Exercise 1: For the following hypothetical case, read the case summary then answer the following prompt. The President of a hypothetical country recently hired a new Intelligence Director (ID)a person that the President really trusted and liked throughout the vetting process. As a result, the President began to involve that ID in Cabinet-level decision-making. Past IDs had close relationships with the presidents that appointed them, but had always insisting on maintaining some distanceconversely, this was the first time that a president involved an ID this much in the decision-making process. The intelligence agencies that the ID directs were massive operations that had the resources to churn out significant amounts of information dailyand, after a few prior years of occasionally producing incorrect assessments, the agencies felt confident they had corrected their missteps and that the information being produced was accurate. One agency in particular was responsible for coordinating all of the information coming from these agencies, sifting through the assessments to form cohesive assessments for the ID and the President. The analysts in this agency were looking at other countries foreign, military, and domestic policies, their political factions, their technological capabilities, their leaders psychology, public opinion, and more. One office within this coordinating agency was the Office of Central Regional Analysis (OCRA). These analysts were specifically responsible for monitoring the foreign country of Knightopia. Knightopia was a complex nation to monitor, and required a lot of knowledge from its analystson average, the OCRA analysts all had at least one graduate degree, most had lived in the Knightopian region at least once, and most spoke some of the regions many dialects. The OCRA personnel routinely wrote dozens of reports for high level officials every week, though their talking points were always focused on the facts they had collectedit was up to the policymakers receiving the briefings to make any decisions. For instance, when Knightopian forces moved heavy artillery near their central airport, the OCRA analysts briefed the presidents aides about what they were seeing and hearing in their all-source INT collection, but left it up to the presidential decision-making team to decide what should be done about it. The ID was responsible for reviewing and signing off on any of these reports, and they were obsessive about getting estimates right and fast. The ID emphasized to all of the agencies to not

2 fight with each other about interpretations of the facts, but to be declarative and take a stand for what they believed was right. After all, in the past, these reports often became the lowest common denominator of the agenciesthey were watered down until every agency agreed with them. Now, the ID went so far as to encourage agencies to make use of footnotes in their reports if they needed to dispute a perspective (e.g., 1- The Geospatial Agency does not agree with this interpretation of the satellite imagery). The ID was particularly proud of their own writing skills developed over years of training, and they wanted to improve both the precision and forcefulness of their subordinates writing style. Analysts producing the reports were not allowed to address any thoughts or preferences on the countrys actual policy behavior. No shoulds in the reports were allowed. The result was that the presidents aides were often dazzled by the specificity of the INT in the reports, but could feel the strong sense that the analysts were passing the buck; there was a clear culture around the President that the decisions would be the Presidents to own, and no one elses. At this point in the agencies, tensions were high around the issue of Knightopia. It was in a central region surrounded by power struggles, bordering Gatorville and Bullandia. Within Knightopia, there were internal power struggles that often led other nations to invade, mostly driven be really deeply held ideologies. Specifically, in Knightopian society there was a Sciences sect (with a militia), and an Arts sect (with two militias, the performing arts and the material arts). Theres some imbalance in how these unique sects would governthe Sciences were formally allowed to lead, even though theyre smaller in size, and the Arts werent really happy about it. There were also a lot of former Gatorville citizens who were displaced and living in Knightopia. About 6 years ago, there was a full civil war in Knightopia, with really bad atrocities committed. The Sciences sect had outside forces come help them, from the pro-Sciences Bullandia. Bullandia helped, but in doing so, set up a way to keep their power present in Knightopia. The result was that the capital of Knightopia ended up being split into two halvesthe Sciences half (backed by Bullandia) and the Arts half (backed by Gatorville). All this constant change and turmoil caused a lot of stress across the OCRA analysts and other agencies monitoring Knightopia; things were unstable, in a region where it was really important that things stay stable. Things became even more stressful for the analysts when they received HUMINT indicating that another country, Seminolia, was about to invade Knightopia and help install a Bullandia leader, all in the interested of calming the region down. After being briefed on this intelligence from the OCRA analysts, the President decided to send a high-level special envoy to Knightopia, to try and broker a ceasefire. This envoy was a veteran diplomat, with a long career working in other countriesso long, in fact, that the career spanned multiple presidencies. After three months of negotiations, Gatorville agreed to get the Gators to leave, Seminolia agreed to back out of Knightopia, it was decided that the Bullandia- endorsed leader of Knightopia will officially take over leading the country, and the Presidents special envoy agreed that the President would send a set of troops to enforce all of these agreements. The Bullandia-endorsed leader of Knightopia, having worked a bunch with the special envoy, the ID, and the President to bring about this resolution, had developed a close relationship with them all. After the agreement was solidified, the President announced a new

3 foreign policy doctrine toward the Knightopian region, aimed at bringing peace and returning the stabilizing troops they had send there back home. Within a few days time of the peace agreement, the drawdown of the Presidents forces began. However, two weeks later, the Knightopian leader was assassinated. The OCRA analysts received preliminary intelligence suggesting that Bullandia was responsible, perhaps because they did not like the leaders close relationship with the President and ID. Soon after, Seminolia invaded and eliminated the remaining leftover Gatorville civilians. Though the OCRA analysts were briefing the President about these chaotic developments, the Presidentwho had promised their troops would serve as stabilizing forces to ensure the region found peace began to move troops back in to Knightopia. The President gave a televised public speech saying the troops are there for peace, to get all of the other forces out and to give the Knightopians the chance to rebuild their country. This speech and most of the unfolding policies were largely informed by the special envoy, who had begun advising the President even closer than beforeafter all, the Presidents Secretary of State had just resigned, the Presidents Secretary of Defense did not approve of troops being in Knightopia, and there was significant staff turnover throughout the Presidents administration. Privately, the OCRA analystsindeed, analysts across all of the intelligence agencieswere getting very uncomfortable. They felt that the Presidents troops would be unable to bring about peace in a situation with so little leadership and such fluid borders, and that their presence threatened to damage the Presidents own national security interests. The analysts waited for the President to request a report or briefing so they could find a way to communicate these assessmentshowever, no special briefings or reports were requested. So instead, the analysts started incorporating their assessments into everyday intelligence assessments that the President was receiving, hoping that slowly but surely the President and their advisors would connect the dots on their own. This was a break with tradition; often, in the past, the intelligence agencies had no problem watching policymakers make bad choices and then reminding them after the fact that we told you so. But the agencies felt the stakes were too high to sit back this time. For more than six months the Presidents troops remained in Knightopia, and yet still no peace has been established. After the President and their advisors started noticing the opinions of the analysts creeping into the everyday intelligence, they decided they no longer trusted the agencies assessments; instead, the President started conducting bilateral negotiations in Knightopia without telling the ID or any of the analysts. Of course, the analysts still started learning about what was happening from their INT channels, and briefly considered making a personal appeal to the President to work more closely with them. But, the relationship with the ID and the President had completely soured at this point, after the ID had been excluded from the negotiations. Plus, the OCRA offices were at least an hour away from where all of the Presidents advisors worked, and it took multiple layers of security to get to them; the analysts decided it wasnt worth the hassle to force their way into the decision-making process. After all, all of the policymakers throughout the Department of State and Defense were seeing some of this information tooand the Congress was the overall oversight mechanism. The analysts hoped that they would make the points that the analysts werent being invited to.

4 At this point, a year had passed with the Presidents troops stationed in Knightopia, but no peace in Knightopia. The troops were taking intermittent fire, and sustaining some casualties over time, which led the President to decide to send more troops as a means of protecting the current military presence. Finally, as threats to the troops continued to emerge, someoneit is unclear whorequested that OCRA put together a formal report on the situation in Knightopia. The OCRA analysts went to work immediately, finally seeing an opportunity to make their assessments clear to the President. In writing the report, they included objective interpretations of the collected INT they had, then added language such as as weve been saying, as we all feel, and this is what everybody has been thinking to make the point as boldly as they could. It was exactly the kind of precise and forceful report that they had been trained to write, except this time there were even no disputes among agencies to put into the footnotesthey were all united in emphasizing what they had been saying all along. That said, when it was released, every other governmental agency under the Presidents control agreed that it was too politically worded, and that it took too long to write in the first place. Indeed, the Presidents advisors argued that the intelligence agencies were too outside the loop of information at this point to have valuable expertise for the discussion. Things were unfolding quickly, and the analysts assessments were largely ignored. Two weeks later, terrorists that had stepped into the power vacuum in Knightopia used a truck bomb to attack the Presidents troops. Hundreds of service-members were killed. The President ordered retaliatory attacks throughout Knightopia, but the diverse nature of the adversary and threat made that retaliation difficult to achieve. Congress oversight branches had demanded a full evacuation of all personnel, and within three months of the attack the last troops returned home from Knightopia. a) Imagine that you serve as a non-partisan committee staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and they have tasked you to identify what went wrong in this case. What red flags did you see that caused this intelligence failure? Identify as many as you can, and communicate your findings to the Senators in the space below.