Is the Intelligence Community Really Necessary?

By

Jon M. Stout

Chief Executive Officer

Aspiration Software LLC

jon.stout@aspirationsoftware.com

The recent terrorist bombings at the Boston Marathon clearly show that the war on terror is far from finished.  Indeed, any declarations that we have won the war are strictly premature and naive. Terrorism and its impact on our country is ever-present and will continue into the foreseeable future.

Every expert agrees that our first line of defense and offense against terrorist attacks are the activities and missions of the Intelligence Community, but the success of the IC operations since the 911 attacks is short lived and fragile and constant vigilance is required.

The IC is huge and covers a broad spectrum of activities. Generally segmented into signals, human, overhead, image and geospatial intelligence gathering, the budget for all collection and interpretation activities of the community exceeds $US 70 billion per annum. This is changing however due to the mismanagement of our government’s fiscal affairs.

This substantial expenditure of tax money, divided by the National Intelligence Program (the NIP –accounting for roughly 2/3rds of the budget) and the Military Intelligence Program (the MIP – accounting for the remainder of the budget) directly addresses the security needs of our nation. The IC is on constant alert and acts proactively to eliminate threats before they occur,

The recent arbitrary and unfocused budgetary cuts and sequestration however have had a serious impact on the operations of the Intelligence Community. This is evidenced by the recent quote from Mr. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence:

“We will reduce human technical and counterintelligence operations, resulting in fewer

collection opportunities, which increases the risk of strategic surprise. This includes, for

example, possibly furloughing thousands of FBI employees funded in the NIP. 

Our cyber efforts will be impacted. Critical analysis and tools will be cut back. We’ll

reduce global coverage and may risk missing the early signs of a threat.

 

We’ll let go thousands of contractors who are an integral part of the intelligence community. We’ll delay major systems acquisitions and decommission older but still productive overhead reconnaissance capabilities. alluded to. Virtually all of the 39 major systems acquisitions across the intelligence community will be wounded.

 

We’ll have to renegotiate contracts and slip schedules for delay, which in the long run will cost us even more. And we’ll have to scale back cutting-edge research.

 

What Director Clapper is explaining represents a very serious threat to our nation. But, playing devil’s advocate one is tempted to ask the question “So What – Do We Need These Programs and the expense associate with them?”

A brief look at history and the changing nature of war fare supports Clapper’s position. The obvious examples of the breakdown of intelligence and the devastating consequences of these events are Pearl Harbor, the Invasion of the Soviet Union by National Socialist Forces, the attacks of 911 and Jihadist bombings in London, Madrid and Indonesia.

On a positive note the IC efforts following 911 have kept our country free from terrorism. It has been estimated that aggressive intelligence efforts have been responsible for thwarting over 50 major attacks since the 911 attacks. Those who remember the fearful aftermath of 911 can appreciate the freedom from attacks although the enemy continues to try.

In addition, in this age of Asymmetrical warfare, intelligence saves lives and conserves human and defense resources. Gone are the days when large armies threw themselves against each other in pitched battles that result in tremendous loss of life.

In the Asymmetrical theatre offensive strikes, directed by actionable intelligence are surgical and loss of American lives is greatly reduced.  Of course the loss of even one of our young men and women is a tragedy but quality intelligence reduces fatalities and injuries and will continue to do so.

The programs of the IC are clearly preventative as they search out the activities of terrorists’ word wide and, in conjunction with the military, Homeland Security, the FBI and local law enforcement eliminate threats before they arise.

These systems take years to evolve and they are constantly changing with updates and adoption of new technologies. All systems and programs heavily rely upon the in-depth experience of the IC employees and contractors. These systems are not easily restarted after they have been shut down by indoctrinate budget cuts.

When it comes to fighting terrorism, intelligence provides significant preventative value. It is hard to argue against the fact that the Intelligence Community clearly and proactively protects our quality of life in the homeland but the price is high. Recent events show that vigilance must be maintained and to fail to do so will result in a cost that is incalculable.

To reduce funding arbitrarily for the Intelligence Community is an act of folly with dangerous implications. Those who attempt to blind the IC by capricious budget cuts are inviting disaster.