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8. Is There a "National Versus Tactical" Problem?
The Commission heard
substantial testimony about a so-called "national versus tactical" problem,
namely a concern that NIMA's support to national customers, such as CIA,
was being sacrificed in order to support the operational demands of the
military customers, such as those at European and Central Command. Here,
we attempt to separate out the real issues and concerns, and offer some
strategies for their mitigation and possible relief.
8.1
A Characterization of the Problem
Many officials complained
that NIMA's tasking, collection, and exploitation strategies had a negative
effect on our understanding of long-term intelligence issues--such as
the development and spread of weapons of mass destruction--because of
a tendency to emphasize military operational needs, such as those of Operations
Southern Watch and Northern Watch. While no one doubted the legitimate
need for information about the threat to US forces operating in the area
of those activities, many did question whether the volume of imagery collection,
the details of imagery collection, or the strategy used to ensure imagery
collection was appropriate in light of other intelligence needs.
 First
and foremost, the Commission was concerned that the discussion about this
problem lacked rigor in terms of thinking and taxonomy. While discussants
revealed important problems related to imagery collection and exploitation
on longer-term issues and questions, they seemed to be describing not
one but various problems which in the aggregate could contribute to a
perception of a "national versus tactical" problem. Among these were competitions
between strategic and tactical intelligence targets, strategic and operational
intelligence targets, and long-term versus short-term intelligence information
needs.
It is overly simplistic
to define any customer's requirements slate as being purely focused on
national, strategic, operational, or tactical problems; both policy-makers
and military commanders alike deal with problems that vary in scope and
duration. The accompanying diagram may help us characterize this problem:
it points out that this is (at least) a two-dimensional problem. There
is the question of who the consumer is for the information--a national-level
decisionmaker or an agency such as CIA that is oriented first and foremost
to that national policy level, or operators in the theater. And there
is the separable question of whether the information primarily serves
a strategic or a tactical purpose.
In the case of
Usama Bin Ladin, it is primarily of national-level concern, but decidedly
tactical--i.e., short-term focus.
In the case of
"Northern Watch" or "Southern Watch--nationally directed, but theater-executed
mission in Iraq--the theater is principally concerned, and the focus
is also tactical.
In the case of
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) the focus is more strategic-long-term
and principally (although not exclusively) an item of national-level
interest.
What unifies the two
dimensions, and best characterizes the real problem (as opposed to the
atmospherics) is the issue of long-term versus short-term.
8.2
The Need to Turn Down the Heat
This issue disturbed
the Commission because of the extent to which it had become polarized--or
"politicized"--and bruited about publicly by senior DoD and Intelligence
Community officials with little supporting evidence.
A few chose to use
this ill-defined problem as yet another reason to condemn NIMA, revisit
its creation, and question its future viability as the nation's provider
of imagery and geospatial information. Some among the National Intelligence
Council (NIC) and CIA continue to dwell on having "lost NPIC" and continually
fret about NIMA's role as a combat support agency. These concerns discolor
their perceptions of NIMA and threaten to reduce their own and NIMA's
overall effectiveness.
The Commission believes
that this issue is sufficiently controversial that it requires the DCI's
and SECDEF's attention, in particular, to moderate the political differences
and address the real problems.
8.3
Identifying Some Component Problems
Concerns about NIMA
support to national and tactical customers are best dealt with in terms
of specifics, rather than casting the problem as an overall competition.
The Commission believes that it is unhelpful to define this issue in such
broad terms, and especially perilous to raise it so often and so publicly.
Fundamentally, the
problem reflects the scarcity of imagery resources, both collection and
exploitation, to deal with today's complex slate of intelligence requirements,
especially in the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and North Africa. Whereas
the geography of the Soviet Union allowed for many imagery collection
opportunities of mutual interest to the national and operational communities,
the geography of today's adversaries and interesting intelligence targets
create competition both within countries and between countries. The current
shortage of long-term exploitation derives primarily from the loss of
skilled imagery analysts and the need for the remaining few to spend their
time mentoring new hires.
The Commission believes
that, while this "national versus tactical" contretemps tends to be overheated,
it does contain real issues that merit attention, both by NIMA and by
its consumers and stakeholders. Among these real issues are the following:
Lack of collection
feedback--One difficulty with current processes for tasking imagery
collection and/or requesting exploitation is the lack of information
available to a requester as to the status of the request. FEDEX(TM)
is the invidious comparison--when one sends a package, it receives
a unique identifier, or tracking number, which is provided by the
sender to the intended recipient. Both feel satisfied that they can
track accurately the progress of the package. No such capability today
attaches to requests for imagery and/or exploitation.16
Poor collaboration
and communication--Contenders for imaging capacity often have
more in common than they realize. The DCI, in his Strategic Intent,
has given a high priority to improvements in communications infrastructure
for collaboration. Substantive managers need to value more the collaborations
that take place today, and to find ways to structure their issues
and their incentives so as to increase collaboration, which promotes
both efficiency and understanding.
NIMA as mediator/facilitator--The
Commission found that NIMA gets mixed reviews about its role as mediator
of contentions and somewhat better reviews about its role as a facilitator
of collaboration. Not surprisingly, the "winners" always like the
mediator better than do the "losers." Of course the goal of good mediation
(getting to yes) is for neither party to feel disadvantaged. NIMA
can help, but the tone has to be set by the Intelligence Community
leadership writ large.
Scarcity of
imagery analysts--NIMA lost a lot of its expertise, both at its
creation and in the overall downsizing of IC personnel in the early
1990's. The departure of NPIC image analysts from the imagery analysis
business (many are involved in other CIA analytic functions today)
reduced the amount of high-level collection and imagery analysis expertise,
some of which could help mitigate the current concerns through more
creative collection strategies. The Director of NIMA is to be commended
for recognizing this problem and for formulating a creative plan to
rebuild the imagery analytic experience base.
(Lack of) Proximity
of imagery analysts to their all-source customers--By all accounts,
the placement of NIMA imagery analysts at the military commands is
highly productive: proximity to the all-source analyst, cognizance
of the specific problem set, and collocation with other relevant sources
of information all contribute to the heightened ability of the imagery
analyst stationed at the commands. Yet CIA and DIA, by virtue of the
arrangements made at the creation of NIMA, are bereft of such dedicated,
on-site support.17
A focus on
short-term problems rather than long-term problems--A focus on
short-term problems rather than long-term problems dogs NIMA, as mentioned
previously. As with the rest of intelligence, the imagery enterprise
has been driven much more toward a current intelligence focus, whether
for national or military customers. Intelligence problems that require
more long-term research focus, such as WMD issues, get short shrift
in the press of daily business.
8.4
Strategies for Relief and Mitigation
Relatively new to
the scene are the Assistant DCIs for Collection and for Analysis and Planning
(ADCI/C and ADCI/AP, respectively). The Commission applauds the steps
already taken by the ADCI/C in improving communication between collectors
and consumers, and the creative approach to problems of contention embodied
in some studies conducted by his Advanced Collection Concepts Development
Center. There is more that he, in concert with the ADCI/AP, can do to
institutionalize collaboration and to shorten the loop between requesters
and collectors.
In order to relieve
the shortage of imagery analysts and restore more emphasis to long-term
issues, D/NIMA's strategy is to move 300 positions (60 per year, 2001-2005)
from cartography to imagery analysis. Despite a request from the field
for half of these, D/NIMA is determined to keep all in the Washington
area. The Commission endorses D/NIMA's decision that all should remain
in the DC area and be dedicated to long-term issues, which will help restore
balance.
8.5
Some Longer-Term Concerns
Some mistakenly believe
that with EIS and FIA the contention for collection will be eliminated--that
we will no longer be collection limited. But if history is any guide,
more collection capacity will be more than compensated for by increased
demand.
Even in terms of anticipated
demand, the Commission has reservations about whether commercial imagery
and airborne assets will be able to deliver on their promise. If not,
FIA will fall short of expectations and we will be little better off than
now--perhaps worse because people will have built availability assumptions
into their systems and concept of operations (CONOPS) that will be expensive
to repair.
Footnotes:
16
Or for map production either, for that matter.
17
There are NIMA analysts embedded in certain operational activities; this
is distinct from more general "command" support to all-source analysts.
Foreword
| Executive Summary and Key Judgments
| Introduction | NIMA
from the Beginning
NIMA in Context | Two-and-a-Half
Roles for NIMA | The Promise of NIMA
NIMA and Its Stakeholders |
NIMA and Its "Customers" | Is There a "National
vs Tactical" Problem?
NIMA and Its Peers and Partners | NIMA
and Its Suppliers | NIMA Management Challenges
NIMA's Information Systems | NIMA
Research and Development
NIMA and Its Information Architecture | Recommendations
| Appendix A
Appendix B | Glossary
of Terms
Table
of Contents | Home | PDF
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