How Intelligent Is Intelligence Reform?

Abstract

Amy Zegart argues that the U.S. intelligence community suffered an adaptation that left it unprepared to deal with the terrorist threat after the Cold War.1 The core of this apparent failure was its inability to reorganize in response to a radically changed international setting, despite recommendations for reform from a number of prominent commissions and members of Congress. Zegart further argues that this bureaucratic sclerosis resulted from the nature of organizations, the rational self-interests of national security officials, and the decentralized structure of American federalism.2 Zegart is one of a handful of political scientists to look seriously at intelligence issues, and her study raises several important questions. Her model of bureaucratic inertia is theoretically compelling and deserves close scrutiny, even though we disagree with some of her conclusions about intelligence reform. The large organizational changes currently under way in the U.S. intelligence establishment have proceeded with insufficient attention from the security studies community. We hope that Zegart's analysis inspires more academic debate on the relationship between intelligence, foreign policy, and national security. In this commentary we critique three aspects of the article. First, its logic rests on an unjustified assumption about the need to reorganize in the face of new security challenges. Second, the article reveals an overriding preference for centralization, regardless of changes in the international environment. Third, we challenge her interpretation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as the culmination of the intelligence community's failure to adapt. In reality, the community provided accurate strategic warning of the terrorist threat and good tactical warning of the impending attacks. We conclude with a different argument: September 11 was not an intelligence failure; it was a national failure.