Analytic Outreach for Intelligence: Insights from a Workshop on Emerging Biotechnology Threats

Abstract

This article describes a new effort to engage in analytic outreach between academic scholars and intelligence analysts on the issue of emerging biotechnology threats to US national security. The context of this outreach was a September 2012 meeting in London to explore possibilities for enhanced analytic outreach in relation to emerging biotechnology threats, supported by the UK Genomics Policy and Research Forum. This meeting consisted of a mix of current and former intelligence practitioners and policy officials, and social science and scientific experts, from both the UK and the US. As will be described below, this unique pairing of experts and subjects revealed new insights into how to improve intelligence assessments on biotechnology and bioweapons threats. It also revealed continuing challenges in reforming assessments within existing intelligence work routines.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation [grant number 1229919] and by the UK Economic and Social Research Council [grant number RES-145-28-0005].

Notes

¹ Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ‘Intelligence Community Directive 205: Analytic Outreach’, 16 July 2008, pp.1–6 < http://www.ncix.gov/publications/policy/docs/ICD_205-Analytic_Outreach.pdf> (accessed 11 April 2013).

² Ibid., p.1.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid., pp.1, 4.

⁵ Anonymous intelligence analyst, email communication with Kathleen M. Vogel, 21 October 2012.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 27 March 1996 (statement of Gordon C. Oehler, ‘Continuing Threat from Weapons of Mass Destruction’) < https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/1996/go_toc_032796.html> (accessed 11 April 2013).

⁸ National Security Council, ‘National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats’, November 2009, p.2 < http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/National_Strategy_for_Countering_BioThreats.pdf> (accessed 11 April 2013).

⁹ US Central Intelligence Agency, ‘The Darker Bioweapons Future’, 3 November 2003 < http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/bw1103.pdf> (accessed 11 April 2103); James B. Petro, Theodore R. Plasse, and Jack A. McNulty, ‘Biotechnology: Impact on Biological Warfare and Biodefense’, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science 1/3 (2003) pp.161–8; James B. Petro and David A. Relman, ‘Understanding Threats to Scientific Openness’, Science 302/5652 (2003) p.1898; Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Life Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academies Press 2006).

¹⁰ James B. Petro, ‘Intelligence Support to the Life Science Community: Mitigating Threats from Bioterrorism’, Studies in Intelligence 48/3 (2004) pp.57–68.

¹¹ For example, a number of policy reports and actions have calls for increased scientific engagement. See Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Life Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academies Press 2006); Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, ‘Report to the President of the United States’, 31 March 2005 < www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/wmdcomm.html>; Kenneth Brill, ‘Statement for the Record: Hearing on Bioscience and the Intelligence Community (Part II): Closing the Gap’, Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack of the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, 4 May 2006 < www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109hhrg35695/html/CHRG-109hhrg35695.htm>; Biological Sciences Experts Group, ‘Charter’ < www.fas.org/irp/eprint/bseg-concept.pdf>; US Central Intelligence Agency, ‘The Darker Bioweapons Future’, 3 November 2003 < www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/bw1103.pdf>.

¹² Claire Donovan, ‘The Australian Research Quality Framework: A Live Experiment in Capturing the Social, Economic, Environmental, and Cultural Returns of Publicly Funded Research’, New Directions for Evaluation 118 (2008) pp.47–60; European Commission, Improving Knowledge Transfer between Research Institutions and Industry across Europe: Embracing Open Innovation, COM 2007/182 (Brussels: European Commission 2007); Economic and Social Research Council, Strategic Plan 2009–2014 (Swindon: ESRC 2009); Ben Jongbloed and Arend Zomer, ‘Valorisation, Knowledge Transfer and IP: Creating Value from Academic Knowledge’, in P. Temple (ed.) Universities in the Knowledge Economy: Higher Education Organisation and Global Change (London: Routledge 2010); Jordi Molas-Gallart and Elena Casto-Martinez, ‘Ambiguity and Conflict in the Development of “Third Mission” Indicators’, Research Evaluation 16/4 (2007) pp.321–30.

¹³ Economic and Social Research Council, ESRC Research Funding Guide (Swindon: ESRC 2012); Assessment Framework and Guidance on Submissions, Research Excellence Framework (2011) < http://www.ref.ac.uk/media/ref/content/pub/assessmentframeworkandguidanceonsubmissions/02_11.pdf> (accessed 11 April 2013); Corie Lok, ‘Science for the Masses’, Nature 465 (2010) pp.416–8; James Britt Holbrook (ed.) ‘Special Issue: US National Science Foundation's Broader Impacts Criterion’, Social Epistemology 23/3–4 (2009) pp.177–345.

¹⁴ See National Research Council, Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academies Press 2011). Also, the Cultural Knowledge Consortium (CKC) was created in 2012 to ‘facilitate access among multi-disciplinary, worldwide, social science knowledge holders that fosters collaborative engagement in support of socio-cultural analysis requirements. The CKC supports US government and military decision-makers, while supporting collaboration and knowledge sharing throughout the socio-cultural community’. See < https://www.culturalknowledge.org/>.

¹⁵ For example, see Sandra M. Nutley, Isabel Walter, and Huw T. O. Davies, Using Evidence: How Research Can Inform Public Services (Bristol: Policy Press 2007).

¹⁶ See Christine Knight and Claire Lightowler, ‘Reflections of “Knowledge Exchange Professionals” in the Social Sciences: Emerging Opportunities and Challenges for University-Based Knowledge Brokers’, Evidence & Policy 6/4 (2010) pp.543–56.

¹⁷ For further details and reflection on the Forum's work, see Emma K. Frow, ‘A Forum for “Doing Society and Genomics”’, EMBO Reports 10/4 (2009) pp.318–21 < http://www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/forum/>.

¹⁸ A brief description of this meeting can be found at < http://www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/forum/events/pastevents/workshops/title,26429,en.html>. Funding support for the workshop was provided by the UK ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum. The Genomics Forum was based at the University of Edinburgh and was part of the ESRC Genomics Network (EGN), a major ESRC investment spanning five of the UK's leading universities examining the development and use of the science and technologies of genomics.

¹⁹ The workshop included the following panels: (1) Description of the Intelligence Problem; (2) Government Perspectives for Analysis; (3) Understanding the Emerging Life Science Landscape; (4) Revisiting the Past and Present to Understand the Future in the Life Sciences; (5) Novel Science and Social Science Approaches to Assess Biotechnology and Bioweapons Threats; (6) New Perspectives to Understand ‘Dark Creativity’, Illicit Activity, and the Abuse of the Life Sciences. Speakers included Glenn Cross, US Federal Bureau of Investigation; Anthony Treubrodt, US Federal Bureau of Investigation; Carl Ford, Georgetown University, USA; Lawrence Freedman, King's College, UK; Filippa Lentzos, King's College, UK; Gerald Epstein, US Department of Homeland Security; Paul Martin, University of Sheffield, UK; Brian Rappert, University of Exeter, UK; Stephen Hilgartner, Cornell University, USA; Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, George Mason University, USA; Keelie Murdock, Rathenau Instituut, Netherlands; Brian Balmer, University College London, UK; Michael Goodman, King's College, UK; Kimberly Glasgow, John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA; Ken Olson, George Mason University, USA; Emma Frow, Science Technology & Innovation Studies, University of Edinburgh, UK; Chandre Gould, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa; Ronald Schouten, Harvard University, USA; Caitriona McLeish, University of Sussex, UK; Kathleen M. Vogel, Cornell University, USA; in addition, there were speakers who chose to remain anonymous from the UK Ministry of Defence, the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, and the US Department of State.

²⁰ For a more detailed discussion of the models presented at the workshop see Kathleen M. Vogel, ‘Intelligent Assessment: Putting Emerging Biotechnology Threats in Context’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 69/1 (2013) pp.43–52; also see Kathleen M. Vogel, ‘Framing Biosecurity: An Alternative to the Biotech Revolution Model?’, Science and Public Policy 35/1 (2008) pp.45–54.

²¹ For a few examples, see Paul Nightingale, ‘Technological Capabilities, Invisible Infrastructure, and the Un-Social Construction of Predictability: The Overlooked Fixed Costs of Useful Research’, Research Policy 33/9 (2004) pp.1259–84; Paul Nightingale and Paul Martin, ‘The Myth of the Biotech Revolution’, Trends in Biotechnology 22/11 (2004) pp.564–9.

²² For some additional references that discuss the socio-organizational complexities of biotech development, see Michael M. Hopkins et al., ‘The Myth of the Biotech Revolution: An Assessment of Technological, Clinical, and Organizational Change’, Research Policy 36/4 (2007) pp.566–89; Gary Pisano, Science Business: The Promise, the Reality, and the Future of Biotech (Boston: Harvard Business School 2006); Roberta Joppi, Vittorio Bertele, and Silvio Garattini, ‘Disappointing Biotech’, British Medical Journal, 331/7521 (2005) pp.895–7; Adam Hedgcoe and Paul Martin, ‘The Drugs Don't Work: Expectations and the Shaping of Pharmacogenetics’, Social Studies of Science 33/3 (2003) pp.327–64; David F. Horrobin, ‘Modern Biomedical Research: An Internally Self-Consistent Universe with little Contact with Medical Reality?’, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 2 (2003) pp.151–4; David F. Horrobin, ‘Realism in Drug Discovery: Could Cassandra be Right?’, Nature Biotechnology 19/12 (2001) pp.1099–1100.

²³ For a more detailed discussion of this argument, see Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, ‘Barriers to Bioweapons: Intangible Obstacles to Proliferation’, International Security 36/4 (2012) pp.80–114.

²⁴ Other references for the Soviet bioweapons program that discuss its complexity are Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas, The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2012); Kathleen M. Vogel, ‘Bioweapons Proliferation: Where Science Studies and Public Policy Collide’, Social Studies of Science 36/5 (2006) pp.659–90.

²⁵ Discussions within the workshop were based on Chatham House rules. Therefore no attribution is given to those who provided comments during the question and answer period, in order to protect anonymity and facilitate a free flow of discussion.

²⁶ Other historians of technology have called for more evolutionary frameworks for understanding both old and new technologies. For some examples, see David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011); James W. Cortada, The Digital Flood: The Diffusion of Information Technology across the US, Europe, and Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012).

²⁷ Often times, much is gained analytically by studying failure in depth, although this is often overlooked. For one powerful example of the utility of studying technological failure, see Diane Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Chicago: University of Chicago 1997).

²⁸ For example, see Alan Cullison, ‘Inside al-Qaida's Hard Drive’, Atlantic Monthly 294/2 (2004); Alan Cullison and Andrew Higgins, ‘Forgotten Computer Reveals Thinking Behind Four Years of Al-Qaida Doings’, Wall Street Journal, 31 December 2001; Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, ‘Terrorists Odyssey: Saga of Dr. Zawahri Illuminates Roots of Al-Qaida Terror’, Wall Street Journal, 2 July 2002.

²⁹ Other published work that has discussed the difficulties in weaponizing and using biological agents includes Milton Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat (Carlisle: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute 2005); Jonathan B. Tucker, Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (Cambridge: MIT Press 2000).

³⁰ For more discussion of these current intelligence pressures in bioweapons assessments, see Kathleen M. Vogel, Phantom Menace or Looming Danger? A New Framework for Assessing Bioweapons Threats (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 2013). The general problems of current intelligence reporting have also been noted by other intelligence practitioners (current and former) and intelligence scholars. For some examples, see Rob Johnston, Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence 2005); Roger Z George, Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press 2008); Dennis M. Gormley, Transforming Intelligence through New Institutional Arrangements.Ridgway Center Working Papers (Pittsburgh, PA: Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies 2007); Amy B. Zegart, ‘“CNN with Secrets”: 9/11, the CIA, and the Organizational Roots of Failure’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 20/1 (2007) pp.18–49; Gregory F. Treverton, The Next Steps in Reshaping Intelligence (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2005); John A. Gentry, ‘A Framework for Reform of the US Intelligence Community’, 6 June 1995 < http://www.fas.org/irp/gentry/> (accessed 11 April 2013).

³¹ One intelligence report that illustrates the utility of this approach is Rob Johnston, Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study (Washington, DC: US Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence 2005).

³² See < http://www.globaluncertainties.org.uk/about/>.

³³ For an example, see National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future (Pittsburgh, PA: Government Printing Office 2004) < http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?id = 10472> (accessed 11 April 2013).

³⁴ Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, ‘Panel Provides Peer Review of Intelligence Research’, Science 318/5856 (2007) p.1538; Biological Sciences Experts Group, ‘Charter’ < http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/bseg-concept.pdf>.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathleen M. Vogel

Kathleen Vogel is an associate professor at Cornell, with a joint appointment in the Department of Science and Technology Studies and the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Vogel holds a PhD in biological chemistry from Princeton University. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, Vogel was appointed as a William C. Foster Fellow in the US Department of State's Office of Proliferation Threat Reduction in the Bureau of Nonproliferation. Vogel has also spent time as a visiting scholar at the Cooperative Monitoring Center, Sandia National Laboratories, and the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Her research focuses on studying the social and technical dimensions of bioweapons threats and the production of knowledge in intelligence assessments on WMD issues.

Christine Knight

Christine Knight is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Science, Technology & Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh. At the time of the workshop discussed in this paper, she was a Senior Policy Research Fellow in the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum at the University of Edinburgh. Before joining the University of Edinburgh in 2008 she worked in government and parliamentary research in South Australia. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, and received support for her graduate studies from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). She has a longstanding interest in interdisciplinarity and engagement with audiences outside the humanities and social sciences, including policymakers, scientists, and the general public.