Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

Instructor’s Manual
Chapter 1: What Is Intelligence?
Why is intelligence thought by some to be difficult to define?
o Why is intelligence seen as problematic to define, especially in a democracy?
These problematic aspects include secrecy, intrusive means of intelligence
collection and covert operations.
o Vocabulary: we tend to use “clandestine” and “covert” interchangeably but they
have distinct meanings. “Clandestine” means secret but attributable. “Covert”
means secret but not attributable.

Why do we have intelligence agencies?

o There are three major reasons:
1. To avoid strategic surprise, such as Pearl Harbor. The 20th century has many such
instances (Japan vs. Russia, 1904; Germany vs. USSR, 1941; Japan vs. US, 1941;
North Korea vs. South Korea, 1950; Israel vs Arabs, 1967; Egypt & Syria vs Israel,
1973).
2. To provide long-term expertise. Policy makers come and go but within the
intelligence agencies one can find individuals with decades of experience and
expertise on certain regions and issues.
3. To support the policy process. This means to provide intelligence to help policy
makers as they make decisions. However, note the graphic: intelligence officers
do not offer policy advice or recommendations – largely so they can maintain
their objectivity when analyzing a situation without “having a dog in the hunt.”
However, there is nothing to prevent policy makers from offer what they deem to
be their own “intelligence analysis.”

What is intelligence about?

o Although secret information can be overstressed, it is, in part, what intelligence is
about as this vital information cannot be obtained by other means.
o Ask how many issues the class can list that rely on intelligence. The list should be
rather long. Note the inter-connections between many of the issues.
o Also note, that intelligence is not just about enemies – but also about friends, as
they may competitors or they may take actions that create problems. (Ex., Japan
bringing the US into World War II in 1941 without forewarning Germany.)

1|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o Note that intelligence can be thought of a process, product (analysis or

operations) or organization.

Chapter 2: The Development of U.S. Intelligence

This book uses U.S. intelligence as its main model for several reasons. It is one of the most
open intelligence enterprises in the world and it is also the largest and most capable.

This chapter traces the development of U.S. intelligence through a series of themes and
through key events. For each of these, you can ask what it is about and why it is seen as a
major factor in the development of U.S. intelligence. Key questions that can be posed are listed

Major Themes
o Novelty of U.S. Intelligence. Why was the U.S. so late in developing permanent or
major intelligence agencies?
o Threat-based foreign policy. The U.S. is the guarantor of the international status
quo. Why? Whom did we succeed? What are the policy and intelligence
implications of this rile? (NOTE: as will be discussed later, we seek not only to
deter threats but to pursue opportunities.)
o Influence of the Cold War? Was U.S. intelligence created to fight the Cold War?
In what ways did this 50 year struggle influence the development of U.S.
intelligence?
o A wittingly redundant analytical structure? What factors and philosophies
explain the analytical structure with several agencies analyzing the same issue?
Explain the concept of competitive intelligence analysis.
o Consumer-produce relations. What have been the choices within this
relationship? What are the implications of each model? Which model won out
and why?
o The relationship between analysis and collection and between analysis and
covert action. Again, what have been the choices within these relationships?
What are the implications of each model? Which models won out and why?
o Covert action. What have been the key issues in the ongoing debate over covert
action? (NOTE: make sure the class understands what we mean by “covert
action.”) What are some recent examples of this debate?
o Continuity of intelligence policy. How do we account for the early existence of
and then the breakdown of a bipartisan intelligence policy? How would you
characterize that today: partisan or bipartisan? Can you define Democratic or
Republican approaches to intelligence policy?

2|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o Heavy reliance on technology? Give some examples of this reliance. Why does
the U.S. favor this approach?
o Secrecy vs. openness. This is a key issue in managing intelligence in a democracy.
What are the key challenges to any choice in this sphere? Give some recent
examples. Does this change over time? Why? There have been recent calls for
more “transparency” in intelligence? How do we do that and maintain necessary
security?
o The role of oversight. What do we mean by “oversight”? What are the tensions
in this aspect on intelligence policy?

Major Historical Developments

o Creation of COI and OSS, 1940-41. Why was the British model so important?
What role did OSS play in winning World War II? What was the main legacy of
OSS?
o Pearl Harbor, 1941. In terms of intelligence, what went wrong at Pearl Harbor?
o MAGIC and ULTRA, 1941-45. What were these? Why were they important both
during the war and after?
o The National Security Act, 1947. What did this act do? What were the main
drivers behind the act (the World War II experience re national security
structure)? How would you assess the success of the act?
o Korea, 1950. What is the significance in terms of U.S. intelligence and in terms of
the Cold War itself? (No longer confined to Europe; now worldwide.)
o The coup in Iran, 1953. What was it? Why was it conducted? What is its
significance for U.S. intelligence? (The success of peaceful covert action without
the U.S. seemingly being involved.)
o The Guatemala coup, 1954. What was it? Why was it conducted? What is its
significance for U.S. intelligence? (The proved that this sort of covert action could
be repeated.)
o Missile Gap, 1959-61. What was it? What was the crux of the debate about?
Was there a gap? What is its significance for U.S. intelligence? (Partisan politics
enters a debate over intelligence.)
o Bay of Pigs, 1961. What was it? Was there a gap? What is its significance for
U.S. intelligence? (Public failure of a large-scale paramilitary covert action.)
o Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962? What was it? What role did intelligence play? In
terms of intelligence, a success or a failure?
o Vietnam War, 1964-75. What were the key intelligence controversies?
Re the Tet Offensive: intelligence failure or policy failure?

3|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o ABM Treaty and SALT I Accord, 1972. What were they? What was the role of
intelligence? What were the key intelligence controversies? What is the
difference between monitoring and verification?
o Intelligence investigations, 1974-75. What were these about? What prompted
them? What were the outcomes for U.S. intelligence? (Creation of the modern
congressional oversight system)
o Iran, 1979. To what extent can the Khomeini revolution be blamed on the 1953
Iran coup? How do you then assess the 1953 coup?
o Iran-Contra, 1986-87. What was this about? Why did it create such an intense
political crisis? Should President Reagan have been impeached?
o Fall of the Soviet Union, 1989-91. Did U.S. intelligence “miss” this event? To
what degree and in how much detail should this have been known? (NOTE: this
will be discussed in detail in Chapter 11.)
o The Ames (1994) and Hanssen (2001) espionage cases. What do these two cases
tell us about the nature of espionage? About counterintelligence?
o The 9/11 attacks and the War on terrorists, 2011-ff). To what degree is 9/11
comparable to and different from Pearl Harbor? To what degree was it
preventable? What have been the major stresses for intelligence in the war on
terrorists?
o Iraq WMD, 2002-03. Assess the damage done to the reputation and standing of
U.S. intelligence as a result of the WMD NIE. Was the NIE politicized?
o Creation of the DNI, 2004-05. What were the key factors in the creation of the
DNI? How responsive was the position of DNI these various factors?
o The Manning and Snowden Leaks. How did these happen? How might they
affect information sharing within intelligence? How damaging have they been?

Chapter 3: The U.S. Intelligence Community

Office of the Director of National Intelligence
o What are the major functional and organizational issues facing this office? What
are its major strengths and weaknesses? Note the disparity between the DNI’s
responsibilities (large) and his authorities (weaker).

Figure 3-3, A Functional View: this affords a most useful way to discuss who does what
in U.S. intelligence
o Discuss the main actors and their roles in each horizontal band.
o Again, note the disparity between the areas that come under the DNI and those
under the Secretary of Defense.

4|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o This chapter also stresses the importance of relationships. Personalities matter.

It is not just a matter of boxes and wiring diagrams.
DNI and the President
DNI and the DCIA
DNI and USDI
INR and the Secretary of Defense

Chapter 4: The Intelligence Process – A Macro View

Every intelligence service, regardless of nationality or size, will have some version of this
intelligence process. It is essential for even a minimal ability to decide on areas of
concentration and an allocation of resources, which are always scarce.

Requirements
o What are requirements? Why do they matter? Who should create them: policy
makers? Intelligence officers? Both?
o What are some of the issues in crafting useful Requirements:
Focus – cannot be all embracing
Importance vs. likelihood
Priority creep
Requirements are not a forecast –they are a statement of needs
Ad hocs: dealing with the unexpected (ex. Mali; Ukraine crisis)

Collection
o Collection should derive from requirements. What are the other issues?
(Collection capabilities; which capabilities are best for which issues?)

Processing and Exploitation

o What is P&E? What does it mean? Why does it matter? (Technical collection
needs to be transformed/converted into intelligence that can be used by
analysts.)

Analysis and Production

o This is the point of the process, creating analysis to be used by policy makers.
Tension between current intelligence and long-term.
Benefits and costs of competitive analysis.

Dissemination and Consumption

5|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o Choosing the right means to get the right intelligence when it is needed to the
right policy maker or policy makers
o The importance of a diversified intelligence “product line”
o The importance of knowing what specific policy makers like or how they like to
receive their intelligence
o What are some of the choices to be made? (Length, detail, timeliness)

Feedback
o Policy makers rarely give feedback on the intelligence they receive. Why? What
are the impediments?

Thinking about the Intelligence Process

o How you think about the intelligence process matters. Why? (Because it will
affect your expectations about what the process is able to do.)
o Should we re-conceptualize the intelligence process, as some have suggested,
and respond to the “information age”? If so, what changes might you
recommend?

Chapter 5: Collection and the Collection Disciplines

This chapter is divided into Themes and discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of each of
the INTs, or collection disciplines.

Collection Themes
o Budget. Collection is one the most expensive aspects of intelligence. (The other
major expense areas are IT and people.)How do you determine how much to
spend – or not – on collection?
o Long lead times. It takes 10-12 years to build major collection systems. How do
we determine what they should be collecting against by the time they are
deployed? Also, politically, there s little tolerance for failure. Compare this to the
Corona experience of over 12 launches before there was success.
o Collection synergy. When working optimally, each INT, or collection discipline
either confirms or questions other collection. Either is useful. The Cuban Missile
Crisis collection experience is illustrative.
o The Vacuum cleaner problem. Overhead collection systems are vacuum cleaners,
not microscopes. They collect a great deal of information, which then leads to
the need for processing & exploitation. The NSA program was justified, in part,

6|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

by the argument that if you want to find a needle in a haystack, first you need a
haystack.
o The P&E Imbalance. Why does the system favor collection over P&E?
o Competing collection priorities. Back to requirements. Given the limited number
of collection systems, who decides on what gets collected and on what basis?
o Collection swarm ball. What do we mean by this? Why does it occur? (Budget
imperatives.) Why is it problematic? (INTs working on issues for which they are
not optimally built.)
o Protecting sources and methods. The need to do this should be obvious but what
are the costs of this system – beyond the financial? (Limits the use of some
intelligence; makes information sharing – another imperative, more difficult or
more risky, as in the cases of Manning and Snowden.)
o Limitations of satellites. This is rocket science. What are the different orbits?
What are they used for?
o The stovepipes problem. What do we mean by this term? Why is it a problem?
What drives it? (In part, bureaucratic imperatives of the “owners” of the
collection agencies.)
o The opacity of intelligence. What are the reasons that collection capabilities
seem opaque to many analysts? (In part, collectors like it that way to maintain
control of their assets.)
o Denial and deception. What are the differences between these two activities?
What are the constraints to overcoming D&D? How do you know when you are
being deceived – as opposed to there being nothing there?
o Reconnaissance in the post-Cold War world? How did the end of the cold War
change collection techniques? How will a diminution of the emphasis on
terrorists affect collection?
o Satellite vulnerability? What are the ways in which satellites can be better
defended? What are the costs of doing so? (Protective shells, but more weight,
which means less fuel or fewer sensors.)

Strengths and weaknesses

o Geospatial intelligence (GEOINT)
Who does GEOINT? National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA),
which collects for both foreign and domestic requirements
How does GEOINT differ from imagery? (More ancillary data than just a
photo.)

7|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

What do we mean by “resolution”? How good does it have to be for what

uses? (More precise for targeting.)
What do we mean when we say that certain targets “self-reveal”? Which
targets? (That they cannot hide because of the scope of their activities –
such as large military bases.)
What is meant by ABI (activity-based intelligence) and FMV (full motion
video)? Where are these most useful?
What issues are raised by the use of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)?
Larger collection means more P&E
Use as weapons platforms. Should these be fired by intelligence
(vice military) officers?
Dependence on cyber infrastructure.
Need for a permissive environment, such as Pakistan or Yemen.
This will not be the case in China or Russia.
o Signals intelligence (SIGINT)
Who does SIGINT? National Security Agency (NSA) collects foreign,
although in both foreign and domestic locations; Federal Bureau of
investigation (FBI) domestic; Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),
foreign and domestic.
There are many different types of SIGINT. The area of primary interest
here is COMINT – communications intelligence. Note the abundance of
means of communication available today.
What do these terms mean: traffic analysis; risk vs. take?
What types of intelligence do we get from COMINT? (Plans, intentions)
o Measurement and Signatures Intelligence (MASINT)
Who does MASINT? (NGA and DIA)
What does MASINT collect? (Emanations, signals, etc. from natural
phenomena.)
What are some of the areas where MASINT is most useful? (WMD
proliferation)
o Human intelligence (HUMINT, aka espionage, spying – the world’s second oldest
profession)
Who does HUMINT? (CIA, DIA, FBI, State Department, DEA)
What does HUMINT collect? (Plans and intentions)
What are the steps in the agent acquisition cycle (spot & assess, validate,
pitch, task.

8|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

What are the different types of cover (official and non-official or NOCs)?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Is one or the other
better suited for certain types of targets?
What are sleepers, dangles and walk-ins?
o Open source intelligence (OSINT)
Who does OSINT? (The DNI’s Open Source Center but also individual
analysts)
What does OSINT Collect? (80% of all collection is OSINT. It is the best
place to start a collection effort rather than go directly to classified
sources.)
What is circular reporting? (When one OSINT source after another picks
up a story and it keeps getting reported increasing the volume of
reporting but not necessarily the substance.)
What are the uses and limits of social media as an intelligence source?
o Foreign liaison
What is it? Why is it used? What are the risks and benefits?

Recommendation: posit several scenarios (e.g., Iranian WMD; Al Qaeda planning; Euro
meltdown, etc. and ask which INTs would be most and least useful for this issue and
why.

Chapter 6: Analysis
Major Themes

Formal Requirements
o How much do they really matter in assigning analysis? In other words, given the
inevitability of “ad hoc” issues, how do you prepare to be able to analyze either
or both?

Current vs. Long Term Intelligence

o What are the purposes of both? Advantages and disadvantages?
o What is the cause of tension between these two types? Give examples of both.
o Which one tends to dominate and why?
o Discuss the key issues in:
Crises vs. Norm
Wheat vs. Chaff
Data vs. Knowledge

9|P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o What is meant by “analyst fungibility”? Why does it matter? What are the
limits?
o Analysts must deal with various “traps”. What do these mean:
Mirror imaging
Clientism
Layering
Linear thinking
Premature closure
Jaded thinking
Groupthink

Analytical Issues

What is the tension between competitive and collaborative analysis?

Given the absence of “perfect intelligence,” how do you deal with analysis when
available intelligence is limited?

Why is it difficult to convey uncertainty?

o What are the language difficulties?
o What are confidence levels? What do they try to convey?
o How do policy makers sometimes react to uncertainty statements?

What do we mean by “indications and warning”?

o Why do some intelligence professionals consider I&W one of the most difficult
analytical tasks?

What is “opportunity analysis”? Why does it matter?

What is meant by “politicized intelligence”? Why is “politicized intelligence” a constant

concern among intelligence officers?

The analytical bottom line:

o How does one produce analysis that is “value added” for policy makers? What is
it about intelligence analysis that adds value? (NOTE: It should be more than just
secret sources. Value adds can include better context, telling them something
they did not know, etc.)

10 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o How does one determine how “good” (i.e., how correct) intelligence should be
how often? (NOTE: There is no single way. It depends, in part, on the question
being posed.)

Chapter 7: Counterintelligence
Definitions
o What do we mean by counterintelligence?
o What do we mean by counterespionage?
o What is the difference between Big CI and Little CI?

Why do people spy? Discuss the MICE acronym.

What are some techniques used to provide security?

o Background checks
o Polygraph
o Financial disclosures
o Security classifications & compartments
What are the tensions between the need to share some amount of intelligence within
the Intelligence Community and the possibility of leakers?

The United States does not have an Official Secrets Act. Most leak cases are
prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act. Discuss the shortcomings of this approach
and the political issues inherent in proposing an Official Secrets Act at this time.

Exercise: You identify a spy in your organization. What are the options for dealing
with this? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the options?
o Apprehend to staunch the flow or use the spy as a way of feeding some false
information back to his masters?)

Chapter 8: Covert Action

What do we mean by “covert action”?
o When is it used – i.e., under what circumstances?

What are some of the factors that should be considered in weighing a possible covert
action?

11 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

What is meant by “plausible deniability”? Why does this matter?

The range of covert action. Discuss what happens under each type of activity and ask
about the purposes, presumed outcomes, and inherent dangers of each.
o Propaganda
o Political activity
o Economic activity
o Sabotage
o Subversion
o Coups
o Paramilitary operations

Some covert action issues

o Is plausible deniability plausible?
o There is a U.S. ban on assassinations. Why? Should this be revised?
o Should the use of armed UAVs be considered covert action?
o What about the use of armed UAVs to target U.S. citizens?
o How does cyberspace fit in covert action?
o How does one assess the success of covert actions? Over what period of time –
i.e., at what point do unintended consequences matter of fall beyond the scope
of a covert action. (E.g., covert action to arm the Afghans against the Soviets.
The Soviets are defeated but the Taliban arises from the rebels. How, then, does
one assess the original covert action to arm the Afghans?)

Chapter 9: The Role of the Policy Maker

Many books on intelligence do not treat this as part of the intelligence process. Begin with a
simple question:

Why does the policy maker matter? Also, remember the illustration in Chapter 1
regarding the dominance of policy over intelligence.

The U.S. policy community on any given issue is large and diverse. What are the main
interests of each of the major players? What does this tell you about the policy
process?

Define “decision advantage.”

12 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

What do intelligence officers want from the policy process?

o Access. Remember the discussion in Chapter 2 re the analysts being close to or
distant from the policy makers. Also, remember Sherman Kent’s three wishes
(Chapter 6):
To know everything
To be believed
To influence policy for the good.

Describe the role played by policy makers in each phase of the policy process:
o Requirements: these should be decided by policy makers
o Collection: budgets; the acceptability or not of various techniques
o Analysis: how they consume intelligence; how they react to bad news; whether
they trust their intelligence analysts. Do they try to alter intelligence analyses?
o Covert action: requirements; acceptability of certain operations or types of
operations.

Chapter 10: Oversight and Accountability

Executive Branch

What are the key issues in executive branch oversight?

o Effectiveness and propriety

Discuss the roles by by PIAB, inspectors general, OMB.

Congressional Oversight

What is the constitutional basis for all oversight?

o Article I, Section 8, paragraph 18. In brief, the power to create various executive
branch entities (e.g., Defense, CIA, FBI) gives Congress the right to enquire into
how they are conducting their business.
o There are unresolved issues
How extensive is oversight in general and re intelligence specifically?
How timely does oversight notification have to be? Before? After? How
much before or after?
o Congress’s oversight levers
Budget: this is the major one as all funding comes from Congress.
What is the difference between authorization and appropriation?
Which one is more important and more powerful?

13 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

Hearings: the real issue is the constant information war between the two
branches.
Nominations
Treaties: note the 2/3 vote required in the Senate
Reporting requirements: another facet of the information war. At what
point do these become overwhelming and stop being useful?
Investigations & reports
o Issues in Congressional Oversight
How much oversight is enough? This is. Ultimately, a political – not
constitutional – question.
Why are all congressional members granted a Top Secret by virtue of
election? (Necessary for them to do their jobs and to do otherwise would
violate separation of powers.)
What is the co-option issue for Congress? Is it avoidable?
o Dynamics of Congressional Oversight
Why do Members wish to serve on intelligence committees? What are
the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?
Should there be term limits on intelligence committees? (Advantages and
disadvantages of these?)
Should the intelligence committees be partisan or bi-partisan?
(Advantages and disadvantages of these?)
What are some of the external factors that affect intelligence oversight?
Media, events, lobbying groups for and against, etc.

The Courts

What is the role and purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)?
o What are some of the major issues related to the FISC?
Secrecy
“One-sided” hearings

Chapter 11: The Intelligence Agenda: Nation States

NOTE: one should note at the outset that the division into nation state and transnational issues
is somewhat arbitrary as these always come together at some point. This should be kept in
mind over Chapters 11 and 12.

Background: The Soviet Issue

14 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

We study the Soviet issue because it is a classic nation state issue and also because of
the influence this had on the shaping and work of U.S. intelligence.
o Intelligence requirements. Under containment, what did U.S. intelligence seek to
know about the Soviet Union?
Likely areas of Soviet probes or expansion;
Imminence and strength of the probes;
Overall Soviet strength—military, economic, and social;
Likely Soviet allies or surrogates;
Strength of U.S. allies or surrogates;
Signs of relative Soviet strength or weakness (signs of the contradictions
predicted by George Kennan).
o Why was the Soviet Union such a difficult intelligence target?
Secrecy, police state, size
o Why did U.S. intelligence emphasize military issues and statistical data?
Threat, ease
o Capabilities vs. Intentions. What are the issues? Why does this matter?
o How would you assess U.S. intelligence performance re the collapse of the Soviet
Union?

Current nation state issues

o What are each state’s relative levers of power? How important and how
powerful is each?
o What is each state’s relative internal stability? How do you tell in states with
strict internal controls?
o What do we mean by “failed states”? Why are these important?
Policy dilemma: what can be done about a failed state?
o How do you assess leadership? What are the pitfalls inherent in this?
o How do you train analysts to be altered to discontinuity (as opposed to linearity)?

What are the intelligence implications of the Obama administration’s “rebalance to the
Pacific”?

Chapter 12: The Intelligence Agenda: Transnational Issues

NOTE: see Note at the beginning of Chapter 11 above. For each section below the key issue
are the inherent intelligence issues.

15 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

Second, and equally important, none of these issues exist in a vacuum. They are all inter-
related (e.g., terrorism and narcotics), which further complicates dealing with them.

What has been the dilemma of U.S. national security policy in the aftermath of the Cold
War?
o Search for a direction and especially a “theme”

Cyberspace
o “Order of battle” – i.e., assessing other’s capabilities
o Computer network exploitation vs. Computer network attack
o Use of cyber for covert action (Stuxnet)
Is it a military action or an intelligence action? Implications of either?
o If attacked: determining attribution

Terrorism
o Penetrating terrorist groups
o Determining if and when the next attack
What is “chatter”? Why is it difficult to deal with as intelligence and with
policy makers?
o Capabilities and intentions unknowns are reversed (vis-à-vis the nation state
problem)
o How does one assess relative success against terrorists in general and against a
morphing target like radical Islamic terrorism worldwide?

Proliferation
o Given that most proliferation programs are clandestine, if not covert, how do we
keep track of them?
o What are the intelligence issues in any agreement to curtail weapons programs?

Narcotics
o Why is it difficult to translate good intelligence into successful policy?

Economics
o Component issues
Foreign economic espionage
Major economic shifts
Competition for raw materials
Energy

16 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

What are the implications of the U.S. achieving near-energy

independence by 2030?

Demographics
o What is it? Why does it matter?

Health and the environment

o What is it? Why does it matter?

Peacekeeping operations
o What is it? Why does it matter?

Support to the military

o What is it? Why does it matter?

Chapter 13: Ethical and Moral Issues

This matters, even in intelligence. Various specific illustrations are in the chapter.

General Moral Questions

Secrecy
o Why is intelligence about secrets? What are the risks inherent in secrecy?
o In operations, does secrecy promote license? How do we avoid this?

War and Peace

o We treat these as separate states that allow or deny certain actions (e.g., killing
foreign civilians). What about the cold War? What about the war against
terrorists?

Ends vs. Means

o If the ends do not justify the means, what does?

The Nature of the Opponent

o Does this matter? Does this allow or limit your actions?

National Interest

17 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

o Is this a sufficient guideline?

Specific Issues

HUMINT
o Should individuals be enticed to betray their own states?
o What about the Markus Wolf and Ryszard Kuklinski cases?
Wolf: as an East German intelligence official, operated spies against
West Germany
Kuklinski: Polish staff officer who spied for the U.S. against the Soviet
Union (and Poland). After the Warsaw Pact fell, many in Poland still saw
him as a traitor. Was he?

Other collection
o What level, if any, of intrusion is justified? Is it justified domestically as well as
foreign or are there different limits?

Covert action
o Are these legitimate for one state to conduct against another? Why/why not?
o Again, does the nature of target state matter?
o Is there ever a case to be made in favor of assassination?
o Are coercive interrogation techniques ever justified?

Analysis-related issues
o Is analysis “truth telling”? If so, what are the implications and responsibilities of
such a role?
o What should an analyst do if he or she has very grave differences with policy?
o How much compromise is permissible in the inter-agency process?

Oversight-related issues
o What are the issues involved in the Helms and Clapper cases? What were the
legal requirements and the dilemmas faced?
o Do Members of Congress have responsibilities in these cases?

The Media
o What are their ethical and moral responsibilities when it comes to intelligence?

18 | P a g e
 Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Sixth Edition

SAGE Publishing

Chapter 14: Intelligence Reform

What do we mean by “intelligence reform”? What are we trying to accomplish both
generally and specifically?

Are there any area or issues that appear to be more problematic than others? Are there
suggested reforms that keep appearing? If so, why have they not been enacted?

Specific issues
o Role of the DNI
What are the limits on his authority? Can these be remedied? Why/why
not?
How can you tell if the DNI is working as planned?
o Stovepipes
Are there practicable and politically acceptable alternatives to the
collection stovepipes? What are the impediments?
o Analysis
Is it possible to come up with reliable analytic standards? If you did, how
would you apply them?

Chapter 15: Foreign Intelligence Services

What do you see as the main differences between and among the various services in
this chapter, and that of the U.S. as well?
o How do you account for these differences?
o How would you assess relative strengths and weaknesses?

19 | P a g e