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Problems in the Intelligence-Policy Nexus: Rethinking Korea, Tet, and Afghanistan

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02684527.2013.851875

1743-9019

Douglas A. Borer, Stephen W. Twing, Randy P. Burkett,

Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies

AbstractAccusations of failure by elements of the US intelligence community (IC) have followed in the wake of nearly every war and terrorist bombing since Japan's successful strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941. This article will illustrate how some problems that exist inside the 'intelligence-policy nexus' are beyond the control of the IC. By investigating the dynamics and tensions that exist between producers of intelligence (the IC) and the consumers of those products (policy-makers), we review three different types of alleged failure. First, by revisiting the Chinese intervention in Korea, we show that a rarely listed case in the literature is in fact a classic example of producer-based failure generated from within the IC. However, in our study of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War (1968), we show that the alleged intelligence failure by producers should be more accurately described as a 'failure of intelligence' by consumers. Third, by revisiting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979), we conclude that there existed neither a producer nor a consumer failure. The Carter Administration made a conscious policy choice to act surprised (when it was not). Notes1 See < http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/key-republican-senator-calls-for-hearings-over-fbi-handling> < http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/22/fbi-missed-tsarnaevs-russia-trip-because-misspelli/?page = all>(accessed 23 April 2013).2 This disturbing trend is even parroted by respected journalists. For instance, see Peter Bergen's post-Boston essay < http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/27/opinion/bergen-warning-signs-terrorism/index.html?hpt = hp_t4>(accessed 27 April 2013).3 Uri Friedman, 'The Ten Biggest American Intelligence Failures', Foreign Policy, January 2012, < http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/1/3/the_ten_biggest_american_intelligence_failures>.4 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday 2007).5 William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, revised ed. (Montreal: Black Rose Books 2000).6 Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor, Warning and Decision (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1962).7 James J. Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1994).8The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (New York: W.W. Norton 2004).9 Robert Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iran Revolutions and the Iraq War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2010). 10 Mark Lowenthal, 'Tribal Tongues: Consumers, Intelligence Producers' in Loch Johnson and James Wirtz (eds.) Strategic Intelligence: Windows into a Secret World (LA: Roxbury 2004) pp.234–41. 11 See Amy Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1999) pp.46–53. See also K.S. Clayton Chun and Frank Jones, 'Learning to Play the Game: The National Security Policy-Making Process' in Gabriel Marcella (ed.) Affairs of State: The Interagency and National Security (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute 2008) pp.171–214. For an in-depth economic treatment of principal-agent theory see Jean-Jacques Laffont and David Martimort, The Theory of Incentives: The Principal Agent Model (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2002). For a concise overview of early efforts to apply the principal agent framework to public bureaucracies, see Barry Weingast, 'The Congressional-Bureaucratic System: A Principal-Agent Perspective', Public Choice 44 (1984) pp.147–92, and Terry Moe, 'The New Economics of Organization', American Journal of Political Science 28 (1984) pp.739–77. For a more recent application of the principal-agent framework see Francis Fukuyama, State Building: Governance and World Order in the 21stCentury (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2004). 12 Zegart, Flawed by Design, pp.46–8. 13 Chun and Jones, 'Learning to Play the Game', pp.199–205. 14 Lowenthal, 'Tribal Tongues', pp.234–41. 15 For a exploration of the role of conscious action in distorting intelligence see Uri Bar Joseph and Jack Levy, 'Conscious Action and Intelligence Failure', Political Science Quarterly 124/3 (2009). 16 Harry Howe Ransom, 'The Politicization of Intelligence' in Loch Johnson and James Wirtz (eds.) Strategic Intelligence: Windows into a Secret World (LA: Roxbury 2004) pp.182. Richard Betts, Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security (New York: Columbia University Press 2007) ch.4. 17 Richard Betts, Enemies of Intelligence, p.67. 18 Ibid. 19 James Wirtz, 'The Intelligence-Policy Nexus' in Loch Johnson (ed.) Strategic Intelligence, Vol. 1 (Westport: Greenwood Press 2007) pp.139–50. See also Arthur Hulnick, 'The Intelligence Producer-Policy Consumer Linkage: A Theoretical Approach', Intelligence and National Security 1 (1986) pp.212–33. 20 Justin Haynes, Intelligence Failure in Korea: Major General Charles A. Willoughby's Role in the United Nations Command's Defeat in November, 1950, MA thesis (US Army Command and General Staff College), pp.63–4. 21 Bar Joseph and Levy, 'Conscious Action and Intelligence Failure', p.462. 22 Ibid. 23 P.K. Rose, 'Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950', Central Intelligence Agency Center for the Study of Intelligence < https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/>(accessed 15 August 2012). 24 Ibid. 25 See Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1976). 26 Rose, 'Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950', p.3. 27 Ibid. 28 Alexander Ovedenko, '(Mis)Interpreting Threats: A Case Study of the Korean War', Security Studies 16/2 (2007) p.262. 29 Rose, 'Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950', p.4. 30 Haynes, 'Intelligence Failure in Korea', p.17. 31 Ibid., p.60. 32 Ibid., p.63. 33 Haynes, 'Intelligence Failure in Korea', p.44. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Rose, 'Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950', p.5. 37 Haynes, 'Intelligence Failure in Korea', p.46. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., p.45. 40 Ibid., p.47. 41 David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New York: Hyperion 2007) p.378. 42 Bar Joseph and Levy, 'Conscious Action and Intelligence Failure', p.462. 43 Halberstam, The Coldest Winter, p.380. 44 Rose, 'Two Strategic Mistakes in Korea, 1950', p.5. 45 Halberstam, The Coldest Winter, p.380. 46 Ibid., p.378. 47 Haynes, 'Intelligence Failure in Korea', p.51. 48 Halberstam, The Coldest Winter, pp.372–3. 49 Ibid., p.379. 50 Alexander Ovodenko, 'Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad: Revisiting CIA and Military Expectations of the Tet Offensive', Journal of Strategic Studies 34/1 (2011) pp.121–2. 51 Harold Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes 1962–1968, Episode 3, CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence < https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/cia-and-the-vietnam-policymakers-three-episodes-1962-1968/index.html>(accessed 25 September 2012) p.11. 52 Ibid., p.8. 53 David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Penguin Press 1972) pp.786–90. 54 Wirtz, The Tet Offensive, pp.111–2. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., pp.112–3. 58 Ibid., see chs.3, 4. 59 Ibid., p.123. 60 Ibid., p.127. 61 Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policy-Makers, p.14. 62 Ovodenko, 'Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad', p.138. 63 Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policy-Makers, p.14. 64 Ibid., p.15. 65 Ovodenko, 'Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad', p.126. 66 Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policy-Makers, p.15. 67 Ibid., pp.19–23. 68 Ovodenko, 'Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad', p.127. 69 Ford, CIA and Vietnam Policy-Makers, p.15. 70 Ibid., p.15. 71 Ibid. 72 Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: First Vintage Books 1988) p.703. 73 Ibid., p.703. 74 Ovodenko, 'Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad', p.134. 75 Wirtz, The Tet Offensive, p.220. 76 Ibid., p.220. 77 Ovodenko, 'Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad', pp.121–2. 78 Chun and Jones, 'Learning to Play the Game', pp.171–214. 79 'Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Co-operation', 5 December 1978. Translated by Cyriac Maprayil, The Soviets and Afghanistan (New Delhi: Reliance Publishing House 1986) pp.100–1. For the best early English-language source on the background of the Soviet invasion, see, Joseph J. Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: A Study in the Use of Force in Soviet Foreign Policy (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books 1986). 80 See Douglas A. Borer, Superpowers Defeated: Vietnam and Afghanistan Compared (London: Frank Cass 1999). 81Pravda, 23 December 1979, p.5, cited in Current Digest of the Soviet Press (herafter CDSP) 51 (1980) p.4. 82 Friedman, 'The Ten Biggest'. 83 Colonel K. Vorobiev, 'The Incarnation of Leninist Ideas on the Armed Defense of Socialism', Kommunist Vooruzhnnykh Sil 1 (1980) p.22, translated and cited in Alfred L. Monks, The Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan (Washington: American Enterprise Institute 1981) p.42. 84 A. Petrov, Pravda, 1 June 1979, p.5, cited in CDSP 21 (1979) p.20. 85 Thomas T. Hammond, Red Flag over Afghanistan: The Communist Coup, the Soviet Invasion, and the Consequences (Boulder: Westview Press 1984) p.97. Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War (London: Frank Cass 1995) p.9; Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster 1996) p.132, citing a still-classified report of 24 August 1979. 86 Douglas MacEachin, 'Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The Intelligence Community's Record', CIA Center for Intelligence. Hereafter cited as MacEachin Report. All references accessed online from < https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record.html#rfn109>(accessed 1 May 2013). See also Gates, From the Shadows, pp.132–3. 87 Declassified Interagency Intelligence Memorandum (IIM), Soviet Options in Afghanistan, 28 September 1979, p.5; and The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, October 1980, p.6. According to MacEachin, these documents were declassified as part of CIA's historical review program and are available from the Historical Review staff. The October 1980 document was prepared as an Intelligence Community review of intelligence warnings leading up to the Soviet invasion in December 1979, and describes the flow of evidence available to analysts during that time frame. Regarding the sightings of Soviet advisors with army units carrying out the action, see Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (New York: Oxford University Press 1995) pp.27, 32. See also fn.31 in MacEachin Report, op cit. 88 Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy, Inside the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Seizure of Kabul, December 1979, translated by Gary Goldberg and Artemy Kalinovsky, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper #51, January 2007, pp.10–22, < http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/WP51_Web_Final.pdf>(accessed 2 May 2013). 89 Victor Cherkashin (with Gregory Feifer) Spy Handler (Cambridge: Basic Books 2005) pp.275; Oleg Kalugin Spymaster (Cambridge: Basic Books 2009) pp.266–70. 90MacEachin Report, op cit. 91 Co-author Randy Burkett's personal observations. 92 US Embassy Kabul 5493 of 22 July and Kabul 5627 of 25 July, at the National Security Archive. These cables are in a compendium entitled 'The Intervention in Afghanistan and the Fall of Détente,' compiled for a 1995 Nobel Symposium in Oslo, Norway, hereafter referred to by MacEachin as the Nobel Compendium. See also Raymond Garthoff's description of other State Department reporting cables in Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington DC: Brookings Press 1994) p.1001, fn.61. Cited in MacEachin Report. 93 Brzezinski's memorandum to the DCI, Publicizing the Soviet Forces in Afghanistan, 10 December 1979. This document is housed in the Nobel Compendium as referenced in MacEachin Report, fn.108. 94MacEachin Report. 95 Record of the meeting of the Special Coordination Committee, 17 December 1979, 'Subject: Iran,' Nobel Compendium. Referenced in MacEachin Report, fn.110. 96MacEachin Report. See fn.114 where MacEachin (who later became Deputy DCI) reports his deep personal involvement in these events. 97 See Douglas A. Borer, 'Genesis of a Forgotten War: Containment in Afghanistan 1947–1956', Comparative Strategy 11/3 (1992) pp.343–56. 98 According to MacEachin, Schulman's meeting with the Soviet chargé is described in a declassified cable in the Nobel Compendium – Additional Materials Volume. The instruction to the US ambassador – in State Department Cable 323556, 15 December 1979 – is referred to in a cable from the US Embassy in Moscow reporting on the Soviet reaction – Moscow 27530, 17 December 1979, also in the Nobel Compendium. See fn.109. MacEachin Report. op cit. 99 Gates, From the Shadows, pp.146.100 George Crile, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times (New York: Grove Press 2007).101 Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books 1982) p.473.102 'Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan'. Memorandum for the President from Zbigniew Brzezinski. Declassified 28 April 2008. Made available by Kieth J. Shuler, Archivist, Jimmy Carter Library and Museum. NSA Materials: Brzezinski Materials, Country Files, Box 1. Sent to author via PDF 29 January 2013.103 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine>(accessed 10 May 2013).104Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15–21 January 1998, translated from the French by William Blum and David N. Gibbs. See Gibbs review essay, 'Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Retrospect', International Politics 37/2 (2000) pp.233–46.105 Gates, From the Shadows, p.149.Additional informationNotes on contributorsDouglas A. BorerDouglas A. Borer is an Associate Professor in the Dept of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California. He is the co-founder of the CORE Lab (Common Operational Research Environment) and of CTAP (Combating Terrorism Archive Project).Stephen TwingStephen Twing is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Frostburg State University. He holds an MA and a PhD in International Studies from the University of South Carolina.Randy P. BurkettRandy Burkett is a career CIA National Clandestine Service (NCS) officer serving as the first CIA Representative to the Naval Postgraduate School and Chair for National Intelligence.