Lieutenant General Robert P. Ashley, Jr. is former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, where we reported directly to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security and the Secretary of Defense.
Neil Wiley is former Principal Executive at ODNI, where he performed the duitews of Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Prior to that, Mr. Wiley served as Chairman, National Intelligence Council (NIC).
EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — During annual testimony on 22 April, the CENTCOM Commander was asked about the impact of a key Presidential policy decision, the decision to go to zero troops in Afghanistan. When asked if he had a chance to advise the president, Gen McKenzie said, “Sir, I can tell you that I had multiple opportunities to have a detailed conversation with the president and give my advice. He heard my advice. I’m not going to be able to share it with you here this morning.”
The President’s decision will have been a difficult one. Things are seldom straightforward in the national security arena and this is particularly so with anything involving Afghanistan. As would any commander, General McKenzie executed his duty in providing his best military advice to our civilian leadership. That advice would have been considered, along with the best advice of other leaders within the defense department, other government departments, partners, and the Intelligence Community – each contributing their own expert perspective – in considering risk, cost, and gain to develop the final U.S. government position.
The Intelligence Community does not make policy, but it is a core component of the national security decision making process. A principal contribution is the characterization of “threat”, which can be broadly considered to be a combination of an actor’s intent to behave in some way detrimental to U.S. interests, and the actor’s capability to make good on that intent. Threat is a broad church and the actions an adversary can take range potentially from inconvenient diplomacy to nuclear war.
In the case of Afghanistan, the threat in question is the extent to which terrorist groups will be able to use the country as a platform from which to conduct attacks against America following a withdrawal of forces. Characterizing this threat and informing deliberations on how to manage the risk the threat poses, requires not only an intimate understanding of the terrorist groups themselves but also an appreciation of how willing and able whatever government arises in Afghanistan, as well as other actors, will be to suppress, control or, indeed, enable those groups. Assessing threat and risk is not a static but a continuous process.
Now that the decision is made, the Intelligence Community must still provide the best intelligence possible to provide warning of the threat and the insight to enable decision advantage across the myriad of complexities in the region and within Afghanistan. Its challenge now will be to determine how best to array its capabilities to meet that mission. Intelligence warning relies on sensing the environment and proximity to the target matters. Over the past two decades, our ability to sense the environment has relied heavily on the substantial U.S. and allied presence physically operating within Afghanistan. As those assets withdraw, the Intelligence Community, must adapt to preserve its insight into the adversary. This will be a difficult challenge requiring significant thought and planning.
CIA Director Bill Burns has indicated the CIA will “retain a suite of capabilities” and has acknowledged the need to enhance the agency’s presence in the region. Capabilities may have to be re-aligned and some capabilities may not be able to be replicated at all. While the task sounds daunting, the commitment and the ingenuity of the Intelligence Community should not be underestimated. During SASC testimony, General McKenzie put it well when he described that challenge as “difficult but not impossible.”
As important to the decision-making process as the actual insight the Intelligence Community provides, is the manner in which the community conveys it. The value proposition of intelligence analysis lies in the production of expert, uniquely informed, dispassionate, objective assessment which is aware of – but independent from – policy or command positions.
The Intelligence Community’s highest responsibility is to provide the best assessment it can to enable the best decision which can be made – whatever that decision turns out to be. Policy makers and commanders must have complete trust in the probity and integrity of the process by which intelligence is produced and delivered, and that intelligence is not being shaped to manipulate or inappropriately influence their decisions. Analytic tradecraft exists to preserve this integrity and demands that an assessment is clear as to the rationale by which we arrived at our judgements and the uncertainty which surrounds those judgements. It demands also that we are transparent regarding the information available to us and of the assumptions that the analysts necessarily made in crafting their assessment.
Join the experts for The Cipher Brief’s International Summit: three days of expert-led sessions on the strategic value of alliances, Intelligence, China, cyber and emerging technologies. Registration is free for Cipher Brief members. See how $10/month brings the most experienced national security experts to you.
Tradecraft compels us to give voice to alternative interpretations of the situation. This combination of expert, uniquely informed insight, policy independence, and analytic rigor and transparency underpins the extraordinary credence which the Intelligence Community, despite its notable failures, still enjoys. It is this value proposition which makes the Intelligence Community uniquely valuable to someone on whose decision depends great political, economic or, indeed, human consequence.
Much remains unclear about the future of Afghanistan. What has always been certain, however, is that the solution to the Afghan war would be a political settlement. Military forces can buy the diplomats time and space, but any agreement to stop the fighting must be a political settlement which, one hopes, permits Afghanistan to move forward with some expectation of stability without losing hard fought ground that brought rights and hope to its people. In this future environment, the work of the Intelligence Community will be critical. We must understand the leverage points, which can keep the Taliban accountable to any agreement they may sign in the future. We must be cognizant of the competing interests and incentives which drive the great powers’ and regional states’ involvement for good or ill. We must counter those who would use Afghanistan as a haven from which to do us harm. Even after U.S. forces depart, Afghanistan will remain a focus of national policy makers and the Intelligence Community will be right alongside of them.
The views expressed are the authors’ and do not imply endorsement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence or any other U.S. Government agency.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
