This post will be cross-posted at Halfofthespear.com
With Denis Blair soon to depart as the Director of National Intelligence, the engine driving the speculation over who his replacement will be is in high gear. One of the more unusual names to surface: former President Bill Clinton. Two intelligence professionals and former colleagues – Bob Gourley and Mike Tanji – square off over the merits – or lack thereof – the former President would bring to the job of DNI.
Pro
The DNI is entrusted with responsibilities unlike any other governmental official. He must serve the creation of policy and the optimization of decisions across the government and do so while remaining free from undue influence. He must be a leader who ensures balance between defeating complex threats while simultaneously protecting liberties. He is a titular boss but functionally a coordinator at the helm of a national apparatus that must deal with issues of global import. There is only one American who has operated at such a level and under such conditions: former President Bill Clinton.
Could we convince him to accept a position in a branch of government he once ran? I have no doubt that if his nation decided he is the type of leader we needed to elevate intelligence community performance to new levels that he would accept. Why should we consider the former President for such a job? Just consider the strengths and expertise he brings to bear:
Experience: Few have held the position Article II of our Constitution describes as the center of our nation’s executive power, so few understand the decisions that intelligence drives like he would.
Customer knowledge: He has a deep understanding of customers throughout the executive branch and also the needs and capabilities of information providers in the private sector and mission partners in allied nations across the globe.
Smarts: It almost goes without saying that anyone who could ascend to the Office of the President must have a proven ability to take in large quantities of data and reason about its meaning. President Clinton clearly exceeds this requirement.
Political Savvy: Since political oversight is part of our culture in the nation’s intelligence community this is a critically important component. Government at its core is based on people organizing to accomplish big things, and few have led and organized in ways that he has. Fewer still have the political connections and political savvy he does.
Charisma: There is something about a smart, experienced, mission focused leader that we all admire, but there is something even more substantial about Bill Clinton. He has an incredible ability to connect with individuals. Like many others, I have been in crowds and watched as he turned thoughts and moved people through this magical quality. We really need Bill’s charisma in the IC today.
Motivation: What does a former President live for? For President Clinton the answer is clear: he remains focused on changing the world. There is a corner of the world that needs change badly and he is perhaps the only individual qualified to execute this change. The nation’s needs and his motivations are almost perfectly aligned.
Leading the IC as DNI is a high-stakes game that several have played but all have lost. The community is still sub-optimized and it is well past time to take it to an entirely new level of performance and effectiveness. Who else has the right mix of skills necessary to do that other than President Clinton?
Con
The idea that even a powerful personality such as Bill Clinton would make a good DNI is wishful thinking. Success in the DNI’s post has little to do with personality, or even political savvy (which the former President has in spades). Success as DNI can only come with a President who actually cares about reforming the IC, and I have not seen any indication that the current President is so inclined.
The DNI may have the title of head of the IC, but his role is just a few inches north of ceremonial. He does not have the ability to hire or fire the heads of the various intelligence agencies, something any true boss should have. He also has no effective control over the IC budget, which is where the real power lies in a bureaucracy (or bureaucracy of bureaucracies, if you will). As recent indicators have shown, the IC’s problems are so deep and systemic that absent such power no amount of personality or political savvy will fix them.
Bill Clinton may be adept and handling the personalities of the various agency heads, and be able to avoid political and parochial land mines, but let’s not forget the obvious disdain for intelligence he had during his tenure as President. Former DCI Woolsey jokes about how welcome he was in the Clinton White House:
“Remember the guy who in 1994 crashed his plane onto the White House lawn? That was me trying to get an appointment to see President Clinton.”
Clinton’s next choice to head the IC was John Deutch, who didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t do “company” work on his personal laptop . . . which he connected to the Internet. I can’t think of any serious national power that would have a man who ignores his chief intelligence officer and then replaces him with an absent minded professor as the head of its intelligence apparatus.
Intelligence is a serious business, not a jobs program for “formers” and re-treads. The IC needs a DNI who understands its functions (or the functions of any sufficiently large information-based enterprise), can cast a vision of the future, can craft policies that will help realize the vision, and a President who will back his plays as he implements policy (including cutting off heads and fighting Congress). Bill Clinton is certainly smart enough to address the issues, but he had his shot. What indication do we have that he’s changed his stance on intelligence in any substantive fashion? What makes anyone think that a career politician of any stripe is interested in bringing about serious change and not simply doing whatever it takes to keep their jobs?
The IC needs a turnaround artist who measures success by how unneeded he is when he’s finished. The IC needs Lincoln or Marshall (both of whom had no qualms about giving the boot to subordinates who couldn’t deliver and elevating talented unknowns). I don’t know who that is today, but I know it’s not Bill Clinton.
The Last Word
Debating Bill Clinton as the next DNI is more than just a thought experiment. There are compelling arguments both for and against, but the overarching point we are trying to drive home is that any serious candidates on the short list for nomination are going to need both a depth and breadth of skills and experiences in order to succeed. There are many potential candidates that are strong in key areas, such as intelligence issues, management and politics, but no one set of skills is going to be sufficient. Likewise, being able to tackle the functions of leadership absent a sufficiently far-reaching vision of what our IC could be is just as futile an effort. The only thing that is guaranteed is that we will get a new DNI, the question is: will it be the DNI we need?
About BobGourley