The Future of Strategic IntelligenceJames LaneyINTL200Strategic Intelligence is a phrase often misrepresented in Military Intelligence circles. Unfortunately, what Military Intelligence often considers to be strategic intelligence is actually tactical intelligence. The divide between tactical and strategic intelligence is often misinterpreted.
Due to the long-term conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan in which the United States has placed servicemen and servicewomen on ground, the gap between tactical and strategic intelligence has only grown wider. It’s very likely that continued neglect of strategic intelligence will have significant negative consequences for our national security and leave us vulnerable to threats from major world powers.Before we can discuss the neglect of strategic intelligence, we must first determine the correct definitions of both strategic and tactical intelligence. The Pentagon defines strategic intelligence as “Intelligence that is required for the formulation of strategy, policy, and military plans and operations at national and theater levels” (Joint Chiefs Of Staff Washington Dc, 2010). Strategic intelligence is a broad look at a variety of information regarding a country. This could include political information, infrastructure, military strength, economic strength, or any number of other types of intelligence. Strategic intelligence provides the United States government with the knowledge required to make important decisions on the world stage.
It’s vital for the United States’ continuing effective performance internationally. The vast majority of strategic intelligence comes from open-source intelligence, and requires the analyst to have in-depth knowledge of the country, region, or organization being analyzed. Strategic intelligence was first truly utilized effectively during the Cold War. This was at the time also known as “warning intelligence” and was a vital part of the United States’s ability to understand the Soviet Union. (Grabo, C.
M. 2004, July 1. ) Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States Intelligence Community, particularly the Military, began to move away from the use of strategic intelligence. This isn’t to say that the United States Military does not currently use strategic intelligence.
The United States Army Special Forces, or Green Berets, utilized strategic intelligence very effectively. Through strategic intelligence, the Special Forces community gained the socio-cultural, religious, economic, political, and military knowledge necessary to complete their missions. Strategic intelligence allows the Special Forces soldiers to know the area, population, roads, regions, districts, cultural affiliations, tribal leaders, and far more (Heidenrich, 2007). This is, unfortunately, an exception, as the United States Military does not often utilize strategic intelligence over tactical intelligence.The Pentagon defines tactical intelligence as “Intelligence required for the planning and conduct of tactical operations” (Joint Chiefs Of Staff Washington Dc, 2010). As previously mentioned, Strategic Intelligence allows policymakers to make important decisions on the world stage that can affect the United States footing internationally. Tactical intelligence is intelligence gathered on a much smaller scale, such as a small area that the military is operating in. An example of this would be intelligence allowing a military unit to capture a high priority target located in an area in which the military is operating.
Neither of these two types of intelligence is superior to the other, however, intelligence does not exist in a vacuum and without both strategic and tactical intelligence the United States would be at a significant disadvantage against adversaries.The change from strategic intelligence to tactical intelligence aligns with the United States’ involvement in a number of foreign wars, in particular Iraq and Afghanistan. With United States soldiers on the ground, tactical intelligence was an absolute necessity to achieving the military’s goals. During this time, the intelligence customers stopped requesting strategic intelligence in favor of tactical intelligence to better support the war effort and to better enable tactical operations within the target countries (Heidenrich, 2007). The Intelligence Community recognized the great need for tactical intelligence and focused on it almost exclusively, to the detriment of strategic intelligence collection.
To further compound the issues regarding the shift to tactical intelligence, the vast majority of intelligence analysts have less than 10 years of experience, and the ability to collect and analyze strategic intelligence is not taught in military intelligence job training or other intelligence agency training (Heidenrich, 2007). These skills have degraded significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with most strategic intelligence professionals having long retired. Even the Soviet analysts of the Cold War have few applicable skills, as their expertise in the Soviet Union does not carry over to the politics and economies of Africa, China, the Middle East, or even Russia in its current state (Heidenrich, 2007). Strategic intelligence demands an in-depth knowledge of the area in which the intelligence is being collected and acquiring that knowledge takes a significant amount of training.Several international crises have arisen in part as a result of the United States lack of focus on strategic intelligence collection. The creation and rise to power of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant completely caught the Intelligence Community off guard. The Arab Spring, that began in 2010, was a massive uprising causing political upheaval throughout the Middle East; an uprising that the United States was not prepared for.
The Arab Spring is particularly indicative of the United States’ intelligence failures, as this event covered large swathes of the Middle East and caused massive changes in the political and military climates of all countries impacted, while United States intelligence was in the dark (Stimson). Additionally, the intelligence community did not predict the resurgence of Al-Qaeda, nor the Russian annexation of Crimea (Stimson). A greater focus on strategic intelligence could potentially have predicted these events. The Intelligence Community and Military Intelligence should re-examine the percentage of time dedicated to tactical versus strategic intelligence gathering. The United States is currently fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. A large portion of these wars is asymmetrical and tactical intelligence is the primary form of intelligence gathered regarding these encounters. This is not unexpected, as the military operates in a largely tactical fashion.
Regardless of this, strategic intelligence is greatly important to the United States’ military. The United States may be fighting an asymmetric war, but there are still adversaries that the United States isn’t currently engaged in a conflict with. These include near-peer and peer nations such as Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
The United States has focused heavily on tactical intelligence whereas our adversaries, who have not been in boots-on-ground conflicts to the same degree as the United States, have focused on strategic intelligence. This has particularly devastating consequences, as it’s unlikely that the United States would be prepared for a conflict with these nations in the realm of intelligence. This could potentially allow one of these nations to catch the United States unaware and do severe damage to this great nation.This is obviously a terrible worst case scenario, but it highlights the importance of strategic intelligence in the defense of the United States. Strategic intelligence allows the United States government to make educated decisions on a grand scale. On a much smaller and less devastating scale, strategic intelligence provides intelligence on drastic political shifts within allied or enemy nations that could help predict potential insurgent activity. Strategic intelligence is not exclusively used for the defense of the United States, however, as strategic intelligence also allows for the development of policies toward all nations, including our allies, to ensure economic power for the United States across the world.
The benefits of increasing our consumption of strategic intelligence cannot be overstated. There are several methods to address our current lack of strategic intelligence, but we must start at the top. Intelligence managers must be allowed to train in strategic intelligence. Intelligence managers who have only operated in the tactical realm cannot be expected to provide relevant training to their analysts in strategic intelligence. Additionally, strategic intelligence requires in-depth knowledge of the area or group in question and analysts must be trained on this for them to effectively collect and evaluate strategic intelligence.
This is not a cheap process and will cost a significant amount of resources, but it is necessary. The payoff would be the increased readiness necessary to meet any potential adversary head-on while fully understanding their capabilities. This alone should merit the shift back to strategic intelligence.As intelligence professionals, it’s important that we do not lose our knowledge of strategic intelligence. We must play our part in ensuring that these skills do not further degrade. It is vital to remember that the United States is not only in conflict in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, but also face arguably even greater threats from nations such as Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The only way to truly be prepared for the wide variety of threats the United States may face from a near-peer or peer adversary is to re-acquire the knowledge of strategic intelligence that the United States Intelligence Community has lost since the early 1990s. In conclusion, there are a number of issues with the current state of strategic intelligence within the US intelligence community, however, through modernizing our intelligence strategies and refocusing our efforts towards the big picture, the US can move past these issues and regain strategic superiority on the world stage.
References:Joint Chiefs Of Staff Washington Dc. (2010). Department of Defense Dictionary Of Military and Associated Terms. 226-234. doi:10.21236/ada536504 Heidenrich, J. G. (2007).
The State of Strategic Intelligence. Studies in Intelligence, 51(2), 15-26. Retrieved August 10, 2018, from http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a498042.pdf#page=20 Stimson, C. (n.d.
). Reforming Intelligence: A Proposal for Reorganizing the Intelligence Community and Improving Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/reforming intelligence-proposal-reorganizing-the-intelligence-community-and#_ftn1 Grabo, C.
M. (2004, July 1). Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning. Military Review.
