Strategic intelligence practice in the Australian intelligence community: evolution, constraints and progress

ABSTRACT

This article explores the development of strategic intelligence practice in Australia’s national intelligence community (NIC) since 9/11. It shows how strategic intelligence practice has been forged by both external (political and policy) and internal (institutional) factors over the last two decades. Key institutional factors that have either progressed or constrained the growth of strategic intelligence practice include leadership, organizational cultural, cognitive, technological issues and training and education. Despite constraints, strategic intelligence practice again is gaining more traction in the NIC. The article concludes with observations about how its value can be further optimized by the community in the future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For a detailed recent analysis of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review and its impact on the NIC see, Walsh, “Transforming the AIC,” 243-259.

2. Walsh, Intelligence Leadership and Governance.

3. See endnote 3 for roles and functions of all Australian intelligence agencies.

4. Rudd, The first national security statement to the Australian parliament.

5. Walsh, “Transforming the AIC.”

6. See Walsh, “Intelligence and National Security Issues in Policing,” 155; Walsh, “ Transforming the AIC”; Jones, “Intelligence and the Management of National Security: the Post 9/11 Evolution of an Australian National Security Community.”

7. The Office of National Intelligence (ONI) was established in 2018. It has absorbed the all-source assessment functions of its predecessor the ONA but has also now been given an IC enterprise management and coordination mandate. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is Australia’s domestic security service with key functions such as counter-terrorism and counterespionage. The Australian Geospatial Organisation (AGO) is Australia’s geospatial and imagery collection agency. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) is Australia’s key criminal intelligence collection and analysis agency focused on serious organised crime. The Department of Home Affairs is a policy and coordination department which seeks to bring together the functions of federal law enforcement agencies, national and transport security, criminal justice, emergency management and border-related agencies. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is Australia’s federal law enforcement investigations agency. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) is Australia’s foreign intelligence collection agency. AUSTRAC is Australia’s financial intelligence and anti-money laundering regulatory agency, and the Australian Signals Directorate is Australia’s SIGINT collection and cyber security agency.

8. Fingar, Reducing Uncertainty, 53.

9. Gentry and Gordon, Strategic Warning Intelligence, 12

10. Somewhat ironically compared to the U.S., most of the literature on strategic intelligence practice in Australia has focused on law enforcement contexts rather than security intelligence or national security, see Coyne and Bell, The role of strategic intelligence in law enforcement; Ratcliffe, Strategic Thinking in Criminal Intelligence; Walsh, Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis; Hammond–Errey and Ray, “A new methodology for strategic assessment of transnational threats.” Though a broader academic focus is starting to emerge through ongoing research projects such as Melbourne University’s Hunt Lab for Intelligence Research, Analytical Rigour Project.

11. ACIC, Criminal Intelligence Doctrine, Philosophy, Principles and Standards.

12. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 91.

13. Goodman, “9/11: The Failure of Strategic Intelligence,” 62.

14. Pillar, “Good literature and bad history,” 1042. Others such as Heuer also refer to the hindsight bias intelligence failure reviewers often suffer from when the argue that past events were more foreseeable than was the case, “Limits of Intelligence Analysis,”88.

15. Marrin, “The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks,” 200-201.

16. Betts, “Analysis, War and Decision,” 61.

17. See for instance: Gentry, “Intelligence Failure Retrained;” Zegart, “9/11 and the FBI: The Organizational Roots of Failure.”

18. The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) is the 1951 collective security non-binding agreement between Australia and New Zealand and, separately, Australia and the United States, to co–operate on military matters in the Pacific Ocean region, although today the treaty is taken to relate to conflicts worldwide. It provides that an armed attack on any of the three parties would be dangerous to the others, and that each should act to meet the common threat. It set up a committee of foreign ministers that can meet for consultation.

19. Walsh, “Intelligence and National Security Issues in Policing,” 109–127; Walsh, Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis.

20. Flood, Report of the Inquiry into Australian Intelligence Agencies, 2–3.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 25.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid., 26.

25. Ibid, 41–42. Though Flood’s conclusion is somewhat contested by a 2004 parliamentary inquiry, Bali 2002: Security Threats to Australians in Southeast Asia, that travel advice to Australians travelling to Bali was not ‘adquately commensurate with the level of threat that existed there’, 99–101.

26. Ibid, 186.

27. L’Estrange and Merchant, 2017 Independent Intelligence Review. The earlier (2011) Cornall Black Review made no substantive recommendations to government including about strategic intelligence matters. Cornall and Black, Independent review of the intelligence community report.

28. Walsh, “Improving strategic intelligence analytical practice through qualitative social research,” 548.

29. Marrin, “Why strategic intelligence analysis has limited influence on American foreign policy,” 725–742.

30. L’Estrange and Merchant, 2017 Independent Intelligence Review, 49.

31. Walsh, “Making future leaders in the US Intelligence Community;” Walsh, Intelligence Leadership and Governance.

32. Flood, Report of the Inquiry into Australian Intelligence Agencies, 42.

33. Post the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review, serious organised crime is now considered by the Australian government as a national security threat which justified the entry of ACIC and parts of AFP, HA, AUSTRAC into the expanded NIC.

34. Christopher and Cope, “A practitioner’s perspective of UK strategic intelligence;” Walsh, Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis; Ratcliffe, “The Effectiveness of Police Intelligence Management;” and Ratcliffe, Intelligence Led Policing.

35. Ibid.

36. Walsh, Intelligence Leadership and Governance, 69.

37. See note 9 above, 217.

38. Ibid.

39. Heidenrich, “The State of Strategic Intelligence;” Miller, “U.S. Strategic Intelligence Forecasting and the Perils of Prediction,” 687–701; George, “Reflections on CIA Analysis: Is it Finished?” 72-8; and Gentry and Gordon, Strategic Warning Intelligence: History, Challenges, and Prospects.

40. There is now an increasing volume of both official, semi–official and other research collections on the history of various ‘Five Eyes’ IC agencies; including Australia that survey the impact of leaders on agency cultures, see for example: Warner, Central Intelligence: Origin and Evolution; Goodman, “Learning to Walk: The Origins of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee;” Horner, The Spy Catchers; Blaxland and Crawley, The Secret Cold War; Andrew, The Defence of the Realm; Moran et al., Spy Chiefs; Maddrell et al., Spy Chiefs Intelligence Leaders in Europe; and Walsh, Intelligence Leadership and Governance.

41. Walsh, “Improving Strategic Intelligence Analytical Practice Through Qualitative Social Research,” 548–562; Walsh, Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis.

42. Whitesmith, “Experimental Research in Reducing the Risk of Cognitive Bias in Intelligence Analysis,” 1-26; Coulthart, “Why do analysts use structured analytic techniques?” 933-948.

43. Dhami, “Towards an evidence–based approach to communicating uncertainty in intelligence analysis,” 258. See also, Irwin, and Mandel, “Improving information evaluation for intelligence production,” 503–525.

44. Ibid.; Chang and Tetlock, “Rethinking the training of intelligence analysts,” 903–920.

45. Allen and Chan, Artificial intelligence and national security.

46. Ibid.

47. Lim, “Big Data and Strategic Intelligence,” 619-635.

48. Seffers, “Decoding the Future for National Security.” IARPA has sponsored several programs to improve the forecasting of complex and emerging events. Many programs have used forecasting tournaments involving people from around the world to generate forecasts about, thousands of real-world events. Most of these programs have used predictive analytics and former IARPA director Jason Matheny, cites several programs that have demonstrated ‘predictive success’ including the Open-Source Indicators program, where he suggested they were able to predict disease outbreak earlier than traditional reporting. This program used a crowdsourcing technique in which people across the globe offered their predictions on several events (e.g., political uprisings, disease outbreaks and elections). The data analysis relied on social media trends and web queries indicating potential behavior suggestive of a disease outbreak or political uprising.

49. Walsh, “Teaching intelligence in the Twenty-First Century,” 1005–1021; Harrison et al., “Tradecraft to Standards – Moving Criminal Intelligence Practice to a Profession through the Development of a Criminal Intelligence Training and Development Continuum.”

50. Walsh, Intelligence Leadership and Governance, 132-150.

51. For an historical overview of the National Strategic Intelligence Course, see Walsh and Ratcliffe, “Strategic Criminal Intelligence Education,” 152–166.

52. See note 49 above.

53. L’Estrange and Merchant, Independent Intelligence Review, 49.

54. Walsh, “Transforming the Australian intelligence community,” 243-259.

55. Withers et al., Social Science Research and Intelligence in Australia.

56. In the last few years (2019 onwards), there is growing evidence of the NIC seeking to improve forecasting models, identifying better analytical practice and improving methodologic skills see for example the work currently being done by Melbourne University’s Hunt Lab for Intelligence Research, Analytical Rigour Project. https://huntlab.science.unimelb.edu.au/home/research/analytic-rigour/Also, in 2020, the ONI and Defence Department has sponsored a new national intelligence and discovery research grant process for academics, and this could provide another opportunity for research on strategic intelligence related issues.

57. See note 54 above.

58. Walsh (author) was one of the peer reviewers for the final report and provided the recommendations see, Withers et al., Social Science Research and Intelligence in Australia.

59. See note 52 above.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patrick F. Walsh

Patrick F. Walsh, PhD, is a former intelligence analyst who has worked in Australian national security and law enforcement agencies. He is an associate professor, intelligence and security studies at the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, Charles Sturt University, Australia. He has consults to government and his research focuses on a range of intelligence capability issues including governance, leadership, intelligence and ethics, biosecurity, health security and cyber. He is the author of Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis, Routledge, UK 2011; Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2018; and Intelligence Leadership and Governance. Building Effective Intelligence Communities in the 21st Century, Routledge, 2020.

Mark Harrison MBE

Mark Harrison MBE is a former senior leader in the Australian intelligence community with over 30 years’ experience within the law enforcement domain. He has a strong research and publication focus on criminal intelligence, forensic intelligence and Geoforensics delivered through Adjunct professorial positions with Charles Sturt University and the University of Canberra. He is also a member and adviser on several national and international intelligence and security- related committees.