Connecting Dots

So various US government agencies had information that could have prevented the Christmas Day terrorist attack. Why didn't they connect them? A New York Times editorial blames counterterrorism officials, putting the failure down to a "very bad judgement call." In an op-ed yesterday, a former Department of Homeland Security inspector general blames technology, suggesting "rationalizing" government counter-terrorism databases.

Neither people or technology are the root cause of the difficulties in sharing intelligence. Politics is. Government agencies all want to contribute to stopping terrorist attacks, but bring to the table different specific skills and priorities. These differences can make them reluctant to share intelligence with their counterparts. Some fear that their counterparts will reveal methods of intelligence collection that need to be kept secret or will expose information that the terrorist can use to plan their next attack. Others are reluctant to share intelligence that casts a shadow on their efforts or undermines their skills and priorities. On the flip side, some agencies are unwilling to make decisions based on information they did not collect and cannot themselves verify.

This is politics. Replacing officials and improving technology will not make it go away. It is not clear what can. The Director of National Intelligence does not have much power to force or entice agencies to share more effectively, and the president may be distracted by other issues or hobbled by opposition from Congress.

One solution might be to foster an intelligence culture that rewards sharing. The military has had some success in promoting inter-service cooperation by, for example, rewarding officers that serve in other areas of the military or government. But this is not an overnight cure. At best, it might create a culture of greater sharing in the next generation of intelligence professionals. Politics can be tamed, but it won't go away.

Preventing the Next Yemen (or Afghanistan or Pakistan)

Many reports about the attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight on Christmas Day highlight the terrorist's connections to Yemen, and the New York Times today has a detailed story on US counterterrorism aid to the country.

This is really a problem about failed states, which we know are the source of many terrorist attacks. Most other countries have a very strong interest in stopping the spread of terrorist groups to failed states. But there seems little that can be done about it, for two reasons.

The first is the scale of the problem. "Unfailing" failed states is hard (see: Iraq and Afghanistan). And there are many failed states that might serve as incubators of Islamic terrorism--most of Africa north of the equator, many states in the Middle East, and all of Central and South Asia have areas where the government's authority is modest at best.

The second is the trouble the rest of the world encounters in trying to address the problem. Righting failed states that could house terrorists is a collective good. And we know that states have trouble providing such collective goods, even for immediate threats such as terrorism. While almost all countries want something done about the problem, most prefer that someone else do the heavy lifting.

The United States is a partial exception to this. As a powerful country that has global interests and is an active target of terrorism, the United States has been willing and able to take aggressive action on its own. But even the United States lacks the resources and will to build functioning states (see: Iraq and Afghanistan). So it relies heavily on military force and military aid to local governments. Force promises a quick and relatively low-cost solution. But it carries with it problems as well, such as difficulty in finding terrorists and popular resentment from local populations, which may then tilt towards insurgents and terrorists and away from the United States and its allies.

Are there solutions? Not many attractive ones. The United States could refrain from doing anything in the next failed state hotspot to convince the rest of the world to do more of the heavy lifting. But since the United States is the top target of many terrorists, such a strategy might lack credibility. Even if this is the case, though, it is not clear that doing something (especially when that something involves military force) is always better than doing nothing. Every policy choice involves balancing risks and costs against benefits. And it is not clear that the benefits of military force always outweigh the risks and costs of propping up unpopular governments, alienating local populations, and distracting us from more immediate counterterrorism challenges.

Intelligence Sharing with Pakistan: What It Might Look Like

Last week the Obama administration rolled out a new Afghanistan policy. It also reconfigured its policy toward Pakistan. This has received far less attention, and the administration has tried not to release too many details. So what might this new policy towards Pakistan look like?

A key US goal in the region is stamping out Al Qaeda and groups that sustain it. Pakistan is in many ways more important than Afghanistan for this. Most of the leaders of Al Qaeda are hiding in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. More sharing of the intelligence capabilities of the US and Pakistan would be an effective tool for finding them. The US has high-tech intelligence capabilities for monitoring communications and movements, as well as drones that can launch missiles against insurgents. The Pakistanis have intelligence from local informants, and boots on the ground to track down and capture people.

This seems simple enough. But sharing intelligence is made difficult by the political differences between the US and Pakistan. The US would like to use its forces in Pakistan; the Pakistanis object. The US would like Pakistan to move its army into the regions bordering Afghanistan; the Pakistanis worry this would weaken them against their rival India. The US worries that some elements of the Pakistani government have an interest in seeing Al Qaeda or the Taliban survive. The Pakistanis worry that the US will abandon them if it rounds of some or all of the leaders of Al Qeada. And so on.

Neither country can trust the other to take actions that protect the long-run objectives of the other. But neither country can achieve its objectives without cooperation from the other. Is there a solution to this dilemma? In The International Politics of Intelligence Sharing, I suggest that countries can successfully cooperate in such situations. They do so by creating a hierarchical intelligence sharing agreement, in which the more powerful state quietly directs and supervises many of the intelligence activities of the subordinate. This allows more powerful state to ensure that the subordinate is acting in a way consistent with its interests. In return, the more powerful country offers the subordinate much closer intelligence, economic, military, cooperation. The United States used such hierarchies with some success in cases as diverse West Germany during the Cold War, South Vietnam in the early 1970s, and some countries in the Middle East since 9/11.

Could a hierarchy enable more intelligence sharing between the US and Pakistan? Probably not, and the reason why will surprise many Westerners who see Pakistan as an untrustworthy partner in countering terrorism. For a hierarchy to work for both partners, the more powerful country--here the United States--has to be able to credibly promise to protect its subordinate--here Pakistan--from internal and external foes. Pakistan is unlikely to gamble that the US would live up to such a commitment. The US has too many reasons to reduce its footprint in the region as soon as it makes any progress in stamping out Al Qaeda, and likely lacks the willingness to heavily support the Pakistani regime over the long-term. So throwing its lot in with the US is a risky gamble for Pakistan, which feels it may be better off steering a more independent course.