EXCEPT THAT THE RESOURCES ARE UNLIMITED TOO:

By the time the modern intelligence community was established in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the scale of that challenge had grown so vast that Sherman Kent, one of the community's founding fathers, observed that "...to be able to deliver [intelligence] in the fashion apparently expected... would demand a research staff large enough to codify and keep up-to-date virtually the sum-total of universal knowledge." [...]

The classified collection model's architects built a sprawling intelligence-gathering armature whose ambitions, in time, would brush the limits of what was possible. But the model's fundamental logic stayed intact throughout the Cold War because the most useful information--war plans, missile designs, and the like--remained in the hands of a relatively small number of elites.

Today, the situation is reversed. In sharp contrast to Kent's era, useful information is now quite literally everywhere. Rather than belonging to few, it can come from practically anyone, anywhere on earth. And due to the growing complexity of international affairs, more information does not equate to more accurate forecasts.  [...]

Today, the intelligence community owns the collection platforms, as well as the exploitation and processing centers, the communications channels, and even the administrative infrastructure that controls access to classified information. 

The intelligence community is not a business, nor is it motivated by profit. But it should apply the lessons learned by other institutions adapting to change, and its efforts should profit the nation. The time to begin thinking about a pivot is long overdue. The intelligence community must chart a bold new model suited to the information-rich reality of our digital era, and finally, break free from the collector's trap. 

The nation's intelligence services should conform to the nation's needs. In the past, when useful information was scarcer, the need was to find pieces of it wherever they hid and use them to build a coherent picture. What today's America needs most, in contrast, is help making sense of a shapeless, increasingly discordant world where information is abundant but truth is in short supply.

Today, intelligence can no longer be synonymous with information, or even with secrecy--the very notion of which is dying. Soon, there will be no more hiding in an increasingly transparent world that is always monitoring, always tracking, and always listening. When information is cheap and easily accessible, what is valuable is discernment and curation. 

Let's get back to Clausewitz. He said critical analysis is "tracing effects to their causes," that is, illuminating the connections between things to determine "...which among the countless concatenations of events are the essential ones." This is a solid value proposition for intelligence in the information age. He further warned against treating separately what is more accurately viewed as a gestalt, and reminded us that individual actions, "however small their cause, must influence all subsequent military operations and modify their outcome to some degree, however slight." In other words: It's all connected, man.

My argument is not that we should stop collecting secrets, only that we should place less emphasis on doing so and realign limited resources accordingly.

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