A Cooperative Approach between Intelligence and Policymakers at the National Level: Does it Have a Chance?

The proximity of relations between intelligence officers and policymakers and the balance between the aspirations of the intelligence officers to influence the decision-making process and their primary professional duty to ather accurate intelligence is an ongoing argument within the intelligence discourse. Other discussions focus on whether the primary professional duty of the intelligence officer is merely to create intelligence or also to actively shape policy, and whether strategic intelligence is a product of research groups in the intelligence community or of a dialogue between intelligence and the policymaker, ultimately leading to new strategic knowledge that facilitates the formation of a national policy. We argue that the development of knowledge for shaping policy on the strategic level should be done in a cooperative manner—in a meeting between intelligence officers and decision makers. The lack of suitable conditions in the space between intelligence and policymakers, however, prevents this in many cases. The limited ability of the intelligence community and the political echelon to act cooperatively and develop a facilitating framework of mechanisms and learning processes should therefore be recognized, in addition to the intelligence community’s limitations and the characteristicsof the strategic environs. This article reviews the main approaches concerning the interface between policymakers and intelligence—the traditional approaches versus what we call the “cooperative approach.” It proposes an approach that regards intelligence on a national level as a joint project of intelligence officers and policymakers. At the same time, the article analyzes the tension and obstacles in implementing this approach and proposes possible ways of overcoming them.