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When Politics and Intelligence Meet

Over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st, modern states and their intelligence organs have gone from denying the existence of espionage to plausible deniability of their operations to an open secret and, finally, to daily front page news. Over the last decade, policymakers in the United States and elsewhere have used—some would argue abused—intelligence publicly to support their security policies. Pulling intelligence into the public sphere and its use to support policy has led to charges that intelligence has been “politicized.” The distance which should be kept between those who make policy decisions and those who inform them with intelligence has been a source of debate since the beginning of the intelligence community and remains so today.

 

Politicization

“Politicization can manifest itself in many ways, but in each case it boils down to the same essential elements: ‘Almost all agree that it involves deliberately distorting analysis or judgments to favor a preferred line of thinking irrespective of evidence. Most consider ’classic’ politicization to be only that which occurs if products are forced to conform to policymakers views. ‘ (DCI Robert Gates)

 

Politicization of intelligence occurs when political, individual or organizational advancement and the related policy positions of policymakers come to subjectively influence the Intelligence Cycle, altering the ideally objective nature of its products. Loch Johnson discusses it among his “Seven Sins of Strategic Intelligence.” Joshua Rovner identifies as many as eight different forms of politicization, but agrees with Johnson and James Wirtz that it is useful to separate them into categories, the most relevant being “direct manipulation” and “indirect manipulation.”

“Politicization is like a fog. Though you cannot hold it in your hands…it is real and it does affect people.”

Direct Manipulation

Direct manipulation—the most blatant form of politicization—is an “active effort to shape analysis so that it fits preferred policies.” This can include reaching certain conclusions or ignoring facts in an effort to “