Spurred by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the poor analysis of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, and numerous studies, the Intelligence Reform and Ter- rorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the Office of Director of National Intelli- gence (ODNI). Run by former ambassador John Negroponte, ODNI is an independent agency meant to oversee U.S. government intelligence activities and to transform the American intelligence commu- nity

Reveron, Derek S.

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Naval War College ReviewVolume 60Number 1 Winter Article 102007Review EssayDerek S. ReveronFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Additional Writing is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationReveron, Derek S. (2007) "Review Essay," Naval War College Review: Vol. 60 : No. 1 , Article 10.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol60/iss1/10REVIEW ESSAYBUILDING AN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITYDerek S. ReveronNegroponte, John. National Intelligence Strategy. Washington,D.C.: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2005.32pp.Negroponte, John. Strategic Human Capital Plan: An Annex tothe US National Intelligence Strategy, Washington, D.C.: Officeof the Director of National Intelligence, 2006. 47pp.(Both documents are available online at www.odni.gov.)Spurred by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the poor analysis of Iraq’s weapons of massdestruction programs, and numerous studies, the Intelligence Reform and Ter-rorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the Office of Director of National Intelli-gence (ODNI). Run by former ambassador John Negroponte, ODNI is anindependent agency meant to oversee U.S. government intelligence activitiesand to transform the American intelligence commu-nity. Guiding Director Negroponte’s efforts are twovery different lessons learned from 9/11. First, thatattack has been characterized as a failure to “connectthe dots.” If only intelligence agencies had sharedtheir data, analysts could have predicted al Qa’ida’splan to attack, though the dots were not specificenough to connect the overall plan with individualnames. To share intelligence, to “connect the dots,” isnow a national priority. Consequently, the slogan is“share, share, share.” The second lesson, derivedfrom prewar intelligence on Iraq, offers a contradic-tory lesson—to “collect more dots.” While there wasDerek S. Reveron is associate professor of national secu-rity affairs at the Naval War College and a lieutenantcommander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He has received adiploma from the Naval War College, a master’s degreein political science, and a doctorate in public policyanalysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Hespecializes in U.S. foreign policy, civil-military relations,and intelligence. He is the author of Promoting Democ-racy in the Post-Soviet Region (2002), the editor ofAmerica’s Viceroys: The Military and U.S. ForeignPolicy (2004), and the co-editor of Flashpoints in theWar on Terrorism (2006). Author of numerous bookchapters and articles, he sits on the editorial boards ofthe Defense Intelligence Journal and this journal.Naval War College Review, Winter 2007, Vol. 60, No. 1C:\WIP\NWCR\NWC Review Winter 2007.vpWednesday, February 28, 2007 8:14:49 AMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen1Reveron: Review EssayPublished by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2007human intelligence informing of Iraq’s weapons programs, it proved to bewrong. The slogan, however, is “collect, collect, collect.”Given these lessons and guiding legislation, ODNI is tasked to integrate U.S.intelligence, bring depth and accuracy to analysis, and ensure that resourcesgenerate future capabilities. However, the task to unify sixteen different agenciesacross six different departments will not be easy. With such a Herculean effortbefore him, Negroponte is well positioned to offer insight into the first-ever Na-tional Intelligence Strategy and its accompanying Strategic Human Capital Plan.Both documents outline mission objectives that will provide better intelligenceand enterprise objectives to transform the intelligence community.The Strategy includes topics that have been long-standing intelligence re-quirements, such as warning, counterproliferation, and counterterrorism, prob-lems that transcend the private sector and touch all levels of government:federal, state, local, even tribal. This all-encompassing approach will likely havea dramatic impact on an intelligence community that fiercely guards its sourcesand methods. While it is relatively easy for the CIA and FBI to share informa-tion, there are legal, cultural, and technological factors that prevent the CIAfrom sharing intelligence with the Rhode Island State Police, for example. Fur-ther, though much attention has been focused on sharing intelligence within theU.S. government, the Strategy also recognizes the importance of sharing intelli-gence across national boundaries. Since 9/11, the United States has cultivated in-telligence relationships with traditional allies like the United Kingdom, newallies like Russia, and nontraditional partners like Yemen. Intelligence sharing isnot only essential in the war on terrorism but also provides a nonpublic way forgovernments to cooperate with the United States.Perhaps as a reflection of his diplomatic career, Negroponte notes that the in-telligence community must identify opportunities for democratic transforma-tion, and he warns of state failure. Although the promotion of democracy hasbeen a national priority for several decades, it is seldom linked to the intelligencecommunity. While the community’s role may be misinterpreted as limited to di-rect action against dictators or supporting regime change, it is more likely thatthe intelligence community will, for example, build on its decade-old partner-ship with the Political Instability Task Force at the University of Maryland. Thistask force attempts to understand why states fail, which should result in aidpackages targeted to ward off state failure. As President Bush acknowledged inhis 2002 National Security Strategy: “America is now threatened less by con-quering states than we are by failing ones.” The challenge for Negroponte is tofind a balance between potential peer competitors (an institutional preference)and states where American intervention will likely occur.1 4 0 N A V A L W A R C O L L E G E R E V I E WC:\WIP\NWCR\NWC Review Winter 2007.vpWednesday, February 28, 2007 8:14:49 AMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen2Naval War College Review, Vol. 60 [2007], No. 1, Art. 10https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol60/iss1/10The Strategy makes it clear that the United States has interests throughout theglobe. Negroponte states that “the Intelligence Community should develop, sus-tain, and have access to expertise on every region, every transnational security is-sue, and every threat to the American people.” With such a large goal, the strategyemphasizes drawing from experts outside the government and uponopen-source data.The Strategic Human Capital Plan outlines an approach to build an agile,all-source force, win the war for talent, and create a culture of leadership at everylevel. The Plan is also expected to determine the “optimum mix of military, civil-ian, contractor, and other human resources” necessary to support the objectivesdetailed in the strategy.The Plan is marked throughout by sober assessment of the challenge for realhuman capital. The intelligence community is handicapped by a lengthy hiringprocess, stringent clearance requirements that generally exclude potentiallyvaluable bilingual noncitizens, and a personnel system that is not designed for anew generation of workers who frequently change jobs. The Plan also notes thatthe intelligence community faces “critical shortfalls of experienced mid-careerprofessionals,” because it skipped “a generation of new hires.” Also nipping awayat midcareer personnel are contractors who recruit their own employees, al-ready cleared and trained at government expense, and then “lease” them back tothe government at considerably greater expense. Finally, the Plan notes that inspite of its name, the intelligence community (IC) is no community at all. Bybuilding a “national intelligence service,” integrating training, education, andcareer development, and fostering an ethos of service, integrity, and account-ability, Negroponte hopes to “bring more Community-wide coherence and co-hesion than ever before to the way IC agencies lead and manage their people.”Negroponte’s assignment to transform the intelligence community comes ata difficult time, when “adversarial states have learned to mask their intentionsand capabilities” and “terrorists and other non-state actors use commonplacetechnologies to boost their striking power and enhance their elusiveness.”Equally daunting is the prospect of developing human intelligence sources forhard targets. Doing so in a totalitarian country like North Korea or Iran is unre-alistic. Those countries’ intelligence services deprive American operatives of re-cruitment opportunities. The intelligence community has learned how difficultit is to penetrate even English-speaking urban-ecoterrorist groups in theUnited States, let alone a Pashto-speaking tribe in Pakistan. Negroponte recog-nizes these challenges and sees developing “innovative ways to penetrate andanalyze the most difficult targets” as a core objective. These ways include creat-ing “red teams” to get “inside the heads” of potential adversaries and developingR E V I E W E S S A Y 1 4 1C:\WIP\NWCR\NWC Review Winter 2007.vpWednesday, February 28, 2007 8:14:49 AMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen3Reveron: Review EssayPublished by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2007relationships with foreign intelligence services that might be better positionedto access hard targets.The ultimate importance of these documents, and his own tenure, will de-pend on Negroponte’s ability to lead the way to change in a very large, disparateintelligence community. Without direct budgetary control, he will have to in-spire, cajole, and perhaps somehow coerce the leaders of the sixteen differentintelligence agencies to cooperate. With the Undersecretary of Defense for Intel-ligence reforming defense intelligence and “protecting defense assets,”Negroponte will likely focus on the civilian agencies. It is too early to say how aformer CIA director as the new secretary of defense will affect this process. Ulti-mately, Negroponte’s success will be based on the benchmarks listed: “to provideaccurate and timely intelligence and conduct intelligence programs and activi-ties directed by the President” and “to transform our capabilities faster thanthreats emerge, protect what needs to be protected, and perform our duties ac-cording to the law.”We are unlikely to see widespread change soon. It will not be until fiscal year2008 that Negroponte’s objectives will be fully reflected within the differentagencies. In fact, with the parallel transformation of intelligence agencies andthe competing priorities among defense, civilian, and law enforcement intelli-gence agencies, we may never see the unity that the Office of Director of Na-tional Intelligence was intended to bring into being.1 4 2 N A V A L W A R C O L L E G E R E V I E WC:\WIP\NWCR\NWC Review Winter 2007.vpWednesday, February 28, 2007 8:14:49 AMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen4Naval War College Review, Vol. 60 [2007], No. 1, Art. 10https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol60/iss1/10

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