The Greatest Challenges for a Reconstructed Intelligence Community - Essay Example

The Greatest Challenges for a Reconstructed Intelligence Community Table of contents Introduction. 2. The most necessary challenges facing a reconstructed Intelligence Community at the examples of some U.S. intelligence services. 3. Conclusion. 1. The events and cases of modern history show that Intelligence Community and its services and branches are largely challenged today by numerous factors concerning inner and foreign policy of the state. This issue is increasingly important in this age of global challenges to the state and humanity from different destabilizing sources and communities. Many people believe that there is no necessity to pay appropriate attention to the problem of global challenges, but these people overlook numerous facts of human rights violations in modern society, as well as the global warfare withstanding between the West and the East and stable contradiction between wealthy countries of democracy and backward poor states with numerous economic, demographic and social problems. Furthermore, it is obvious that intelligence agencies and services are one of the most reliable factors of the inner and foreign stability of a state. So, there are a lot of greatest challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community in the years to come. This paper will discuss the greatest challenges facing different U.S. intelligence services in our days. The paper will cover the challenges of such important American intelligence agencies as FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, State Dept Intelligence, NRO and the military services. This list is not all-inclusive, but these are the most important intelligence agencies of the state which play great role in the state and the nation security providing, and the challenges facing them reflect the full range of challenges facing all the intelligence community of the United States. 2. There are some global challenges facing all democratic states and consequently their intelligence communities in the 21st century. "The threat to the United States that the Intelligence Community must mitigate takes several forms. In addition to conventional military threats that have challenged us in the past, new transnational problems involve the possibilities of" (1): terrorism, narcotics trafficking, chemical and biological warfare, information infrastructure attack and proliferation (1). These problems are common for most countries, as well as for the United States. These global world problems facing the world are being transformed into the global greatest challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community in the years to come. How can these common challenges affect the planning and activity of the various members of the intelligence community in the United States The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is one of the most important investigation services in the U.S. One of the challenges facing the organization today is connected with the antiterrorist coalition operations in Iraq. "The FBI is facing one of the most dangerous, difficult challenges in its history as agents and analysts try to solve a string of deadly bombings in Iraq" (2). There are about 300 FBI agents in Iraq who investigate numerous cases of terrorist bombing attacks and help to find suspects in these terrible actions. The challenge is connected with the difficulty to investigate such cases and large number of them: "The FBI is involved in about a dozen bombing investigations in Iraq, focusing on those that involve civilian or government targets rather than attacks directly on U.S. or coalition military forces" (2). The FBI agents sometimes risk their lives to follow their duty in different countries. There are some troubles facing the FBI in Iraq, Bali, Saudi Arabia and other countries: "In a telling sign of the peril, FBI agents must be accompanied by American troops whenever they leave their secure compound at the Baghdad airport. Further complicating their job is the lack of a cooperating foreign government to help them and the paucity of high-quality intelligence from either informants or technological surveillance" (2). These challenges facing FBI are very common when the agents work in such situations which are tightly connected with the U.S. foreign policy directing to the struggle with the world terrorism: "Mr. President, the Federal Bureau of Investigation faces tremendous challenges in the war on terrorism, particularly with its internal operations, where a culture of fear, retaliation, and coverup demoralize agents and weaken the organizations" (3). The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is another intelligence agency which plays a very important role in the U.S. intelligence community. There are also a lot of challenges facing the CIA today: "In 15 years, CIA will still be focused on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, narcotics, and organized crime. But newer issues, such as information operations and threats to our space systems, will command a growing amount of our time. And we will be engaged, even more than today, in covering regional conflicts, refugee crises, peacekeeping, humanitarian emergencies, environmental problems, global health issues, technological developments, and key economic trends" (4). Many of these challenges are rather new and characteristic for our days. The threats to the U.S. space systems which originate from international terrorist organizations and odious political regimes treat the U.S. national security, and the CIA agents' activity prevents the nation from this threat. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is not a new challenge for the CIA, but the United States, as well as NATO and UNO should pay appropriate attention to this problem, as this threat is still facing the world. Such challenge as narcotics trafficking is one of the most complicated problems facing the CIA and other intelligence organizations. What does it mean for the CIA in the future It means that the U.S. "will continue to need a robust intelligence service to help our policymakers make sense of the complex, fast-moving world that will confront them" (4). The CIA should pay more attention to analytical and strategic work for better understanding of the global problems facing the country; it also should use modern technological tools is its activity; the improved approach to the new employee training and recruiting is needed, as well as the cooperation with the other services and agencies. The DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) is the service whose activity is connected with military operations intelligence. So, the challenges facing the DIA treat the military security of the United States: "The combined impact of rapidly advancing technology and human ingenuity will continue to alter the nature of warfare and the characteristics of future threats. The continued proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, missiles, and other key technologies significantly increases the direct military threat to our deployed forces and the U.S. homeland. Adversary emphasis on asymmetric and asynchronous forms of warfare, combined with other doctrinal and technological innovations, complicates U.S. contingency planning and operations" (5). The DIA agents should pay appropriate attention to these global military challenges facing the United States. The main purposes of the DIA today are: the integrated approach to the intelligence information and strategic decisions development based on the new challenges and threats, and the tight cooperation with other intelligence agencies and appropriate services. In addition to that, "DIA must be a knowledge organization if it is to adapt successfully to change and exploit opportunities to increase our capabilities and enhance mission accomplishment. Key characteristics of a knowledge organization are unity of purpose, consistency in action, and pursuit of knowledge wherever it exists" (6). The NSA (National Security Agency) is a very specific intelligence service. It operates technological tools and high-precision technologies. The NSA also works with linguistic analysis of the intelligence information needed for the governmental purposes: "It coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. government information systems and produce foreign signals intelligence information. A high technology organization, NSA is on the frontiers of communications and data processing. It is also one of the most important centers of foreign language analysis and research within the government" (7). The challenges facing the NSA are directly connected with the U.S. governmental information systems security and information technology control. So, the mission of the NSA is rather challenging in our world of fast and expensive information: "This mission involves protecting all classified and sensitive information that is stored or sent through U.S. government equipment. IA (Information Assurance) professionals go to great lengths to make certain that government systems remain impenetrable. This support spans from the highest levels of U.S. government to the individual warfighter in the field" (7). The NSA activity covers a lot of scientific areas concerning the information and technology priority of the United States, such as semiconductors development and cipher system designing: "Its mathematicians contribute directly to the two missions of the Agency: designing cipher systems that will protect the integrity of U.S. information systems and searching for weaknesses in adversaries' systems and codes" (7). One of the most expensive and valuable products today is information, so the NSA is facing information and technological challenges. Technological terrorism treats the national interest of the United States and other high developed democratic countries, so this challenge is directly facing the NSA as an organization whose mission is information and technology protecting: "Adversaries like Bin Laden can take full advantage of this technology - cell phones, fax machines, the Internet, emails, and encryption. This global information explosion forced NSA to recognize it no longer had the technological advantage. The Agency had to prepare" (8). Technological terrorists have sometimes many possibilities to make terrorist acts concerning the technological security of the United States, so the NSA should be on alert to prevent such situation development. The Agency's main purposes for the future development are: to develop its technological and scientific base for being possible to struggle and prevent possible terrorist attacks; to pay appropriate attention to the training and recruiting policy and methods: "Technology and the world change rapidly, and great emphasis is placed on staying ahead of these changes with employee training programs. The National Cryptologic School is indicative of the Agency's commitment to professional development" (7). The DNI (Director of National Intelligence) is to strengthen its activity addressing the overcoming of numerous challenges facing the country. There are also some challenges facing the DNI namely. He should work in tight contact with other intelligence agencies for effective preventing of possible terrorist acts and foreign intelligence services activity; the antiterrorism strategy should be developed; it is also necessary to overcome the agencies inconsistency in their work: "He must manage the sprawling U.S. intelligence bureaucracy, oversee the nation's counterterrorism strategy, replace the CIA director as the president's primary adviser on intelligence, and--with the Secretary of Homeland Defence and the head of the FBI--take responsibility for preventing another large-scale terror attack on U.S. soil" (9). The DNI should develop information sharing with other intelligence agencies. Why the DNI should do it The purpose of the intelligence community of the United States is the U.S. territory and citizens protection from inner and foreign encroachments and the state security system development. Different subjects of the intelligence community have their own specific aims and purposes, but in general they have a common purpose of the country protection. So, they should share their intelligence information for their actions coordination. The challenges facing the DNI and other members of the U.S. intelligence community compel the agencies to support each other and decrease possible contradictions between them. The Department of State is an organization related to the U.S. foreign policy: "The Department of State is the lead cabinet-level agency concerned with the conduct of foreign relations throughout the world. Its Bureau of intelligence and Research, as a member of the intelligence Community, brings the Department's unique capabilities and broad foreign policy perspectives to bear on intelligence problems and challenges" (10). The Department of State Bureau of intelligence purpose is to analyse all the information connected with the United States foreign policy for the development of appropriate political decisions and actions. This organization also is faced by global challenges which influence the general situation in the world politics: "Mr. Chairman, defeating terrorism must remain one of our intelligence community's core objectives, as widely dispersed terrorist networks will present one of the most serious challenges to U.S. national security interests at home and abroad in the coming year" (11). This challenge is growing, and many countries except the United States suffer from global terrorism. The U.S. Intelligence Community should pay an appropriate attention to this problem as the world terrorism is the key-point challenge facing the Department of State Bureau of intelligence. Another challenge facing this organization, as well as other intelligence community subjects is the situation in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai is elected as the president of Afghanistan that is one of the stability parameters, but there are still some challenges and problems facing the Department of State: "President Karzai still faces a low-level insurgency aimed at destabilizing the country, raising the cost of reconstruction and ultimately forcing Coalition forces to leave" (11). As the Coalition forces, including the U.S. army still remain in Afghanistan, this challenge directly concerns the Department of State Intelligence. One of the most challenging problems facing the Department of State Intelligence is the situation in Iraq. Political instability affects the citizens' life of Iraqi people and complicates the peace keeping missions of the Coalition forces: "Low voter turnout in some Sunni areas and the post-election resumption of insurgent attacks -- most against Iraqi civilian and security forces -- indicate that the insurgency achieved at least some of its election-day goals and remains a serious threat to creating a stable representative government in Iraq" (11). The Department of State Bureau of intelligence has much work to do in Iraq. It is necessary to reveal terrorist leaders and make appropriate actions for situation normalizing in Iraq. The proliferation problem also challenges the Department of State Intelligence. This problem is mostly concerns North Korea which continues to produce WMD (weapons of muss destruction) and still remains the political adversary of the United States: "North Korea continues to develop, produce, deploy, and sell ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication, augmenting Pyongyang's large operational force of Scud and No Dong class missiles We assess the TD-2 is capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear-weapon-sized payload" (11). Iran also continues to produce WMD and hide it from the International Community. China's military modernization is also facing the Department of State Intelligence as it affects the balance of powers in the region: "Beijing's military modernization and military buildup is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait. Improved Chinese capabilities threaten U.S. forces in the region" (11). The U.S. intelligence community should pay attention to the China strengthening and to the WMD proliferation by some politically and economically unstable countries. Russia also remains a problematic region for the United States intelligent services: "Budget increases will help Russia create a professional military by replacing conscripts with volunteer servicemen and focus on maintaining, modernizing and extending the operational life of its strategic weapons systems, including its nuclear missile force" (11). Why the U.S. intelligence community should pay appropriate attention to Russia In our days this country produces a great deal of military technology and concomitant materials related to the nuclear weapons that treats the strategic interests of the United States in Asian region. The sources of potential Department of State Intelligence challenges are also such regions as Cuba, Africa, Middle East, some Latin America countries and Southern Asia. The NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) purpose is producing space intelligence systems for the U.S. security provision: "The NRO develops and operates unique and innovative space reconnaissance systems and conducts intelligence-related activities essential for US National Security" (12). The NRO challenges are common with those of the NSA as both agencies deal with space intelligence technologies that is very important for the United States informational security. Military services are also facing some challenges linked to the specific of their actions. One of them is military families' problem: "Military families are frequently geographically separated from their families of origin and civilian peers, and often lack physical access to their hometown social supports and parental models" (13). This challenge relates to the numerous military missions of the U.S. army in different regions. Military services challenges are linked to the antiterrorist operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and processes followed by them for the purpose of struggle against terrorism and national U.S. interests providing. The main challenges facing these purposes are indicated above. 3. The U.S. Intelligence Community is facing a lot of challenges today. The most of them are related to the global world terrorism and numerous terrible actions made by terrorists throughout the world. Many challenges are connected with WMD proliferation and drug trafficking. Such agencies as FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, Department of State Intelligence, NRO and the military services should provide the United States security in our unstable and changing future. References 1. The Threat (on-line). United States Intelligence Community. What we do; page last updated:June 10, 2005; available from http://www.intelligence.gov/1-members_state.shtml; Internet; accessed 4 September 2005. 2. 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Welcome to the National Reconnaissance Office (on-line); available from http://www.nro.gov/; accessed 4 September 2005. 13. New Parent Support Programs in the Military Services (on-line); March 2000; available from http://www.mfrc-dodqol.org/pdffiles/nps_fs.pdf; accessed 4 September 2005. Read More