All Things Policy Inside US Intelligence, Trump, and the India Equation
Aug 13, 2025
Paul McGarr, a distinguished scholar in intelligence studies from King's College, shares his insights on the U.S. Intelligence Community's evolution and its fraught relationship with Trump. They discuss the significant impact of public mistrust and the risks of 'strategic blindness'. McGarr highlights how intelligence cooperation has been key to U.S.-India relations, even amid political turbulence, and urges for a nuanced understanding of India's history to strengthen ties. The dialogue also addresses the challenges of politicization in intelligence and its consequences for national security.
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Structure Creates Rivalry, Not Unity
- The US intelligence community (USIC) grew from failure and is large, diverse, and often fragmented across 18 major agencies.
- The ODNI coordinates but lacks strong authority over constituent agencies, producing structural rivalry and limited central control.
Reform Followed Failure, Not Harmony
- Major intelligence reforms followed big failures like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, producing the CIA and later the ODNI to fix information-sharing gaps.
- Despite reform, culture and budget size mean coordination problems and adversarial analysis persist across agencies.
Adversarial Culture Shapes Analysis
- US intelligence culture is adversarial, unlike the more consensual British and Indian models that seek common threat assessments.
- Inter-agency competition can produce conflicting judgments for policymakers and presidents.
