Military intelligence and the problem of legitimacy: Opening the model

This brief essay looks at some of the emerging dilemmas facing the Intelligence Community (IC), and suggests a model for action that is based on the growing importance of legitimization now evident in all phases of US military activity abroad. The challenge for the IC is to satisfy the needs of a demanding and highly varied set of consumers while maintaining a clear priority on missions of military concern. When the legitimization priorities of broadly varied mission tasks are disaggregated and linked with the intelligence cycle, we see that total war, limited war, and operations other than war (OOTW) have distinct and incompatible priorities. Rather than try to adapt the existing system to fish‐out‐of‐water applications, and in the process degrade the capabilities of the IC to conduct total warfare support operations effectively, it may be time to envision a new, parallel intelligence agency for the support of limited war and OOTW.