[This is slightly modified from the original version.]
Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century. Angelo Codevilla. The Free Press, New York, 1992. xix, 491 pp. Hc. $24.95.
"Conflict is an ineradicable part of international affairs. Knowledge of friends and enemies can be decisive in conflict... such knowledge is called 'intelligence.'" So begins Angelo Codevilla's Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century. This book should be required reading for those who are interested not just in the history of American intelligence but in the principles that should govern the field. Hence the subtitle is kind of a misnomer. His principles apply to all times, not just the next one hundred years.
Before going on, there is a matter to clear up. For many people, the word "intelligence," as in CIA or FBI, sets off alarm bells. Isn't this "cloak and dagger" business inherently at odds with the idea of individual rights? This includes not only the rights of foreigners, such as the Kurds who were duped twice by the US government, but also those of American citizens, whom the CIA and friends are supposed to be helping.
Not one to ignore morality, Codevilla answers this question in the negative. He does more than this by showing how intelligence can be gathered without violating individual rights and in a more effective manner than it is currently done. This is because intelligence involes gathering information, analyzing it, and guarding one's gathering of it. This does not necessitate violating rights, nor is it usually practical to do so, for those who separate morality and practicality. Notably, it does not include covert operations, which are the kinds of activities that usually do violate rights because they're both violent and fraudulent; the former to foreigners who wind up on the wrong side of a gun barrel, the latter mostly to Americans who don't know where their tax dollars are being spent or what policy is really being effected.
The typical fare for this sort of book is to detail the history of US intelligence, then offer some ideas for reform. Codevilla's coverage is much broader. His experience in the field of intelligence (he worked for the Senate in the 1970s) and his academic career as a political science professor pay off here. The breadth of his knowledge is astounding. He uses examples from the Peloponnesian War, Renaissance Italy, both World Wars, and modern Israel with equal facility. This is much better than the usual pointing out some recent mistakes and suggesting corrections because he's able to show both why intelligence fails and, more importantly, why it succeeds throughout history.
Another interesting point about his method is his avowed debt to Aristotle. In this day and age, claiming to use Aristotle's strategy in attacking a subject is likely to be laughed at or misunderstood. However, Codevilla fears neither and shows that he understands Aristotle's method of looking for the end or purpose of a given subject. He starts with intelligence and asks "What is it for?" To the modern bureaucrat, such questions are deadly. To seriously question the reason for a certain operation or policy or institution can spell the end of make work – and the end of careers!
Codevilla divides intelligence up into four sections: collection, counterintelligence, analysis, and covert action. Rather than peruse the whole book, let's just look at his principles regarding each section.
Collection is the classic intelligence role of gathering information – whether by spies or reading newspapers – and he spends a good deal of time on it. Contrary to James Bond films, Codevilla is not under the impression that this work is either glamorous or something that can be done by a jack-of-all-trades. Instead, he counsels that agents be tapped from all fields. He quotes quite a few successes using this method like a Nazi German agent in France prior to World War Two.
This particular spy was the editor of an aviation magazine. In order to get more information on French aircraft technology, he got the magazine to do a special issue on engines, aircraft designs, and so on. Thus he was able to get information in a way few would suspect. Granted, really vital secrets would be harder to get at. Still, this sort of collection at least gave the Germans a good idea of the state of the art. Also, engineers sometimes slip up and tell more than they should, such as when they try to explain a given design.
We can see from this example that gathering intelligence requires patience and tenacity as well as creativity. This is why Codevilla advises that one gather information through many different channels throughout a given society. The CIA should not stick to satellites and diplomats.
Counterintelligence (CI) is perhaps as important and involves the ability to look for one's own weaknesses – something which requires that one is able to admit weaknesses in the first place. This mean looking for leaks, double agents, misinformation, and the like and using them to one's advantage.
CI ask the question "How much of what we know is really stuff they want us to know?" Codevilla dubs it "quality control," an apt term that describes not only the goal but gives a sense of why CI is almost always disliked. Surely, there are times when one cannot because of circumstances do the adequate checks . However, this is not always the case and much of the time the thing that stops CI from working is big egos and office politics. After all, few people like to be second guessed.
Analysis, as the name suggests, is a being able to see the big picture and to fit things together by breaking things down. This involves providing policy makers with evaluations of their policies as well as facts about the enemy. Codevilla stresses this. He does not want intelligence officers to dictate policy, but, at the same time, he feels they be aware of the policy and be brought in to evaluate it.
Almost like an Ancient Greek, he thinks this work should be left to the senior people. In fact, he thinks true analysis should only happen at the highest levels. There is good reason for this. First, the analyst has to be a generalist. He or she must have the experience and also the data. Since the job is to fit all the pieces together, he or she must have such access.
One wonders how closely this ideal can be approached. After all, before there can be decent analyses, there must be a good definition of what should be looked for, who the enemies are, and what the policy choices are limited to. In today's America, there is not consensus on these issues. In fact, there are many diametrically opposed view on each one and very few agreed on principles to test them against.
Finally, covert action – something guaranteed to cause a stir – is carrying out subversive or paramilitary missions against foreign powers. The funny thing about his treatment of covert action is that he is very realistic. He cites case after case where the only thing covert about a given covert operation was that US citizens weren't aware of the operation. Generally, enemy governments know when the US is working against them.
Ergo, Codevilla generally advises against covert action. However, in cases where it is necessary, he counsels that it not go against professes policies. Thus, covert action should not be a means by which the President or other officials create secret agendas in contradiction to their professes goals.
The importance of this can be seen in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal. Officials, allegedly acting in the nation's interest to fight communism in Nicaragua, helped to fund Iran. This was under the assumption that those in Iran they helped were "moderates." In fact, they were violating the professes policy of the US against Iran – justified on the ground that Iran funds terrorism and aids anti-Western governments throughout the Middle East. In the end, it was found out that the US officials were tricked by the so-called Iranian moderates in part because the operation was secret.
Overall, Codevilla is both perceptive and wise in his examination of the role of intelligence in society. His book is a veritable manual for reform and a warning to those who think US intelligence is on top of things. The failure to predict the recent nuclear proliferation in India and Pakistan is merely a noteworthy case of this.
Too often Objectivists scorn other thinkers, under the impression that only they have something to teach. Informing Statecraft gives them a chance to rectify this by allowing them to learn valuable lessons. Codevilla comes from a basically Old Right perspective, which is not to cleanse him of the problems of being on the Right, but merely to show that one can learn something even from that venue. His work is also another example of how Aristotle is still an undercurrent in the culture.