US Dominance

The United States is the world hub of intelligence alliances. Accordingly, alliances cannot be separated from the business of reforming or reshaping the US intelligence community. Cynics have observed that when it comes to US intelligence, only a policy of enlargement does not encounter immediate resistance. This observation rings true because the US intelligence community has some unusual arrangements and duplications. The CIA has its own special forces while the US military has its own mini-CIA buried within the Department of Defense, conducting clandestine human intelligence in competition with the CIA.

Similar to the British and the French, many characteristics of the US intelligence community are perennial. Historically, it has been strong in core technical areas such as signals intelligence and imagery. It has an impressive record in covert action and regime support. Yet it has been weaker in the area of classical human intelligence gathering. There are many reasons for this weakness, some having to do with the growing dominance of the Department of Defense as a player in Washington, demanding a high-tech intelligence capability that is designed to help deliver full-spectrum dominance on the battlefield. It is partly explained by the growth of a secretive presidential foreign policy, which has required substantial covert action that can be hidden not only from foreign enemies but also from the public. It also reflects the CIA’s justifiable pride in its analytical prowess.

As a result, despite its size, the United States finds itself dependent to some degree on intelligence alliances with its middle power allies. It produces more intelligence but it also has a vast appetite. It is a massive exporter of technical intelligence while it is also surprisingly dependent on friends for certain kinds of espionage. The work of the Israeli Mossad and the French Directorate-General of External Security in Africa, for example, has been essential in providing Washington with a window on affairs within that continent. Some argue that allies have been “overcharging” the United States for this human intelligence, but the overall result has been a mutual dependence that is healthy and that ensures a greater reservoir of unique skills in the service of Western policy.

Recent operations in Afghanistan have offered a good illustration of the benefits of intelligence alliances. This is a country in which a large number of British intelligence officers have served in the last two decades, either during the war against Soviet occupation or subsequently in counter-narcotics operations. In late 2001, as the military campaign began, Britain was able to field substantial numbers of SIS officers with detailed knowledge of the region, its leaders, and its languages. On the ground, the contrasting British and US approaches to secret work proved to be complementary. While CIA officers emphasized locating and eliminating Al Qaeda units, SIS focused on political operations that would build regime solidarity and cohesion in an environment where local politics could be rather fissiparous. Using traditional and time-honored methods, allied forces persuaded Afghan warlords to put their shoulders to the wheel, helping turn the corner in a difficult campaign.

In the next decade, the United States may decide to increase spending on human espionage, but the need for what some have called “professional bargains” in this area will persist. The picture might be different in the areas of technical and military intelligence. In the recent campaign in Afghanistan a range of new capabilities, many of them information-led, helped to deliver success in a conflict that some confidently asserted would be almost unwinnable. This echoes the Gulf War, a historic victory with remarkably few casualties in which the effectiveness of information in warfare became apparent. What does this mean for intelligence alliances on the battlefield? As Paul Kennedy has noted, the United States will soon account for more than 40 percent of world defense spending. The problem here is not quantitative but qualitative. By 2020, the information-led armies of the United States may no longer be inter-operable with the rather antiquarian forces of even its closest partners. This may not matter much in military terms, but where world politics requires coalition warfare, this may prove to be a significant problem. One major challenge for intelligence alliances is to maintain Western cohesion in the area of high-tech battlefields. This will require NATO to make a special effort to stay allied on cutting edge military projects.

Understanding Alliances

Do clandestine agencies follow national interest in a ruthless manner, or do they constitute a global network operating together in a way that is at best semi-detached from the states they purport to serve? The diverse menagerie of intelligence communities contains some odd creatures and inevitably both perspectives contain some truth. But in another sense, both are misleading insofar as they emphasize the “agency” of the organizations and portray them as the blameworthy controllers of events. For all their talk of getting productive, there is something to be said for viewing clandestine agencies and their secret friendships as the product of structural change, most obviously of globalization. One might even argue that the modern intelligence alliance, originated a century ago in state efforts to pursue agitators, anarchists, and terrorists moving internationally, was one of the first results of globalization.

Perhaps clandestine agencies and their intelligence alliances should be viewed less as exponents of realism and more as the smooth and experienced exemplars of liberal institutionalism. Not only were they among the first to accept that values, ideas, and knowledge can sway events, they have also been required to mediate national interests using cooperation and trust inculcated through a vast institutionalized network of information exchange. This complex web of unseen agreements and networks arguably raises expectations about cooperation and regulates some rather awkward practices by radiating established norms and conventions. By definition, liberal institutions operate indirectly, and therefore somewhat imperfectly. Perhaps the world of intelligence alliances constitutes a place where ideas and knowledge have real power and where cooperative exchange has always been viewed as a public good.