In the second issue of the magazine "International Analytics" for 2022 published a reviewAdlan Margoev on the book Robert Jervis, "Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Revolution in Iran and the War in Iraq," published by the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in 2020. The bmpd blog offers readers the text of the article.
On January 8, 1978, a large demonstration broke out in Qom, one of the centers of the Shiite clergy in Iran, suppressed by the security forces of the Shah's regime. Knowing that a year later the Shah would leave the country, and Ayatollah Khomeini would return to build an Islamic republic instead of a monarchy, it was easy to set a date for the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, but analysts of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States spotted it only in the fall of 1978, when the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty was inevitable.
Then the director of the CIA's National Center for Foreign Assessments, R. Bowie, turned to his friend, a young professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, R. Jervis, with a request to study the reason for such a major failure of American intelligence. Declassified almost 30 years later, R. Jervis's report became the chapter of the book reviewed in this note.
When I had to sort out the intelligence mistakes that - along with the political will of the Bush administration - led to the invasion of American troops in Iraq in 2003, R. Jervis had enough declassified materials and public reports to write another chapter of his book. Published in the original in 2010, and translated into Russian 10 years later, R. Jervis's monograph looks more relevant today than ever.
With an abundance of journalistic literature on intelligence (sometimes of a very dubious kind), few academic works on this topic are available in Russian due to its closed nature. The only fundamental research remains "Essays on the History of Russian Foreign Intelligence", published from 1996 to 2014 in six volumes edited by Academician E.M. Primakov, General V.I. Trubnikov and General S.N. Lebedev.
In the preface to the first volume, E.M. Primakov raises the issues of depoliticization and deideologization of intelligence. With due sympathy and antipathy to various domestic political forces, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service calls on intelligence officers to be guided solely by considerations of national interests and not to participate in the internal politics of the country. He also believes that the rejection of ideology after the collapse of the Soviet Union did not deprive foreign intelligence of the opportunity to cooperate with the best foreign sources of information: now they were motivated not by faith in socialism, but by "unwillingness to see the world as unipolar."
The most recent collective monograph on the military intelligence of foreign countries was prepared by the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies and was published in 2021. It not only describes the structure of intelligence agencies of various European, Middle Eastern and Asian countries, the process of data collection and analysis, but also attempts to assess the effectiveness of these structures.
Nevertheless, the backbone of accessible but reliable literature about intelligence is formed by memoirs and biographical sketches of scouts. Such publications include the series of books "Secret Missions" of the publishing house "International Relations", although there is also a scientific publication about Soviet intelligence in America in the pre-war years with reviewers from MGIMO and IVI RAS.
Attempts to draw lessons from the past experience of Russian and American intelligence are contained in the works of GRU veteran V.V. Shlykov, among which one can note "Demonopolization of information" and "What destroyed the Soviet Union: the General Staff and the Economy." The reasons for the failures of intelligence agencies summarized by R. Jervis in the final chapter of his book are largely consonant with the conclusions of V.V. Shlykov and lend themselves to an even more concise presentation in the form of lessons that need to be taken into account at four conditional stages of work: data collection, their interpretation, cooperation with other competent parties in the process of their analysis and communicating the results to interested parties during power structures.
Data collection
A common intelligence problem in the Iranian and Iraqi cases was the scarcity of sources. American diplomats and intelligence officers in Shah Iran focused more on the dynamics of intra-elite relations, and in order to understand the impending revolution, sociology was needed, it was important to understand the mood of the broad masses of the population. It is no coincidence that the information from the consulates, which were in closer contact with the Iranians, contained more alarming assessments regarding the internal political stability of the Shah than the information that the embassy broadcast.
R. Jervis does not specify from how many people the CIA received information about the state of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs, but cites this figure for the British intelligence services - five people. The consequences of accounting for distorted or false information in such a narrow sample were too high. Since the information about the sources was edited before transmitting the information to the analysts at Langley, they did not have a clear picture of the number of channels through which information is extracted and conclusions are drawn. For example, the conclusion voiced by K. Powell at the UN Security Council about Iraq's ability to produce biological weapons in dried form - the famous test tube with white powder - was based on the information of one source, who also invented this story.
Finally, a biased statement of the question leads to biased results: if something is ordered to look for, there is a high probability of finding it, even if it does not exist. It was enough for the CIA agents to detect any hints of the development of WMD by Iraq to reinforce the preconceived, almost axiomatic beliefs about the existence of this program. And the absence of other significant evidence was justified by the fact that such works are probably carefully hidden.
Interpretation of data
R. Jervis criticizes analysts who worked in the mode of journalists and focused on retelling recent events, rather than a thorough analysis of cause-and-effect relationships in the historical context. Daily intelligence reports took up most of the working time, and due to the format, not a single issue raised in them could be studied in depth. Embassies also had an increasing workload, especially for accompanying parliamentary and business delegations, which also meant that diplomats had less and less time for analytical work on political topics. It is not surprising that both of them turned out to have a "blurred eye": it was easier to skip daily changes than if the situation before 1977 was compared with what happened in 1978. And since it was more important for analysts to submit a report to their superiors on time each time, instead of looking for facts that would confirm or they will refute the initial assumptions and hypotheses, as well as work out alternative versions, based on typical explanatory models, they gave out a single coherent explanation of events, in their opinion, the closest to the truth. Without the encouragement of management, analysts would hardly have changed the format of their work.
Under these conditions, problems arose due to the fact that the conclusions of analysts were more influenced not by information received from sources, but by what remained outside these papers: beliefs, ideas, ideas and images formed long before it was necessary to prepare any document for the authorities. Numerous fragments of information, albeit ambiguous each by itself, formed into a convincing conclusion claiming to prove the original beliefs, and then single convincing fragments that contradict this picture were questioned. In this case, it was difficult to understand exactly how a concrete conclusion was reached: stated on paper, it acquired a force similar to the facts, and cemented the misconception of the American intelligence community and statesmen about reality. For example, information about Iraq's use of shell companies for the purchase of aluminum pipes was interpreted as an attempt to produce centrifuges for uranium enrichment, while those were used for the production of missile hulls.
Another problem was related to the lack of specialists with knowledge of language, culture, religion and psychology. It is difficult to believe in inconsistency, confusion, corruption and improvisation of foreign actors, empathy does not work at the proper level when the behavior of another player seems strange and self-destructive. Iraqi scientists were afraid to disclose some of the data to international inspectors, among other things, because the ulcers produced once were buried near one of S. Hussein's palaces: by revealing the location, they were afraid to provoke his anger. They did not want to issue evidence of the use of chemical weapons against Iran, because they were afraid of using this information in courts against Iraq. The engineers needed the notorious pipes in order to circumvent a possible conflict with a good friend of S. Hussein, who was responsible for the missile program. At the same time, the appearance of WMD development programs was preserved to deter Iran, and the risk of a US attack on Iraq was not taken into account as serious, because Washington was not perceived as an enemy in Baghdad: according to the then Iraqi authorities, the Americans had enough of their presence in the region, and the main contradiction between the US and Iraq was in the sanctions regime against the latter. To understand the motives of Iraqi behavior, it was necessary not only to have a large amount of information, but also to show the ability to put together non-standard explanations from it, logical not for American, but for Iraqi figures of that time.
Collegiality
Horizontal and vertical cooperation of analysts with other stakeholders in the analysis of the data obtained could be useful for cross-checking the beliefs that were taken as the basis of the reports. In the case of Iran, political analysis was divorced from economic analysis - it was done by different people who had little interaction with each other, so they missed the impact of the economic situation in the country on the revolutionary mood of the masses.
Intelligence was self-contained and did not build either an effective interdepartmental process or a dialogue with specialists outside government agencies, although scientists often had broader contacts and a nuanced view of the country. The mistake with the interpretation of Iraq's purchase of aluminum pipes was made, among other things, because the interdepartmental group that dealt with the issues of centrifuges did not function properly. Fierce disputes between the CIA and the US Department of Energy a decade ago were both the cause and the result of spoiled personal relationships, so the more cautious interpretations of the specialists of the Ministry of Energy were not properly taken into account in Langley.
Yes, and beyond any particular contradictions, the then head of the CIA, J. Tenet, who played the role of the head of the entire US intelligence community, trusted his analysts more than specialists from other departments, ignored the differences between them and, using his position, could report the CIA's conclusions to politicians until they were fully coordinated with the rest of the departments on the principle of "report before you get ahead." Worse, there could be cases when he might not have known about these disagreements, being at a distance from analysts outside the CIA and receiving information from his department in a condensed form.
This happened because when the information was "compressed" for the bosses, the analysts overlooked the importance of including in the summaries information about critical unresolved issues, uncertainties and disagreements that took place during the analysis of primary data. A "damaged" phone at this stage led to even greater negative consequences at the next stage of working with intelligence.
Communication with the authorities
Even an ideal intelligence does not mean an ideal policy, and the ability of the former to influence decision makers (LPR) is limited. The authorities think in terms of problems and solutions, and therefore are not interested in information on countries that do not require immediate action. If at this stage intelligence gives up trying to influence the minds of politicians, then at a critical moment the position of the PLR on fundamental issues is much more difficult to change, if at all possible.
The authorities may be influenced by recent lessons: extensive WMD programs discovered in Iraq after the start of Operation Desert Storm provoked alarmist expectations of S. Hussein's intentions, although they have changed significantly over the decade. In the Iranian case, the ideology went against what political science suggested: the administration of J. Carter pushed the Shah to more active transformations, while radical democratic reforms are contraindicated for weak regimes and threaten their collapse.
In a situation where intelligence information refutes the beliefs of the authorities, the work of intelligence begins to be dangerous domestically - their main task becomes "not to like the authorities." The authors of inconvenient reports are demoted, resources are cut to "problematic" departments, and those, in turn, ignore issues that may cause dissatisfaction with the LPR. That is why overly tamed intelligence loses its value, and if the scouts are also not sure of their assessment, it is much easier for them to follow the line of their superiors, especially if the leaders have an authoritarian character, ignore the signals of their subordinates and monopolize interpretations when analyzing intelligence.
"When the vice president stood up and said, 'We're sure,' - well, who are we to argue?", - recalled one of the senior representatives of the US military intelligence. It is no coincidence that individual employees and intelligence agencies fell silent when they realized that war was inevitable and the Bush administration was committed to this decision. This is how a creeping politicization was formed, when analysts were not directly pressured to change their conclusions in favor of what the PLR wanted to see, but self-censorship and conformity made possible a confident invasion of American troops in Iraq. When some representatives of the intelligence agencies publicly reminded the authorities of their disagreement with the war in Iraq, they were accused of trying to score political points, although the statement of J. P. could have been more fair. Bush said that the decision did not belong to intelligence, but to him and his administration.
On the eve of the war, the system of "checks and balances" did not work either: Congress was the only one insisting on an assessment of national intelligence on WMD in Iraq - a separate report on this issue - but it was too late to prepare it, when the Bush administration was already "drowning" in seemingly clear information from the field and hurried to make this assessment in accordance with the formed opinion. The chance to study this issue more thoughtfully was missed, and no plan B was prepared: not only is it costly, it also weakens faith in plan A. In order not to admit his own defeat and not to incur image losses, in 2007, George Bush decided to increase the military contingent in Iraq: even if the plan If it existed, it would be useless until the LPR is ready to switch to it.
Lessons for everyone
Why are intelligence agencies wrong, and lessons need to be learned by everyone? 43 years have passed since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the quality of knowledge about this country has not made forecasting its further development any easier. In 1978, assessments of the stability of the Shah's regime directly correlated with the attitude of a particular analyst to the regime: if you like it, it means it will hold out, if not, it means it will fall. Isn't it similar to the current situation, when some sympathize with the Islamic Republic and how it copes with life under sanctions, while others, mainly Western experts, only repeat that the Ayatollah regime is a failed one? How thoroughly does each camp test its hypotheses? Do they understand what the stability of the modern political system in Iran depends on?
It is no coincidence that both countries studied in R. Jervis's book are located in the East and require special training of analysts. In this regard, the question arises that in the education of domestic diplomats, intelligence officers and scientists - graduates of MGIMO, ISAA MSU, St. Petersburg State University and other institutions - should remain the core (language training, country studies, fundamentals of religion and culture), and what needs reform? To the author's question about what the next step for Russian Oriental studies is, in 2020, Academician V.V. Naumkin noted that scientists need not only brilliant knowledge about the countries of the region, but also possession of modern methods of scientific research.
Finally, the Russian leadership announced a special military operation in Ukraine, including referring to the Ukrainian WMD development programs. To what extent was the idea that there was no alternative to this decision supported by the conclusions of the intelligence community, and to what extent was the result of the conviction of decision-makers? What do you need to know about the conditions in which military action was proposed as an effective solution to the eight-year conflict in Ukraine in order to avoid such scenarios in the future? The answers are in demand not only in Russia, but also among those specialists in countries unfriendly to Russia who understand how their leadership irresponsibly spurred this conflict, ignoring Russia's security concerns for decades and not counting on decisive measures from the Russian side.
According to R. Jervis, experts from academia and intelligence analysts have approximately the same understanding of the subject of their interests and possess similar tools for studying it, despite access to different amounts and types of data. This means that the lessons of intelligence failures fully apply to international experts, who do not always feel the same responsibility for their conclusions. Meanwhile, the mission of the latter is not only a thorough, methodologically verified work with information, but much more than before - in a healthy discussion, where doubts will sound in the same tone and volume in which beliefs are expressed.
