Modelling the intelligence requirements and priorities process: the US response to the Rwandan genocide

Abstract

In the US, national security outcomes tend to be categorised as either the responsibility of the intelligence or policy community. Few discuss systemic outcomes emanating from the requirements and priorities (R&P) process, a top-level collaborative effort that determines national security objectives and establishes the means to address them. Here, a holistic model is introduced to examine the R&P process alongside the binary functions of intelligence and policy, and tested against two mandates of the US response to the Rwandan genocide: evacuation of American expats, and broader intervention. Such macroscopic investigations can better identify the root causes of national security outcomes.