INTELLIGENCE EDUCATION a la DISSERTATION DISCUSSION

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INTELLIGENCE EDUCATIONa la DISSERTATION
DISCUSSION

• COL (Ret) Bill Spracher
• Doctoral Candidate, Higher Education
  Administration Program
• George Washington University
• Coordinating Editor
• Center for Strategic Intelligence Research
• National Defense Intelligence College
• 9th Annual International Colloquium on
  Intelligence
• Notre Dame College
• 10 July 2007

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Dissertation Vitals

• Title
• Intelligence Studies in U.S. Civilian
  Colleges and Universities Developing for a
  Dangerous World
• Principal Research Question
• Can formally designated intelligence studies
  in the nations colleges and universities
  contribute definitively to the development of
  professionals in the Intelligence Community who
  are well chosen and intellectually prepared to
  function on the job in fully competent fashion?
• Methodology
• Written survey to educators (125), shorter
  questionnaire to junior analysts (25), selected
  interviews with pioneers in the field (5)

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What Am I Doing Here???

• Method to my Madness
• -- Career Army MI officer (30 yrs, last 15
  essentially as a LATAM FAO)
• -- Several education-related assignments
• -- Taught intel subjects at USMA, NDU, and JMIC
• -- Interested in intel from an international
  perspective (experience with USARSA, UNPKO, IADC,
  Defense Attaché System, CHDS)
• -- Attendee at 1999 JMIC annual conference on
  teaching intelligence
• -- Regular participant in Colloquium and IAFIE
  activities since 2004
• -- Contractor independence
• What the Future Holds
• -- Retirement (again)
• -- Travel
• -- Teaching
• -- Research

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What this Dissertation Is Not

• -- Not about training
• -- Not about international educational programs
• -- Not about governmental programs
• -- Not about tactical- or operational-level
  intelligence support
• -- Not a treatise on critical thinking per se
• What it does try to do
• -- Examine intelligence studies programs in a
  broad range of civilian institutions across the
  U.S.
• -- Determine if they are producing critical
  thinkers for the profession who are prepared
  intellectually to support policy-/decision-makers
• -- Explore how outcomes are being
  assessed/expectations realized

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Topics of Personal Interest

• -- Outcomes assessment, performance evaluation,
  core competencies
• -- Open source intel research
• -- Lessons learned/best practices
• -- Fusion of the INTs and blurring of boundaries
  between intel ops
• strategic tactical foreign domestic
  national security, law enforcement,
• competitive/business intel
• -- Emphasis on cultural intel and foreign
  language capability
• -- Control, oversight, and accountability
• -- Ethics
• -- Intelligence-industrial complex
• -- Information sharing via professional journals,
  conferences/symposia/colloquia,
• the Internet/Intelink
• -- Opportunities through internships, research
  fellowships, international exchanges, consortia
• -- NIU/CAE/public-private collaboration

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Bright Lights from the Past(Chap 2 All-Stars)

• -- Sherman Kent vs. Willmoore Kendall
• -- Ray Cline
• -- Roger Hilsman
• -- Robin Winks
• -- Walter Pforzheimer
• -- Vernon Walters
• -- Robert Gates
• -- Irving Janis
• -- Graham Allison
• -- Sam Wilson

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Food for Thought(from presentation at 2006
Colloquium on Intelligence as an Academic
Discipline)

• In the continuing search for better
  understanding of the dynamics of national
  security policy, the contribution strategic
  intelligence makes to policy has recently been
  attracting academic attention My premise is
  that disciplined inquiry emphasis added into
  the intelligence process serves the interests of
  higher education, scholarship, and an informed
  public opinion. (Ray S. Cline, former CIA
  official and noted author, Foreword to Teaching
  Intelligence in the Mid-1990s A Survey of
  College and University Courses on the Subject of
  Intelligence, by Judith M. Fontaine, 1992)
• To some extent, the teaching of intelligence
  has been hobbled by the fact that it is a
  relatively new academic endeavor We are
  concerned with an academic subject that is barely
  25 years old. (Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, Executive
  Director, IAFIE, Teaching Intelligence The
  Intellectual Challenges, JMIC Occasional Paper
  No. 5, A Flourishing Craft Teaching
  Intelligence Studies, June 1999)

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What Can You Do to Help?

• -- Provide advice and suggestions
• -- Participate in survey pre-test now
• -- Promptly return official survey if you receive
  one ensure survey gets into the right hands
• -- Spread the gospel about intel studies
• -- Remain engaged with each other, with IAFIE,
  and with other professional intel organizations
• -- Keep teaching and learning its a lifelong
  enterprise!

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A Final Thought

• Greater collaboration is vital because no
  single agency has the capacity to survey all the
  available information. . . Intelligence can only
  help inform and shape decisions if it is
  processed through the mind of an analyst who
  resolves any conflicts and ambiguities. . . The
  intelligence community can still learn a lot from
  commercial best practices and best-in-class
  analytic technologies to help its analysts sift
  through data and more rapidly identify key
  insights. . . Old cultures and practices need to
  be changed.
• -- VADM (Ret) Mike McConnell, Director of
  National Intelligence, from
  Overhauling Intelligence,
• Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007)