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INSULARITY AND ANALYSIS

An interesting and provocative take on the NSA-CIA-Hayden story by Nadezhda at American Footprints:

” The CIA and NSA brouhahas have more in common than simply Gen Hayden’s nomination. “Intel reform” seems to be turning into another debacle a la the Dep’t of Homeland Security. And for many of the same reasons — not just politicization by the Bush Admin’s hackocracy. These problems include:

* the growing reliance on technical intelligence collection is the Star Wars of the GWOT — Bill Arkin today put in print a thought I’ve had as I’ve watched the NSA saga unfold. “

Excluding the brief bits of irrelevant partisan blather, many of the methodological and organizational criticisms that Nadezhda offers in her post are spot on, though not all of them ( and even those that are off are, nonetheless, interesting). I fully endorse Nadezhda’s call for a first rate OSINT effort which has already started expanding on the old FBIS. A few comments:

The 9/11 Commission Report was the political driver of Intel reform and the commissioners zeroed in on creating the DNI post as a way of resolving the perennial “wearer of two hats” conflict inherent in the position of DCI ever since the creation of the CIA. This was a mistake and the effort wasted here would have better been put toward more substantive reforms. There have been only a handful of ” great” – i.e. historically important and influential – DCI’s and none who mastered both running the CIA and uniting the fractured and compartmentalized intelligence community.

DCI’s like Dulles, Turner or Casey were powerful primarily because they had the unstinting backing and active interest of a President, not because of the title they held. Without the consistent and high profile support of the White House, John Negroponte’s position as DNI would be a pointless sinecure ( Negroponte, well aware of the political reality, is rapidly building a bureaucratic base in the IC to sustain the function of his office past January, 2008).

In terms of ” strategic intelligence”, Nadezhda is corect that we do this poorly but is wrong when she claims we cannot do it if we wished or that OSINT can substitute. The ” strategic intel” problem is resolved by separating the need to feed the insatiable appetite for ” current” information from the task list of those IC personnel who engage in espionage in order to collect secret information of strategic importance by clandestine means. Current intelligence, which requires monitoring a flow of events is best done by analysts reviewing the data provided by OSINT, SIGINT and IMINT agencies. Strategic intelligence, which requires patience and a depth of investment in HUMINT should be done by an agency devoted exclusively to clandestinity and nothing else (1).

The NIE process can then be retooled to better utilize clandestine HUMINT intelligence data to make predictive ” warning” scenarios of a strategic within a global intel picture. That means disrupting the insularity of the IC by bringing in more outside experts as is often done in the NSC and engaging in deliberate cognitive exercises to break down the preexisting” frames ” brought to the table by the analysts so the data can be viewed from new as well as orthodox perspectives. Analysts, in other words, do not just need more ” content field depth”; they need to acquire a much greater range of analytical-methodological tools in order to widen their field of vision. It is counterintuitive but the relative lack of thirty year veteran, narrow field, experts among the IC analysts today will make reforming strategic intelligence easier rather than harder.

All in all, a impressive post by Nadezhda.

1. See Johnson, William R. “Clandestinity and Current Intelligence”, Studies in Intelligence, vol.20, No. 3 (Fall 1976) pp 15-69. Johnson bemoaned the corrupting effect of ” journalistic” practices on the IC.

A BRIEF WORD ON IMMIGRATION

Dave Schuler had a nice post analyzing the politics of the President’s immigration speech, upon which I can offer only a comment but not an improvement as we are substantially in agreement:
“I liked a lot of what I heard in Bush’s speech. I believe he’s responding to the nation’s consensus position on the topic. I wish he’d delivered this speech and taken this course 5 years ago.

I also wish that President Bush had devoted some time to the push factors that drive people out of their native countries. We’re all aware of the many pull factors that draw people to the United States. I think that we should be devoting a lot more effort to motivating other countries to ameliorate some of those. “

All true as they deal with the root of mass migration – Mexico’s unfree and oligarchical society and the desire of Big Business to hold down real wages by flooding the labor pool with mostly uneducated but hardworking illegal immigrants ( who liberals see as potential Democratic voters and clients of big government largesse). In my view neither President Bush nor the Congress nor either Party are the least bit serious about stopping illegal immigration.

What the political elite really wants is to continue the status quo – de facto completely open borders with Mexico. That message won’t sell, so both parties are going to attempt to stall and distract – mostly with heated arguments about deportation – hoping that the issue will die down in time. Deportation is irrelevant. Most of the illegals here, outside of the criminal gang element, are not the problem, we can legalize them all as of tomorrow without even noticing a thing, except perhaps some fiscal benefits in terms of moving a large mass of people into the aboveground economy.

The real problem is the illegal immigrants coming over the next twenty years who are not here yet, but will be someday. Why ? Because the elite – our bipartisan ecclesia that exists in the Beltway – have consciously chosen to perpetuate illegal immigration for narrow, selfish, undemocratic, reasons of class interest and political career.

Reasons, that for the last generation and a half, they have consistently put above the good of their country.

FOLLOWING UP II: CONSERVATIVES VS. THE GOP ?

Belatedly on my part. Chester of The Adventures of Chester, a blogfriend who shares many of the same topical interests as I do, offers an inspirational counterpoint and perspective to the ongoing political discussion begun by Bruce Kesler.

FOLLOWING UP: SINGULARITIES AND RESILIENCE [ UPDATED II ]

is at Phatic Communion has begun a resiliency symposium and his synthesis and horizontal thinking has gone into maximum overdrive:

“Singularities and Resilience

Based on audience response to the ideas presented at today’s Singularity Summit, here are some general observations:

1. Humans are, by nature, conservative. In an auditorium filled with people attending an event focused on techno-change — and in a university set in the middle of Silicon Valley, no less — still the largest applause was reserved for those with the most reactionary views.

2. We fear change. That’s normal and even healthy. In fact, it’s a survival mechanism, hard-wired in through thousands of generations of natural selection. When taken to excess, obviously, it can be paralyzing. Moreover, those who challenge the human tendency toward caution are those who most often make the greatest discoveries (or die trying).

3. Progress — technological and social — continues to occur and eventually is accepted by nearly everyone. I call this phenomenon “Unconscious Confirmation.” It’s like the wonderful quote from John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Seemingly unacceptable change is what happens while we’re busy doing other things.

4. Truly disruptive global change on a rapid timescale is something we have never experienced. We are thus unprepared for it, and it could even be argued that we are incapable of adequately preparing. I hope that’s not true.

His last point describes the motivation behind my play as Devil’s advocate to Mark Safranski’s post: The more dynamic the world (disaster, disruption, whathaveya), the less likely that kind of resiliency is going to obtain. But every point, and the four observations considered as a whole, represent a succinct outline of the problem facing any human network in a dynamic world. For those unfamiliar with the subject of Singularity, I suggest reading the Wikipedia article. [update: see also The Great Singularity Debate.] Some detractors of singularity theory scoff at futurists (e.g., at Ray Kurzweil) from a belief that now is then, whether the then is past or future. I.e., detractors cannot easily see a future outside the framework of present world views, and some may even be the type of conservative that believes present dynamics are the same as past dynamics: “nothing new under the sun.”

Singularity theorists, however, are attempting to anticipate future disruption — usually, as influenced by technology — in the standard flow we call humanity. Futurists like Mike Treder have given much thought about “proactive resiliency,” even if that is not the term they have used to describe this aspect of their
thought. “

Treder’s fourth point quoted by Curtis is describing a System Perturbation – which by definition overcomes systemic resiliency and leaves an aftermath that is so ” rewired” that a
” rule-set reset” is required to adapt global society to the changed environment.

Curtis also pulls off a neat comparison of the operational tension between the meta-principles of resiliency and consiliency:

“Because the concept of consilience is still rather new to me, I’m more likely to resort to an etymological exploration of the term. Mark also dipped into the etymology in his post on consilience: resilience is a “bouncing back” (really, a jumping back) but consilience is a “jumping together.” Thus, when Steve DeAngelis says that resilient networks have people “willing to reach across those departmental lines themselves,” he is not talking about a resilient behavior but a consilient behavior, and he is talking about being able to operate across domains.”

My intuitive thought here is that resilience and consilience are not antipodes but complementary concepts in which some situations may arise where they are not entirely congruent for the actors struggling with a particular problem or crisis.

Very stimulating post by Mr. Weeks which should be read in full.

UPDATE:

Steve DeAngelis at ERMB responded to posts by Wiggins, Curtis Gale Weeks and myself on SOA and resilience vs. consilience. First, SOA:

“As Enterra Solutions envisions it, Development-in-a-Box is like an open IT architecture that offers any organization the ability to “plug & play” as their particular capabilities are required in the development process. Organizations must be free to decide for themselves when it is time to join and when it is time to depart from any particular operation. Otherwise, many of them simply wouldn’t play at all because they don’t want their organizations perceived as supporting any particular country’s foreign policy or any agenda besides their own. “

Second, on resilience, consilience and Enterra Solutions:

“Both Safranski and Weeks are correct that resilience, strictly defined, refers only to a bouncing back. Unfortunately, I live in the business world where words are used to “sell” not just explain. In Enterra Solution sales pitches we try to make the point that resilience (i.e., bouncing back) is no longer sufficient if organizations want to thrive, not just survive, when faced with emerging 21st century challenges. I agree with Safranski that the two terms, resiliency and consiliency, are complementary concepts. My problem is that I would spend more time explaining a concept like consilience than advancing my business interests were I to use the term. Even Weeks who, as informed as he is, admits the concept of consilience remains a new concept to him. That is one reason I started this blog, to further the discussion of resiliency (and consiliency) beyond glossy sales brochures. Thanks to both men for adding to the discussion.”

Theory vs. Practice. Steve obviously does both but his clients most likely do not. Putting myself in the shoes of an organizational leader, I would be looking for resiliency programs in order to strengthen my core operations and systemic ability to weather unexpected challenges or, more seriously, an existential crisis created by an act of terrorism or a natural disaster. If 9/11 demonstrated a moment of resilience for the city of New York then Hurricane Katrina amply detailed what a lack of resiliency looked like in New Orleans.

Consilience consulting, hypothetically speaking, would be for an organization looking to develop new potentialities from old formats or explore verges where current activities blend or connect with other fields. It requires stepping outside the normal perspective and reevaluating all the premises on which the organization is based – not to reject or refute them but to examine what possibilities have been missed along the way.

Finally, I would like to highlight the comments of Dr. Von in the comments section which are worth reading in full:

“When doing simulations of networks, ‘rewiring’ is randomly changing some small subset of links from individual agents of the network…this is the programmer’s way of introducing ‘noise’ into the network, and it is precisely this type of noise that causes barriers between local sections of differing states to break down, causing a consensus to be reached. These are some of the results I’ve mentioned in some posts that are fairly new (just within the last couple years). It seems as if a growing number of people are observing such a phenomenon and drawing conclusions similar to those from the simulation work.

On another note it seems to me that some level of consilience is required to be truly resilient. To be able to react and adapt to any random perturbation will presumably require some level of understanding, or at the very least identification, of the perturbation. Since there are large numbers of possible disturbances that can unleashed on a given system, some amount of knowledge of or experience with of each type would be ideal.”

UPDATE II.

Von also has posted on resilience and consilience today.

JARVISIFICATION OF ZENPUNDIT PROCEEDING

Ok, Critt now has me on something called “Newsvine“. I’ll post something there once I get a feel for the culture.