Better Spies, Better Intelligence
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As a new presidential term and a new Congress begin, the Center for American Progress has launched the Progressive Priorities Project to provide policymakers and the public with a positive vision for progressive policymaking supported by a series of new and bold policy ideas in priority areas identified by American Progress. Better Spies, Better Intellience: A Progressive Strategy for Creating a Professional Intelligence Corps is the twelfth of more than a dozen papers in the series that American Progress will issue over the course of the coming weeks. In addition to providing broad policy recommendations, each of the papers in the series proposes specific steps that policymakers can take to achieve the broader policy goals. All of the papers in the series will be compiled and published as a book early this year.
A Progressive Strategy for Creating a Professional Intelligence Corps
Executive Summary
Terrorism on the scale of the September 11 attacks remains the preeminent security threat facing the nation. It is vital that our intelligence agencies provide policymakers relevant information that can help them understand, detect, and protect against this threat. Numerous reports and studies, both before and after the September 11 attacks, have indicated that a major overhaul of the Intelligence Community is necessary. But while Congress was seized with the headline-grabbing debate surrounding organizational charts and the one person who would be the Director of National Intelligence, it largely neglected the tens of thousands of employees who make up the Intelligence Community.
Personnel are the critical element in any major organizational transformation. A strategy for progressive intelligence reform, therefore, must focus on maximizing the effectiveness of the Intelligence Community’s most crucial resource—its people. The key to achieving this goal is an integrated national strategy to create a professional intelligence corps—similar to how we recruit, train, and build our military services—that can meet the challenges of today’s threats and identify and adapt to those of tomorrow.