INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO U.S. BUSINESS. Steven M. Shaker Director of Business Intelligence Global Associates, Ltd.

Transcription

1 INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO U.S. BUSINESS BY Steven M. Shaker Director of Business Intelligence Global Associates, Ltd. George Kardulias Deputy Director of Business Intelligence Global Associates, Ltd. Presented to: First International Symposium "National Security and National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions", December 1992 It is Time for a Change Change is upon us. Russia, Eastern Europe, Israel, the European Common Market, and now in our own government massive transformations are underway. Since the advent of the cold war the intelligence community has served the nation as our primary barometer for predicting and measuring change overseas. As new leadership takes over in the White House, Pentagon and the CIA in January, so will the barometer's settings and standards of measurement be altered, as new policies, priorities and practices take place. The new President's vision and agenda is quite different from his predecessor's, and his implementation will dramatically impact the intelligence community. The Clinton Administration will replace the laissez faire economic policy concentrating largely on market mechanisms to straighten itself out, with an activist government, aggressively pursuing policies and programs enhancing U.S. industrial competitiveness.

2 Of top priority to the U.S. Government will be winning the "economic wars". As in the more traditional warfare, the Intelligence Community will remain as the primary instrument to monitoring the competitors' activities, discerning trends, and forecasting possible outcomes. The collection and analysis of economic intelligence will focus on activities and performance of foreign corporations, key researchers and business executives and commercial technology innovations. Within the White House, in addition to supporting the National Security Council, the Intelligence Community will also serve as the international "eyes and ears" of the newly formed Economic Security Council. Key Treasury and Commerce Department officials will be the major consumers of economic intelligence. Dissemination of intelligence relating to foreign technological innovation must also be disseminated to the leadership of the new civilian DARPA. As important as it is to keep our Government's senior policy makers and agency managers informed of actionable information, in order for us to win economic battles, it is essential that we disseminate intelligence beyond the traditional consumers. To achieve military victory it is as imperative that soldiers at the front be furnished with "real-time" tactical intelligence, as it is for the Pentagon planners to have strategic intelligence. In the "economic wars", those at the front line are not political appointees, Senior Executive Service (SES) civil servants or Senior Intelligence Service (SIS) government employees, flag officers or diplomats. Those at the front line are U.S. businessmen and women. The purpose of this "white paper" is to advocate the notion that the U.S. Intelligence Community should aggressively support U.S. business. We also are including several recommendations for implementing programs and policies facilitating Government intelligence service to corporate America. The Foreigners Do It. Critics may claim that the Commerce Department already provides analyses and other services to U.S. customers. While this is true, the Intelligence Community has a much greater collection and analytical capability, that if properly coordinated, its products could help launch U.S. industry to a level where not only does it become competitive again, but the U.S. economy would rise and we could enjoy full employment. The changing political scene is resulting in a worldwide shift of intelligence resources and assets away from military concerns to that of gathering foreign trade information. French and other European intelligence organizations have been actively involved in supporting state run corporations. These activities run the gamut from furnishing market analyses to the electronic eavesdropping of foreign businesses in their country.

3 Again, critics might shun the intelligence apparatus of a country helping its private sector. But it is important to understand that many nations do have a cooperative arrangement between government and industry, and the results are very dramatic. The Japanese and the French for example have a close relationship between their respective intelligence services and their private enterprises. With the Japanese it is a more formal arrangement with an intermediary called MITI (Ministry of Industrial Trade and Industry), which provides finished intelligence or analysis to Japanese corporations trying to penetrate foreign markets. With the French, the role is somewhat more covert and direct. The French security service is free to establish a two way street with French businessmen in order to promote French policy. A two way street means that the French security service not only debriefs sources, but provides needed business intelligence to the French citizens it deals with, thus providing the French international executive with an added advantage. Former head of the French external intelligence service Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), Pierre Marikon, has publicly disclosed specific examples in which French firms were furnished government intelligence, giving them the competitive edge over American companies. Alleged DGSE covert corporate espionage includes bugging the seats of airline passengers and ransacking hotel rooms and briefcases. By the way, it is a matter of U.S. Intelligence Community policy that there will be no two way sharing of intelligence with U.S. businessmen. In fact, the current Director of Central Intelligence, Robert Gates, has been quoted as saying that as long as he is the DCI there will not be a sharing of intelligence with U.S. industry. It is this adversarial role that is at the root of the problem being addressed here. Why can't the U.S. government share needed information with its citizens? We all know that information is power. There is a mightier than thou attitude pervasive throughout the U.S. Intelligence Community that needs to change. The people in the Intelligence Community are public servants and they serve the U.S. public, not their own bureaucracies. With the inauguration of a new President and change in administration, intelligence priorities will change and be focused on helping the economy. Bureaucrats who fight this change will lose, and find themselves supporting the wrong requirements. Business as usual will not work anymore--not with the mandate this incoming President has. The Intelligence Community is behind the power curve on exchanging information with industry, as non intelligence organizations are already on the band wagon. For example, the Department of Energy (DOE) is negotiating with the California-based Rankin Group, an advertising and public relations firm to help DOE to begin to assist in the transfer of technology from DOE's nuclear weapons laboratories. The Defense Department is also moving in the same direction. DoD Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Vic Reis, is mapping out a strategy

4 for DoD and DOE to transfer commercially viable technologies from various government laboratories to U.S. manufacturers. Of course NASA's spin-off successes are legendary. The following recommendations are meant to stimulate further thought and discussion on ways in which the U.S. Intelligence community can furnish support to U.S. business. We realize that there may be certain procedural difficulties, but we are confident that the rewards to our nation will be worth the effort. 1. ESTABLISH NIO FOR COMPETITIVE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE With the change in focus towards improving the U.S. economy, the new administration could institute a systematic method for the U.S. Intelligence Community to assist U.S. businesses with a formal organizational link between the Economic Security Council and the CIA's National Intelligence Officers. Specifically the CIA should appoint an NIO for Industrial Competitiveness. This NIO would be the prime catalyst for helping American corporations regain the competitive advantage, and would be responsible for interfacing between private industry and the U.S. Government. Usually, NIOs are assigned specific geographic or subject areas of responsibility such as the NIO for the former Soviet Union, or the NIO for Technology Transfer. The new NIO slot would be both a liaison role and an action role. The NIO for Industrial Competitiveness would liaise between all branches and agencies of government to coordinate assistance to U.S. corporations, and to prevent friction and gridlock within the government. The action role would be to service legal and legitimate intelligence requirements for U.S. industry. Furthermore, the NIO for Industrial Competitiveness could provide customized analyses for industry. This could be done using the broad analytical capabilities of the CIA or other government agencies, such as the Commerce Department. 2. MAKE INTELLIGENCE A "TWO WAY STREET" WITH U.S. BUSINESS Some of the most valuable intelligence on foreign political, military, scientific and economic developments comes from U.S. businessmen and women, who out of patriotic duty are willing to be debriefed by representatives from the Intelligence Community. Although the Intelligence Community has a great deal of information which would prove valuable to these sources or their companies, the flow of information is typically a one way street, with Government "picking" the knowledge of industry. In the "economic wars" it is not government officials who are at the front line, but rather U.S. business people. These are the individuals who should benefit from

5 economic intelligence, and therefore should become consumers of Intelligence Community reporting. "Sources and methods" must and can remain protected. The operational collectors of intelligence do not reveal sources and methods to analytical components. Thus, intelligence disseminated to U.S. businesses would also be filtered. CEOs and other business recipients could be required to have certain clearances and undergo security screening. Such details can be worked out - they must, for us to be competitive. Classified sources and methods aside, where national intelligence can make its most impressive contribution to national competitiveness is in the unclassified, or "open source" arena. By applying tested analysis capabilities to the wealth of information available in the open source arena, national intelligence can help illuminate the playing field, and publish general, unclassified reports on foreign market access, foreign government subsidies to foreign businesses, foreign trade and monetary policy, and costs of production as well as other key unclassified but strategically important topics. 3. DEVELOP INTELLIGENCE COMPONENT OF NATIONAL RESEARCH & EDUCATION NETWORK, RESTORE PROJECT SOCRATES The most important factor in national competitiveness in the 1990's may well be Vice-President elect Al Gore's National Research & Education Network (NREN). By providing the information handling infrastructure necessary to be competitive in the age of information warfare, NREN does for national competitiveness what the national highways did for inter-state commerce in times past. In the mid-1980's, the Defense Intelligence Agency developed an excellent capability for monitoring foreign technology, called Project Socrates. This activity utilized the latest technology assessment and forecasting tools to track and predict Japanese and European industrial, state, academic, and commercial developments. For lack of a broader consumer base, this project was discontinued. We strongly urge a restoration of this project, and others like it in different topical areas. The project's analyses and findings should be furnished to the private sector at no cost. Beyond specific intelligence reporting, the intelligence community can make a real difference, and add significant value to NREN, if it develops "NREN PLUS" and establishes its own unclassified information architecture with direct connectivity to NREN. Every intelligence analyst should have access to--and be accessible by--citizen scholars and entrepreneurs. By enabling the intelligence community to draw on the considerable talent pool accessible through NREN, and by publishing unclassified reports electronically exploitable through NREN, the Intelligence Community can make electronic connectivity "from schoolhouse to White House" a reality, and increase our Nation's competitiveness.

6 We would be pleased to receive your comments and ideas on how the Intelligence Community can assist U.S. Business. Contact Steve Shaker or George Kardulias at: Global Associates, Ltd Clarendon Boulevard Arlington, Virginia (703) (703) (Fax)

7 FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: NATIONAL SECURITY & NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS Proceedings, Volume I - Link Page Previous Intelligence Analysis in the Year 2002: A Concept of Operations Next The GOP Terrorism Task Force: Research Techniques & Philosophy Return to Electronic Index Page