Intelligence, WMDs & the Future

Fred Ikle reminds us that intelligence is useless unless politicians act on it. He also reminds us that intelligence will often be incomplete, especially in the modern age:

"These problems will not go away. The worldwide proliferation of WMD capabilities can be slowed down, but it cannot be stopped. It is high time that our body politic took this unpleasant fact on board. The globalization of science and technology will gradually, but ineluctably, spread the wherewithal for building mass destruction weapons. We are thus fated to confront a threat of a kind we have never faced before. And intertwined with this dismal fate is another predicament: Whatever the intelligence community can contribute regarding the WMD threat is severely limited by the unique aspects of mass-destruction weapons."

It gets worse...

VC Tim Oren has done some quick calculations based on technology advancement models; he thinks we have 20-25 years before we hit an "event horizon" around biological weapons. Ikle goes on to offer a very useful distinction between strategic & tactical intelligence, explain the difficulties WMDs present, and discuss the policy issues. He closes with some wise words:

"In any event, whether under the influence of hope or fear, the buck stops not with the intelligence community but with the policy makers. It is the president and Congress who must decide to take costly and dangerous actions, or accept the risks of inaction. It is these elected policy makers who must rally the people to give first priority to the survival of our country. Most Americans prefer to believe that the United States will have a bright future and think prophets of doom belong to decaying nations. This healthy frame of mind puts a ceiling on our tolerance for intelligence warnings about all sorts of cataclysmic terrorist attacks. Fair enough. As long as we don't shut our eyes in the sentry box."

UPDATE: Brian Dunn loks at the issue, too, and comes out with this logical and pithy summary at the end:

""Our only option is to forget about trying to establish clear proof of nuclear guilt and focus on the regimes. Your country is a collection of nutballs that make aggressive statements and you appear to be pursuing nuclear technology, missiles, and other weapons? Then your regime should be history and we will work for that result. We won't take the chance that you will get something that makes your threats real."