John Bolton: Let's Take Bureaucracy Out of Intelligence

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500104574650381937137314.html

The Christmas terrorist attack demonstrates that we need more effective communication and analysis within the IC [Intelligence community]. Achieving this goal does not require more centralization of authority, more hierarchy, and more uniformity of opinion. The IC's problem stems from a culture of anonymous conformity. Greater centralization will only reinforce existing bureaucratic obstacles to providing decision makers with a full range of intelligence analysis.

The problem is often not the intelligence we collect, but assessing its implications. Solving that problem requires not the mind-deadening exercise of achieving bureaucratic consensus, but creating a culture that rewards insight and decisiveness. To create that culture we should abolish the DNI office and NIEs.

Posted via email from The Blue Pelican