As soon as I submitted the paperwork for my clearance, I told the people I had listed on the forms to expect a call or visit from an investigator. There was the usual "Wow!" response. In the eyes of most, I gained in respect. In a few I was thought to be "selling out" to the government war machine (yes, I have friends who still think like this). There was, however, a general sense that I was joining this secret association, like the Free Masons.
The mystique afforded to our intelligence agencies is both a blessing and a curse. For me, it was stifiling. The intelligence community drowns in senseless paperwork and procedures that numb creativity and frustrate end results. By the time I left, I believed, and still do, that the IC is mired in pure process. Nothing matters much beyond creating and following procedures. And there are plenty of bureaucrats around to make sure you get nothing completed. Far from connecting the dots, they're drowning in them. The IC unable to analyze the unimaginable amounts of data pouring in because they are too focused on managing it all.
There are exceptions. There are a few groups within the IC who focus on results, but most of these are related to military operations, where results are the only measure of progress, not another round of peer review meetings to assess next year's assessment meeting goals. Far from being a fast-paced world of spooks and trenchcoats, most IC members push paper and create more.
Over at Kent's Imperative, there's a discussion of intelligence mystique, that sense of wonder about the IC that's both a blessing and a curse:
Thus the mystique does serve a value, or did once. But the reverse side of the equation is the damage it does. It is most often subtle, creeping and insidious. The mystique too often warps the collective practitioners, in our insular world behind the curtain. We begin to rely on the incantations to cover our slips of tongue or of pen. We assume we should be believed because our judgements carry with them the weight of many seals, and cannot understand why our consumers dismiss what is irrelevant or ill-served. We depend upon the mystique to shield us within the walls of our vaults, so that none may enter and pose challenge before the carefully crafted illusion is complete.
This is not to say we are dishonest, or even shamans clutching ancient beliefs. We as an aggregate body are but human, and we the authors just as much as anyone. It is a difficult enough thing to shatter our preconceptions day by day, and reexamine the tenants of our knowledge on every subject again and again to ensure we take nothing for granted. But intelligence is an ego investment profession. The mystique in some ways begins to define who we are, and not just for the posers and wannabes on the cocktail party circuit. Even the most respectable and most balanced among us to some extent defines themselves by the all-encompassing nature of the work – in some ways, we couldn’t be as good at what we do if we did not live and breathe it. But it is a far harder thing to reexamine who one is – this is for most the stuff of mid-life crisis or at least major life events, not a daily task on the to-do list. But in essence, that is what is demanded of analysts seeking to avoid the pitfalls of too-hardened mindsets and other flavours of cognitive bias. The measure to which we succeed is often based as much on the flexibility of personality than the rigor of imposed training or personal discipline – but one aspect of the myriad of factors that combine to self-select the practitioners that will stand above the crowd.
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