Revisiting DR Kilcullen's piece on New Paradigms and the OSS

[Norfolk]

Excellent post Rob. My initial gut reaction would be to reorganize the CIA for these sorts of roles, given it was for just such a reason (as well as to centralize and oversea the entire US Intelligence structure) that it was originally created for. In principle, I really do not like the idea of creating yet another Federal service or agency to perform a task, especially when there is at least one other that was originally created to do much the same thing. But as you have explained Rob, the culture of the institution(s) may well prove resitant, even hostile to such a re-roling and reorganization, thus dooming it to probable ignominious failure.

There is little question though that an OSS-type capability and service is necessary. Given that, I would insist upon the end of whatever Paramilitary role the CIA retains, and annex it to the new service/agency. More broadly speaking, this agency should hand-pick recruits at all times, and especially the cadres when first standing the service up. Preferably with the people who are doing the hand-picking would choose people whom they know personally - not out of cronyism, but because not only are they quite aware of what the personal qualities and abilities of these people are, but can also go some way to vouching for their personal reliability. The recruiting net should be cast wide and in both the usual and unusual places, for both the usual and unusual suspects.

An excellent point you made Rob was the one about the budget, not only being small, but making a virtue out of such a necessity. The new service would lose much of its effectiveness if money and resources were lavished on it; the temptation to throwing money at problems, or finding problems to throw money at, would be great and progressively erode its professional judgement and operational effectiveness (not to mention the administrative efficiency). Professionals would quickly find themselves shouldered out by careerists and bean-counters. Thrift is essential, for both operational success and institutional integrity.

There should be as little compartmentalism and formal division of labour as possible within the reasonable limits of operational effectiveness and security. There also should be as little of a system of Grades as possible. Someone's position should depend upon talent and their competence in particular tasks. As much as possible, everyone from soldiers to businessmen to academics to tradesmen to bartenders (they can be remarkably effective collectors of information and provisions) etc., should be able to rub shoulders and broaden each other's horizons and work together to build a much more comprehensive picture of things, figure out what has to be done, and to just go ahead do it, than might otherwise be the case in more formal, structured situation.

There's real potential in such a service. It's a very good thing that you dug this back up Rob, otherwise it would eventually have been forgotten.