SHARING SECRETS: OPTIMIZING INTERNATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION TO COUNTER TERRORISM & RISING THREATS

This thesis seeks to provide understanding of how the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) has and can continue to optimizing international intelligence cooperation to counter terrorism and raising threats. This cooperation has become important as non-state actors have spread out across borders, making it difficult for a single state to detect and thwart their operations. As a result, the USIC increased its cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies. The benefits and difficulties of these relationships have been highlighted in recent years with the loss of various intelligence partners after the Arab Spring and with the U.S.-Russian failure to share information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the Boston Marathon Bombing. Though there is a great deal of academic literature on the increase of intelligence cooperation amongst USIC agencies, the topic of international intelligence cooperation is understudied. Chapter 1 evaluates how effective increased international intelligence cooperation has been in combating al-Qa’ida’s operational capabilities, using international intelligence cooperation on terrorist financing and international intelligence cooperation against al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula as case studies. Chapter 1 raises questions regarding the qualities and measurement of successful liaisons. In response, Chapter 2 focuses on the successful factors of intelligence relationships, finding that shared interests, mutual trust, and awareness of partner countries’ political concerns are essential for success. The Saudi-U.S. relationship and the Pakistani-U.S. relationship were examined, finding that Saudi Arabia is currently a successful partner and Pakistan is not. However, it also reveals that the relationship with Saudi Arabia can change quickly if the Saudi government becomes unstable or is overthrown, highlighting the importance of the political concerns factor. Chapter 3 further examines the political concerns factor outlined by trying to identify how the USIC could monitor and analyze political movements and instability within partner countries. To ensure against the surprise of an intelligence partner being ousted, the USIC needs to understand the political sentiments in partner countries, something it has failed to do on previous occasions. The Iranian Revolution and the Egyptian Revolution were used as case studies. The first case study shows Mossad was more focused and capable on collecting and analyzing public sentiments and therefore predicted the Shah’s fall. The Egyptian case study shows the failure of the USIC to collect and analyze public sentiment of Egyptians organizing via social media. These case studies show the USIC must enhance its collection requirements and analytical capabilities, including the creation of social media intelligence