Intelligence and National Security – some key considerations

Dear Editor,
There is great excitement about the formalization of the National Intelligence and Security Agency. The positive vibes are understandable, and are indeed justifiable. Yet, we do need to stand back and reflect on the promises and challenges of such an institution.
But first things first: Why don’t we begin with a quick overview of some key attributes of intelligence, and try to situate these within the larger complex of national and international security? Consider the following points.
1. Following the work of Professor Mohammed Ayoob of Michigan State University, we need to appreciate that Third World security challenges are mostly internal. Weak states, meaning states with underdeveloped or undeveloped institutions, often find it difficult to foment and maintain national cohesion; deliver public services; or, in worse case scenarios, hold the monopoly on the means of violence (meaning arms).
2. The state in the Global South is characterised by fault lines that include (a) grievances based on economic disparities that were seeded during plantation capitalism; (b) ethnic conflicts which were produced as a strategy of divide-and-rule during the colonial era; and (c) the lack of economic capabilities necessary to provide basic human security. These fault lines can be, and are, often amplified by hegemonic global governance that limits the capacity of states to conduct their internal affairs based on their own historical specificities.
3. Unlike many countries in the Global South, Guyana does indeed have an external security consideration that must be taken seriously, not least because we do not have the military capability of our own to ensure our territorial integrity. In this sense, Ayoob’s analysis needs to be stretched to incorporate more traditional considerations of strategic analysis. Is subaltern realism as a framework adequate to the task? I would very much like to get Prof. Gibran’s response here.
4. We may usefully draw from the revised United States Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual (3-24), which has significant sections on the linkages between intelligence and security. FM 3-24 is useful despite its conditions of emergence, namely “counterinsurgency warfare” in Iraq. Before the 2006 revision, COIN (intelligence) operations were developed for “low intensity conflict.”
5. The revised FM 3-24 “comprehensive insurgency analysis tasks” (p. 130) could be adapted to serve as a base for our own purposes. These include (a) “identify… strategic, operational and tactical goals, objectives, and imperatives” of the subjects of interest (SI), meaning the sources of threat; (b) “identify motivations, fears, concerns, and perceptions that shape the actions of” the SI; (c) “identify grievances, fears, and concerns…” that are exploited by the SI to create aggravated instability and threats to national security; (d) “understand links among political, religious, …criminal, and other social networks”; and, inter alia, (e) “determine the structure, function, [and leadership] of organizations that pose national security threats”.
6. I must add that there should be built-in safeguards to rigorously protect the right to privacy, as guaranteed by the Constitution of Guyana.
7. No one should assume that an intelligence agency would necessarily guarantee total security against threats, either domestic or foreign. In fact, we should learn from several intelligence failures that have become ‘storied’ in the world of intelligence and international security. These failures have been widely analyzed by scholars who had direct access to security agencies. Robert Jervis, for instance, who was at the Office of Strategic Research, has pointed out that failures have been due to multiple causes, including poor information due to inadequate or badly designed collection systems; bad analysis due to faulty methodology; or failure to act on good intelligence.
8. A few intelligence failures will illustrate the point. A mere five months before the January 1979 removal of the Shah of Iran, the CIA advised that “Iran is not in a revolutionary or even “prerevolutionary” situation.” Jervis thinks that one source of the problem was that the intelligence received was mostly from the SAVAK. Iraq was also a monumental intelligence failure, this time because of bad information combined with twisted intelligence due to determination of VP Dick Cheney and others to remove Saddam Hussein. You may all remember the Yellow Cake ordeal, Valerie Plame, and so on. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a different kind of intelligence failure. This time, the intelligence was gathered from direct physical observation (of ships going to Cuba), but the reports were misfiled in a non-urgent binder (See Graham Allison’s “Essence of Decision”). Then there was 9/11, where, according to credible reports, incoming National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice ignored intelligence advice from Richard Clark, who warned that Al Qaeda was a real and present danger. We should also recall that there were several intelligence blunders surrounding the bombing of Pearl Harbour.
9. Robert Jervis is correct that even perfectly accurate intelligence does not translate into good policy. The main reason is due to divided Government. A sitting Government may have accurate information, but often, Opposition political parties will go to the media to run their own campaign to weaken the hand of the sitting Government. In some instances, Opposition elements within a “deep state” may withhold or distort vital information, or divert attention in order that the sitting administration does not get “a win.”
The discussion above is certainly not meant to touch on all the critical areas of intelligence and security. The focus, rather, is to indicate what are some of the things involved in a national intelligence and security agency, and to also draw attention to some of the limitations of relying too much on ‘intelligence’, when narrowly defined.
In the end, what really matters in national security is the quality of governance, including the conduct of political parties and civil society groups. This means optimising the human, economic and technical resources of the state and civil society, so competence is balanced with good political sense. This last point is especially important because of the history of internally-generated strife by authoritarian elements who are motivated by regressive cultural nationalism.

Sincerely,
Dr Randolph Persaud
(Former Assistant Director,
Centre for Int’l and
Security Studies
York University, Toronto)