MEMORANDUM on Defense Intelligence Transformation 7 May 2009
1. Background. A Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) in 2010 could be used to concisely and sensibly take on the hard issues that have been avoided since the Army Strategy Conference in 1998 first brought forward the need for “four forces after next,” each trained, equipped, and organized in a distinct tailored model: Big War, Small War, Peace from the Sea, and Homeland Defense. More recently the Army Strategy Conference in 2008 examined the urgent need to train, equip, and organize Whole of Government—the full inter-agency spectrum of capabilities for what the Defense Science Board called in 2004 the Transition to and From Hostilities. All of this happens as the capabilities of industrial-era governance are over-whelmed by the complexities of a rapidly changing globalized environment characterized by asymmetric non-state actors with potentially catastrophic powers. Two recent defense initiatives (a renewed focus on Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and the decision to create 20,000 new “inherently governmental” jobs in defense acquisition could be combined with a third new initiative to create a 21st century government and national security architecture.
2. Discussion. The People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran are prototypical “smart nations” that treat their foreign and national security policies as a “whole of government” and even a “whole of society” chessboard. The Chinese use everything from fisheries and friendship associations to the export of males seeking wives, with Presidential-level trade delegations and massive construction and other loans, all part of a harmonized strategy to achieve national security objectives that are best won by waging peace: the capture of natural resources. The Iranians use “five circles” of human activity: 1) commercial companies and banks, many of them fronts; 2) charities and scholarships; 3) “cultural” centers offering language and religion; 4) Hezbollah operating openly; and 5) clandestine operations with and without indigenous Sunni radicals in support.
3. Three Ideas. Each of the three ideas below has been in gestation since 1988—20 years ago—when the Marine Corps Intelligence Center (MCIA) was first created by General Al Gray, USMC (Ret), then the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). His original intent in creating MCIC was to provide the Marine Corps, an expeditionary force with unique requirements, its own acquisition intelligence capability, ending the dependence on the three services focused on big ships, big airplanes, and big ground systems.
a. Expeditionary Environment and “True Costs.” The expeditionary environment is not the environment that the three big services plan for, nor does the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) appear to be focused on creating joint systems that are actually tailored to real-world operating conditions. The most original idea in force today is the U.S. Army’s idea of “eat the tail,” in which remote outposts are given solar energy to eliminate dangerous fuel resupply runs. Both the QDR and all future acquisition initiatives need to be solidly grounded in an appreciation for the real world constraints on systems: an average aviation day that is hot and humid rather than warm; line of sight distances under 1000 meters; no pier-side offload in 50% of our target countries; bridge loading limited to 30 tons (in Panama an advance was stopped by a 10 ton bridge)….and so on. At the same time, the “true costs” of having 750 bases overseas, as opposed to relying on Peace from the Sea and long-haul airlift from the Air Force, have not been evaluated. Proper expeditionary environmental analysis should also factor in all of the players, most of them non-state and many of them tribal, village, or individual in nature, a level of granularity that cannot be addressed by technical systems and which HUMINT could do but cannot.
b. Whole of Government Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS). The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) dropped the “M” from its mission in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and today limits itself to adjusting numbers provided by stakeholders. At the same time, the Cabinet Departments and independent agencies do not “do” decision-support as we intelligence professionals understand it. They fight for budget share and are driven by the vocal demands of their stakeholders, not the actual needs of the public, the public interest. We are long overdue for ending the “secrets for the President” mentality of national intelligence, and redirecting national and defense intelligence toward Whole of Government PPBS. Only defense can lead at this time, but the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as a former Director of OMB, could be a huge co-leader in this endeavor.
c. Four “Type” Commands and Re-Direction of the Regional Commands. Title 10 acquisition authorities, and the Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) unique acquisition authorities, are not working. The new Administration needs to achieve defense savings at the same time that it achieves Whole of Government efficacy. A new National Security Act appears necessary and timely. Such an act could direct each of the four services to act as a joint “type” command: Army for Big War, Marine Corps for Small War, Navy and US Coast Guard for Peace & Security from the Sea, and Air Force for a mix of long-haul attack and long-haul airlift. Close air support cannot be done by the Air Force, those capabilities are best turned over to the Army Air Corps. Simultaneously, the regional commands (Central, European, Northern, Pacific, Southern) can be converted into multinational as well as inter-agency strategic, operational, tactical, and technical PPBS commands, reducing the military manpower while dramatically increasing inter-agency manpower to create a Regional Team counterpart to the Country Team concept, one able to both validate inter-agency needs in harmony with one another; and to establish practical burden-sharing opportunities, including information-sharing and sense-making, with our multinational partners, a “hub and spoke” arrangement that could and should bypass all the barriers now embedded in concrete in the National Capital Area (NCA).
4. Recommendations for Defense Intelligence. Dr. Stephen Cambone, former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD(I)) articulated the need for “universal coverage at a neighborhood level of granularity.” That is coincident with calls for a “new craft of intelligence,” that moves beyond the focus on conventional state-based targets and down to the level of individuals, households, neighborhoods, villages, and tribes. The new emphasis from 2007 on HUMINT by the current USD(I), General James Clapper, USAF (Ret), and the emerging interest in metrics that allow for a proper evaluation of technical intelligence from a Return on Investment (ROI) point of view, all bode well for defense intelligence. Below are two specific recommendations:
a. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to restructure collection, processing, analysis, and customer service to assure appropriate levels of support to policy, acquisition, and operations. The service intelligence centers need to be brought into the DIA global command grid, in part to provide for improved joint personnel management and cost reductions across the board.
b. Technical Intelligence to be Taxed. The new acquisitions focus provides USD(I) with an opportunity to impose a tax on the technical disciplines, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) in particular, to pay for three much needed plus ups:
1) HUMINT Support. HUMINT support to signals and other technical disciplines has been funded “out of hide” for too long. SIGINT without codebook theft, or close-in emplacements, or offensive counterintelligence (CI) penetrations, is not all it could be. A 1% tax on SIGINT particularly, redirected to defense HUMINT and CI, would yield capabilities and benefits not now planned for.
2) All-Source Processing. All- Source Processing does not exist. Although the National Security Agency (NSA) might be the logical provider of this service, because of the need for a Whole of Government as well as a multinational information-sharing and sense-making capability, both at the unclassified levels, a new national processing facility at Bolling AFB is recommended, using cloud computing from Google and Amazon, and distributed nodes for specialty processing, the bulk of it open. A second 1% tax on the technical disciplines is recommended to support this.
3) Analytic Support to Acquisition. Acquisition in the 21st Century needs to return to a holistic approach in which air, ground, and sea capabilities are devised in harmony, not only with one another, but in the context of the four levels of analysis (strategic air, operational artillery, tactical anti-tank weapons, technical substitution of electro-force for explosive force, to take one example). We also need a defense-based analytic support element for Whole of Government PPBS, and multinational PPBS. A third 1% tax on the technical intelligence elements is proposed.
Bottom Line: Transformation demands that USD(I) moves 3% out of the technical intelligence budget while transferring the service intelligence centers into the global DIA command and control structure.