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Time for a Change in U.S. Intelligence?: Tinkering Is Dangerous, Unnecessary
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20269 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1992 |
1,622 Words |
| Author
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Constantine C. Menges
Constantine C. Menges is Research Professor of International
Relations at George Washington University and director of the
Program on Transitions to Democracy and editor of the journal
Problems of Post-Communism. His most recent book is
Transitions from Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe
(1993, editor and contributor). |
The dramatic unraveling of communism in Europe since 1989 has initiated a new era of historic transition full of hope and prospects for a much brighter future, but it is also accompanied by new risks and uncertainties. The proposal to reorganize national intelligence under a single intelligence "czar" made by Sen. David Boren--one of our most thoughtful and effective legislative leaders whom I greatly respect--focuses on our hopes for a far more peaceful future of international relations. This is not a good idea now, however, because it fails to consider the significant uncertainties we still face.
We might recall that in each of the previous historical transitions in this century, events turned out far differently than initially expected. The first was the end of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires at the conclusion of World War I, which was expected to establish self-determination and constitutional self-government but led mostly to squabbling dictatorships and instability instead.
Many in the West expected the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to inaugurate a new era of positive relations between individuals and their government and a more equitable distribution of property. Instead, it produced oppression, a privileged elite, mass poverty, and relentless--though often concealed and indirect--international aggression. It also set the stage for the tragedy of fascism and the world war needed to defeat it.
Peace Hopes Betrayed
The United Nations was established in 1945 with the intention of inaugurating a new era of peace. The United States disbanded its wartime intelligence service (the OSS) and reduced its military personnel from 12 million to 1.5 million by 1946. But instead of the expected international harmony and cooperation, the Soviet Union launched a global effort of indirect aggression through armed subversion. Contrary to the expectations engendered by the "Grand Alliance" against Hitler, by three summit meetings among the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and by the terms of the UN Charter, Moscow launched the Cold War and succeeded in bringing 11 countries (Eastern Europe, China, North Korea) under communist control by 1949.
The underlying assumption of many in Congress who seek a major reorganization of the intelligence agencies is that we have already arrived at a situation where the threats posed by the expansionism and military capabilities of communist regimes have passed. Yet we can already see that
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