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Foreword
Intelligence and Strategic Culture: Essays on American and British Praxis since the Second World War
Joop Van Reijn
‘It’s a cultural thing’ is the very appropriate title of an interesting essay by Garret Jones, in which he examines deeper remedies for cultural problems in the CIA.1 Although various commissions and enquiries have often asserted that the Agency should change its ‘culture’ remedies most often tended to focus on superficial issues of organization only. According to Philip Davies, various authors have tried to develop concepts of strategic culture or systematic theories of intelligence culture (including Davies himself), but it is very hard to tell whether these efforts have had a distinctive outcome. If these notions are to be useful ideas, Davies argues, they need to be applied in ways and to problems that have a concrete ‘value added’ impact on understanding intelligence.2
This is particularly true when it comes to understanding intelligence failure. When using the term ‘intelligence failure’ one could simply mean the intelligence agencies and security institutions not doing a proper job. But that certainly is not all there is to it. Perceptive students of intelligence know that surprise is inevitable; that political and public expectations are quite often flawed. And also, that at least some charges of failure on the part of the agencies are misplaced when properly scrutinized. John Gentry outlines a ‘state action’ concept of failure, in which performance of intelligence is a function of the actions of a government as a whole, not just of intelligence agencies.3 Gentry argues that intelligence fails if a state does not adequately collect and interpret intelligence, make sound policy based on that intelligence and effectively acts. In other words, intelligence failure is not just a matter of identifying the shortcomings of intelligence agencies in collection and assessment. His framework places significant responsibility on policymakers (both executives and legislators) as well as on agencies implementing those policies. Political leaders analyse intelligence information in strategic and domestic political contexts; they make decisions under conflicting pressures. Are policymakers willing and able to respond to the intelligence presented to them? And what role is there for implementing agencies such as foreign policy, homeland and defence departments?
The aim of this special issue is to investigate – not from a theoretical but from a practical perspective – how strategic culture affects outcomes of the intelligence process, leading to failure in assessment and subsequent policy use. The collection of essays has emerged out of an international conference in The Hague in September 2008. It was organized by the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association (NISA) and addressed intelligence failures and cultural misperceptions in Asia from 1945 onwards. As a number of contributions to the conference were in fact case studies on the relationship between intelligence and strategic or organizational culture in a variety of post-Second World War theatres, the idea was developed to bring these essays together in a publication which further explores the intricate relationship between intelligence and strategic culture.
Strategic culture is of course a very broad concept but it very well suits the treatment of intelligence problems – agenda setting, collection, analysis and dissemination. The notion of strategic culture is tackled through its main sources rather than through a strict definition that might not suit all contributions. Also, the special issue is limited to the investigation of American and British strategic culture as these nations were (and to a large extent still are) the key ‘Western’ players in the post-Second World War world. The main sources of strategic culture are amongst others history, experience, political structure, myths and symbols, key texts, resources and technology. There are several main keepers of strategic culture such as elites, political institutions, public opinion, civil society and popular culture. Strategic culture can illuminate how a state deals itself with (perceived) security challenges and how it perceives the strategic environment in other states where it might become involved.
Content
In this special issue, a series of essays is presented on American and British intelligence gathering in post-Second World War theatres, which shed light on the relationship between intelligence and strategic culture. From these cases, some conclusions are drawn and observations are made.
‘There’s nothing more practical than a good theory’.4 Putting Kurt Lewin’s well-known statement to the test, in the opening chapter Isabelle Duyvesteyn digs deep into the current debate on counter-insurgency, focusing on the development of non-military ideas in particular. She argues that theoretical notions like ‘cultural awareness’, ‘hearts-and-minds approaches’ and the value of intelligence are not necessarily the most important ingredients for success. More often they are problematic, both for their empirical weight and their methodological foundations. The answer may very well be that the stick offers more opportunity than the carrot, as the Dutch already found at the turn of the previous century when trying to ‘pacify’ insurgents in Aceh.5
To counterbalance this view as far as the role of intelligence is concerned Georgina Sinclair then presents the case of the Malayan Police Special Branch during the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1955. And although this period has been closely scrutinized in academia, the study of police intelligence systems has remained underdeveloped to date. Sinclair’s essay certainly changes this as she describes the development and importance of intelligence-led policing as a necessary tool to assist colonial governments throughout the British decolonization period. Yet although this was a commendable attempt to prevent some of the mistakes made earlier in Ireland and Palestine, ‘Malaya’ also made it clear that each territory had its own ‘strategic culture’ which necessitated a different approach.
Cultural factors also play a key role in Matthew Aid’s assessment of American intelligence failures during the Cold War, drawing on the cases of Korea and Vietnam, amongst others. Reducing complex political situations to simple black and white schemes, the US intelligence community becoming increasingly consensus oriented, the tendency with analysts to avoid advancing an argument that challenges or runs contrary to accepted wisdom, ‘guestimation’ and politicization of intelligence created a strategic culture which – as Aid clearly demonstrates – historically has inhibited the ability of American Cold War intelligence to properly perform its mission. Aid concludes that much of this even persisted during the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) scandal. On the latter, he is largely backed up by Robert Jervis’ assessment of the case of Iraq.6
Another interesting case on the link between culture and intelligence is presented by Andreas Etges. In his essay, he analyses the coup against Mossadegh which has often been described as the beginning of the ‘Golden Age’ of the CIA. The coup, although arguably successful, marks the end of close US/Iranian relations which further deteriorated following the fall of the Shah. Even more importantly, the USA replaced Britain as the most visible ‘imperial’ power in the Middle East. Moreover, Etges argues that the perceived success of the coup inspired a strategic culture within the CIA – and to some extent also within the US administration – of overconfidence and blindness to its own limitations. Thus Iran became a fatal catalyst for other interventions of the CIA, leading up to the Bay of Pigs disaster, discrediting the Agency’s reputation and damaging its public support.
Former Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence John Morrison analyses how Britain’s strategic culture dealt with two contemporary security challenges, Afghanistan and Iraq. And although the UK intelligence community had been aware of the potential for cultural bias for decades, it repeatedly failed to learn the appropriate lessons. Particularly in the case of Iraq this led to crucial intelligence failures to the detriment of longer term credibility and public support. Morrison is very critical about the role of the politicians, on whom he puts serious blame for the abuse of intelligence to justify purely political decisions. But also the intelligence community itself may be to blame. As Richard Aldrich puts it: ‘the problem was how a rather traditional piece of intelligence machinery, one that prided itself on procedure and on the delivery of objective facts, was going to adjust to a new style of informal government that preferred subjective policy advice’.7
Notwithstanding the limitations of the approach adopted in this special issue, in the closing essay Isabelle Duyvesteyn further explores the link between strategic culture and intelligence. She argues that whenever intelligence failures are discussed, the commonly perceived mechanisms that reduce the value of intelligence do not as a rule include cultural perceptions or bias. Using the intelligence cycle as a reference, she then dissects the links between intelligence failure and aspects of culture as they have been presented in the previous essays, making a number of interesting observations.
Acknowledgements
The Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association (NISA) is grateful to Intelligence and National Security and its publisher Routledge for the opportunity offered to develop this special issue on intelligence and strategic culture. A special word of thanks goes to long term member of NISA, Isabelle Duyvesteyn, for contributing to and editing this special issue. The idea for this collection of essays is largely hers. She worked hard, quickly and in good harmony with the authors to complete it. And, last but certainly not least, NISA would like to express its profound thanks to the authors themselves for their fine contributions to this project.
1G. Jones, ‘It’s a Cultural Thing: Thoughts on a Troubled CIA’ in Richard Aldrich, Christopher Andrew and Wesley Wark (eds.) Secret Intelligence (London: Routledge 2009) pp.26–39.
2Philip H.J. Davies, ‘Intelligence Culture and Intelligence Failure in Britain and the United States’, Review of International Affairs 17/3 (2004) p.495.
3John A. Gentry, ‘Intelligence Failure Reframed’, Political Science Quarterly 123/2 (2008) pp.247, 248.
4K. Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers by Kurt Lewin (London: Tavistock 1952) p.169.
5W.F. Wertheim, ‘Counterinsurgency Research at the Turn of the Century: Snouck Hurgronje and the Aceh War’, Sociologische Gids 19/5–6 (1972).
6R. Jervis, ‘Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq’, Journal of Strategic Studies 29/1 (2006) pp.3–52.
7R.J. Aldrich, ‘Intelligence and Iraq: The UK’s Four Enquiries’ in Andrew, Aldrich and Wark, Secret Intelligence, p.240.
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Hearts and Minds, Cultural Awareness and Good Intelligence: The Blueprint for Successful Counter-insurgency?
Isabelle Duyvesteyn
ABSTRACT Are a hearts and minds approach, reliable intelligence and cultural awareness the most important ingredients for success in counter-insurgency, as present prescriptions claim? This article focuses on some of the notable non-kinetic aspects of counter-insurgency and aims to critically reflect on their role and importance. It argues that the hearts and minds ideas, the emphasis on intelligence and cultural awareness are often problematic both for their methodological foundations and empirical weight. The article closes by identifying avenues for further research.
Introduction
Current thinking about counter-insurgency is dominated by what is commonly called the ‘hearts and minds’ approach; we need to entice the population to support us by making sure we listen to their needs and try to improve social and economic conditions. Together with the use of minimum force, civil–military cooperation, long term planning and the primacy of politics, these tenets form the core of counter-insurgency thinking, among others exemplified by the American counter-insurgency doctrine, the Petraeus doctrine, published in 2006.1
However, the hearts and minds approach is contentious. First, even though grounded in empirical evidence, it is based on a limited number of cases and heavily influenced by one particular successful case, the Malayan Emergency. This has given rise to what is now called a counter-insurgency paradigm.2 The Malayan Emergency was a highly unique conflict between a colonial power, the British Empire, which was opposed by the Malayan Communist Party consisting mainly of the ethnic Chinese population during the 1950s. The British could draw on over 150 years of presence in the area and in the end granted the territory its independence, which was one of the main issues on the agenda of the Communists. It is problematic to award such prominence to a limited number of historical cases to build a whole body of thought and military doctrine on how to conduct counter-...
