King David

In this blog post for Foreign Policy, Zegart discusses how the military's organizational and operational culture clashes with that of intelligence agencies. When military leaders are tasked with running an intelligence agency, three distinct concerns arise. The first is that a military leader will focus on short-term tactical operations over long-term strategic assessments. Military leaders are also accustomed to a hierarchical structure where orders from leaders are rarely questioned-- this clashes directly with the CIA's analytical culture. The final concern is that intelligence agencies are primarily concerned with guarding information and preventing security breaches, which is not part of military culture.