Wanted: A Few Good Men (Who Speak Arabic)
How an over-reliance on technology instead of human intelligence is undermining America's war on terrorism
Jason Treece

The United States' unpopular recent interventions into the affairs of other countries in recent decades has left a lingering bad taste in the mouths of many of the world’s inhabitants, often to the point of inciting violence against the U.S. and its interests worldwide. Recent actions in the war on terrorism have demonstrably further alienated the United States from favorable world opinion. The escalating risks make it seem only a matter of time before clandestine, intelligent, and resourceful enemies find a way to again attack the American way of life. All Americans should wonder, how well is our intelligence community equipped to handle this reality?

The threat, of course, is anything but new. The U.S. intelligence community is a seasoned veteran of the Cold War and is allotted a substantial budget to ensure that our leaders know as much as possible about the current global climate, so as to be able to respond to any and all changes is a reasoned and informed manner.

Unfortunately, as we all know, they are not always successful. Intelligence oversights have resulted in the bombing of the USS Cole, 9/11, and dozens of other similar incidents in the past several decades.

Many reasons can be attributed to these shortcomings, but a distinct disparity between intelligence gathering methods is the most likely culprit. The United States has long been a gadget and technology-oriented nation, long believing (often rightfully so) that superior technology is the best way to ensure victory.

This, however, is a view left over from the Cold War, and it is now becoming clear that the progressive move towards a technologically oriented intelligence gathering system has resulted in significant deficits in our Human Intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities.

To the casual observer, the difference may seem almost inconsequential, yet this simple disparity is arguably one of the community’s greatest handicaps in this ongoing war on terror.

The rise and fall of human intelligence

During the Cold War, extraordinary amounts of money were poured into the Intel community for the purpose of gathering as much information as possible about our Communist adversary. This was seen as such a fundamental necessity that Congress had no qualms about authorizing anything that would keep us one step ahead of Ivan. It was made even easier by J. Edgar Hoover’s quest to rid the U.S. of communist sympathizers who fueled the fear that burned in the hearts of every American. The relatively-new CIA was charged with the very delicate task of gathering information on Soviet activity while at the same time not instigating WWIII, and was given a sizable budget to do just that.

The idea of first-hand Intel gathered from reliable sources on the ground was still seen then as far more reliable than fledgling electronic reconnaissance technologies, and far easier to implement clandestinely. While many of the computer and processing technologies we now take for granted were still in the research phase during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the emphasis was placed on educating potential operatives in the art of espionage and intelligence gathering. The early pioneers of this complex skill learned from trial and error, and subsequent Intel officers learned these vital skills as they were passed on down the line. Money was allocated largely for these training and indoctrination programs, and thus little was spent on the high-tech wizardry that was still decades from becoming an operational reality.

But soon, higher resolution cameras, advanced aircraft, and space-based technology were all being developed in the hopes of giving the U.S. an edge over our international adversaries. Components, such as guidance systems developed for ICBMs, began to trickle down into other areas, thereby giving rise to additional technology. While fledgling, these technologies attracted an increasing focus of the Intel community as the potential uses for them became more apparent.

At the same time, the possibility of capture or compromise, of which human beings are highly vulnerable, was seen as a huge disadvantage of HUMINT. As such, technology seemed to be a very attractive alternative. And as the Cold War reached its height, budgeting priorities began to change.

With the advancement of airborne, space-borne, and electronic technologies following in the wake of Cold War component development, policy makers began to take the position that if some gadget could prevent placing a human in harm's way, then so be it. A contributing event helping to turn the tide in favor of technological development was the crash of the U-2 as a result of a surface-to-air missile strike while conducting operations over the Soviet Union. Not only was the capture an embarrassment to the US intelligence community, it fueled the drive to develop technological means to remove humans from the Intel gathering equation as much as possible. Technology was seen as an appealing substitute to HUMINT, and its ability to protect human lives was seen as worth the high costs.

Man v. Machine

Other nations have maintained a focus on HUMINT capabilities while integrating, rather than substituting, technology into their operations. Perhaps the best example of this is the British Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS. Also commonly known as MI6, this intelligence agency has a history of obtaining hard-to-get information from very valuable sources deep within various organizations. Their performance during WWII with operation Double-Cross was exemplary, and throughout the Cold War their HUMINT capabilities were consistently considered top notch.

Unlike the United States, which began to embrace technology as a viable alternative (to a degree) to HUMINT, MI6 has maintained a strong commitment to developing and implementing humans while augmenting their capabilities with many of the same technologies the U.S. currently uses in a substitutive role. Whereas the United States is the world’s largest operator of military and intelligence satellites and has spent billions of dollars on aerial surveillance as a sole means of information gathering, MI6 utilizes this technology as a means to determine where HUMINT resources need to be allocated. British SIS is keenly aware that no technology can truly replace a well-trained and connected agent with legitimate contacts.

On the other side of the Atlantic, it seems as if the rise of technology directly parallels the decrease in the United States HUMINT capabilities. Robert Baer's book See No Evil serves as somewhat of a history lesson as to how the CIA has effectively dealt with past problems, which is through the extensive use of HUMINT as a means to gather firsthand, timely, and often very accurate intelligence. Mr. Baer believes that human intelligence gathering slowly faded as increasing political pressures and international diplomacy placed heavier and heavier burdens on case officers and their agents. Mr. Baer's autobiographical accounts are affirmative evidence that current Intel failures may in some part be attributed to a lack of HUMINT. Mr. Bear also believes this deficiency had something to do with our failure on detecting and preventing the attacks of 9/11.

Today’s enemies are a far cry from the former Soviet Union and provide certain intelligence difficulties that technology is incapable of overcoming. First, unlike our Cold War adversary, the U.S. is not in conflict with a nation or specific geographic entity. Rather, we are at war with nebulous coteries existing within various countries across the globe. This reality places high burdens on conventional technology to track the movements of a group that is exceedingly good at appearing entirely innocuous.

Technologies that were developed to track ballistic missile emplacements, troop movement, and other conventional devices of war are all very ineffective at detecting terrorist cells or determining when and where an attack will take place. This is largely due to the ad hoc nature of terrorist operations, which are specifically designed to evade detection by technological means.

Terrorists can plan, organize, and carry out an attack largely in a covert nature through widely used and difficult to monitor channels. Then, just as easily, they dissolve their existence only to resurface somewhere else. What is most troublesome about this method of operation is that not only are imaging, electronic, and signals surveillance almost totally ineffective, our reliance on them is crippling to implementing effective change. The events of September 11 are a perfect example of how we blindly accept what our computers tell us while in reality, the situation is far more serious.

Where to go from here

While the U.S. has made significant strides since 9/11 in both the reorganization of our intelligence community and in tailoring our technological superiority to meet new needs, the United States is only beginning to address the HUMINT requirement. Perhaps one of the most interesting trends that seeks to address this deficiency is in the rise of Global Intel majors at universities. The University of Denver, Ohio State and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are but a few schools that are tailoring curriculum to facilitate a more productive transition into HUMINT gathering. Interest in this field has been generated as a result of 9/11 and is expected to increase as the threat of terrorism remains a growing concern.

One problem that the U.S. is currently facing in regards to improving its HUMINT capabilities is a lack of seasoned, knowledgeable, and experienced field agents. While the Cold War was a veritable proving ground for new agents to learn the ropes, the several decades of dwindling HUMINT capabilities and the subsequent retirement of good agents has resulted in a lack of foundational instruction that is so necessary to the success of this collective domain. While an influx of eager young trainees and increased recruitment efforts across the intelligence community bodes well for establishing a base for the future, it will be some time before the efficiency, skill, and effectiveness of these new agents sufficiently develops and HUMINT capabilities again rise to levels they once were.

Deficiencies in the ability of technology to meet a new global threat have by no means gone unnoticed, however. A new generation of unmanned aerial vehicles attempt to bridge the gap between expensive, difficult to reposition satellites. These new vehicles represent an evolution in imaging capabilities and bring a level of human involvement to the technological aspect of intelligence gathering that has been so severely lacking in recent decades. Aircraft such as the Predator UAV and Global Hawk are but two of the new aircraft that eliminate the likelihood of another U-2 incident, yet provide a supreme level of capability our forces need to ensure success in the global struggle against terrorism. From a purely tactical aspect, the real-time nature of their reconnaissance abilities enables policy makers and planners alike to continually alter the profile of intelligence operations to address immediate and potentially imminent threats. Additionally, these aerial platforms provide a level of threat suppression that is both immediate and accurate, thereby drastically eliminating collateral damage that has been a shortcoming of more conventional military strikes. The Predator UAV is capable of carrying the Hellfire air-to-ground missile, which is designed to destroy even the most heavily armored vehicles. Rather than utilizing satellite data, which is often hours old at best, tactical supervisors are now able to take advantage of real-time video feeds and strike targets of opportunity as they become available. Not only is this type of capability important to eliminating threats; it doubles as a very effective tool of deterrence to potentially hostile forces.

In attempting to find a solution to the problem of insufficient HUMINT capabilities in the wake of a decades long dependence on technology, it helps to look at how cooperation, communication, and consolidation of both U.S. and foreign Intel services has succeeded in reducing specific, hard to target threats. Easily the best example of this success is with the fairly recent death of terrorist leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The U.S., in conjunction with Jordanian and Iraqi intelligence officials, and with Intel obtained from within Zarqawi’s group, identified a safe house in which he was staying and was able to target and drop two laser-guided bombs directly onto his location. With such a narrow window of opportunity and with such a high level of cooperation necessary for success, this operation exemplifies not only the need for HUMINT resources but also the urgent demand to work with other countries' intelligence agencies in a cooperative manner. Successes such as this are but a hint of what is possible when technology, HUMINT, and a cooperative atmosphere work toward a common goal.

Clearly, U.S. HUMINT capabilities are not what they used to be. The end of the Cold War and the parallel rise in technology in the intelligence field has resulted in a severe lack of persons on the ground who are directly involved in the procurement of information unobtainable through surveillance technology. While the United States has made impressive strides in adapting its capabilities to meet the post-9/11 threat from a clandestine enemy, its ability to single-handedly monitor, infiltrate, and eliminate threats is still very much a problem. Hopefully, America can finally combine the potential of technology with the proven power of HUMINT in order to overcome the complex and ever-changing threats that face the country.

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