The impact of intelligence on foreign policy - Essay Example

It is a rationally accepted fact that no subject in the world is as complex as foreign affairs and hence to devise a foreign policy. The reason lays with the fact that in foreign policy making decisions, the policy makers have to deal not just with natural facts such as natural disasters and disease but also with social facts such as human beings, who change their minds and behave intuitively and creatively. Natural facts behave according to some well defined natural phenomenon or law and they always obey the same course of action while human behaviors and interests are the most unpredictable.

Further, social facts are embedded in different cultures. People from different cultures interpret the same facts differently. Individual human beings and diverse cultures create multiple meanings from the same set of facts. Given this enormous complexity, how does an individual make any sense at all out of international affairs? Hence intuitively even a common observer of international events can guess that a foreign policy decisions are not only the result of multiple considerations and interests but also significantly manipulated by these considerations and interests.

Substantial recent progress has been made towards understanding foreign policy making decisions. International relations theory has long refused to consider the complexity of international phenomena and it has attempted to simplify the foreign policy process in order to build an elegant causal theory. . timely analysis needed to devise their policy options, to reach critical decisions and to implement the final policy mandates. Unless this process is well dealt with, the other moves made by intelligence to collect and analyze information might well be wasted.

Since the role and impact of intelligence materials are very difficult to analyze, because of both confidentiality and intangible or definitional problems hence the key question rises how closely intelligence producers' work influences the policymakers to maintain and achieve their objective. A simple guideline and insight was given by Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of state. According to him the role of intelligence in foreign policy is only to pave a way in making national policy. "Anyone concerned with national policy must have a profound understanding interest in making sure that intelligence guides and does not follow national policy2".

Foreign policy is considered as the result of a struggle among the decision-makers' goals and constraints. The decision maker's capacity to further his objectives will be dependent on the means at his disposal and the constraints he faces - such as the relative strength of other political actors trying to influence foreign policy. If a decision-maker is constrained by the demands of political stability, foreign policy will be more reactive rather than proactive, in the sense that it will seek to satisfy the demands of governance rather than state power.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and hence the end of cold war totally changed the geopolitical environment in which the intelligence community operates. Although nuclear forces in the former Soviet Union