Our conversation with Assistant Secretary McCarthy has been edited for length and clarity.
The Cipher Brief: What exactly does INR do to support intelligence within the State Department and how is it unique within the broader Intelligence Community?
McCarthy: INR is one of forty bureaus within the State Department, but we’re also one of the sixteen intelligence elements. We have a bifurcated personality. On one hand, we’re very aligned to all the policy bureaus (the regional and functional bureaus) and my boss is the Secretary of State.
On the other hand, there is this intel half. We’re expected to ensure that the intelligence community is supporting the policymaking community, but we’re also expected to provide production and intelligence to the rest of the IC, which the shares it with their clients and customers. So, the DNI is our other boss.
The Honorable Ellen McCarthy, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research
INR is a small bureau that punches above our weight. We’re roughly 300 people - a mix of civil service and foreign service - with about 200 all-source intelligence analysts. INR is one of three (INR, CIA, and DIA) all-source elements, which means we’re very involved in the production of the President’s Daily Brief and in reviewing the community assessments.
Our operational function, on the other side, is ensuring that intelligence and intelligence operations are working in coordination with policy and policymaking operations, not for differing purposes or not impacting one or the other.
When I came to INR, I thought I would be getting back to my roots as an all-source Naval intelligence analyst. Instead, I spend most of my time on the collections piece or on ensuring the community is working in support of the diplomatic mission.
The intel support to diplomacy is very different from supporting law enforcement or the Department of Defense. One thing that sets INR apart from other intel organizations is our deep understanding of regions; our analysts on average have 17 years in their area whereas other organizations have analysts spend only two or three years on a certain area. Our analysts have multiple advanced degrees, speak multiple languages and most importantly, have incredible relationships with their policy-making clients.
It’s almost like doing tactical intelligence where, after 17 years on a region, you get to know the ambassadors, the undersecretaries, and assistant secretaries and you understand what their needs are. You develop a level of understanding that is different from sitting in an agency that is very separate from their customer. INR analysts are able to have those relationships and get that immediate feedback on whether the intelligence is impactful or not.
Those are a few of the things that make INR unique. We also have interesting tools to support the policy maker. We are the communities’ analytic outreach capability. We work with the National Intelligence Council to provide discussion and symposia where we bring in outside experts on issues that are important to a new ambassador, the Secretary, an undersecretary, or the intelligence community as a whole. That’s a very interesting tool that helps provide some diversity of thought.
We also work with the community’s opinion polling capability. The State Department has had this capability for 40 or more years, but it came to INR about 20 years ago and we have become the foremost experts on polling. We bring in the methodologists and data scientists who are also deep experts in their region of the world and can assess what data is coming in using the latest tools to make their assessments. It’s a very valuable resource if you want to get a sense of how a policy is actually working and if it’s having an impact.
INR also houses the geographer of the State Department. Boundary disputes can be incredibly important, especially when talking about peace in the Middle East or the South China Sea. INR and our geographer work with policy makers to provide maps of where we believe boundaries are and that can be very helpful in terms of foreign policy discussions.
My priorities as someone who works directly for the Secretary of State are the priorities of the Secretary of State and of the president. That’s how we determine what our production is and how we’re providing support.
The Honorable Ellen McCarthy, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research
One thing I’ve been concerned about as someone who has spent some time across the private sector, is that INR punches above its weight. In a world that is changing and getting more complex and as the IC is moving forward with incorporating new tools and capabilities, I have real concerns about if INR will be able to stay right there with them and maintain that.
We have a reputation of being experts on the policy side of the house and we are. Our analysis is exquisite. However, the world is changing with emerging threats, new technologies, supply chain risk management, and pandemics and the INR’s responsibility to support consular affairs, diplomatic security, embassies, and diplomacy between global leaders, companies, economies, and NGOs is a ginormous mission. In 1945, we had 1,600 analysts. I’m no mathematician, but a move from 1,600 to 300 does not seem to be a move in the right direction.
We’re able to leverage our experts, and we’ve done a great job with that, but as we look toward the future, we need to do more. Even our customers are saying, “I want to see more. I want to see more out at the posts and embassies. I want to see INR more integrated with the policymakers when we are having discussions.” We are being asked to do more, it’s just a matter of getting the resources to be able to do it.
The Cipher Brief: Do you think the numbers have gone down because so many other agencies exist, and everybody is supposed to have certain lanes? How would you see an expansion of INR working and how would that integrate with the rest of your IC partners?
McCarthy: There are three reasons why we need to make an investment in INR. First, from a professional development perspective, we have brilliant analysts and operators at INR, but I can’t give them opportunities to rotate into other agencies or even to the embassies because we don’t have enough of them. There are some areas where we have unique expertise, so we need to continue to develop people. I’m worried about whether future generations of analysts will be able to stay in one spot for 17 years. One of our strengths is keeping our people, but to do that, we need to provide them the tools, resources, and opportunities to help them grow.
Second, we need to develop more expertise in certain areas to best support the policy making community. We want to develop our cyber capability and add an emerging technology and emerging threats capability. We need to be able to support a policymaker in a world where all communications are encrypted. To do that, we have to bring in the people with those technical skills. We need to invest in more analysts who have a wide range of expertise on all things Asia because China is not going away as a focus.
Other emerging threats like pandemics and climate change are receiving focus as well. We have the ICs foremost epidemiologist in house at INR and we’ve always known that a pandemic could be a threat. With climate change, we have to have the folks working with the science to actually get a sense of what’s happening and what potential impacts there are, particularly on human trafficking and migration.
Third, with the current administration, the Middle East and Iran have taken up an extraordinary amount of time. Counterterrorism has not gone away. That’s a challenge that INR has to face as well, while the rest of the community shifts to support their department priorities, we have to continue to focus on the priorities of the administration. While everything may be focusing on China, Russia, or Iran, we are still a global organization and have to look at the rest of the world including the Western hemisphere.
Even when data isn’t available, we have to find creative ways to continue to provide that information and intelligence to our policymaker. Especially during COVID, we have to continue to make sure the DNI understands we still have to support Africa, Europe, and counterterrorism in order to meet INR’s requirements.
The Cipher Brief: You mentioned China. What do you think about the future of the US relationship with China?
McCarthy: It’s incredibly complicated because our societies are so linked. I will say I am very happy that we’re looking at China in a new way. We’re putting more focus on China particularly in the National Defense Strategy and the National Security Strategy. This concept of highlighting where we have commonality and working better in terms of where we don’t have commonality is something we’re definitely going to be doing for the foreseeable future.
The Cipher Brief: What key recommendation would you make to the incoming Secretary of State about enhancing the cyber and hacking capabilities of INR?
McCarthy: We certainly need to enhance our understanding of cyber. Just like China, cyber is everywhere. Secretary Pompeo has required virtually every product that we write must have a China piece to it. So, if we’re talking about Brexit, it’s a product on Brexit and China. Cyber is no longer a functional area. It’s now the reality of how the regional bureaus have to think about what’s happening in their world. We’re making a big investment in cyber. We are horizontally adding that expertise to everything we’re doing right now.
I would recommend to the incoming administration to open up the doors to our other all-source agencies. We need to give these analysts the opportunity to work with the policymakers and develop those relationships. Intelligence has to be a part of the discussion. We’ve always been very careful to keep intel and policy separate, but I think we need to bring them closer together.
The Cipher Brief: What would you say to other agencies who say that INR analysts are too close to policymakers to keep their analysis objective?
McCarthy: It’s about the purity of intelligence and keeping it separate. Looking back over the past 75 years that INR has existed, we were sitting in on those policy-making discussions and we were part of the dialogue since the beginning, and I think great value comes from that. Frankly, I’m concerned about not being in the room because you lose context, or you could miss the opportunity to provide your intelligence-based thoughts that could add to the discussion.
With training and a focus on tradecraft and having folks who are truly experts at what they do and understand where the line is, being closer to the policy maker is a benefit. Now more than ever, there are so many tools and capabilities that help the decision makers dive into data and make assessments on that data. At the State Department, the assistant secretaries and undersecretaries have a lot of options for getting insights into data to assist them with their decision-making job. Unfortunately, that data is not always the best data. This is why intel needs to be working more closely with them right now in order to provide assessment of the data sources they’re working with and the assessments they are getting in order to continue to provide value, have impact, and tell truth to power. This requires training, tradecraft, professional development, and true expertise.
The Cipher Brief: In your experience with sharing more of what you produce with the embassies and outposts, what have been some of the lessons you’ve learned?
McCarthy: We’re just starting now because we just launched Tempo on the secret level, and it isn’t actually out to all of the posts yet. The way we share intelligence with the posts right now is via email. It’s based in the incredible relationships that our analysts and operators have with the foreign service. Many of them have done rotations at INR and have worked as analysts, watch officers, or collections specialists and have those established relationships which makes us able to send intelligence out to them directly via email. Our relationship with the policymaker, knowing the context, and knowing the story makes our product different; we write differently. The embassies and posts want to know what is going to the secretary, which is why we are rolling out that program to share information in a place that is easily accessible and allows for feedback so we can continue to tailor our products to have the greatest impact.
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