Intelligence and military doctrine: paradox or oxymoron?

ABSTRACT

This article examines the evolution of the current British military joint intelligence doctrine. We argue that military intelligence doctrine is dogged by an intrinsic tension between the ethos and expectations of military doctrine and those of the professional practice of intelligence. We further argue not only that prior iterations of UK joint intelligence doctrine failed to effectively deal with this intelligence doctrine dilemma, but also that measures in the current doctrine to address this problem directly created their own problems. Moreover, as a result, otherwise sound innovations in the current UK intelligence doctrine have proven unsuitable to wider diffusion in more recent intelligence doctrine such as the new NATO intelligence doctrine which, otherwise, draws extensively on its British precursor.

KEYWORDS:

• Intelligence
• military
• doctrine
• joint
• UK
• defence

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to stress their indebtedness to the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, Shrivenham, who agreed to release the earlier 1999 and 2003 Joint Intelligence Doctrines, both originally promulgated at RESTRICTED, without requiring recourse to a Freedom of Information Application by the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Conversation with DCDC officials, November 2009.

2. Conversation, JSCSC Shrivenham, Intermediate Command and Staff Course, November 2010.

3. The concept of intelligence failure is, of course, a contested one but we shall use it in its broadest, conventional sense (as distinct e.g. from policy failure). See, e.g. Jervis, (2010, pp. 2–3), Betts (2007, p. 187) and Dahl, (2013, p. 20).

4. Traffic analysis (TA) was a principal communications intelligence sub-discipline during the Second World War. Because of the broadening of materials covered under the idea of “communications data” and emergence of network modelling tools such as i2 and Palantir and which can process a wide range of information besides traffic data (such as physical movements, institutional links and financial transactions) during the 1990s TA has been largely subsumed under methods like network and link analysis.

5. In defence and military intelligence, the distinction between these two is signal – national intelligence chiefly serves politicians who make policy but defence and military intelligence largely serves Service commanders who implement policy decided by politicians but do not make it.

6. See variously, Michael Herman (1996, p.289); Johnson (2007); Gentry (2008).

7. The jazz metaphor was attributed in a footnote on the same page to “US Marine Corps Pamphlet Countering Irregular Threats – a Comprehensive Approach June 2006”.

8. Typically attributed to Robert Rosen who articulated the approach during the late 1970s and early 1980s (1978, 1985). Atypically for the drafting practice displayed elsewhere in the document, the 3^rd edition did not reference any sources for its use of process theory.

9. Principles of Defence Intelligence Assessment or PODIA remains protectively marked although it is referenced in the Cabinet Office “Jack Report”, parts of which were declassified in 2010, see unpublished MA dissertation by Paul Brelsford (2010).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philip H. J. Davies

Philip H. J. Davies is Professor of Intelligence Studies at Brunel University, London where he is also Director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies. Professor Davies is one of the very few British intelligence and security studies scholars approaching the subject in policy analysis and social science terms rather than historical study. He has published on the organisation and management of a number of UK national intelligence organisations. He has also written extensively on the comparative analysis of intelligence institutions within and beyond the Anglosphere, focusing on the theory of “national intelligence cultures”. Between 2010 and 2011 he led Brunel’s contribution to the production of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Doctrine as well as the first edition of the capstone doctrine on “Understanding”.

Kristian Gustafson

Kristian Gustafson is Senior Lecturer in Intelligence Studies, Politics and History at Brunel University, London and Deputy Director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies. Dr. Gustafson focuses on research in the history and practice of intelligence. Between 2010 and 2011 he was part of the Brunel contribution to the production of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Doctrine and capstone doctrine on “Understanding”, having previously been attached to the Strategic Horizons Unit at the Cabinet Office and subsequently serving as an advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Interior Directorate of Police Intelligence, in Kabul, in 2012-2013.