One Government Intelligence Agency example essay topic

With today's every-growing national debt, there is a way to decrease spending to save the United States a great deal of money: Combine all the intelligence agencies into one. Although it may be more convenient to have many different intelligence assets in the form of organizations, there is really no need for more than one government intelligence agency. The Central Intelligence Agency is the heart of all-source fusion from the different intelligence disciplines and should remain. With the CIA as the only budgeted intelligence organization, the United States could afford to have faster intelligence while using better assets.

Executive departments now demanding intelligence on new subjects (other than the cold war) might have to look elsewhere or develop their own capability. Much long-term research may be better provided by the private sector with fewer limitations on how the organization is to spend it's capital. It is important to preserve the CIA's central function of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating in one place utilizing all information from all intelligence sources, however and wherever it was collected. One of the problems with today's intelligence operations is the expense and the fact that if something does go wrong, the taxpayer still has to pick up the bill. With commercial intelligence, there is no payment if there is no report. The next problem area is with the military intelligence.

With the Clinton administration cutbacks, the military has suffered severe losses in the technology intelligence race. There are units that even have to use methods from over twenty years ago in order to collect barely enough intelligence in order to accomplish a mission. With human intelligence, the military is capable of providing the bodies and training for any intelligence mission and should be utilized even more to do so. With one intelligence agency and a small support branch of "servicemen" within this agency, the government could save enough money to increase defense spending while still decreasing the national debt.

With the military only using intelligence gathering methods, the analyst would no longer be needed. The CIA would also include an inventory of think tank experts to be utilized when crises develop in otherwise lower-priority areas. This could be a highly effective and economical alternative to standing armies of analysts attempting to provide blanket coverage of every continent and every issue. Sending military members to professional intelligence schooling does not make a lot of sense when the government could hire a civilian to do the same job and would more than likely the individual will be willing to work in the intelligence field longer than a four year enlistment contract. The CIA should also stay involved with the in a constant threat assessment around the world in order to avoid inflation reports from non-government organizations on military installations. The one problem that may arise is that the privately funded "intelligence supply shops" may use fabrication in order to increase the need for their particular organizations information.

The one thing that can be developed from all of these changes is competitive intelligence gathering. The information collected from the privately funded organizations could be used for government sale or private sale. An example of this could be; a new type of anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) were being developed in North Korea, this information could be very useful research and development for a United States business that develops countermeasures against the ATGM; thus, the benefit would be that the government would already have a supplier trying to develop the first successful countermeasure even prior to the ATGM's first use on the battlefield. There is no need for any other government intelligence organization other than the CIA.

With privately funded organizations to foot the bill for operations the United States can save a great deal of money and decrease the national debt while increasing government spending on the almost crippled armed forces.