Espiões dos EUA podem aprender com a Toyota

 What Our Spies Can Learn From Toyota

We have 16 separate intelligence agencies. No wonder people aren't connecting the dots.

Neste muito interessante artigo de opinião publicado no The Wall Street Journal, Luís Garicano e Richard A. Posner começam por lembrar o falhanço da reestruturação dos sistema nacional de intelligence dos EUA, após os atentados de 11 de Setembro, e destacam que nos recentes casos, como o da base militar norte-americana Fort Wood, da tentativa de atentado num avião, as 16 agências norte-americanas (as oficias já que tendo em conta as não oficias o numero passa para 20) tinham informação sobre a qual não agiram, por falhas de comunicação, duplicações de tarefas e demoras nas análises aos dados disponíveis.

Os autores lembram, bem a propósito, as reformas históricas que foi necessário pôr em prática na indústria automóvel norte-americana para fazer face ao pragmatismo e inteligência competitiva da japonesa Toyota, para demonstrar que, embora dificil, é possivel reformar intituições complexas:

Real reform of complex institutions is always hard, but it is possible. Consider a storied, historic, indeed iconic American institution that had developed an internal structure so convoluted that information did not flow through it—fiefdoms abounded, and duplication and delays were the rule. After many failed efforts at reform, only the threat and actuality of bankruptcy forced this institution to slim down, streamline and focus.

We are referring, of course, to the U.S. auto industry. The domestic automakers' organizational structures were notoriously complex and top-heavy. While Toyota had been selling the same car worldwide, Ford had insisted that American consumers would not buy the cars successfully produced by Ford for sale in Europe. As a result, every stage of production from R&D to actual manufacturing was duplicated in the two markets".

Este problema de duplicação  criava também problemas de liderança, já que, à semelhança sucede hoje com as agências de intelligence norte-americanas, na GM de então era dificil saber quem mandava, o que criava até situações ridiculas. Os revendedores na quente Florida, por exemplo, não sabiam como alertar a GM para a necessidade de parar de fazer publicidade aos seus SUV's com o destaque na capacidade destas viaturas para andar na neve...

When General Motors dealers in Florida tried to stop GM from promoting its SUVs in the state's 70-degree Christmas season with ads bragging about the vehicles' performance in snow, they found no way to get their message across. GM had 325,000 employees, yet was run as a matrix with overlapping functional and geographic management structures. As Rick Wagoner, its ousted CEO, had confessed: "People really have trouble because they want to know who's in charge," he said, "and the answer is going to be, increasingly: It depends. 

Os autores fazem ainda um sério diagnóstico da actual situação os serviços de intelligence norte-americanos:

Five and a half years after the report of the 9/11 Commission identified the cascade of intelligence failures that allowed the 9/11 attackers to achieve total surprise, the problems it highlighted persist: We learn of multiple, separate and unshared terrorist lists; of multiple agencies (State Department, CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center) unable to combine the tips they receive; of arbitrary rules, such as requiring proof of "reasonable suspicion," rather than mere suspicion, to deny a visa to a foreigner; and of terrorists released from American custody to become leaders of al Qaeda abroad. There is the sense that nobody is in charge. 

We have an unwieldy multiplicity of agencies that operate largely independently. Dysfunctional bureaucratic incentives decree that an attack involving a repetition of a known terrorist procedure is the most damaging politically, so shoes are scanned because a shoe was used in an attempted airplane bombing. Now underwear will be scanned as well. The government seems always to be playing catch-up to the terrorists.

Os autores fazem uma proposta queem seu entender podia ajudar a resolver o problema. Pondo os olhos no exemplo dado pela industria automóvel, e com base na organização dos serviços de intelligence britânicos, propõem a consolidação das agencias de intelligence em 4 agencias primárias:

... a foreign intelligence agency, a military intelligence agency, a domestic intelligence agency, and a technical data collection agency (satellite mapping, electronic interception, etc.).
 
This structure would mimic the United Kingdom's MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service), Defence Intelligence Agency, MI5 (the Security Service), and GCHQ (General Communications Headquarters). In a streamlined system, the Director of National Intelligence would be a coordinator, rather than combining the role of a coordinator with that of the president's senior substantive intelligence officer. (As if the CEO of Boeing also designed the companies planes).





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