C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

19can also be or become intelligence. For instance, the predecessor of the National Security Agency(NSA) intercepted more than 17,500 coded diplomatic and military telegrams from the Netherlandsbetween 1 July 1944 and 31 June 1945. The code breakers issued a daily bulletin. Of the almost fourthousand messages that were decrypted in 1945, 1857 were included in the bulletin. The messages thatwere not included can definitely also be considered intelligence because they were immediately availablefor translation and perusal at the request of the consumers. 47In the second place, there are always permanent needs for intelligence (known as standingrequirements), which do not have to be constantly re-established in consultation. In conflict situationsor wars, as in Bosnia or Croatia, this involves the military state of affairs of the opponent, or thedevelopments at the front. In many Western capitals before the fall of the Berlin Wall it also involved,for example, the political, military and economic developments in the Soviet Union and in EasternEurope. Other examples would be relevant political and economic developments in certain regions thatare deemed to be of unchanging importance to a state’s national security policy.Again, the intelligence cycle outlined above is a simplification of the reality. Situations willalways arise in which this cycle is quickly abandoned. During a political or military crisis, within theframework of crisis management, policy makers will have a greater interest in raw intelligence. There isno time to wait for a fully digested intelligence product at such moments. An example is the CubanMissile Crisis of 1961, during which information on the positions of the Soviet nuclear missiles and themovements of Russian vessels were crucial to rapid decision-making on the US side. 48A final example, which further clarifies the difference between the theory and practice of thecycle, concerns a general problem for secret services, which in a certain sense disrupts the intelligencecycle. This problem is known as the compartmentalization principle. Even in ‘ordinary’ organizations,problems arise because different departments have interests that do not run in parallel, or staff whopursue their own objectives, which are not immediately beneficial to the objectives of the organization.This is all the more true of secret services, where departments, bureaux and individual staff build wallsaround their areas of work, and lose sight of the overall organization or policy objectives. This isjustified by the need-to-know principle (only someone who needs the information gets it; whoever doesnot need it, does not get it). This background sometimes creates conflict between the variousdepartments within a service, which can have an impact on the cycle. Not all information then reachesthe cycle.For example, if an intelligence service fails to predict a crisis, invasion, nuclear test, or missilelaunch, then the service will often claim that it did not have the correct intelligence at its disposal ingood time. It is often described as an intelligence failure. However, like the author Russ Travers alreadysaid, the system is sufficiently dysfunctional (despite the best intentions) that intelligence failure isguaranteed. Though the form is less important than the fact, the variations of an intelligence failure areendless. Failure may be of the traditional variety: the intelligence community fails to predict the fall of afriendly government or does do not provide sufficient warning of a surprise attack against one of theallies or interests. The intelligence community is completely surprised by a state-sponsored terroristattack or fail to detect an unexpected country acquiring a weapon of mass destruction. Or, as Traversobserves, it may take a more non-traditional form: the intelligence community overstates numerousthreats leading to tens of billions of dollars of unnecessary expenditures. Database errors can forexample lead to a politically unacceptable number of casualties in a peace-enforcement operation or anoperation does not go well because the intelligence community was not able to provide the incrediblyspecific data necessary to support a new generation of weapons. 49Others define an intelligence failure as the failure to provide warning to commanders andpolicymakers where a duty to provide such warning exists. As an example, the Japanese certainly knew47 NA, RG 457, NSA Records, Box 1028, Folder Monthly Production Trends Report, Tab E: Annual Production 1944-1945, June1945.48 CIA, CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, passim.49 Russ Travers, ‘The Coming Intelligence Failure’, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 1 (1997) , passim.