Politicization of Intelligence
November 25th, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
The role of military intelligence in policy making is not unlike the role of science in policy making, a point I make in my forthcoming book. In the Los Angeles Times last week Jennifer Glaudmans has an excellent op-ed about the politicization of intelligence under Robert Gates, former CIA director and current nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld. Her piece provides an interesting lens through which to think about the pathological politicization of science. Here are a few relevant excerpts (emphases added):
. . . we were asked, in 1985, to contribute to the National Intelligence Estimate on the subject of Iran.
Later, when we received the draft NIE, we were shocked to find that our contribution on Soviet relations with Iran had been completely reversed. Rather than stating that the prospects for improved Soviet-Iranian relations were negligible, the document indicated that Moscow assessed those prospects as quite good. What’s more, the national intelligence officer responsible for coordinating the estimate had already sent a personal memo to the White House stating that the race between the U.S. and USSR “for Tehran is on, and whoever gets there first wins all.”
No one in my office believed this Cold War hyperbole. There was simply no evidence to support the notion that Moscow was optimistic about its prospects for improved relations with Iran. All of our published analysis had consistently been pessimistic about Soviet-Iranian relations as long as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was alive.
We protested the conclusions of the NIE, citing evidence such as the Iranian government’s repression of the communist Tudeh Party, the expulsion of all Soviet economic advisors and a number of Soviet diplomats who were KGB officers, and a continuing public rhetoric that chastised the “godless” communist regime as the “Second Satan” after the United States.
Despite overwhelming evidence, our analysis was suppressed. At a coordinating meeting, we were told that Gates wanted the language to stay in as it was, presumably to help justify “improving” our strained relations with Tehran through the Iran-Contra weapons sales.
This is another example of ends-justify-the-means thinking that seem to be behind just about every pathological politicization of science. If your desired policy actions are virtuous, then it shouldn’t matter how you cause those actions to occur, right? In the end we will all be better off, right? Glaudmans indicates that this was the thinking on intelligence behind Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contra effort, it was also the thinking behind the neo-conservatives push in Iraq, and it is behind those pushing for immediate and drastic action on curtailing emissions of greenhouse gases such as described in the Stern Review (which we have discussed at some length).
Glaudmans continues:
It’s possible that the Reagan administration would have gone ahead and made its overtures to Iran regardless of what was said in the NIE, but having the coordinated assessment of the intelligence community support its views certainly added legitimacy to its rationale. What’s more, if the policymakers had received better and more accurate intelligence, perhaps someone would at least have questioned the false sense of urgency. Instead, our intelligence was used as expensive intra-government propaganda. . .
During those years, the government was clearly dominated by people who had a strong ideological view of the Soviet Union. But their conflict was not with people who were “soft” on communism, it was with people who looked at all the available evidence, without much bias one way or another, and who had been to the USSR and witnessed its hollow political and social structure, seeing not an omnipotent superpower but a clumsy, oafish regime often stumbling over its own feet.
What is interesting about this passage is Glaudmans’ description of how those people seeking to provide good intelligence found themselves in conflict with the ideologues. This conflict occurs because those seeking to politicize intelligence beyond its limits are not necesarily threatened by their ideological opponents — indeed such stark contrasts actually make the ideological differences more apparent and thus serve more effectively as a political “wedge.” Instead the greatest threat to ideologues seeking to pathologuically politicize intelligence comes from those presenting solid analyses, which have a stubborn tendency to win out in the long run. On such conflicts, see for example a few of my own experiences described here.
Glaudmans concludes:
Is all this ancient history relevant today? It is if you believe that policymakers are poorly served when analysis is concocted to support their preexisting positions. It is relevant if you believe that the failure to learn the lessons from the 1991 Gates hearings harmed U.S. foreign policy when, a decade later, we went to war on false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It is relevant if you believe that Congress should take its oversight responsibilities seriously.
It is certainly the case that the current Bush Administration has contributed to the pathological politicization of intelligence, economics, and science across a range of areas. Of this there is no doubt. Fortunately, these issues are suffering from no lack of attention. The concern that I have and discuss frequently on this blog, which I see almost every day, is the contributions by scientists (and other experts) to the pathological politicization of science. Once you lose the capability to provide solid policy analyses, pathologically politicized information is all that remains.
November 25th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Do you think that because scientist have such problems in getting good information to the elected leaders they therefore decide to go to directly to the public? In other words, if you as a scientist contribute to several working groups or policy reviews and the end result is not reflective of the science, do you then go another way?
Do you go and communicate directly with the public?
November 25th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Roger, I think you’re preaching to the choir. Aside from calling bad science when we see it, and being conscientious ourselves, is there any to demonstrate the difference between good and bad science?
November 26th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
LL- Thanks for your continued participation.
I want to be clear that my concern is with bad policy arguments, especially when advanced by scientists, which I do not see as being the same thing as “bad science.”
Mark- Thanks.
I do think that as scientists are constantly being called upon to be “relevant” one response invaribaly is for some scientists to become politically outspoken. But being relevant does not necessarily mean becoming a special interest advocate.
Thanks!
November 27th, 2006 at 2:09 am
Roger:
Sorry, but I find the lessons you draw for the climate change debate from Jennifer Glaudmans’s op-ed about the politicization of intelligence under Robert Gates to be disturbingly mis-directed and inapposite.
Glaudman makes very clear that hardliners in the Reagan administration deliberately squelched the prevailing view within the intelligence community in order to support their preexisting positions. You appear to be criticizing this misuse of intelligence by the Reagan hardliners state that “ends-justify-the-means thinking that seem to be behind just about every pathological politicization of science. If your desired policy actions are virtuous, then it shouldn’t matter how you cause those actions to occur, right?”
It is fair to criticize both the aims of the Reagan hardliners and the underhanded means – of blocking an open debate and squelching dissenting information – they used to attain their goals. The country as a whole was poorly served, but you miss the important point that these hardliners were very effective in achieving their short-term goals.
The same misuse of intelligence and scientific information has been at work in the present Bush administration. Glaudman states that “we went to war on false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It is relevant if you believe that Congress should take its oversight responsibilities seriously.” And you apparently agree, as you state that “the current Bush Administration has contributed to the pathological politicization of intelligence, economics, and science across a range of areas.”
So what is the phenomenon at work that Glaudman criticizes, and what is the solution? The Administration, to achieve predetermined purposes that are not publicly disclosed, designs a strategy for moving ahead that includes deliberately blocking and suppressing information, thus sidestepping a fully disclosed and open discussion with Congressional oversight bodies and the public. Those who have information that would undercut the desired policy are within the administration, and may have little or no ability to affect the decision ex ante.
The solution? Better Congressional oversight, more openness in government so citizens/press can understand what is happening, and better Congressional and prosecutorial follow-up on abuses.
How is this phenomenon at work in climate change? You and others no doubt know this better than me, but we have:
- a deliberate strategy, for narrow partisan and special interest purposes, to avoid any meaningful commitments to tackle climate change at home or abroad, as documented in part by the Luntz memo, manifested by -
- secret meetings with the energy industry that remain classified;
- the ouster of a number of administrative officials who are in favor of climate policy, including but not limited to Paul O’Neil and Christy Whitman;
- deliberate attempts to muzzle scientists within the administration and to play down scientific reporting about climate change science; and
- in coordination with industry, a sophisticated PR effort to spin the science to confuse public opinion and to downplay the level of threat posed by inaction.
So far, this seems to be a rather good fit to the general problem. The big difference? Despite the best efforts of the Administration, the special interests in whose favor they have been acting, and a complicit Congress, not all of those with information on climate science or economics are within the Administration, and the scientific information developed within the Administration is not classified, so we still have a semblance of a debate.
But rather than blaming the Administration for their cynical manipulation of the decisionmaking process generally, in the case of climate change you focus your attention on blaming those who have the information that the Administration has tried to suppress and misrepresent – scientists! In your follow up comments you state that your “concern is with bad policy arguments, especially when advanced by scientists” and that some scientists, in an effort to be relevant, have “become politically outspoken” and “special interest advocate[s]“.
You might be absolutely correct that the cynical manipulation of the decisionmaking process within the Administration leads to the “pathological politicization of science”, but it is wrong to lay this problem at the foot of science and scientists rather than with those who job it is to make decisions affecting the national interest. The lessons to be drawn from Glaudman’s experience just do not translate to climate change in any other way (or would you also be blaming Glaudman for the fact that her voice was earlier supressed?).
What would you have the scientific commnuity do when faced by situations like this? Should individual scientists NOT speak out?
Clearly there is a need for the scientific community to consider how it should address the phenomenon of the tendency for politicians (and interest groups) to misuse science. This is indeed a systemic problem, but it does not seem to be one that scientists are well-positioned to address collectively on their own (absent a government request and funding). Rather, there seems to be little that concerned scientists can do EXCEPT to speak out publicly on those issues on which they feel strongly.
Hopefully decision-makers will pay more attention to the systemic problem; a good start might be restoring the OTA.
Finally, while there may be some merit in a criticism of an “ends justifies the means” philosophy that you allege lies behind “those pushing for immediate and drastic action on curtailing emissions of greenhouse gases such as described in the Stern Review”, the lessons from Glaudman are clearly not at all applicable, for the following reasons. First, the decisionmaking process is entirely different. Even while we may not understand fully the motivations behind the Stern report, the UK does not govern other countries, least of all the US, China or India. They can try to influence us, but of course we make our decisions. Second, no suppression of information or debate is occurring – far from it. The Stern report was released publicly, and quite a lively and open review of it is now underway.
In my personal view, those who wish to see less misuse of science should focus on clarifying the ways in which decision-makers attempt to subvert the open political process, and on suggesting ways to improve both the political proces and the quality and openness of the information upon which
decisions are based.
Individual scientists of course are ill-suited to addressing the general problem except on an ad hoc basis, in which case they may face Administrative, Congressional and industry opposition that is far more sophisticated. Criticizing scientists who become outspoken while supporting the desire of scientists to be relevant hardly seems like helpful advice – except of course, to those who see the open discussion of policy as disadvantageous to their unstated policy aims.
November 27th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Some fiddling with the site resulted in a loss of all comments posted this morning, including my (really excellent;-) responses to some of the above. Sorry about that, will recreate as time allows …
November 27th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Roger,
From a passage in which those who disagreed with the author were described as holding a “strong ideological view” you quoted with emphasis:
‘But their conflict was not with people who were “soft” on communism, it was with people who looked at all the available evidence, without much bias one way or another…’
After reading your papers which discuss certain overly idealistic views on the role of science, I would think that this black-hat/white-hat and “our position comes from looking at all the available evidence without bias” stance would rate some kind of comment. Or did you attempt to make some kind of comment along those lines by refering to Glaudmans as an “ideological opponent” when you wrote:
“… those seeking to politicize intelligence beyond its limits are not necesarily threatened by their ideological opponents — indeed such stark contrasts actually make the ideological differences more apparent …”
November 27th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Cortlandt-
Thanks for your comment. This is a good point. I read the op-ed as suggesting “not much bias” with respect to the debate over communism ongoing at the time.
Of course all analysts have biases, on this point we agree. I provided an overview an excellent paper on this topic a while back:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/author_pielke_jr_r/000664relevant_but_not_pre.html
Thanks!
November 27th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Intellegence and earth science are similar, in that they involve lots of indirect measurements, or measurements of dogily correlated proxies.
As a result, trying to answer a question often gives you answers about the assuptions and systematics of the process involved, and not the original question (at least in earth science).
Non-scientists don’t seem to have a great handle on this, so often insist on scientific answers to the original questions, even if they don’t exist. Journalists, in particular, seem to have a low tolerance for changing the subject, even if the change is a result of the natural system, and not a defensive tactic.
As a result, scientists in the political field are often pressured to give answers to questions that can not be answered scietifically.
First year PhD students are often taught the hard way that scientific progress is often sporadic and unpredictable; very different to the organized canon on knowledge that they grew up earlier in school. If we taught people how messy science was in grade school, rather than grad school, these misunderstandings might be easier to overcome.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
LL- Thanks. Excellent points.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:16 am
Roger, I’m sorry that you lost your original excellent responses to the earlier comments. I hate it when that happens! I will not presume that you agreed with my remarks, but I remain curious as to what you really think.
Regards.