COMMENTARY: Intelligence Losses Pose Large Risks as U.S. Troops Head Home - RAND

by Jason H. Campbell and Javed Ali

Muchuch has already been written about the potential national security implications of the apparent U.S. policy decisions to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria and reduce the current U.S. military presence in Afghanistan by half.

Lost within these larger policy debates and expert views are the inherent risks posed by the reduced access to intelligence precipitated by such decisions. Syria and Afghanistan represent some of the most active and desirable real estate for international terrorist activity, not to mention other threats that also would benefit from continued U.S. intelligence focus.

Military deployments abroad always incorporate intelligence capabilities tailored to achieve the objectives for a wide range of missions. In Syria and Afghanistan, a blend of intelligence capabilities provides awareness regarding terrorist threats, political and regional dynamics, local conditions on the ground for civilian populations and the security and safety of U.S., coalition and (in the case of Afghanistan) host-nation military forces.

Reduced access to human sources, a reduction in airborne coverage from unmanned aerial vehicles and diminished technical collection against phone or computer networks associated with malign actors are among the intelligence losses that would have to be mitigated through other measures, which would place further strain on an already heavily burdened intelligence enterprise that has to manage risk while providing insights for U.S. decision-makers and warfighters on a range of topics.

Making any significant strategic decisions about withdrawing U.S. military forces without adequately accounting for the accompanying loss of raw intelligence and intelligence capabilities almost guarantees that the United States will suffer in its ability to more comprehensively understand threats on the ground.

Diminishing the intelligence footprint in Syria and Afghanistan presents the United States with challenges detecting and disrupting potential terrorist plotting against the West, protecting remaining U.S. forces and other government personnel who stay behind to advance U.S. interests and maintaining necessary relationships with other intelligence elements in the region.

Recent history demonstrates—Afghanistan in the 1990s and Iraq in 2011—that failure to adequately sustain baseline intelligence when disengaging from a conflict can lead to future difficulties for the United States.

To avoid repeating the mistakes of the recent past, the United States would be wise to prioritize its access to intelligence as it deliberates the best path forward in the numerous small footprint missions in which it is currently engaged.

In Afghanistan in the 1990s, the United States and much of the rest of the international community completely disengaged, cutting off funding and ceding almost total influence to Pakistan and regional rivals who quickly made Afghanistan a theater of proxy warfare, but also greatly reduced U.S. intelligence insights into the region.

Later, this reduced access to intelligence left the Clinton administration with a poor understanding of the larger threat that core al-Qaida truly posed to the United States. - Reqd More

Intelligence Losses Pose Large Risks as U.S. Troops Head Home

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