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Informing Statecraft
Analyzing the American intelligence network, senior research fellow at Hoover Institution Angelo Codevilla concludes that American intelligence efforts are desperately outdated in this “masterful exploration of the field” ( Publishers Weekly).
Based on years of research and experience working within the American intelligence network, Angelo Codevilla argues that the intelligence efforts of the nation’s government are outgrown and inconclusive.
Suggesting that the evolution of American intelligence since the Vietnam War and World War II has been erratic and unplanned, Codevilla presents new efforts to be made within the intelligence network that would lead to strategized and effective methods of information gathering.
Connecting the lines between a need for successful intelligence efforts and a strong government, Informing Statecraft warns of how intelligence failures of the past will eventually pale in comparison to the malaise that plagued American intelligence in the twentieth century.
Based on years of research and experience working within the American intelligence network, Angelo Codevilla argues that the intelligence efforts of the nation’s government are outgrown and inconclusive.
Suggesting that the evolution of American intelligence since the Vietnam War and World War II has been erratic and unplanned, Codevilla presents new efforts to be made within the intelligence network that would lead to strategized and effective methods of information gathering.
Connecting the lines between a need for successful intelligence efforts and a strong government, Informing Statecraft warns of how intelligence failures of the past will eventually pale in comparison to the malaise that plagued American intelligence in the twentieth century.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Angelo M. Codevilla
25 books33 followersAngelo M. Codevilla is professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University. Educated at Rutgers (1965) Notre Dame (1968), and the Claremont graduate university (1973), Codevilla served in the US Navy, the US Foreign Service, and on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He taught philosophy at Georgetown, classified intelligence matters at the US Naval Post graduate School. During a decade at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, he wrote books on war, intelligence, and the character of nations. At Boston University, he taught international relations from the perspectives of history and character.
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May 14, 2024
Codevilla knows this subject. Years spent as a working intelligence professional and more years teaching the subject. His thesis, that intelligence is an instrument of conflict, is the most important place to start in understanding this book. As its title suggests, Codevilla wants intelligence server purpose, and that purpose is statecraft. Elsewhere, he enumerates the challenges of statecraft itself. Here, he focuses on a special - and especially important - aspect of statecraft: intelligence.
Written before 9/11, Informing Statecraft makes hay from Cold War intelligence experiences. Consequently, the book does not address the complex issues and consequences of pre-9/11 intelligence matters or those matters associated with weapons of mass destruction intelligence Iraq. Those issues Codevilla deals with in other writings.
To begin, Codevilla does a fine job of organizing the disciplines of intelligence. Guiding the reader through the thicket of terms and arcana, Codevilla structures his discussion of collection, analysis and production, counterintelligence, and covert action to provide the reader the foundation for the critique of these disciplines, which follows.
With respect to the collection disciplines, Codevilla argues that nearly any fact can be of great importance - or of no importance - depending on the use to which an decision maker might put it. It is possible for a political leader or military commander to choose the right course of action with little (or in spite of) information. Whether a fact turns out to be useful or harmful depends on timeliness, volume, intelligibility and inherent relevance. The consequences of poor collection capability are profound: not having a spy in the enemy camp means never knowing for sure about what is being prepared for the future. Not having a spy means relying on observation, with all its invitations to self-deception.
Once in a while a fact - a picture, a message, an event - is so clearly important that its value is self-evident. In such cases, an intelligence service may transmit the fact to policymakers without analysis, and the policymakers will see its meaning clearly. But even in such clearly obvious cases the key is knowing the difference between facts that can be treated that way and those that cannot. Consequently, the act of screening information for relevance itself becomes an act of analysis. Codevilla observes that two nemeses lurk behind every analytical process. First, there is rarely enough data to draw an unchallengeable conclusion. Second, since the data concern human struggles, it is likely to have been biased precisely in order to deceive the analyst. Moreover, the analyst, being human, comes fully equipped with bias.
Codevilla argues persuasively that serious interest and serious mind are the real prerequisites for quality analysis, and these characteristics distinguish professionals from amateurs. The author quotes Plato in saying that only an expert thief can understand thievery. Knowledge of perverse practices, argues Plato, is necessary but not sufficient to understand perversion. Vulnerability to such perversities is most acute during periods of urgency and stress. This is because, with regard to dynamic events, the analyst is at his greatest disadvantage: The data is sketchiest, the opportunities for deception and self-deception are greatest, and the time is shortest. The analyst must rely solely on his knowledge of the character of the people he is observing under such circumstances.
With respect to the contemporary question of intelligence failure in the nature of surprise, Codevilla's thesis is simple and clear: intelligence has done all it can when it delivers the best possible report that the facts allow to the right person at the right time. Distinguishing such intelligence failures from failures standing from other sources, he notes that the real intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor was not one of intelligence at all. The collectors instantly analyzed, and even managed to deliver. But the high officials who received the product did not order action.
Two factors intervene to complicate the proper delivery of intelligence. First, the providers of intelligence are jealous of their sources and methods. Second, the various users of intelligence all realize that the power to state officially what foreign conditions are like is at the same time the power to determine military budgets and foreign policy.
Codevilla addresses the discipline of counterintelligence in a refreshingly mature and disciplined manner. He thinks of the discipline of counterintelligence primarily as a quality control function. While intelligence services must busy themselves with a host of things, a part of them must be constantly devoted to collecting and analyzing facts about other intelligence services - in short, doing counterintelligence. Counterintelligence is often confused with security, that is, merely with protecting secrets and protecting against subversion. Whereas the objective of security is to cut and prevent all contacts between hostiles and those who are to be protected the objective of counterintelligence is to engage hostile intelligence, control what it knows, and if possible control also what it does. As others have argued, Codevilla acknowledges counterintelligence is the queen on the intelligence chessboard: when one side loses the contest for quality control, its intelligence services become a net liability.
Codevilla urges a fresh understanding of covert action as a complement to contemporary statecraft. Secret relationships, he argues are a means of playing some members of a government against others, or of dealing with an entire body politic under false pretense. The commonplace view that covert action, which Codevilla calls "covered warfare," is the weapon par excellence of the weak states is true, he argues, but misleading. First, covert action works for the weak no insofar as they are weak, but insofar as they are smart. Second, it works even better for the strong than it does for the weak.
Having established a framework for his discussion, Codevilla turns to a critique of contemporary American intelligence.
As he was in previous publications, and has been in subsequent ones, the author is particularly hard on the CIA. Among all other nations, the United States struggles with the human intelligence discipline. This truth is born out in the historical facts of America's human intelligence institutions. The notion of the gentleman spy who steals into enemy territory to sow treachery and steal secrets has no basis at all in the history of the real Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's forerunner.
Today, he argues, real American spies, following the tradition of British intelligence, live by the rule that they themselves should neither masquerade as natives nor steal documents, but rather that they themselves should recruit and manage the people who do such things. Lacking technical, cultural, practical competence with respect to their targets, such spies will at best be ineffectual, at worst, liabilities. Writing before 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Codevilla offers a long and detailed critique focusing on pre-9/11 failures of US intelligence. He concludes that real intelligence reform will be extraordinarily difficult.
First, Congress is not well-positioned to shape intelligence. Congress lacks the required expertise, and the rule that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee may serve no more than eight years, and members of the House Intelligence Committee no more than six, helps to hold down expertise.
Second, it was before 9/11 and remains today extremely difficult to focus intelligence activities on the most important strategic challenges the country faces. True reform, Codevilla argues, does not consist of procedures, budgets, or of drawing bureaucratic "wiring diagrams" much less of bureaucratic vendettas. It consists of figuring out how the needs of the future differ from what the present bureaucracies deliver, and then acting dispassionately.
Third, Codevilla expresses concern over the quality of America's ability to attract and retain quality intelligence professionals. As with military for foreign service officers, intelligence professionals must be selected from among those intellectually qualified people who want to join the fray on their country's behalf. Commitment to the ends of one's country truly frees intelligence professionals to search for the most effective means. Moreover, intelligence is a people-intensive business. Good performance depends on an unusually wide variety of talents. Many of these talents are rare, and most are not of the sort that can be taught, especially by governments.
Reform is essential, concludes Codevilla. Even - or especially - in the post-9/11 world, this book is important. In the long run, he argues, governments get the intelligence they deserve. Whether in the post-9/11 world the American people are benefiting from their nation's recent and acute struggles with intelligence remains unclear - despite a dedicated and energetic effort at reform.
Written before 9/11, Informing Statecraft makes hay from Cold War intelligence experiences. Consequently, the book does not address the complex issues and consequences of pre-9/11 intelligence matters or those matters associated with weapons of mass destruction intelligence Iraq. Those issues Codevilla deals with in other writings.
To begin, Codevilla does a fine job of organizing the disciplines of intelligence. Guiding the reader through the thicket of terms and arcana, Codevilla structures his discussion of collection, analysis and production, counterintelligence, and covert action to provide the reader the foundation for the critique of these disciplines, which follows.
With respect to the collection disciplines, Codevilla argues that nearly any fact can be of great importance - or of no importance - depending on the use to which an decision maker might put it. It is possible for a political leader or military commander to choose the right course of action with little (or in spite of) information. Whether a fact turns out to be useful or harmful depends on timeliness, volume, intelligibility and inherent relevance. The consequences of poor collection capability are profound: not having a spy in the enemy camp means never knowing for sure about what is being prepared for the future. Not having a spy means relying on observation, with all its invitations to self-deception.
Once in a while a fact - a picture, a message, an event - is so clearly important that its value is self-evident. In such cases, an intelligence service may transmit the fact to policymakers without analysis, and the policymakers will see its meaning clearly. But even in such clearly obvious cases the key is knowing the difference between facts that can be treated that way and those that cannot. Consequently, the act of screening information for relevance itself becomes an act of analysis. Codevilla observes that two nemeses lurk behind every analytical process. First, there is rarely enough data to draw an unchallengeable conclusion. Second, since the data concern human struggles, it is likely to have been biased precisely in order to deceive the analyst. Moreover, the analyst, being human, comes fully equipped with bias.
Codevilla argues persuasively that serious interest and serious mind are the real prerequisites for quality analysis, and these characteristics distinguish professionals from amateurs. The author quotes Plato in saying that only an expert thief can understand thievery. Knowledge of perverse practices, argues Plato, is necessary but not sufficient to understand perversion. Vulnerability to such perversities is most acute during periods of urgency and stress. This is because, with regard to dynamic events, the analyst is at his greatest disadvantage: The data is sketchiest, the opportunities for deception and self-deception are greatest, and the time is shortest. The analyst must rely solely on his knowledge of the character of the people he is observing under such circumstances.
With respect to the contemporary question of intelligence failure in the nature of surprise, Codevilla's thesis is simple and clear: intelligence has done all it can when it delivers the best possible report that the facts allow to the right person at the right time. Distinguishing such intelligence failures from failures standing from other sources, he notes that the real intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor was not one of intelligence at all. The collectors instantly analyzed, and even managed to deliver. But the high officials who received the product did not order action.
Two factors intervene to complicate the proper delivery of intelligence. First, the providers of intelligence are jealous of their sources and methods. Second, the various users of intelligence all realize that the power to state officially what foreign conditions are like is at the same time the power to determine military budgets and foreign policy.
Codevilla addresses the discipline of counterintelligence in a refreshingly mature and disciplined manner. He thinks of the discipline of counterintelligence primarily as a quality control function. While intelligence services must busy themselves with a host of things, a part of them must be constantly devoted to collecting and analyzing facts about other intelligence services - in short, doing counterintelligence. Counterintelligence is often confused with security, that is, merely with protecting secrets and protecting against subversion. Whereas the objective of security is to cut and prevent all contacts between hostiles and those who are to be protected the objective of counterintelligence is to engage hostile intelligence, control what it knows, and if possible control also what it does. As others have argued, Codevilla acknowledges counterintelligence is the queen on the intelligence chessboard: when one side loses the contest for quality control, its intelligence services become a net liability.
Codevilla urges a fresh understanding of covert action as a complement to contemporary statecraft. Secret relationships, he argues are a means of playing some members of a government against others, or of dealing with an entire body politic under false pretense. The commonplace view that covert action, which Codevilla calls "covered warfare," is the weapon par excellence of the weak states is true, he argues, but misleading. First, covert action works for the weak no insofar as they are weak, but insofar as they are smart. Second, it works even better for the strong than it does for the weak.
Having established a framework for his discussion, Codevilla turns to a critique of contemporary American intelligence.
As he was in previous publications, and has been in subsequent ones, the author is particularly hard on the CIA. Among all other nations, the United States struggles with the human intelligence discipline. This truth is born out in the historical facts of America's human intelligence institutions. The notion of the gentleman spy who steals into enemy territory to sow treachery and steal secrets has no basis at all in the history of the real Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's forerunner.
Today, he argues, real American spies, following the tradition of British intelligence, live by the rule that they themselves should neither masquerade as natives nor steal documents, but rather that they themselves should recruit and manage the people who do such things. Lacking technical, cultural, practical competence with respect to their targets, such spies will at best be ineffectual, at worst, liabilities. Writing before 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq, Codevilla offers a long and detailed critique focusing on pre-9/11 failures of US intelligence. He concludes that real intelligence reform will be extraordinarily difficult.
First, Congress is not well-positioned to shape intelligence. Congress lacks the required expertise, and the rule that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee may serve no more than eight years, and members of the House Intelligence Committee no more than six, helps to hold down expertise.
Second, it was before 9/11 and remains today extremely difficult to focus intelligence activities on the most important strategic challenges the country faces. True reform, Codevilla argues, does not consist of procedures, budgets, or of drawing bureaucratic "wiring diagrams" much less of bureaucratic vendettas. It consists of figuring out how the needs of the future differ from what the present bureaucracies deliver, and then acting dispassionately.
Third, Codevilla expresses concern over the quality of America's ability to attract and retain quality intelligence professionals. As with military for foreign service officers, intelligence professionals must be selected from among those intellectually qualified people who want to join the fray on their country's behalf. Commitment to the ends of one's country truly frees intelligence professionals to search for the most effective means. Moreover, intelligence is a people-intensive business. Good performance depends on an unusually wide variety of talents. Many of these talents are rare, and most are not of the sort that can be taught, especially by governments.
Reform is essential, concludes Codevilla. Even - or especially - in the post-9/11 world, this book is important. In the long run, he argues, governments get the intelligence they deserve. Whether in the post-9/11 world the American people are benefiting from their nation's recent and acute struggles with intelligence remains unclear - despite a dedicated and energetic effort at reform.
August 21, 2024
I picked this book out of my pile now because I thought it might help, if tangentially, understand the immense failures of the Secret Service recently, not just before but especially since the assassination attempt on President Trump. It isn’t just the mistakes made at and leading up to the event, but the weird things said by administrators afterward.
The book started out promising even before the page numbers became numbers.
This is really two books. One is that the author sees the US intelligence community as anything but intelligent.
The other part of the book is, how should intelligence be conducted? In a general audience book like this, the latter translates into, how should citizens evaluate the intelligence and counter-intelligence committed in their name?
It was a timely topic when it was written in 1992, and it is especially timely today.
The book is filled with examples from the modern world, from recent history, and from the ancient world. Because it was written just after the collapse of communism, many of the examples describe how the US intelligence community completely missed that any such collapse was imminent.
When Gorbachev first instituted his fateful glasnost policy, it wasn’t aimed at liberalizing Soviet society but at taking down his own political enemies.
Mostly, the intelligence community hid their ignorance about Soviet affairs and the individuals within it, as well as their lack of focus on what they should be paying attention to at all, behind a mass of words.
The reason for the lack of focus and the lack of ability to connect with sources is pretty much the same thing.
It was pretty much impossible for any potential source in the Soviet Union to get access to a CIA case officer. They simply didn’t travel in “the narrow social circles frequented by U.S. diplomats.”
The kind of person recruited as a case officer doesn’t just discourage good “walk-in intelligence”. It encourages “the wrong kind”.
The problems that Codevilla describes the “typical CIA case officer” as having—without even knowing they have it—are likely what a domestic intelligence agency like the Secret Service has today within the United States. Agents are culturally isolated and unable to even speak the language of local law enforcement, let alone of the kind of working class Democrat who attempts to report some online leftist making threats to assassinate a former President. They didn’t even pay attention to the people attending the rally who were literally yelling for their attention and pointing to the shooter.
After reading this book, it’s far less surprising than it was initially after the attempt.
Much of so-called “covert” action isn’t really covert to the people they’re being used against, but rather to the citizens who are paying for it. Secrecy means never having to defend a policy, which, in turn, means never having to have a policy.
Not having a policy was literally the policy of the intelligence community, well past the point of lunacy. It meant that they literally ran ops to undermine yesterday’s policy and no one could trust what tomorrow’s policy might be.
He describes much of the community in terms of “educated incapacity”, that its, “the incapacity of specialists to see things that are obvious to anyone who is not trained to ignore them.”
His description of counter-intelligence, how it is conducted effectively, and how it is conducted ineffectively, are among the most interesting parts of the latter half of the book.
The book started out promising even before the page numbers became numbers.
The essence of bureaucratic thinking is to turn all questions into “What does this mean for the agency, and for us who define our worth by our association with it?” p. xvi
This is really two books. One is that the author sees the US intelligence community as anything but intelligent.
The U.S. has been surprised by every major world event since 1960…
…
It is not too gross an exaggeration that when considering any given threat DIA will overestimate, CIA will underestimate, and INR will blame the U.S. for it.
…
…they were willing to examine ways of losing, while it seems never to have crossed their minds to look for ways of winning.
The other part of the book is, how should intelligence be conducted? In a general audience book like this, the latter translates into, how should citizens evaluate the intelligence and counter-intelligence committed in their name?
To see ourselves as others see us, to look at every move we make from the standpoint of someone who might want to take advantage of it, is the beginning of prudence. To ask “How do I know that?” and “What is there about the way I came to know this matter that could have biased my view of it?” is the foundation of such certainty as prudent men permit themselves.
It was a timely topic when it was written in 1992, and it is especially timely today.
The book is filled with examples from the modern world, from recent history, and from the ancient world. Because it was written just after the collapse of communism, many of the examples describe how the US intelligence community completely missed that any such collapse was imminent.
Communism was never a basis for order, and its collapse is an unavoidable fountain of disorder. Communism resolved no problems. Wherever it ruled, it paved over political life, killing or suppressing some aspects and forcing others (e.g., patronage politics) to express themselves through its mechanisms. It exacerbated enmities between ethnic groups by distributing benefits according to quotas. It ruled minorities alternatively through both quislings and foreigners.
When Gorbachev first instituted his fateful glasnost policy, it wasn’t aimed at liberalizing Soviet society but at taking down his own political enemies.
At first this criticism, glasnost, could only be practiced, as it were, with a license and against specific targets. But it got out of hand: people acquired the habit of telling the truth.
Mostly, the intelligence community hid their ignorance about Soviet affairs and the individuals within it, as well as their lack of focus on what they should be paying attention to at all, behind a mass of words.
The U.S. intelligence community turned out literally thousands of pages of analysis on these subjects. If there had been good espionage, ten-page reports would have done nicely.
The reason for the lack of focus and the lack of ability to connect with sources is pretty much the same thing.
The typical [CIA case] officer… has never done manual labor, and has never been personally close to anyone who has lived by it… He has never served in the armed forces… has never lived or transacted business abroad… He is a pleasant fellow, neither aggressively patriotic nor aggressively anything, and is uncomfortable with anyone who is… As an unspecialized bureaucrat, our case officer will be able to get to first base only with unspecialized bureaucrats.
It was pretty much impossible for any potential source in the Soviet Union to get access to a CIA case officer. They simply didn’t travel in “the narrow social circles frequented by U.S. diplomats.”
The kind of person recruited as a case officer doesn’t just discourage good “walk-in intelligence”. It encourages “the wrong kind”.
The problems that Codevilla describes the “typical CIA case officer” as having—without even knowing they have it—are likely what a domestic intelligence agency like the Secret Service has today within the United States. Agents are culturally isolated and unable to even speak the language of local law enforcement, let alone of the kind of working class Democrat who attempts to report some online leftist making threats to assassinate a former President. They didn’t even pay attention to the people attending the rally who were literally yelling for their attention and pointing to the shooter.
After reading this book, it’s far less surprising than it was initially after the attempt.
The lesson is paradigmatic: The more important the subject, the more intellectual bias and political distortion filters the intelligence on it so that, the greater the policy-maker’s responsibility, the less useful the intelligence product he gets is likely to be.
Much of so-called “covert” action isn’t really covert to the people they’re being used against, but rather to the citizens who are paying for it. Secrecy means never having to defend a policy, which, in turn, means never having to have a policy.
Covert policy usually is policy to which insufficient thought has been given.
Not having a policy was literally the policy of the intelligence community, well past the point of lunacy. It meant that they literally ran ops to undermine yesterday’s policy and no one could trust what tomorrow’s policy might be.
Not until 1990 did Chile recover from the CIA’s successes of the 1950s and 1960s.
He describes much of the community in terms of “educated incapacity”, that its, “the incapacity of specialists to see things that are obvious to anyone who is not trained to ignore them.”
His description of counter-intelligence, how it is conducted effectively, and how it is conducted ineffectively, are among the most interesting parts of the latter half of the book.
The roots of peace, war, revolution, and allegiance run deep. But our analysts are shallow.
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