Learning lessons (and how) in the war on terror
| Author | Wesley Wark |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000106 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
WESLEY
WARK
Learning
lessons
(and
how)
in
the
war
on
terror
The
Canadian
experience
-
LEARNING
LESSONS
IS AN UBIQUITOUS URGE. Armies do it; interna-
tional organizations such asthe United Nations practice it; businesses
engage in it; individuals rely on it to get on
with
life.
The
internet
teems
with
examples
of
our
appetite. Casual perusal
of
the
amazon.com books site reveals thousands
of
current titles on learning
lessons, spanning everyrhing from business guides to success, to learn-
ing from nature and even, sadly, one's pets.
The
list speaks to a societal
activity that seems both frenetic
and
routine.
Yetin the world
of
security and intelligence, the practice oflearning
lessons has typically been viewed as more problematic. Resistance is
generated by a host
of
factors, some unique
to
the culture
of
security
and intelligence agencies. Internal exercises in learning lessons can be
resource intensive, and therefore low in priority.
They
rarely have an
obvious bureaucratic home, especially in decentralized systems,
and
can involve painful processes
of
self-criticism.
They
are seen as difficult
to translate into practical, sustained measures. Perhaps most important,
they
cut
against the grain
of
an intensive focus on current operations
weslry
~rk
isan
associate
professor
at the
University
of
Toronto
andfellow
of
the
Munk
Centre
for International
Studies.
He
currently
serves
asthe
president
of
the
Canadian
Association
for
Security
and
Intelligence
Studies.
His most
recent
publica-
tion isan edited
volume,
Twenty-first
Century
Intelligence (2005). He isat work
ona
book
on
Canadian
security
policy
since
9/11.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Wintet
2004-2005
WesleyWark
and forward-looking strategic assessments. To be willing to engage in
learning lessons, security and intelligence communities have
to
be pre-
pared
to
value the past, and to believe
that
there are important lessons
to be learned from history. Such beliefs are rare. To add to the friction,
externally generated exercisesin learning lessons are often perceived by
security
and
intelligence
communities
not
just
as diversions from
important
ongoing
requirements
but
as exercises in scapegoating,
coming as they usually do on the heels
of
scandal
and
failure. This only
reinforces a reluctance
to
engage in an analysis
of
past performance and
can create a climate in which failure or weakness is always cast
off
as an
orphan.
But the events
of
11 September 2001 and the Iraq war have rocked
the foundations
of
the world
of
intelligence.
The
enormity
of
the intel-
ligence and policy failures that characterized
both
the al Qaeda strikes
of
11 September and the origin and conduct
of
the war in Iraq have
had two significant side-effects.
One
is the onset
of
a crisis
of
public
confidence in security and intelligence services, along with enormous
confusion about where the boundaries between intelligence and poli-
cymaking do and should lie.
The
reputation
of
intelligence serviceshas
been laid low, perhaps lower
than
at any previous
moment
in their
modern history.
An equally powerful side-effect
of
these recent events has been an
enhanced desire
and
demand
for greater transparency
and
account-
ability. In an age
of
counterterrorism and global preemption, where
much rides on intelligence services getting it right,
and
where expand-
ed government powers raise natural anxieties about threats to civil lib-
erties, citizens want to know more, profoundly more, about hitherto
secret or secretive institutions
of
the state.
In the context
of
these twin
effects-rock
bottom
confidence
and
greater public
assertiveness-the
practice
of
learning lessons takes on
new meaning
and
gravity. CraigWhitney
of
the
New
lUrk Times, in his
introduction to an edition
of
the 9/11 commission report, gave efforts
to learn lessons in
the
public
domain
ahigh calling:
"demanding
accountability from the elected
and
appointed officials
of
government,
and
insisting on revealing
and
correcting their shortcomings, are the
most basic rights and duties
of
citizens in a democracy."!
1CraigR.Whitney,"Introduction,"
The
9/1z
Investigations,
Steve
Strasser,
ed.
(NewYork:PublicAffairs, 2004),xi.
72
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter 2004-2005
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