Robert
Blackwill was in charge of Europe in the Bush National Security
Council. He gave this interview to the CIA as an effort to
explain why so much CIA analysis is simply deemed irrelevant by
senior policy makers. As a consequence of this article and other
complaints CIA dramatically changed how ti provides intelligence
to senio policy makers.
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Insightful interviews
A Policymaker's Perspective On Intelligence Analysis
Editor's Note: This article is based on the author's
interviews during 1991-93 of Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill. The
author has written several other articles on intelligence and
policy.(1)
Sherman Kent, in Strategic Intelligence for American World
Policy, his path-breaking effort to join intelligence doctrine
and practice for post--World War II America, concluded that:
There is no phase of the intelligence business which is more
important than the proper relationship between intelligence
itself and the people who use its products. Oddly enough, this
relationship, which one would expect to establish itself
automatically, does not do this. It is established as a result of
a great deal of conscious effort . . .(2)
Despite guidance from Kent and numerous subsequent authors, the
terms of engagement between intelligence analyst and policymaker
are still ill-defined doctrinally and thus practiced as much to
suit the immediate preferences of the players on both sides of
the relationship as to meet the fundamental demands of sound
policymaking. The quest to join sage principle--what should
work--to solid practice--what does--is more important than ever
in post--Cold War America, as resources for intelligence support
of policymaking are cut back more rapidly than responsibilities.
The original pillar of Ambassador Blackwill's doctrinal views on
intelligence and policy was self interest--his effort to make the
relationship work for him personally under trying conditions. He
served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director
for European and Soviet Affairs, National Security Council Staff,
during 1989-90, a tumultuous period that witnessed the collapse
of the Soviet Union and the reshaping of Europe. The more lasting
pillar is his concern for the national interest--a belief that
the United States can ill afford prevailing patterns of
ineffective ties between experts on events overseas and
policymakers in Washington.
Some Key Points
The Ambassador's framework for defining the requirements for
sound intelligence--policy relations consists of four key points:
* Roughly 90 percent of what passes for
national security analysis in the US Government, including
structured study of events overseas, is done by intelligence
analysts.
* The national interest requires that this
effort be effectively joined to the policymaking process.
* The officials who carry most of the
day-to-day burden of policymaking on key issues are so besieged
by time-consuming responsibilities that decisions on how much to
stay informed on events overseas and in what way are narrowly
based on self interest in managing the pressures and getting the
job done.
* Intelligence professionals have to carry
nearly all the burden to convince each key policy official that
they are committed to servicing his or her analytic needs via
customized expert support.
Thus, to meet their responsibilities in promoting the national
interest, intelligence professionals have to become expert not
only on substantive issues but also on serving the self interest
of policy professionals by providing specialized analytic
support.
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Curriculum Vitae
Ambassador Blackwill's career as a Foreign Service Officer began
in 1967, after a stint in Africa with the Peace Corps. During
1979-80, he served on the NSC Staff as Director for West European
Affairs. In the early 1980s, he worked at the State Department as
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, first for
Political-Military Affairs, and then for European Affairs. From
1985-87, he was US Ambassador and head of the US Delegation to
the NATO--Warsaw Pact negotiations for reduction of conventional
military forces in Europe.
Ambassador Blackwill's recent tours of duty as policy
decisionmaker have been interspersed with periods as an
administrator, lecturer, and program director at Harvard
University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. In his current
stay at Harvard, Ambassador Blackwill directs a program on public
policy for the Russian General Staff. His publications--including
his latest book, New Nuclear Nations(3)--address issues of arms
control and European affairs rather than intelligence per se.
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A Shaky Start
I first met the Ambassador in November 1987, when he was teaching
in the CIA-funded Kennedy School Seminar on Intelligence and
Policy. He seized the attention of the class of some 30
Directorate of Intelligence (DI) division chiefs and managers
from elsewhere in the Intelligence Community by asserting that as
a policy official he never read DI analytic papers. Why?
"Because they were nonadhesive." As Blackwill
explained, they were written by people who did not know what he
was trying to do and, so, could not help him get it done:
When I was working at State on European affairs, for example, on
certain issues I was the Secretary of State. DI analysts did not
know that--that I was one of a handful of key decisionmakers on
some very important matters. Why bother to read what they write
for a general audience of people who have no real responsibility
on the issue.
More charitably, he now characterizes his early periods of
service at the NSC Staff and in State Department bureaus as ones
of "mutual ignorance":
DI analysts did not have the foggiest notion of what I did; and I
did not have a clue as to what they could or should do.
An unpromising start. Yet during his 1989-90 NSC Staff tour,
Ambassador Blackwill--by the lights of DI analysts working with
him on European affairs--raised analyst--policy relations to an
exemplary level. Time after time, the DI's Office of European
Analysis (EURA) provided much-needed intelligence support under
stringent time constraints. In a tribute with resonance in the
hometown of the Washington Redskins, Blackwill called the EURA
crew his "analytic hogs," opening up holes in the line
for him to run through. At least one EURA analyst considers this
period "the most exciting and meaningful" of his
career.
The balance of this article consists of the Ambassador's replies
to my questions.
From Mutual Ignorance to Mutual Benefit
Q: What caused your apparent change of mind about the utility of
DI analysis?
A: I had started to rethink my position even before our 1987
classroom encounter. As chief negotiator for the MBFR talks,(4) I
worked closely for the first time with Agency analysts--those
assigned to the US delegation. They regularly came up with
information and interpretations that helped me sharpen my
approach to the individual negotiating issues. When I gave them a
special task, they delivered to suit my schedule, even if it
meant considerable inconvenience to them.
One more matter important to negotiators, and to heavily engaged
policymakers generally. Unlike other intelligence people I had
worked with in the past, including those from State, my informal
talks about possible US tactical initiatives with CIA analysts
from the Arms Control Intelligence Staff did not end up in The
Washington Post.
My understanding of the role of intelligence was also broadened
by my work at Kennedy School. In addition to the CIA seminar, I
collaborated with Professors Ernest May and Richard Neustadt on a
course called "Assessing Other Governments." Here, the
importance of country expertise, of language skills, of
perspective and a sense of history were underscored by
well-documented case studies.
Then there was the survival factor. I knew soon after [President]
Bush's election in November 1988 that I was to be selected for
the NSC Staff job on both Europe and the USSR. This meant longer
hours and more pressures for me than ever before. Frankly, I was
concerned about forgetting what my 10-year-old daughter looked
like. So I sat down in Cambridge and planned how I was going to
interact with Executive Branch colleagues, with Congress, with
the press--and with intelligence. I decided that in my own self
interest I had to arrange to get as much support as practical
from Agency analysts.
Q: Why Agency analysts?
A: You mean besides the fact there are many more of them in my
areas of responsibility than in the other intelligence outfits?
My experience at State convinced me that INR [Bureau of
Intelligence and Research] works for the Secretary. I suppose it
is the same at Defense. I judged that Agency analysts would be
much more likely to provide close and continuous support to an
NSC Staff director.
Back to State. From my White House perspective, the State
Department almost never met a deadline it could not miss. Then
there is also the confidentiality factor. As I said earlier, your
musings about possible policy initiatives are not leaked to the
press by the DCI to shoot down your policy.
The most important consideration is that Agency analysts are
better informed about individual countries than anyone else in
the [US] Government. And I judged they had the wit--the
historical perspective I spoke of--to interpret this information
for my benefit and the President's benefit. I just had to
determine whether they had the professional interest and
enterprise to be responsive to my overtures.
Let me expand on one point. Intelligence analysts--essentially DI
analysts--do 90 percent of the analysis by the USG on foreign
affairs. Policy officials, even those with academic backgrounds,
are too busy with more pressing matters.
In some administrations, the most heavily engaged and influential
policy officials on any given issue spend 90 percent of their
time assessing their policy competitors in Washington. I am
talking here about getting ready to leverage competing
Administration officials, not just Congress. Busy decisionmakers
concentrate what little time they have for foreign policy
analysis on narrowly focused aspects of key agenda issues--often
how to deal effectively with their foreign counterparts. Let me
tell you, any policy official who can do his own research on all
aspects of an issue, cannot be very important--because he is not
fully engaged in the coalition-building and power-leverage games
essential for getting serious policy work done in Washington.
And there is no second team. If Agency analysts do not do the
work of keeping up with developments overseas that the
decisionmakers need to know about, it does not get done. It was
in my self interest to see if I could get those analysts working
for me, to help me keep up with a broad range of developments I
could not possibly follow on my own.
What Works, and What Does Not
Q: You have mentioned self interest a couple of times.
A: Let me explain. The policymakers who count the most--those
five to 10 on any issue who have the most power for getting
anything done, decided, implemented--work much harder than
intelligence analysts. During 1989-90, I was often at my desk
from 7 in the morning till 10 at night. Others at the NSC Staff,
Brent Scowcroft and Bob Gates for instance, started even
earlier.(5) Unlike analysts, we had no evening tennis games. No
weekends.
Even with these hours, as I indicated, I needed help to stay
informed. But it had to be the right kind of help. I could not
afford to read intelligence papers because this or that
intelligence agency was entitled to produce them. It did not
matter to me how much work the Agency had put into its products,
or how polished they were in scholarly terms. In fact, I could
not afford the time to read intelligence papers written by
personal friends and colleagues. I could only read intelligence
products tailored to help me get through my substantive schedule.
There was no other rational choice.
Q: The old issue of "adhesive analysis."
A: You asked, so let me unload here. During my [1989-90] NSC
tour, the Agency was still putting out gobs of analytic products
that I never read. During the two years I did not read a single
[National Intelligence] Estimate. Not one. And except for Gates,
I do not know of anyone at the NSC who did. The reason, at least
for me, is simple. There was no penalty to be paid for not
reading an NIE. It did not cost you anything in terms of getting
done the most important policy things you had to get done.
The same goes for your other general audience papers. I got them,
but I did not read them. I am sure somebody did, or you would not
bother to put them out. Let me grant without hesitation that
there is a lot you put out for good reason that has nothing to do
with policymakers at my level. I think, however, that you ought
to consider the cost--benefit ratios of producing papers that are
read mostly by specialists at the desk level at State and
Defense, or by policy officials with general interest but no
direct say on an issue.
Q: What about the NID [National Intelligence Daily]? I've heard a
number of NSC Staff members praise its utility over the years.
A: Of course, I was interested in the PDB [President's Daily
Brief] because President Bush read it. As for the NID, I would
spend, literally, 60 seconds a day on it. This was a defensive
move. I wanted to know in advance what would likely be leaked to
the press by readers in Congress. Other than that, there was,
again, no cost to me, no penalty, from not having read the NID.
Q: What did you read, aside from what you commissioned directly
from DI analysts?
A: Despite what you hear about policymakers not having time to
read, I read a lot. Much of it was press. You have to know how
issues are coming across politically to get your job done. Also,
cables from overseas for preparing agendas for meetings and
sending and receiving messages from my counterparts in foreign
governments. Countless versions of policy drafts from those
competing for the President's blessing. And dozens of phone
calls. Many are a waste of time but have to be answered, again,
for policy and political reasons.
Q: Let's turn to what you commissioned from DI analysts.
A: One more minute, please, on what I did not find useful. This
is important. My job description called for me to help prepare
the President for making policy decisions, including at meetings
with foreign counterparts and other officials. One thing the
Agency regularly did was send me memos on the strategic and
tactical agendas of foreign officials; in effect, what they
wanted from the United States. Do you think that after I have
spent long weeks shaping the agenda, I have to be told a day or
two before the German foreign minister visits Washington why he
is coming?
O.K. What did I want from analysts? I want their reading of what
is going on in the domestic affairs of country "X" or
"Y"--countries the President is planning to visit to
advance foreign policy or countries from which we are going to
receive important visitors to discuss problems and bilateral
strategy, or countries on which, for one reason or another, we
feel a need to get US policy into better shape.
What is going on domestically in these countries that could have
an impact on how the President's counterparts and my counterparts
will behave? What pressures are they under at home? Although I
knew the national security issues cold, I could not become expert
on all important issues affecting Germany or France or Italy at
the national level, much less at the provincial or state levels.
DI analysts knew this, and they helped me bone up on what I
needed to understand to nuance and sharpen the US approach.
You also have to consider that President Bush, as a political
animal, was naturally interested in the domestic politics of
other leaders, even when there was no pressing bilateral business
on the table.
Q: We variously call this "opportunity analysis," or
"value-added analysis." Sometimes we call it
"targeted tactical analysis."
A: I never put a label on it. Your terms are all good ones.
Incidentally, the MacEachin metaphor you told me, about scouts
and coaches, is also useful.(6) Yes, intelligence analysts should
help key policymakers make the best game plan by telling them
what they do not know or appreciate sufficiently. Regarding my
own needs, this was mostly, as I said, on the domestic politics
of the countries I was dealing with.
Whatever label you put on it, the service I got on Europe from
EURA was superb and invaluable. As you know, when I traveled to
Europe, EURA analysts prepared a daily cable for me on key
developments. They got it to me first thing in the morning
European time, which means they worked late into the night in
Washington to get it done. I appreciated that immensely. Once a
senior State Department colleague joined me for breakfast in
Brussels as I was reading my very own newsletter. He studied it
with great interest and asked me where it came from. I chose not
to give him a clear answer.
EURA people met without exception whatever deadlines I set for
informal memos while I was in Washington. They also were
responsive and quick with some major projects I laid on with
little advance notice. My only problem with their written work is
sometimes the text had gone through too many levels of review and
began to read like a NID article. If I wanted a NID article, I
could read one. What I wanted was the analyst's unvarnished
response to my questions. After I made this point, the incidence
of overpolished papers diminished.
Qs: What about briefings?
A: Yes, because you get a chance to ask questions, briefings can
be more helpful than memos. Here, too, I got first-rate
customized service. Whenever I asked for briefings in my office,
the analysts who came were both informed and responsive. Really
terrific people.
Again, I was mostly interested in domestic affairs in this and
that country. From time to time, though, I would ask the analysts
in my office what the response of a European government would be
to the policy initiatives the President was considering or that I
was thinking of recommending to the President. Their unrehearsed
responses here were also useful. I always hesitated to put such
requests into writing for fear of leaks to the press. I learned
you can trust DI analysts. They were well informed. Ready to
help. And they kept their traps shut.
Q: That sounds like a good advertisement for DI analysts.
A: You bet. They were expert on their subjects. They were
responsive to my needs. And they did not leak my confidences to
the press.
Politicization Not an Issue
Q: Did your NSC Staff colleagues resent your close ties to DI
analysts?
A: Not that I was aware of. The people who worked for me, rather
than being resentful, made use of EURA support on their own.
Q: What about this kind of closeness pushing analysts across the
line into policymaking?
A: Again, I saw no problem with EURA analysts. When I asked, they
provided advice on tactics to support an established policy. They
were good at that too. But the EURA people did not get into
policy prescription. And where it did happen on occasion with
others, when intelligence people started recommending policy, I
pushed them back.
Q: What about telling you what you wanted to hear, or avoiding
bad news?
A: Not a problem. I wanted their help in avoiding setbacks as
well as for advancing policy goals. If there were negative
developments I had to know about, they let me know. We had trust
going both ways.
I would like to continue with this for a minute. I know during
the Gates confirmation hearings [for DCI during 1991] the media
were full of charges of analysts writing to please policymakers.
My experience was different. I would argue that at least in my
experience close professional relationships encouraged
frankness--not politicization. But I know it does not always turn
out that way.
Just as top policy aides have got to deliver bad news to the
President when called for, intelligence people have got to have
the intellectual courage to tell key policy officials that
something is not working, or is not going to work. It is tough,
really tough, to stop a policy failure based on ignorance of the
ground truth. Intelligence analysts have got to rise to this
challenge. I am not talking about shouting it from the rooftops.
NSC directors are especially resentful when Congress is told bad
news before they have a chance to think about it. But limited
distribution memos should work. Private briefings might be even
better, since that gives the policy official a chance to ask
questions.
Often it is important to decisionmakers to know how to get to the
least bad outcome, to limit the damage. I think options papers
work very well here, especially if they are delivered after bad
news forces key policymakers to focus on an issue. Somalia is a
good example. The analysts could table a paper or lay on a
briefing outlining three possible outcomes six months down the
road, and what opportunities, leverage, and so forth the United
States has to influence the outcome.
Intelligence and Policy Tribes
Q: Why do not more overworked policy officials lean on Agency
analysis the way you did?
A: I guess some do, though I do not personally know of any case
quite like mine with EURA. The absence of a pattern of effective
relations probably reflects a combination of professional
differences and mutual ignorance about what really makes the
relationship work.
I am not the only policy official who decided that too many
intelligence products still are nonadhesive. They are, or were
when I last served, too long and complex. Analysts love words and
complexities; it is one of their strengths. Good policymakers are
driven by the need to take action. They need problems broken
down, simplified. You and I have been through this before, and
you can probably make a better list of tribal differences than I
can. The key still is getting close enough to the individual
policymaker to find out what he needs.
Policymakers do not as a rule know what intelligence analysts can
do for them. They read Estimates, think pieces, the NID, and say,
in effect, "What does this have to do with my
problems"? They do not see it as their job to teach analysts
how to be helpful. Besides, they would not have the time.
Q: How did your counterpart NSC Staff senior directors stay
informed, and, for that matter, others in the Bush administration
who were the kinds of key hands-on policy officials you think the
Agency should cultivate?
A: The only honest answer is, I do not really know. I was too
busy with my own affairs. But I seriously doubt that any of them
[during 1989-90] received the kind of customized support from the
Agency that I am talking about.
Q: This seems to bother you.
A: Yes. As a citizen and taxpayer it sure does. I am talking here
about the national interest. Let's go back to my statement that
the Intelligence Community does 90 percent of foreign affairs
analysis in the USG. Policy choices are made and policy actions
are taken whether or not the expertise of analysts is brought to
bear. But how can anyone argue that we should pay for this
expertise and not make use of it?
I do not mean to say it is all the analysts' fault, but I am
fully prepared to argue that if an analyst's work does not have
an impact on policymaking as a process, including in the long
run, he or she is taking pay under false pretenses. A lot that
you do is useful to someone. You have to make it more useful to
those who count.
Let me say this: the Agency's understanding of the world is
probably needed more today than ever. The world and the
challenges the United States faces are changing so rapidly. Also,
the new [Clinton] administration does not seem to have yet
defined its policy approach. The costs of tribal tensions between
analysts and policymakers--mutual ignorance, really--may be
rising.
At a Lower Level
Q: Much of what you have had to say relates to officials at your
level, the NSC senior director and departmental assistant
secretaries and above. What about one level down--deputy
assistant secretaries, office directors?
A: I would say, much the same. Find out who counts--the five or
10 midlevel officials who have the most influence on more senior
decisionmakers--and cultivate close relations with them. Trade
customized support for access to the real agenda, and so forth.
A Program for the DI
Q: How would you combine your various recommendations for Agency
analysts into a program? If you were advising the DCI or DDI,
what measures would you propose to enhance the effectiveness of
relations between analysts and policy decisionmakers?(7)
A: Thank you for letting me know in advance this question was
coming. It is a good question, and I have given it considerable
thought. Let's see if the seven measures I have sketched out add
up to a program.
1. Identify the 30 or so senior policy officials who count--those
who really carry weight with administration Cabinet officers on
key foreign policy issues. These officials, usually assistant
secretaries in policy departments or special assistants to the
President on the NSC Staff, regularly set the thinking of NSC
principals on major policy decisions. As a rule, these are the
assessors of foreign governments, or the analysts of last resort.
To contribute to sounder policymaking, intelligence analysts have
to reach this group. Remember, the list of policy notables has to
be carefully worked out and kept up to date, because office
titles do not always reflect real policy weight.
2. Approach the policy officials who count as if they were
motivated solely by self interest. Their self-interest has to be
worked on because they are just too busy to allow either
institutional considerations or personal friendships to determine
their attitude toward intelligence analysts.
3. Learn as much as you can about each senior official. Study
them as carefully as you do foreign leaders. For example, read
everything they have written on the subjects in their policy
portfolios. Check them out through mutual contacts.
4. Take the initiative to establish ties. This is an essential
obligation of intelligence managers, because policy officials
will rarely seek them out.
* For new appointees, send a letter asking for
an appointment and spelling out your areas of expertise and the
services you are ready to extend.
* For serving officials, anticipate a major
pending visit or event and offer to send over your analysts for a
briefing on any one of several related aspects. For example, if
the prime minister from Denmark is to visit the President, the DI
manager should signal that he will bring over his Denmark analyst
to fill the policymaker in on any gaps in understanding in time
for the latter to prepare briefing memos for his or her
principal, be it the Secretary of State or the President.
* Whenever DI managers know of travel plans by
a key policy official, offer to send over country analysts who
can fill in the official's knowledge on areas of his choice.
* Have the DCI set up luncheon meetings in town
(CIA Headquarters is just too inconvenient), at which analysts
and their managers can establish their credentials as
entrepreneurial experts.
5. Customize intelligence papers and briefings to solidify the
relationship. Many policy officials, overwhelmed by the volume
both of their activities and of seemingly important information,
will welcome specialized newsletters. They will welcome even
one-page summaries of key events overseas that provide the kind
of information and analysis they want at the time of day or week
they prefer to set aside for keeping up with developments. For
the same reason--fear of being overwhelmed--many will welcome
customized briefings and memos relating to their policymaking
responsibilities on matters on which the DI country analyst is
much better informed than they can be or than anyone else in the
government. Give them something they will really miss if they do
not get it.
6. Place the best and most promising analysts on tours in the
policy world. The Agency could offer, free of charge, 50
first-rate people to policy officials around town. Intelligence
officers can learn something about how to use intelligence
resources effectively by reading about policymaking. You can
learn some more by periodic visits to a policymaker's office. But
the best way to learn about a different bureaucracy is just the
same as the best way to learn about any alien tribe--go live with
them for a couple of years.
7. Reward those managers and analysts who are successful in
gaining and maintaining access. As a rule, once a win-win
relationship takes hold, momentum will keep it going. Once the
policy official knows the intelligence unit can and will deliver
support when it is needed, he will provide in exchange access to
the real policy agenda. But policy officials come and go, and the
Agency has to take care of those with talent at starting over
again with newcomers who, as almost always will be the case, will
not seek you out.
Final Thoughts
Q: How do you stay informed on events overseas these days, while
working again at Kennedy School?
A: My main current interest is Russian politics and military
affairs. I have been spending one week per month in Russia,
dealing directly with the General Staff. While at Harvard, I
spend a couple of hours each morning on Internet. It is amazing
how much good information and worthwhile commentary is out there
for those with the interest and the time. While at the NSC, I had
the interest but not the time.
Internet, CNN, increasing visits by all sorts of Americans. The
competition for the DI analyst is becoming much stronger. This
means you are going to have to work much harder to find a
comparative advantage. How do you get more expertise--living
there, of course, language, and history?
I worry a bit about this. Just as you cannot rely on quality
alone to get your job of informing policy done, you cannot rely
only on access. In fact, marketing without a quality product to
deliver is worse than passivity.
Q: Final question. At the end of a long day, which is it, working
for more expertise, or for more access?
A: The answer, I suppose, is more efficiency. I imagine a
textbook breakdown would have the analysts spending 40 percent of
their time on collection and other activities for building
expertise, 30 percent on analysis and writing--putting things
together, and 30 percent on assuring impact on the policymaking
process. I never managed an analytic unit, and this is just a
guess. I do not think you are anywhere near the last 30 percent.
One final thought occurs to me. Managers in particular should
spend enough time establishing and keeping up effective links to
the policymaking world that they begin to feel guilty about not
having enough time for their other duties. It is that important.
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