Tug of War: The CIA's Uneasy Relationship with the Military

Abstract: Public perception today is that the CIA enjoys a close working relationship with the military, but that has not always been the case. Since its inception in 1947, the CIA has traditionally had an uneasy relationship with the military. During the Cold War, the CIA's relationship with the military was strained periodically by conflicting analyses. Only since the end of the Cold War has the relationship been on more sure footing. The Gulf War underscored the need for national-level intelligence to meet the accelerating demands of the military in an increasingly technology-driven and face-paced combat environment. Perceived shortcomings during the campaign to liberate Kuwait led to a major institutional effort to link the CIA more closely to the U.S. military by establishing the Office of Military Affairs (OMA) in 1992. The creation of the OMA, however, is unlikely to eliminate differences of analytic opinion between the agency and the military services. In fact, such conflicts will be healthy indicators of the CIA's rationale as a bureaucratic entity able to formulate independent and objective analysis precisely because it has fewer vested interests in military operations. The agency, however, must guard against being overwhelmed by the intelligence demands of the military that could spread limited analytic assets thin, further erode the quality of analysis, and derail the CIA from performing its critical mission of providing national intelligence and strategic warning to civilian policymakers.