WASHINGTON, D.C.—Once upon a time, I was an intelligence officer for the United States Army. Subsequently, I was an analyst for the bureau of intelligence and research at the Department of State. In these capacities, I internalized what is regarded as the essence of intelligence analysis: the difference between capabilities and intentions.
Capabilities are straightforward. For Armed Forces, these are often described as "order of battle"—identification, command structure, strength, and disposition of military units and personnel and their equipment. Thus one seeks information on personnel numbers in various types of units, what weapons they carry, what training they undergo, where they are located. If Armed Forces replace bolt action rifles with AK-47s, capabilities increase. Likewise, if T-60 tanks are replaced by T-72s or MIG-21s by MIG-25s. Or, if forces are demobilized, weapons retired, etc., capabilities decrease.
A political-economic analyst measuring capabilities faces comparable issues. What are a country's natural resources? What can it manufacture and how rapidly? Who are its leaders, what are their personal biographies, and what do they say in public? Most of these questions are measurable and discernable; they are more likely to be regarded as facts than opinions. But senior leadership is less interested in capabilities than with intentions. And intentions are famously squishy. Just what will a given leader/country do with its capabilities? Sometimes, intentions are totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the leader of Malta desires to conquer France; or the head of Lichtenstein wants lebensraum in Germany; or Jack Layton would like to annex Florida. The absence of capabilities makes such intentions risible. However, while there is a reasonable chance that observation and analysis can provide a good appreciation of capabilities, intentions are ephemeral. A classic case in this regard, was Soviet deployment in the 1970s-80s of multi-warhead, mobile, solid fuel SS-20 intermediate range missiles; these systems massively increased Soviet capability to threaten Europe. But simply the existence of SS-20s per se did not necessarily change Soviet intentions—and consequently NATO struggled for a decade to eliminate the capability, adroitly combining counterdeployments and negotiations.
Consequently, the latest peregrinations of U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran's nuclear weapons program address an unknown—Iran's intentions in regard to building nuclear weapons. The currently bruited about judgment has declared that Iran's nuclear weapons program stopped in 2003. This judgment reportedly is traced to more reliable, recent, "human intelligence." The specifics are not revealed—and subject to further investigation and more than a little skepticism. Perhaps the mistress of a senior nuclear program official has passed along his post-coital musings. Perhaps a military leader has complained to a Western agent that weapons development funds were cut. Perhaps electronic intercepts have led us to conclude the weapons program has been deferred. But even if every top Iranian leader was strapped to a polygraph backed by a functional MRI to determine the truth of their testimony on building nuclear weapons, all we would know are their intentions of the moment. And tomorrow intentions could change—driven by perception of threat from Russia, a divine revelation, a technological breakthrough, increased oil revenue, an ostensibly benign foreign intelligence assessment, etc. What have not changed are capabilities. Iran continues to grind forward expanding its capability to produce nuclear weapons by steadily accumulating the fissile material that is the essential component of a nuclear weapon.
It is not as if we have a fantastic track record in predicting whether a country is going to develop a nuclear weapon. For decades after its surprise "peaceful nuclear explosion" in 1974, analysts followed the Indian nuclear weapons program.
Indeed, we observed the preparations for renewed nuclear testing in 1998 but did not know whether New Delhi intended to do so. Likewise, for the Pakistani nuclear program: observation of developing capabilities, but ignorance of intentions—until Pakistan responded to Indian tests with a series of its own in 1998. And we weren't even nearly that accurate regarding South Africa, which built nuclear weapons and then dismantled its production capability without anyone knowing until the South Africans informed the world in 1993.
It is one of those unfortunate realities that Basic A-Bomb 101 is 60-year-old technology. Primitive, but workable, designs have appeared in popular magazines; reportedly the original 1974 Indian nuclear weapons design team was about 75 persons. The key is sufficient nuclear material—either plutonium or enriched uranium—which Iran continues to accumulate. Capabilities: clear. Intentions: opaque.
We are not out of the woods; indeed, we have barely entered the forest.
David Jones is a former U.S. diplomat
who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa
as a political counsellor from 1992-96.
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