Grim's Hall

A shocking admission:

From the C.I.A.'s Center for Intelligence Studies. This comes as part of a long article called "The Intelligence Community: 2001-2015."

Now we are facing the same reality that confronted the Soviets: technology is, and has always been, ideologically neutral. It benefits anyone with access and means. This simple fact now represents an enormous challenge to US intelligence.

The technology used by the Intelligence Community has become antiquated. New solutions remain undiscovered and new funding will take time to have an effect. This is a strange and unprecedented condition for the United States, long accustomed to having technology as an ally.

How has it happened that the CIA has lost its technological edge? Since so much of the intelligence budget is hidden, we can't really know if it is underfunding.

It is likely, though, that the real problem has been bureaucratic overload. Intelligence is best run on a venture-capital model, which rewards risk and encourages innovation at all costs. The CIA's culture was originally heaviliy influenced by its founder, "Wild Bill" Donovan. But Wild Bill is long gone, and the American intelligence community is now flush with bureaucrats who have never been field operatives (cf. See No Evil by R. Baer). Bureaucracies make change difficult and ponderous. That's fine if you're trying to work a field that benefits from a reliable approach. Intelligence, though, demands high risk in order to reap its rewards, and there is nothing more risk-averse than a bureaucracy.