Intelligence is for commanders, or at least so I’ve been told. Regardless of the term you prefer — commander, principal, or policymaker — the idea expressed by the phrase, that intelligence exists to help some “decision-maker” make better decisions, is conventional wisdom in the intelligence community. But it has probably…

It’s no exaggeration to say that America’s involvement in Afghanistan was the work of a lifetime. For many of those my age and younger who work in national security, it’s been literally our entire careers. To see that work crumble to dust and turn to ash so quickly is bitter…

Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant caused a stir when giving testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said the “Department of Defense’s culture is a threat to national security.” Grant went on to describe that culture as one simultaneously overconfident and risk-averse, whose entrenched habits, values, and practices stifle…

U.S. Spy Agencies Must Adapt to an Open-Source World — For nearly three-quarters of a century, the United States intelligence community has supplied American military and political leaders with information and analysis intended to help them make better decisions about critical national security concerns. During the Cold War — when the United States and the Soviet Union went to extraordinary…

Five Traits to Cultivate — People ask me, every now and again, to give them a list of the top methods “good” intelligence analysts should use, or what subjects are most important for an aspirant analyst to study. The truth, however, is that there are no perfect methods to use or universal subjects. Intelligence…

Agencies Must Adapt, or Risk Losing the Future It’s often said that government work isn’t glamorous. But pre-pandemic government work in the national security realm was at least one step beyond. Back in the before times, tens of thousands of national security employees — both civil servants and their much…

American Strategy Needs to be Thawed Out — I hear a lot of people these days declaring 21st-century competition with China a new “Cold War.” Whenever I do, my eyes just about roll out of my damn head, because that sentiment reflects what is in my view a profound misunderstanding of both contemporary America and the reality of…

Americans Must Learn Again to Make the Future, Not Fear It — For some, the future is terra incognita, foreign land that we cannot know until we arrive there — or rather, until it arrives here. But that’s not quite right, is it? Because while you can’t predict the future, you can catch glimpses of it right here in the present if…

Growing Competition and an Abundance of Information Negates the IC’s Founding Value Proposition — The U.S Intelligence Community needs a new business model, one that’s better suited for an era inundated with useful information and characterized by the demand for radical transparency. The next generation of national security leaders will, quite simply, expect more — more personalization, more collaboration, and more convenience.