by Tomer Barnett and Itai Brun
After four years of deteriorating relations between the White House and the American intelligence community, a new president has entered the Oval Office, who seeks to restore the fundamentals of intelligence work as they once were. However in the post-truth era, a full return to the situation before Trump – particularly as some of his allegations were justified in part – is not possible. How should Biden face this challenge?
Former
President Trump's relations with the American intelligence community
reflected a severe crisis in the relations between intelligence agencies
and decision makers, which in any case are inherently difficult. An
analysis of the crisis revealed a complicated picture. Trump's criticism
of the intelligence agencies, which was partially justified, indeed
exposed severe fundamental problems afflicting the intelligence
organizations in the United States (and intelligence organizations in
general). It appears, however, that the crisis originated in a more
fundamental and disturbing approach on Trump's part to the role
performed by the agencies responsible for discerning reality in the
decision making process and the status of the professionals working in
the field. In effect, Trump questioned, publicly and vehemently, the two
basic fundamentals of intelligence work: the emphasis on expertise,
experience, and the adoption of thought patterns designed to reduce
error and ensure the most professional and neutral analysis possible of
the situation; and the central role of data and information ("the
facts") in the intelligence process. (For more on Trump and the
intelligence community, see “Speaking Truth to Trump: The Crisis between the President and the American Intelligence Community.”)
Read more about Trump's relations with the American intelligence community:
• Speaking
Truth to Trump: The Crisis between the President and the American
Intelligence Community / Nathan Berger and Itai BrunTrump's
skepticism about expertise and the facts was not confined to
intelligence matters and the professional intelligence echelon; it was
also reflected in a more general attitude toward their role in decision
making processes. This tension was highly prominent in White House
policy on the Covid-19 pandemic. After the crisis began, the President
took issue with the information and data showing a severe crisis and
with the experts who presented these facts. He distorted, lied, and
belittled the figures. When the experts refused to echo what he said, he
attacked them directly.
President Biden's approach to discerning and understanding reality, and to the role of the facts and the ensuing professional analysis based upon said facts, appears to be completely different. This approach was evident from the outset in his inauguration speech, in which he clearly outlined the characteristics of the period, and repeatedly emphasized the importance of the truth at the present time. Biden reiterated that there is truth and there are lies; averred that everyone, especially leaders, has a responsibility to defend the truth and refute lies; and declared war on the culture of disinformation and misinformation. Since taking office, Biden has consistently stressed this line in his speeches. In his first televised address to the nation, he said that the only way to overcome the pandemic is by telling the truth, and in almost every speech or other statement, has repeated that the American people need "truth and facts."
Biden’s approach is also clearly
reflected in his appointments to key positions in the intelligence
community. Avril Haines, appointed as Director of National Intelligence,
has practical experience in intelligence as a former Deputy Director of
the CIA. In her confirmation hearings, she stated that the Director of
National Intelligence has the obligation "to speak truth to power," an
expression that the American intelligence community has adopted as its
motto, and added that doing so was especially important when the
information was difficult to swallow or uncomfortable for the decision
makers. Another key Biden appointment is William J. Burns, as Director
of the CIA. Beyond his acquaintance with Biden for many years, it
appears that one of the reasons for this appointment is that Burns, long
in the service of the State Department, is known as a non-partisan
professional who served under both Democratic and Republican
administrations – a characteristic that Biden appreciates and wants to
promote in the intelligence community. While Burns has had no experience
in the CIA itself, he has many years of experience in intelligence work
as a result of his senior positions in the State Department and as an
ambassador, and enjoys excellent relations with senior administration
figures in the State Department and National Security Council. In
announcing this appointment, Biden stated that he and Burns share an
approach to the political neutrality of intelligence and the need to
respect the professionalism of intelligence personnel.
The
departure from the Trump atmosphere was already evident in the
publication of two intelligence reports in recent weeks by the American
intelligence community: the findings from the investigation into the
killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the report on foreign
involvement in the 2020 election campaign. Both reports are based
primarily on information gathered and researched by the intelligence
community during Trump's term in office, and concern issues that were
disputed by the intelligence community and the political echelon. The
reports themselves (which were not published during Trump's term)
reflect to a large extent the difference in attitude between the former
and current presidents. The strong emphasis on "facts" in the report
about foreign involvement in the elections and the small number of
assessments in it are consistent with Biden's guideline in his remarks
about intelligence work.
Biden
will likely succeed in repairing relations between the White House and
the intelligence community, but there are nonetheless problems with a
“back to basics” approach," i.e., the traditional patterns of activity.
The fact is that some of the criticism of the intelligence community
expressed by Trump during his term was justified, and addressed known
fundamental problems in the American intelligence community that were
independent of Trump's presence in the White House: methodological and
organizational problems that led to failures of assessment; outmoded
work processes that have not been adjusted to the changes of the
information era; and a problematic traditional intelligence attitude
typical of parts of American intelligence community, which in its
extreme form holds that the job of intelligence personnel is to educate
decision makers, and that the intelligence community should have a
monopoly on clarifying reality.
Besides his destabilizing conduct, Trump
therefore challenged the American intelligence community and
intelligence methodology in general by holding up a mirror to its
actions. Facts, expertise, and professional analysis are obviously of
crucial importance, but the conceit of using them to educate the
decision makers is unacceptable, certainly in the current day and age.
Intelligence knowledge is always incomplete, fragile, temporary, and
dependent on many factors. For many matters, it is no more than a system
of hypotheses that must be put to the test. In others cases, decision
makers have no need for information; they require an understanding of
the possible directions of development. Trump's skepticism in some of
these matters was reasonable, and may have brought about a reassessment
of old intelligence concepts.
Biden
has a long record in matters of policy, and has also dealt fairly
extensively with intelligence-related matters. Various reports include
him as a prominent personality who integrates appropriate elements of
doubt and argument in the decision making process. For example, in a
number of events, such as the mission to eliminate bin Laden, the
decision on military intervention in Libya in 2011, and the discussions
about the extent of military intervention in Afghanistan in 2009,
then-President Obama and other senior figures described Biden as playing
devil's advocate – someone who functions as a red team to the dominant
opinion in the room in order to challenge conceptions, get to the root
of the problem, and make sure that all of the data and relevant
information are known to the people in the room and considered. He was
often entrusted with managing the decision making process for the
President, either by creating a decision making room that was
analytical, critical, and skeptical about the argument at hand or by
recruiting experts for the purpose of rendering an opinion.
Hopefully this skepticism will also influence Biden’s attitude toward the intelligence community while he is in the White House. The American intelligence community, however, is in a deeper crisis involving the more general characteristics of our era, which Trump represented and helped to shape. This goes beyond information overload, which sometimes hampers discerning and understanding the situation. The challenge is a deeper one: the liberal tradition underlying the currently prevailing intelligence concept has also undergone a crisis, in which its most fundamental values used to elucidate reality – argument, ideological pluralism, and the free market of ideas – are not only proving inadequate for dealing with the challenges of our times, but are also themselves infusing new problems of the current period into the decision making and policy shaping room. The question is, therefore, whether Biden and his team will succeed in coping with the new features of the period, and in formulating a new outline for relations between the intelligence community and its most senior consumer.
Tomer Barnett and Itai Brun
Source: https://www.inss.org.il/publication/biden-us-intelligence/
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