Keeping U.S. Intelligence Effective

William J. Lahneman is assistant professor of Political Science at Towson University. He also is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy.

Lahneman is not optimistic about the continued effectiveness of the US intelligence community in the dynamic and complex security environment in which it operates today. The author notes that the intelligence community is still basically organized around the central task of "learning secrets" from a single, major, state-based threat, using technical means. It is not well situated to solve mysteries arising from multiple, widely dispersed threats of a non-state-supported nature. The contemporary security environment demands greater exploitation of human intelligence and open sources, areas in which the US intelligence community remains demonstrably weak. It is not that the intelligence community has simply refused to change since the Cold War but that the changes in methods and organization have been evolutionary while the changes in the security environment have been revolutionary. What is needed, according to Lahneman, is a "revolution in intelligence affairs." Whether such a revolution is forthcoming remains unclear, but the author's argument is well worth considering nonetheless. Recommended.