This post will be fairly brief compared to my posts thus far due to the my inability of integrating my views on intelligence in a tangible manner. However, this integration is currently in progress, and I will have more to say soon. For now, I have been able to identify 2 concepts with regards to the discussion of the so-called RMA (Rev. in Military Affairs) and RIA (Rev. in Intelligence Affairs) that have not been as obvious as there being a need for integration and dramatic rethinking of institutional culture..
The first would be to suggest a new connection between power, purpose, and information, and the second the 'question' of misuse of information and intelligence. If weaponry and personnel are instruments of 'hard' behavioral power, then it could be asserted that information and its strategic framing, selectivity, and deployment can function as instruments of 'soft' power. Intelligence... brings in a whole other dimension. Intelligence incorporates the collection and intepretation of information.... for a whole host of goals. Here is where this point connects with last week's class discussion: in contemplating various mixes of hard and soft power, we must know 1. the purpose of harnessing that power (What is the goal? Is there one goal? Are our goals compatible with each other?), and 2. the particular point in the trajectory of our 'project' at which this mixture is to be employed. Intelligent intelligence enables both of these aspects to be ascertained.... which must be done before and constantly during one's project/mission.
Question of Misuse: Misuse in such missions can take on various forms - misuse of sources of information, misuse of information itself, misuse of insititutional structure an culture, misuse of available resources, etc. How do these aspects of misuse relate to intelligence? Apart from 'incompetent' organization/approaches, a very different dimension of this is the use, or misuse, of intelligence to carry out psychological warfare. At what points (if they can be called points at all) does intelligence become 1. harmful to our mission as formulated at its inception 2. harmful to institutional and cultural definitions of what is 'right' or 'wrong', both in 'moral' terms and in operational/pragmatic terms of achieving our goals?
As I mentioned earlier, these concepts are still under construction....
