COORDINATION OF NATIONAL WARNING AND CRISIS INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00171R000500170001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 39
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 2, 1977
• Content Type: SUMMARY

REVISED DRAFT 1 1/ ",'7
Crisis Intel .1 i cnce bra
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COORDINATION OF NATIONAL WARNING AND
CRISIS INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT
L Introduction
II Analysis of the Problem
The Function of Warning
Crisis Management Support
Summary and Conclusions
III Recommended Action
Joint DCI-DOD Initiatives
National Indications and Warning System
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Coordination of National Warning and Crisis
Intelligence Support
I - Introduction
1. The analysis and action proposals presented herein
are intended to address the systemic inhibitions to more
effective national warning and crisis intelligence support,
that is, those factors which are not variables pertaining to
one particular crisis or another. The proposals deal with
a) the establishment of improved mechanisms for focusing
Community warning and crisis intelligence support operations
across organizational lines; b) development of a common
Community alert level indicator system based on changes in
target posture and capabilities rather than perception of
ultimate intent; and c) reorientation of indications and
warning analysis and reporting to increase support to crisis
avoidance (deterrence) decisionmaking. Underlying these
proposals are the following findings:
a. responsibility for warning and crisis intel-
ligence support is, inLractice, widely diffused
throughout the Community and essentially lacking a
coherent structure;
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b. as a result, Community components interact
with one another and with intelligence users principally
on a bilateral basis, there being no established
central mechanism, other than. the efforts of individual
National. Intelligence Officers, for efficiently coor-
dinating collection., production and reporting with
respect to situation-oricnted* contexts across agency
and program boundaries except on ad hoc basis; and
c. reliance on ad hoc procedures (which to some
extent reflects analytical resource limitations), pis ide
from their inherent inefficiency, limits the Commuity's
capability to focus operations on developing si.tuationa'
contexts over an extended time frame in support of
crisis avoidance** and to efficiently marshal its
resources when necessary to assist in crisis management.
* The term situation is used herein to mean an evolving
set of interactive political, military and, perhaps, economic
conditions and events taking place within or among nations
which indicates potential for alteration of an existing
state of affairs and consequent impact on US interests,
objectives and./or security. Situational ambiguity is
uncertainty regarding the nature, signif cance and under
lying objective of observed events resulting from gaps in
available intelligence and/or the acquisition of data sus-
ceptible to divergent interpretation.
Crisis avoidance support is the orientation of in-
telligence collection, analysis and reporting so as to
optimize the range, selection and timing of deterrent action.
options available to decisionmakers being supported..
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11 . Analysis of thc Problem
The Function _of Warning
2. The operational impact of the conditions outlined
above is to render the Community and, consequently, those it
supports extremely vulnerable to the effects of ambiguity in
the situational environment (particularly that clouding the
motive underlying observed activity), compounded by that
created by the Community itself in its internal operations
and their impact on National docisionmaking authorities.
Thus, the review of Community performance on the eve of the
1973 Arab-I-raeli War found:
The problem of incremental analysis--especially as
it applies to the current intelligence process--was
also at work in the period preceding hostilities.
Analysts, according to their own accounts, were often
proceeding on the basis of the day's take, hastily
comparing it with material received the previous day.
They then produced in "assembly line fashion," items
which may have reflected preceptive intuition but which
accrued. from a systematic consideration of an accumulated
body of integrated evidence.
Divisions of labor within the Community and within
individual agencies may have contributed. to this problem.
Separate groups of analysts may examine different
aspects of the same substantive problem, with little
time or opportunity to review one another's product and
to integrate subsequent analysis.
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The lack of an integrated systematic approach to
warning problems may also have had an unfortunate
effect on the analytical product. To oversimplify
somewhat, analysts, in reacting against certain indi-
cators, tended to conceive of the problem in terms of
""war"" vs. "no war" rather than in terms of the "l i ke1 i --
hood" of war. There seemed to be no system designed to
encourage the analysts who were evaluating the crisis
to ponder events and indicators in the light of the
warning function and the need for judgments of proba-
bilities.*
3. Where intelligence can be relied upon to provide
timely and unambiguous insight into the development of ;.a
given. situation and the underlying intentions and timetables
of its dominant actors, the impact-of the aforementioned
problems is minimized, insofar as information collected
speaks for itself and its implications are apparent.
Historically, however, such cases are extremely rare and
existence of such optimal conditions cannot be presumed as a
basis for organization of intelligence support operations.
4. Therefore, the function of warning intelligence is
to alert the decisionmaker to the r..eed for consideration of
action options designed to hedge against ambuit shrouding
the im ication_s o-# observed J2henomena with respect to U. S.
security and interests. This function is particularly
The Performance of the Intelligence Community_Befor.e
the Arab-Israeli h1ar of October 1973: A Preliminary Poste
Mortem Report; Intelligent e Comnum~_ty Staff, December 1973,
IrP.- 1.8-19.
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important in situations where such ambiguity may conceal an
It
adversary's miscalculation of the potential reaction of the
United States or "signals" intended to elicit a clarification
of the U.S. position.
5. The act of "hedging," in the present context, is
the selection and implementation of an action option (or
series thereof) calculated to have a deterrent or deflective
impact on the course of an observed situation in the event
the threat implications reflected by intelligence are
accurate, while minimizing the cost and potential embar-
rassment to the United States (and. the authority acting) in
the event they are not. Thus, the term "action" may,
depending on the'context and the decisionmaker's perception,
mean anything from a telephone call to an ambassador to
mobilization of an army.
6. Community support of hedge action consideration by
decisionmakers is time sensitive, insofar as the range of
hedge options available tends to diminish with proximity to
the event being hedged against, as does the opportunity for
flexible appl.ication of a progression of initiatives should
earlier signals not have the desired effect. In addition,
the magnitude of the hedge action required for effective
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deterrence is increased to the extent its subject has become
committed to his course of action and cannot extricate
himself without loss. Therefore, there is a. clear premium
on early detection and reporting that is likely to be
achieved only through continuous Community focus on the
operational situations in question, as opposed to general
reliance on ad. hoc measures inspired by the perceived
imminence or onset of a "crisis."
7. Further, it is inherent to the nature of the
Intelligence-decisionmaker relationship that the operational
significance of a given situation o:? item of information is
not necessarily obvious, but rather may derive from objec-
tives, views, and sensitive data hold by the decisionmaker,
but not generally apparent within the Community. In other
words, a particular sequence of events or intelligence
observations gains significance, as concerns the Community's
level of effort and focus of warning, support, primarily as
it relates to how the United States, as represented by
National decisionMaking authority, views that activity and
what it might intend to do about it.
Thus, a warning and crisis intelligence support
system dominated by the requirement to estimate or predict
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the ultimate objective underlying observed events or activit.'
tends, operationally, to neglect the fact that ultimate
responsibility for confronting the ambiguous implications
of particular situation belongs to the decisionmakor and
'lot t_0 the Community.- While it is obviously desirable that
the Community provide an unambiguous picture of what is
happening in a given situational context and its probable
significance, its inability to do so should not be permitted
to result in delay or lack of warning to National authority
of the need to consider hedge action requirements.
9. Given the subtlety of the warning mission, as
related to hedge action, its effective fulfillment will be
dependent on the Community's ability to structure the
responsibility for issuance of warning and the collection
and analysis support underlying such decisions so as to
facilitate clear and timely definition of the hard data,
uncertainties and potential implications upon which con-
sideration of hedge action will be based. At present,
however, the responsibility for issuance of warning has
become merged with that for production of warning intelli-
gence and diffused throughout the Community. No. single,
coherent structure exists for either systematically focusing
collection and production operations on evolving warnin-;-
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related issues or for interaction with deci.sionmakers bc~ir.g
supported. To the extent such integration occurs, it is
undertaken on an ad hoc basis by individual NIOs in. accordance
with their perceived support requirements.
10. To effect interagency coordination, the Community
is largely dependent on ad hoc working groups and individual
analyst and. NIO initiatives, insofar as the transitory
nature of specific warning and crisis-potent situations
inhibits their accommodation by the predominantly functional
and topical structure of Community organization. An illtatra-
Lion of the negative effects of this problem is provided in
a case study of intelligence coverage of the ongoing Fgypt-
Libya conflict appended as Annex B.
11. The foregoing observation is valid with regard to
collection as well as analysis and reporting. Despite
increasingly effective mechanisms for management and utiliza-
tion of individual collection programs and systems, the
Community lacks a coherent medium for effectively focusing
and coordinating coverage of specific situations on a multi-
source/sensor basis." Tasking reflective of perceived
*The Collection Coordination Facility recently estn.hli-,he?
by DIA is a promising initiative in this area. However, its
scope of operation is currently limited to DOD requirements
and support responsibilities.
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warning requirements is currently generated by individual
initiative on the part of NlOs and the various production
and consumer organizations and negotiated separately with
each program manager. Annex C contains a review of preseit
collection tasking and coordination practices.
12. In the absence of coherent structure, the Comrnnun i 1 \
is vulnerable to the disruptive effects of uncertainty
created by differing perceptions of what is occurring in th,c
operational environment resulting from fragmentary or
ambiguous intelligence (situational ambiguity). Specif:ic~-1 y,
the conclusions and. predictive estimates derived by each
agency from its independent assessment of available i.nforma--
tion arc influenced by those of sister agencies which may
differ. Given the psychological deterrent to "crying wolf,"
an impetus toward consensus formation is created, generally
aimed at negotiation of a mutually acceptable position
rather than an integrated, Community reanalysis of all
available data. Since the findings of the individual
agencies, as well as those of interagency consensus forums
and the DCI/NIO, are simultaneously and independently directed
at docisionmakers in Community reporting, the effect on the
latter is to compound uncertainty, thereby inhibiting estab-
lishment of a clear basis for hedge action consideration.
In short, where all perceive themselves to be responsible
for issuance of warning, in effect ro one is.
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13. The preceding is not intended as an argument in
favor of suppression o(' divergent views or the creation of a
false impression of clear perception. The point is that,
since developing international threat situations, especially
in their early stages, will invariably be characterized by
ambiguity shrouding the actual. intentions of the pr:inci.pa:i
actors, the only real alt:eriiative to timely hedge action
against unresolvable ambiguity is, in effect, to do nothi.n)g.
Where the warning intelligence process becomes driven bey the
need to accurately predict what is going to happen, the
Community, in effect, directs its efforts toward findings w i:ic:1
will prove to be either right or wrong. This .contradicts the
purpose of warning in contemhlat.io~-_ of hedge action, the
object of which is essentially to avoid being either right
or wrong by altering the course of perceived threat develop-
ment or at least minimizing its i.mlact.
14. In this regard, it should be noted that the range
of hedge action options available to the deci.sionmaker,
particularly in the earlier stages of a developing crisis,
will invariably be greater than the number of warning
decision options available to the intelligence officer
contemplating .the implications of an ambiguous threat situa-
tion. This means that a delay in warning until a "war"-
"no war" type prediction can be made would inhibit the formcr's
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scope of. possible action in putsuit of crisis avoidance. I1:
addition to alerting the decisionma:.:cr to the need for
consideration of hedge action, therefore, the function of
warning intelligence is to provide iim the insights into they
operational situation at issue necessary to selection 01 thy'
action option(s) most appropriate in terms of potential
effectiveness, cost and risk.
15. The subtleties inherent in the above are extremely
difficult to translate into analytical guidance at the
intelligence production level, dependent as they are on
active interaction between decisionmaker and senior (warn
n")
intelligence' authority. This effort is greatly complicated
by the lack of a common structure in which the operations of
the Community can be oriented toward support of hedge action
consideration requirements across organizational boundaries.
Because,'in practice, no specific focus is established by
common Community authority, warning objectives generally
adopted are those which would have the greatest operational
impact and could be most clearly postulated, i.e., the
ultimate potential threat posed by the circumstances or
activity being observed.
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16. The problem inherent in Ii WY analysis and produc-
tion thus focused is that it tends to subsume responsihiIi.ty
for determining whether warning shot:.ld be issued. Thus, an
analytical clement examining data to determine whether A is
going to attack 11 is obligsted to relate its findings to
that hypothesis and, in the presence of inconclusive intel.-
li.gence, the process becomes vulncrLlble to the contradiction
noted above (paragraph 13) and consequent inabi.li.ty to
provide timely warning in contemplation of hedge action.
More important, however, the items of intelligence and. kiuci:~
of analyses relevant to determination of the reality and
imminence of an ultimate threat are not necessarily the same
as those most useful. in determining whether National authority
should be alerted to the need for consideration of hedge
action against that threat, particularly when a premium is
placed on early notification so as to reduce the magnitude
of action' required for effective deterrence.
Crisis Management Support
17. It is possible to frame a definition of "crisis"
by example, but extremely difficult to postulate a functional1
useful operational. description. In practice, crises arc
aberrations in normal agency activity requiring an extraor-
dinary level of operations, in the affected areas of coverage
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which, in turn, necessitates activation of ad. hoc procedures
and temporary reallocation of resources. At the conclusion
of the crisis, the status quo ante is generally restored.
This is due both to resource 1 imiULtions (parti.cularl),
analytical) and to changes in situational context from
crisis to crisis which engender different expertise and
resource requirements.
18. Community support procedures following the onset
of a. crisis exhibit the same characteristics of cli fflused'
responsibility ascribed earlier to the pro-crisis indications
and warning environment. Insofar as activation of crisis
management procedures is dependent upon the existence and
common perception of an external stimulus, i.e., the cause
of the crisis, they are vulnerable both to differing per-
ceptions of the significance and requirements of observed
events resulting from ambiguities in available intelligence
and to the lag in operational effectiveness characteristic
of ad hoc action during periods of stress. Crisis support
measures, moreover, are taken independently by each organ-
ization involved, and there is no coordination mechanism at
the Community level other than action undertaken by the NIO
involved in support of the DCI. Beyond recently introduced
procedures for integrated situation reporting (NISR), crisis
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related reporting to National decis:onmaking authorities is
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conducted separately by each part:i-c:i.i)ating agency and the
I)CI/NIO.
19. Activation of Community crisis management support
procedures only after a crisis has begun'or its i.mminenca:
generally perceived precludes e l-fec-J.ve operational linkage
with the indications and warning process, thereby making tht
augmented collection and processing capabilities characteriLtiC
of the former unavailable to support. hedge action con.sidera
in the interest of crisis avoidance. In addition, it is
apparent that the warning and crisis phases of a given
situation are not operationally separable, insofar as the
first does not end when the second begins, but merely trans-
fers its point of focus to the future implications of crisi--
related events. An example of this phenomenon occurred
during the 1973 Middle East war wherein the warning phase
preceding the Arab attack on Israel was immediately followed
by a second warning phase concerned with the prospect of
active Soviet intervention in the conflict.
20. Therefore, it would appear logical that mechanisms
and procedures for provision of indications and warning in-
telligence support to national decisionmakers during pre-
Tr%
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