®
A Nation’s best defense is an
educated citizenry. Thomas Jefferson
The Future of Intelligence:
Not Federal, Not Secret, Not Expensive
Robert David Steele
<bear@oss.net>
Fall 2004
®
THE ONLY THING THAT WORKED RIGHT ON 9-11 WAS INFORMED
CITIZENS COUNTER-ATTACKING ON THEIR OWN.
9-11: Systemic Failure
®
Conclusion First
• Local cops are key to spotting/neutralizing terrorism at home
• Local observation & collection is one-half to two-third of the
preventive policing answer—bottom-up intelligence
• Community Intelligence Centers, $30M per state per year at FOC,
are the hub of the “seven tribe” wheel
• Open Source Agency, $1.5B at FOC, is the one “transformative”
tool we can deploy right now
• Done right, we can redirect $30B/Year from secret collection to
state & local & regional intelligence, and $200B/Year from a
largely useless heavy metal military to “soft power” capabilities.
• It’s not going to happen until Governors & Mayors raise hell.
• Now, in the second term with a majority on the Hill, is our time.
®
Seven Intelligence Tribes:
The Way Ahead
National
Religions
& Clans
NGO &
Media
Military
Academic
Law Enforcement
Business
®
State of the Tribes Today
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Objective
National
Military
Business
Academic
NGO-Media
Religious
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
National
50%
Military
40%
Business
30%
Academic
30%
Law Enforcement 20%
NGO-Media
20%
Religious
20%
We have much to do.
®
Bottom-Up and Peer-to-Peer
TOP-DOWN
COMMAND & CONTROL
OLD
SINGLE-CULTURE
SINGLE-ORGANIZATION
EQUITIES
LEADERS
DECIDE
SECRET
SOURCES & METHODS
OBSCURE DETAIL
TIME
IMPACT
SHORT
TIME
IMPACT
LONG
OBVIOUS DETAIL
OPEN
SOURCES & METHODS
PEOPLE
DECIDE
MULTI-CULTURAL &
TRANS-NATIONAL
EQUITIES
NEW
BOTTOM-UP
INFORMATION-SHARING
®
Future is NOT Federal
TODAY (Per Year)
• $50B/Federal
TOMORROW (Per Year)
• $5B/International
• $5B/Regional
• $20B/Federal
• $5B/State
• $5B/Local
• $10B/Non-State Actors
Bottom Line: All levels of government have major role to play.
®
Future is NOT Secret
• $50B for secrets, $250M for open sources, yet
open sources answer 40% of the need.
• Imagine $5B for open sources displacing $30B for
secrets, the balance then available for distribution.
• From terrorism to proliferation to illegal
immigration to disease, 90% of what we need to
know is not secret—we simply have to pay
attention 24/7 in 29+ languages.
• We also have to share easily, without baloney.
®
Future is NOT Expensive
•
•
•
•
Leadership is free—you just do it.
Sharing is free—you just do it.
Thinking is free—you just do it.
Keys to victory are:
– Bottom-up police empowerment
– Seven tribes harnessed at every level
– Nail Congress now, before Christmas
®
“Shockingly Dysfunctional”
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
IC: $50B a year in waste & mismanagement
Collect 10% of what we need to know
Lose 80% of that in processing failures
Analysts young, isolated from reality
Management guilty of “bureaucratic treason”
Political process extremely corrupt
Public interest has been betrayed
®
History of Failure
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1947 Flawed by design—Pentagon opposed
1949 CIA, State, Pentagon fighting daily
1955 CI & Language bad, OSINT bad
1961 Failures in planning, coordination
1971 Grotesquely expensive, duplicative
1976 DCI needs budget power, OSINT bad
1992 DCI needs budget power, OSINT bad
®
Collection Failure
Breakdown in Coverage and Language Access
Digital
English
Language
Oral/Unpublished
NRO
NSA
Foreign
Languages*
Analog
FBIS
UN/STATE
CIA/DO
Cascading Deficiencies:
1) Don’t even try to access most information
2) Can’t process hard-copy into digital
3) Can’t translate most of what we collect
*29 predominant languages, over 3,000 distinct languages in all.
®
Processing Failure
Breakdown in Exploitation, Dissemination
More Satisfying
50%
0%
Less Costly
Does Not Exist
OSINT
HUMINT
STATE
SIGINT
IMINT
MASINT
50%
®
Analysis Failure
Breakdown in Thinking & Mindset
• Analysts end up with 2%
of the relevant data
• Analysts have no
historical, cultural, or
religious context
• Analysts can safely be
ignored because their
findings are secret
• Managers are weak
®
Leadership Failure
• From Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney
defeating intelligence reform in 1992, to a
series of DCI’s refusing the implement the
Aspin-Brown recommendations of 1996,
our last fifteen years are marked by
leadership that focuses more on protecting
their budgets than protecting the Nation.
• Current IC leadership continues to resist
®
Shit Flows Home…
23 LIC+, 79 LIC-, 175 VPC
GREEN SPOTS—WESTERN CIVILIZATION—UNDER SIEGE
Source: PIOOM (NL), data with
permission © 2002 A. Jongman
®
Global Threats to Local Survival
Complex Emergencies
32 Countries
Water Scarcity &
Contaminated Water**
Refugees/Displaced
66 Countries
Ethnic Conflict 18
Genocides Today**
Food Security
33 Countries
Resource Wars, Energy
Waste & Pollution**
Modern Plagues*
59 Countries & Rising
Corruption Common
80 Countries
Child Soldiers
41 Countries
Censorship Very High
62 Countries
*State of the World Atlas (1997), ** Marq de Villier (Water), John Heidenrich and Greg Stanton (Genocide),
Michael Klare et al (Resources), all others from PIOOM Map 2002
®
Military Cannot Defend USA
• $500K = $500B cost
• $1 = $1M cost to us
• Terrorists can keep
this up forever
–
–
–
–
Exploding ships
Exploding tunnels
Exploding buildings
50 caliber bullets into
• Power generators
• Pipelines
®
Four Different Threats to America:
Require Four Different Security Approaches
PHYSICAL
STEALTH,
HIGH TECH
PRECISION
BRUTES
TARGETING
(BIG WAR)
ECONOMIC
WAR
HIGH TECH
CYBER STEALTH,
DATABASE
TARGETING
GUERRILLA
WAR
MONEY--RUTHLESSNESS
POWER BASE
KNOWLEDGE--IDEOLOGY
SEERS
(HOME)
CULTURAL
WAR
NATURAL
LOW TECH
STEALTH,
BRUTES
RANDOM
(GANGS)
TARGETING
TERRORISM
LOW TECH
SEERS
IDEO -
(POOR)
STEALTH,
MASS
TARGETING
®
Taxpayer Dollars
Focused on 10% of the Threat
15%
10%
State vs State
State vs Nation
25%
Inter-Ethnic Tribal
50%
Gang Wars, Genocide,
Decolonization
®
New Strategy: 1 + iii:
Need huge increase in “soft power” capabilities
1
i
i
i
CINCWAR
CINCSOLIC
CINCPEACE
CINCHOME
Strategic NBC
Small Wars
State/USIA
Intelligence
Big War(s)
Constabulary
Peace Corps
Border Patrol
Reserve
Ground Truth
Economic Aid
Port Security
Reserve
Environment
Electronic
Reserve
Public Health
50%
250B vs. 500B
15%
75B vs 20B
20%
100B vs. 20B
15%
75B vs. 36B
®
New Craft of Intelligence
China, Islam, Ethnic, Etc.
Narrowly focused!
I
IV
Lessons of History
Spies & Secrecy
II
III
Global Coverage
National Intelligence
Cost-Sharing with Others-Shared Early Warning
Harness distributed
intelligence of Nation
®
Leveraging Best Practices:
The Generic & The Esoteric
Generic to All Tribes
Unique to Some Tribes
•
•
•
•
•
•
• National clandestine & covert
collection, offensive CI
• Military targeting, mobility
• Police arrest & interrogation
• Business fiscal accountability
• Media attention-getting skills
• NGO humanitarian values
• Religious faith-based insights
• Ethnic blood-based insights
Open Source Collection
Multi-media processing
Analytic toolkits
Analytic tradecraft
Operations security
Defensive
counterintelligence
• Leadership skills
• Training & culture skills
®
Localizing Intelligence:
Transfer resources & process
•
•
•
•
Community Intelligence Centers
Community Information Commons
Community Open Decision Networks
Digital Marshall Plan to every corner of globe
– Empowers local population with global access
– Makes local information digital at least cost
– Converts “neighborhood watch” into global watch
®
Globalizing Intelligence:
A Geneva Convention for Information
• International convention on open source software
and transparent stable Application Program
Interfaces (API)
• XML Geo is fundamental--every datum in every
medium, every language, every device
• ISO standards for generic intelligence collection,
analysis, counterintelligence, covert action
• ISO standards for data security & privacy that
empower software and marginalize hardware
®
Local Hubs & World Brain:
Web-Based Virtual Intelligence Teams
Expert Forum
Shared
Calendar
Distance
Learning
Shared
Rolodex
OPG
VPN
Shared
24/7 Plot
Virtual
Library
Virtual
Budget
Weekly Review
®
Focus of Global Effort
Strategic Forecasting
10% Need, 40% Cost
Top
Secret
Tribal
Secret
Partial Sharing
Shared Among Tribes
Primary Research &
Experts on Demand
20% Need, 30% Cost
Help Desk (Tell Me
More Right Now)
30% Need, 20% Cost
Daily/Weekly Reports
40% Need, 10% Cost
®
U.S. Intelligence Reform
Can’t Have Smart Spies in a Dumb Nation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
XML Geo and XML Security Standards
National Analysis Agency (CIA Re-Focus)
National Processing Agency (NSA Re-Focus)
National Collection Agency (NRO Re-Focus)
New Clandestine Service Agency
New Homeland Counterintelligence Agency
New Community Intelligence Centers (Each State/City)
New Open Source Agency ($1.5B/Yr)
®
®
Based on Appendix A of Steve Emerson, AMERICAN JIHAD::The Terrorists Living Among Us (Free
Press, 2003), at Amazon.com. Created 8 Feb 03 by Robert David Steele, posted at www.oss.net.