervasive information technology and the wide use of social media have also brought a new challenge to the intelligence community’s efforts of monopolizing information and controlling media coverage. This has greatly affected their capabilities and mission in managing intelligence and security matters.

There has been an increase in transparency in handling different activities occasioned by two major developments. One is the increasing willingness of the political class to release intelligence publicity to back up political decisions. Politicians seek to pursue their interest by leveraging the power of the intelligence community. The other development is the shift of the main targets to criminals and terrorists whom the state strives to bring justice. The state prefers and finds it easy to try them in ordinary courts than the use of intelligence in detaining the offenders. It is more convenient and cheaper to reveal and test evidence in courts. This implies that it can sometimes be challenging to safeguard intelligence methods and sources.

Furthermore, the areas of intersection between criminal intelligence and traditional national intelligence that most of the responses of intelligence to change are subjected to are sharp reprieve. With the rise in criminal cases, the law enforcement agencies working with the intelligence community have raised their intelligence capabilities both in sophistication and size (Rotolo, et.al, 2017). Previously, the essence of supporting the new counterterrorism obligations assumed by the police triggered the need to interact and corporate more comprehensively with the national intelligence community. With the aid of the national intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies hastily increased their collection and distribution of the intelligence on terrorism. This interaction and collaboration have also led to the enhanced integration of national intelligence methodologies into law enforcement intelligence.

Changes from the emerging technologies

Developing and maintaining a competitive advantage in strategic intelligence over the rise in adversaries and sophisticated rivals is a critical element of improving the United States national security interest. The adoption and integration of emerging technologies is not only a driving force to changes in the intelligence community but also central to success of intelligence in collecting, analyzing, and delivering information to decision makers. The same emerging technologies are expected to transform their intelligence capabilities against rivals including Russia and China that could disrupt the fundamentals of the United States intelligence. The understanding of how technologies like artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, cloud computing, and machine learning has driven in several changes to the activities of the intelligence community. In the world of exponential growth in computing and data as well as proliferating sensors, artificial intelligence is recognized for its role in empowering the intelligence community together with the intelligence collection organizations in simplifying and automating the process of data collection as well as the identification and prioritization of collection targets across different open, human, signals, and geospatial sources (Radulov 2019). Artificial intelligence has been adopted by the intelligence community to assist analysts in receiving, visualizing, and exploiting data to obtain insights for policy makers.

For technical collectors in intelligence community, artificial intelligence is specifically suited for multiple technical means of collections including GEOINT and SIGINT in processing and analyzing the large pool of sensor-derived data. For human operators, artificial intelligence can be used to facilitate the on-the-ground human operator in sensitive HUMINT missions through the recruitment and deriving of intelligence from different agents. The credibility of information is critical in intelligence community. Intelligence agencies train their artificial intelligence algorithms to help in spotting and assessing potential sources by integrating open-source data. Advanced analytics can aid in constructing digital patterns of life of different recruitment targets, verifying the access to the required information, and assisting in forecasting their activities. These tools can also be employed in monitoring for counterintelligence and security risks prior to and after recruitment.

Impact of the changes to the intelligence community

mission ability to support the POTUS

The intelligence community plays a critical role in gathering information that enhance security in the country and obtain critical insights that are essential in structuring and running the office of the President of the United States. The highlighted general changes in the intelligence community have both positive and negative impacts on the efficiency of the intelligence community supporting the President of the United States (Rotolo et.al 2017). The functions of the intelligence community are subjected to oversight by several groups that ensure that every activity is conducted within the law and in the best interest of the nation. The shift of the intelligence community to working with law enforcement ensures that information on terrorism activities and any other activity that poses national threat are captured and directed to competent security officers appointed by the president. The intelligence community also partners with local and international groups to share information that are of importance to the state. It also partners with the private sector to work on strategies that facilitates the development of new technologies that enhance collection of intelligence. The president always requires credible and reliable information on matters of security. The adoption and integration of the emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, cloud computing, and machine learning, ensures that the credibility of data is tested and assured (Pecht & Tishler 2017). Dealing with trusted information helps the president to make informed and relevant decisions that capture the interest of every individual in the nation. On the other hand, the cutting of budgetary allocation to the intelligence community adversely affects the ability and effectiveness performing their wide range of duties. The intelligence community performs several activities that require vast resources for hiring personnel and meeting the cost of field activities. With inadequate resources, the intelligence community will find it hard to fully provide the expected service and support to the president of the United States.

Biblical Perspective

Different religious institutions in the United States have the chance to hold regular services at the international spy museum. The leaders in different churches often describe churches as typically religious buildings with a primary focus in spreading religious beliefs. This description has since changed following the expansion of the intelligence community to spy and access information that are reliably available in religious institutions. Some of the religious leaders are major targets by the intelligence agencies. While churches do not describe themselves as centers of spies, there is a configuration that has developed in the society creating a juxtaposition between opposing ideas including truth and deception as well as espionage. Several people believe that intelligence service and their spies are typically morally ambiguous, pragmatic, and covert.

Religious leaders affirm that the intelligence community should not align itself with religion or biblical perspectives since it is made up of sinners. They state that spies sleep around and kill while the pastors preach the gospel and pray (Stempel 2013). The apparent interminable incompatibility between religious institutions and intelligence services does not portray an accurate picture. According to the public media, the relationship between religious institutions and intelligence services is extensive and still exist in the modern era. This poses a moral question from the perspective of the two institutions. Christian policies usually advise religious leaders to avoid collaborating with any foreign or home government intelligence agency since their interaction could lead to providing intelligence information to the entire intelligence community. Different intelligence agencies have been pushing the opinion that both the intelligence community and the American Christian missionary enterprise should be open for formal examination for them to thrive. Some also emphasizes that organizations and missionaries sponsoring religious institutions should be open to self-critique and deeper thinking.

Additional Changes

To further improve the efficiency of the intelligence community, there are additional changes that are recommendable. The intelligence community should further extend their collaboration with law enforcement, local, and international intelligence agencies to cover the intelligence oversight board, foreign intelligence surveillance courts, foreign military counterparts, house permanent select committee on intelligence, the national security council, and other numerous external groups to achieve its mission and support the president of the United States. It should also extend the use of the emerging technologies particularly artificial intelligence to commercial partners. While facilitating the features of classified intelligence collection, different emerging technologies will also transform open-source intelligence, guaranteeing the intelligence community with high quality data streams while shifting from the ordinary collection platforms to harder intelligence targets (Miscik 2017). With this adoption, the proliferation of satellite-based sensors and the commercialization of space will drastically improve the quality and coverage of signal collection and commercial imagery. The availability of OSINT-derived analytics on economic, political, and global security trends as well as big data can aid in improving the collection burden on the intelligence community while enabling it to focus on the collection of secret information.

Conclusion

The intelligence community in the United States is a powerful and essential establishment serving the security interests of the state. The responsibility of intelligence as an activity of the United States government is often considered as the fundamental product of the Cold war. Since the end of the war, the intelligence community has experienced different operational and structural changes that are geared towards improving its service and elevating its support to the president of the United States. Some of the changes include increased cooperation with law enforcement, the cutting of intelligence community’s resource allocation, and the adoption of the emerging technologies like artificial intelligence that enhance the collection of data.

References

Jensen III, C. J., McElreath, D. H., & Graves, M. (2017). Introduction to intelligence studies. Routledge.

Jensen, K. F. (2019). The CIA and the politics of US intelligence reform.

Miscik, J. (2017). intelligence and the presidency: How to Get it Right. Foreign Aff., 96, 57.

Pecht, E., & Tishler, A. (2017). Budget allocation, national security, military intelligence, and human capital: a dynamic model. Defence and peace economics, 28(3), 367-399.

Radulov, N. (2019). Artificial intelligence and security. Security 4.0. Security & Future, 3(1), 3-5.

Rotolo, D., Rafols, I., Hopkins, M. M., & Leydesdorff, L. (2017). Strategic intelligence on emerging technologies: Scientometric overlay mapping. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(1), 214-233.

Stempel, J. D. (2013). Religion and intelligence. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 26(2), 375-388.

Walsh, P. F. (2017). Making future leaders in the US intelligence community: challenges and opportunities. Intelligence and National Security, 32(4), 441-459.

Zota, A., & Oana, M. (2016). Information management lying on crisis within US Intelligence Community. Scientific Research & Education In The Air Force-AFASES, 18(2), 689-694.