Andrea Macdonald, founder of ideaXme interviews Dr. LaMesha Craft, PhD. all-source intelligence warrant officer (retired) and now contracted faculty member at the National Intelligence University, USA. Find the audio interview on SoundCloud now. Shortly on all major audio podcasting networks.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by Dr. Craft in this interview do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Intelligence Community, or the U.S. Government.
Official biography:
LaMesha L. Craft’s background includes 20 years of active military service in the US Army as an all-source intelligence warrant officer. Throughout her career, she provided strategic and operational intelligence analysis of nation-state and nonstate threats to US interests, policy, data, and networks in/around Asia, Europe, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. She has also worked overseas in Kosovo, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq. Dr. Craft authored a comprehensive guide to conducting intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) when analyzing threats in cyberspace. It was recognized as a “best practice” by the Center for Army Lessons Learned and played an integral role in developing Appendix D of Army Training Publication 2-01.3, published in March 2019. She currently serves as a faculty member of the Anthony G. Oettinger School of Science and Technology at the National Intelligence University. Dr. Craft’s education includes a PhD in public policy and administration with a concentration in homeland security policy and coordination, Walden University; an MA in international relations and conflict resolution, American Military University; and a BA in international relations and international conflict, American Military University.
Amongst the many subjects covered in this interview:
-Dr. LaMesha Craft’s career
-Cyber threats
-Exponential technologies threats and opportunities for the Intelligence Community
-Intelligence successes and learning from failure
–The Introduction to Intelligence book published February 2021. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc ISBN: 9781544374673
-Intelligence and machine learning.
-The structure of the Intelligence Community in the USA
-The importance of ethics in the Intelligence Community
-The importance of collaboration within the Intelligence Community
-New challenges to security looking to the future
Disclaimer: The views expressed by Dr. Craft in this interview do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Intelligence Community, or the U.S. Government.
The ideaXme interview with Dr. LaMesha Craft
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:00:00] Welcome, everybody, again to another episode of the ideaXme show, I’m Andrea Macdonald, the founder of ideaXme. ideaXme is a global network, a podcast available in 40 countries worldwide, a creator series and mentor program. We continue with the Resilience Series. Today, we talk of country resilience and the important part that the intelligence communities play in underpinning it. I’m here with somebody who was an all-source intelligence warrant officer in the US Army for 20 years and is now an instructor at the National Intelligence University who will shed light on this subject. In your words, who are you?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:00:52] Good morning and thank you very much for having me. I am a social change advocate and a lover of education. I have a PhD. in Public Policy and Administration. I look very closely at resilience and I like to weave that into thinking about what resilience means for us as a country, pretty much internationally when we think about the impacts of technology on how we live and how it possibly impacts our critical infrastructure. I’m also a lover of education. If you were to talk to anyone who knows me, they would tell you that I love two things intelligence and teaching. And so I’ve been teaching for about 11 years to a variety of student populations, but usually have concentrated on intelligence and national security studies.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:01:47] Your name is Dr. LaMesha Craft. You have experience in a multitude of countries of the world, China and the Balkans, just some examples. Could you talk a little bit of your experience from the 1990s in the Balkans to China, also Kuwait?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:02:13] Sure. I joined the Army in 1998. I was initially a soldier and non-commissioned officer, and then I transitioned to becoming a warrant officer. But throughout the entire time, my focus was on all source intelligence. And I think one of the great things about the military, or the Army at least is the way it’s structured. We tend to move around every three years or so. So, that allows me or has allowed me the opportunity to really study different problem sets. My first assignment, of course, was in Germany that included a deployment to Kosovo. And then, of course, I transitioned, lived in Hawaii for three years, which was great and focused on primarily China, but the Indo Pacific region. And then I’ve also had the opportunity to study the Central Command areas. So, I have studied Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Qatar, things of that nature, as well as generally looking at larger problem sets and how they impact US interests across the globe.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:03:25] You have very wide interests as far as having been an all source intelligence officer from cyber right the way through to training Iraqi soldiers. Can you go through the specifics of what you have done and to the extent you’re allowed to talk.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:03:49] Sure (laughs). So, I want to tell you really quickly about the training of the Iraqi soldiers. I told you I was a lover of teaching, and training the Iraqi soldiers was the first time I actually taught a set of students. And this was before, of course, I moved on to go to Fort Huachuca, which is in Arizona, and actually learn the trade craft of teaching adults. So as part of the United States Forces-Iraq (USF-I) kind of country building process, we worked with Iraqi soldiers and taught them the intelligence process. And I was really nervous at first because as a female, as a black female in Iraq teaching Iraqi males, I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to go. I wasn’t quite sure how I would be received. But I decided, you know, this is a great opportunity, so I’m going to do that. And it ended up being a four week long process. So, the first day I go in and I’m teaching through an interpreter and I ask, (I always start with an open ended question) because what better way to really understand what your audience knows than to start with an open ended question. So I start with an open ended question, and it goes something like, you know, I forget what I asked specifically, but at the end I said, : What do you think? And I’m standing there. And of course, the interpreter relays my message and I’m standing there and I’m looking at them and they’re looking at me and I’m thinking to myself: OK, so maybe this is not going to be what I thought it would be.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:05:31] So I’m standing there and I’m waiting and it feels like forever. But it was probably just like a minute or so. And then I’m still smiling. And so I smile at them and I go: No, really, what do you think? So the interpreter, of course, relays the message and then the room erupts and everyone starts talking. And of course, they’re talking in a language that I don’t speak. So, they’re talking. The interpreter is interested in it. She’s talking to them. They’re talking to her. They’re talking to each other. No one’s talking to me, of course, because I’m standing there and I’m looking at the interpreter and I’m like: Would you tap me in so I can continue to facilitate this discussion? But it created this great dynamic. It really set the stage for how the class would go for the next four weeks. It was very interesting because I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, obviously, because I had never had training in teaching. But I continued to use that method even today, because I find great value in actually asking people: What do you think? And when I teach undergraduates, sometimes they go: I don’t know. And I’m like: That’s great. You don’t have to know. Just tell me what you think! And it starts a really good conversation and enables me to actually facilitate the learning process, rather than just standing up there and lecturing. So that was really the spark for me in terms of really loving the process of teaching adults.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:07:02] I guess if you ask people what they think of you, you learn a lot about their perspective and about who they are. I notice on the National Intelligence University site that all areas of the faculty, both faculties within the teaching encourage students to ask controversial questions. Could you talk about that?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:07:35] Sure. It’s more of encouraging them to be open minded when they’re thinking about what they want to research. And that’s important in the intelligence community, because as I mentioned for me, I moved around every three years. So with that move came a transition in the focus of the problem set. So when I lived in Germany, obviously, I was focused on the Balkans. When I moved to Hawaii, I was focused on the Indo-Pacific region and so on and so forth. The beautiful thing about the National Intelligence University and the way that we encourage them to examine a variety of problem sets is it no longer confines them to focus solely on where their portfolio currently exists based on their current job or their position. The intent behind that statement, is that students are invited to dig deeper into things that generally interest them that have implications in the intelligence community.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:08:36] I’d like to talk later about the book in which you are one of the co-authors, “Introduction to Intelligence” that covers different aspects of the intelligence services, how it all works, and some controversial subjects. But before we do that, if we could go back to your experience within cyber, which is I think from if I’ve got this correctly, from 2015, possibly earlier was cited as the number one threat to U.S. stability. Could you talk of your experience in this area and also talk about the actual cyber threats?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:09:19] Sure. So I as I mentioned, the whole transition after I was at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, in those three years I was teaching other warrant officers following that assignment, I went to U.S. Army Cyber Command. So I was there from 2015 to 2018, actually retiring out of U.S. Army Cyber Command then. And the interesting thing about cyber threats, number one, is that you don’t need to be someone that has a background in computer science or that is what I affectionately refer to, as “a ones and zeros person” to understand and appreciate and analyze the cyber threat. So, while I was at the U.S. Army Cyber Command, I was oftentimes the production chief and at times the senior analyst and supporting the teams that were looking at the various cyber threats. So currently, you know, when you think about cyber threats, you can pretty much look at any document, if you will, that will highlight the four prominent, most prominent nation states that pose a threat to U.S. interests being Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, as well as non-state actors. And what I would say would be the interesting thing about this particular domain, the cyberspace domain, is that you have state actors, but you also have non-state actors such as hacktivists or cyber criminals that also impact the world and can impact US interests and also international interests. If you think about the various cyber incidents that have occurred over the years, so from a cyber threats perspective, I would say it’s more than solely focusing on what we assess right now to be the most four prominent nation states. But it’s really looking at the overall impact because it is a global, you know, relationship when we think about where we stand collectively. We, not just the US, but all of us, we are gradually becoming more and more interconnected by way of technology. And so cyber threats, impacts, in my opinion, all of us, because we are so interconnected.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:11:52] Could you talk a little bit about how intelligence is structured within the cyber threats area?
Speaker2: [00:12:04] How do you mean?
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:12:06] For example, the sources that you use, the methodology in analyzing those sources.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:12:18] So that really speaks to the larger intelligence apparatus. I would say the cyber threat analysis is very similar to how we look at really any problem set. And so there are five major intelligence disciplines that we utilize, geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), human intelligence (HUMINT). And I feel like I’m forgetting one, but I’ll come back to that, oh yes – open source intelligence (OSINT). So, there are a variety of intelligence disciplines that we collectively utilize to analyze the threat. I would say that the primary difference in the cyberspace domain would be accounting for that increased interconnectedness that I was talking about before.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:13:14] Could you talk of the threats and opportunities that exponential technology presents you with in terms of the cyber space intelligence?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:13:28] Yes. So, for me, I think it’s important for us to say that technology itself is not bad. How people use technology can be bad. So, when I think about emerging technology, you know, the scientists and the innovators and all those individuals that are creating additional things to use are doing so with the best interests in mind, clearly probably looking at the benefits rather than the risks. However, the risks also exist because of challenges with securing data and overall networks. And so from that perspective, as technology continues to grow, whether you’re thinking about artificial intelligence or machine learning or any other emerging technology, that’s coming up. Oftentimes you may hear about 5G and the concerns of that, the infrastructure of that technology and the way in which it’s established. And whether or not those that are creating it are putting the importance of security at the forefront is really one of the focal points that I see in various academic journals and articles. That tends to be a main point of discussion when looking at emerging technology.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:14:54] Could you talk to us specifically of machine learning? Of course, in today’s world there are so many more resources to or sources, I should say, to draw on. And as far as intelligence gathering is concerned, which means, you know, like most industries, there’s an enormous amount of data now. How do you process this data and how do you foresee artificial intelligence helping you with that going forward?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:15:31] Well, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence recently published a document that highlighted that very thing in terms of what the future looks like, in terms of trying to utilize primarily artificial intelligence to help comb through the data. From a cyber threats perspective, some of that involves being able to look at it from a defensive perspective, and the artificial intelligence would then identify anomalies or things that may prove to be threats to the network. I think it’s also important to note that some critics of artificial intelligence oftentimes will cite that artificial intelligence is going to take over for all the humans and all these other things. But in looking at the literature from some prominent scientists and innovators often highlight the fact that artificial intelligence is far from that perspective in terms of completely taking over from humans, but could prove very useful in, as I mentioned before, the initial process of identifying anomalies, because there is, to your point, so much data that may prove difficult for a human to comb through. So, that’s where artificial intelligence will come in.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:16:55] Could you talk of the way the IC (Intelligence Community) in America is structured and there are 17 entities (source: “Introduction to Intelligence”), I think, eight of which reports to the Department of Defense. It’s pretty complex and there are a lot of them. I think at one point the CIA and the Intelligence community was overseen by one leader that is now separated to two heads. Can you talk broadly? And again, I know this is not confidential because it was an Introduction to Intelligence book. Can you talk so that listeners around the world can get a picture of how it works in general terms, how it’s structured?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:17:44] Sure. So now we actually have 18 organizations that fall under the intelligence community because of Space Command, which was recently set up (January 2021). So, there are 18 agencies/organizations that fall under the director of National Intelligence, which is essentially I guess, the head of the intelligence community. And so within that, you have a variety of organizations. You mentioned the CIA. The CIA, of course, is one of them and probably one of the ones that are most popular probably due to movies, right? But there is the CIA, the FBI, NSA and then, of course, you have other entities such as the Department of Treasury and Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security. And then to your point about the Department of Defense under the Department of Defense, will be then the various military branches that also have intelligence directorates. So like the Army, the Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, so on and so forth, also fall under the Department of Defense. So, it can seem like it’s very complicated. There are, as I said, 18 agencies that all have different focal points. But I would say that the key thing for me about the intelligence community is the importance of collaboration and coordination. No one intelligence professional nor no one organization is an island. And what to me, the intelligence community really highlights is the importance of that collaboration and coordination, because we all have our different specialties. But when it comes to analyzing the portfolios, it’s extremely important to reach across into other organizations and have that collaborative process.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:19:39] And that that is all underpinned by the events of 9/11. When post 9/11, there was a shake-up of how things were organized. I believe?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:19:49] Yes, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was one of the pieces of legislation that highlighted the importance and the need to break some of those silos and to recommend, strongly recommend and encourage collaboration and coordination. Likewise, there is the intelligence community directive 203, which talks about analytic standards and then intelligence community directive 205, which focuses on analytic outreach. And again, all of those things definitely stem from the post 9/11 review of how the intelligence community can improve.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:20:36] Could we talk of some of the successes of the intelligence community, in particular those successes, the impact the international community? From a layperson’s perspective, we often hear of the failures as presented in popular movies like the recent Coup 53 movie that looks at the downfall (overthrowing) of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and that leading or certainly the belief of many that that led to the eventual 1979 Iranian revolution. Also, more recently, the movie that focuses on Mohamedou Ould Salahi (movie: The Mauritanian), where he was kept in Guantanamo Bay and then eventually released without charges. Many wondered, was there ever the intelligence to keep him in the first place. These are stories that relate to the American intelligence services, but there are many stories similar to that relating to the U.K. intelligence services failures. The Cambridge five is just once example. There are many. So it would be nice to hear of the successes. And of course, having read the Introduction to Intelligence book, those are covered. But interesting to get those into the public arena (in as far as this interview is concerned) as well.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:22:34] Yes, absolutely. So unfortunately, I’m not familiar with the two movies that you mentioned at the beginning. However, I do teach and I have taught the Introduction to Intelligence (primary purpose of the book is to function as a student text book) to undergraduate students and also through some of the other courses. We do take a nice look into intelligence. Well, we tend to look at intelligence failures as lessons learned, but from an intelligence success perspective two historic ones that come to mind and probably along that same vein of the international impacts, two of the ones that come to mind is the Battle of Midway. So in 1942, US entities worked very hard to crack the Japanese naval code, the JN-25 code. And in doing so the US was able to achieve a decisive victory at the Battle of Midway. So, that was probably about six months or so after Pearl Harbor. And of course, the lessons learned from that and having come off of a very catastrophic event was actually a driver to achieve that as well. So the Battle of Midway in 1942 is one of the things that come to mind as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. That has a lot of information that’s now declassified, probably one of the incidents that probably has the most declassified information that’s available to the public. That comes to mind as well, because there is, as I mentioned earlier, talk about the intelligence disciplines. And in that particular instance, you can see various intelligence disciplines playing a role in terms of identifying indicators of activity of the Soviet military equipment being, in fact, on Cuba. And so that is one of the events that comes to mind. But I bring that up also because the author, Amy Zegart, in her book Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins, uses the Cuban Missile Crisis as well, because it is oftentimes lauded as an intelligence success because it prevented possibly the next world war. However, Amy Zegart also highlights the fact that there were some failures in that process, mainly due to the inability of policymakers and decision makers, as well as intelligence analysts to shift their mindsets. At that time, we thought there’s no way that the Soviets will be in Cuba because that’s not something we would do, rather than really looking at it from an adversary perspective. So, there were some biases and mindset challenges that were involved in that process that she, I think, does a very good job of highlighting because success is great, but you can always learn from that. And so I think that, stands out as a really good example of accounting for success, but also looking back to figure out how you could do it better.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:25:55] There were many fascinating things that I discovered having read the Introduction to Intelligence book, one of the things that stood out the most however, was your look at the historical relations with policymakers. Can you talk to us as much as is possible? And you are allowed to talk of, the challenges that you as a community have in sometimes providing advice and that advice not being acted on by. The people in positions in positions of power policy makers, sure.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:26:47] So as intelligence professionals, we don’t advise policymakers and decision makers about their overarching decision that they’re going to make. We provide information about the operational environment based on what we know about adversary activity. And so that’s very important to understand that we across the intelligence community are wholly aware that we are not ones to advise on policy or anything else. We provide assessments about the environment. We try to make sure that we provide all source intelligence and we look at those portfolios or problem sets from an all source perspective. But essentially, we clearly understand that our job is to provide the information as best as we can. Policymakers and decision makers may or may not take that information that we provide and use that to help inform their decisions. But ultimately, that’s not really our focus. Our focus is to provide the best information that we have, the best intelligence that we have to enable them to have and maintain decision advantage. What they do with that information, intelligence, to put it quite frankly, is their prerogative in terms of the other decisions, because there could be other things that they have to contend with that falls outside of our purview. So collectively, we are very focused on not politicizing intelligence because that is not our goal.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:28:33] In the book, the Introduction to Intelligence, it goes into a great more detailed and specific events that you have said that you don’t want to cover now, which I respect. Nonetheless, although you have said and I fully understood that you do not advise on policy, the Introduction to Intelligence, reflects the disappointment when certain actions are not taken as a result of intelligence information. What is the recourse? For situations like that, or do you just move on and there is no system whereby you can challenge it, for example, the president vetoes action.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:29:37] So two things, one, as you know, the Introduction to Intelligence, book that you’re referencing, I am a co-author of that. So, that particular chapter is from a colleague. And I think it’s probably providing, I can’t speak for my former colleague, but I can say that it’s probably highlighting the human tendency to have worked on something and then possibly be frustrated if you’ve done your due diligence for that analysis and then maybe your analysis was discarded. I think that is a realistic and a very human response to things. However, having worked in the intelligence community for 20 years. Quite frankly, it’s not like we provide analysis and then we wait patiently for someone to make a decision. Usually, it’s a process of, you know, you think about the intelligence cycle and it’s continuous. There’s multiple things to analyze. And so for me personally, as someone who has worked in the intelligence community, I do not spend time being frustrated because analysis that I provided wasn’t adhered to in the way that I think it should have been based on my knowledge of the problem set. I mentioned before, I’m not a policymaker and decision maker. So, in all fairness to my co-author, I think that he was probably identifying with the human tendency to be a little frustrated. But as someone that worked in the intelligence community, I can tell you that I have not responded in a way where I spent a lot of time, or have a lot of angst because I provided an analysis that the policymaker or decision maker didn’t respond to right then and there, because, again, I don’t have all of the pieces of that proverbial puzzle the decision maker has to contend with before making a decision.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:31:52] And it’s important also to point out that this isn’t isolated to the US intelligence system and policymakers. It happens right across the board where perfectly good information is gathered and it’s not acted on or action is taken in the absence of a full picture, limited intelligence of the situation. Iraq, is a case in point.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:32:22] Yeah, and in all honesty, if you think about it outside of the intelligence community, if you’re a business analyst and you are providing information to the CEO or the members of the board and they choose not to take action on your recommendation, I would imagine it’s the same human response initially to be somewhat disappointed or frustrated, especially if you’ve spent, let’s say, two weeks or so working on that particular product. But I have to imagine they don’t just throw their hands up and go in the corner and not continue to do their best.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:32:59] Can we talk about trust now? Yes, sadly, through lack of nation to nation trust it makes the intelligence services unnecessary, I won’t say evil, but necessary thing. The way the world works is from organization to organization, from nation to nation, people are competitive. How do you as an ex all source warrant officer in the US Army and now an instructor at the National Intelligence University work out a way of trusting people? Is there a methodology, you know, you look them in the eye? What is what is the process through which you go through in order to decide whether you trust somebody?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:34:17] So in a professional sense, I always come from a place of trust, especially as a former intelligence analyst and someone that from an academic perspective, still works with the intelligence community. We are bound by professional ethics, and that is something that we are mandated and we follow. So, from a trust perspective, integrity is one of those principles within our professional ethics. And so I approach it always with a sense of trust in individuals that I’m working with, because we’ve all swore an oath or have gone through a process where we understand why we are there and what we’re working towards. So, for me, it’s not a question of distrust. It’s always coming from the perspective of trust.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:35:12] So there isn’t a system or an approach that you take?
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:35:26] It isn’t a science, then?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:35:29] Well, not for me, I mean, it could be for others. For me it’s inherent. Having been in the community before I retired for 20 years. It’s where we come from. We’re all working under the same professional ethics. So it makes it easy for me to trust.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:35:50] Can we talk about resilience now? After all, this interview will be part of the resilience playlist on ideaXme. How have you built your own resilience to be able to carry out this pretty high pressured work?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:36:10] Laughs. So, it’s nice that you mentioned resilience. My dissertation was actually focused on perceived community resilience. I specifically looked at Yuma, Arizona, at that time. But I’ve also done research looking at perceived community resilience in Conway, South Carolina, where I used to live because they were inundated and have been for some time with natural disasters. So, for me, resilience is always responding and adapting to conditions so that you can continue to be successful. And from a professional perspective, while I was in the military and working and I told you I’m moving every three years, for me it’s been about trusting the training in terms of what I learned in the initial training. And as time progressed about being an intelligence analyst and using particular processes, improving mindset, challenges and biases, and really unpacking the inherent biases that we have and trusting that process. From the perspective of an educator, resilience is also important in the classroom. And I like to do my part, if you will, to help students regarding resilience with something as simple as creating collaborative groups. And so I take an active learning approach in my classrooms and that oftentimes will involve collaborative exercises and assignments in which I break the class into groups that are diverse and inclusive. So, I try to make sure there’s a male female, assuming that the gender identity has been provided to me. But also looking across the board from ethnicity and also with the National Intelligence University, there are obviously students that come from various organizations. So, I ensure that those groups are mixed based on the different organizations. And what I found is through building that process and creating those collaborative groups and challenging them with particular assignments in a constrained time period, rather. They identify what they do very well and they pull together to adapt to my assignment and achieve the goal of completing it to standard and on time. And they also walk away with added skill sets and learn a little bit more about themselves and their ability to perform with a group on a particular assignment.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:39:12] To dig a little bit deeper in terms of trying to find out about your personal resilience, what do you do in high pressure situations to gain some more balance, you possibly take a breath, go for a run, or you read a book or you do something much more scientific in order to cope with the current situation and overcome it, and in doing so, build resilience. Do you have any personal methods to do that?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:39:55] I’m talking to you from the perspective of a type A personality. If I had to categorize myself, I would say that I am type A. So as a type A personality that likes to be in charge and know what she’s doing and have a plan and everything else. I’m a flood survivor. So when I retired from the Army, I moved to Conway, South Carolina, and I was a lecturer at Coastal Carolina University. They have an undergraduate program for intelligence and national security studies. So, I thought (and this is where resilience is really building in). that I chose the house that I purchased in a very structured and well thought out manner because South Carolina has a lot of hurricanes. I said, I’m going to choose a house that’s inland. I’m going to look for a home that’s situated in what FEMA characterizes as Zone X, which is kind of no to low flood threat, that means flooding is very, very low. And I purchased a house that was inland. Hurricane Florence came and went. And then a couple of days later, because the hurricane stalled over North Carolina and it dumped a lot of water, the water started to flow back down.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:41:23] A couple of days after the hurricane, I’m patting myself on the back. That’s the first hurricane I’ve ever been through. I said to myself: This is good. You did really good. And then I received a knock on my door. And some people from the city said: Your house is in danger of flooding. And it was beautiful outside. So I’m looking in the sky and I’m thinking in danger of flooding from what? And he said: Well, that all the water that fell in North Carolina is going to travel back south and it’s actually going to overflow the rivers and everything else. So sure enough, probably within seven days, seven to eight days after the flood, there was a knock on the door. My house had flooded. And so we had to evacuate. I ended up losing 90 percent of everything that I owned in that flood. I didn’t have flood insurance because I didn’t live in a flood area. So I didn’t think I needed it. So when I think about resilience, I’m someone that studied perceived community resilience. I’m someone that studied responding to disasters and things of that nature, the sustainable development goals. I’ve written on it. But I was essentially not prepared for something of that nature to occur. So, from a resilience perspective in dealing with that, I really had to, one, give myself grace and tell myself that I did the best that I could in terms of planning for that, two ask for assistance, which being type A isn’t necessarily something that comes easy. And then three is really learning from that and taking it as that, taking it as a learning experience. Oftentimes for people that are successful, consider themselves to be successful, failure is very, very hard to accept. And for me, I embrace that and then try to learn from it. So, that’s how I deal with issues. That’s how I like to deal with issues and try to remain resilient is to acknowledge it for what it is, try to learn from it. And then from a personal perspective, I meditate. Oftentimes I like to do that as a point of reflection, which I find also kind of calms things down a little bit and allows me to look at things with the perspective of: So what did we learn?
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:44:02] You did your first two degrees at the American Military University. So, you must have known from pretty early on that you wanted to pursue a career in the military. I noticed from your LinkedIn profile that the work that you did in the Balkans, I think started before those degrees. What was the trigger for you, excuse the term. What was the catalyst for you to in the first instance, join the military and in the second instance, to want to go into intelligence, if I may ask?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:44:48] Sure. When I was in high school, I was in the Junior ROTC program. And it basically is an elective course that enables high school students to decide if the military is something they want to do. And so I end up going to two different high schools. The first high school I went to is where I started the Junior ROTC program and that was the Marine Corps. So it was focused on the Marine Corps and there were Marine Corps retirees that taught the course. And then when I transitioned to the other high school, the Air Force was the one that was leading that particular course. So for me and joining Junior ROTC, I was part of the drill team. So I did like marching competitions and traveled. For me, the structure was fun. It was fun learning new things. I really enjoyed the other students that were in the course. I would say that it was interesting, but I wasn’t necessarily quite sold on joining the Marine Corps or the Air Force.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:46:00] So I graduated high school. I started community college. I did about a semester of that. And then I wanted to travel. I wanted to do something else other than just stay in my little hometown.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:46:14] And so I thought, Junior ROTC was a lot of fun. Let’s see what the military has to offer. For me specifically, I went to the recruiting office and it was all in one large building. You know, they were all next to each other. And so that’s what I did. I walked into the Marine Corps. I asked them a couple of questions, heard their answers, went to the Air Force next door, went to the Navy and went to the Army? And that’s what I did the whole day. I asked them: Could you tell me a little bit about your branch, what I might find interesting about your branch? And I was doing this as a 19 year old and I kept going, kept going. The last place I went was the Army. And I walked in and the person there was very enthusiastic and was probably a little more welcoming than the other ones. That was my perception. He sat me down and started asking me questions about what my interests were and things of that nature. And he said: Well, I don’t have a recruiter here right now. He’s at lunch, but he’ll be back in about ten minutes. And sure enough, ten minutes later, in comes my cousin, my second cousin.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:47:22] And so I look at him, he looks at me and I’m like: Hey! He’s like: Hey! And I’m like: Oh, my gosh, what are you doing here? He’s like: I work here. And so the gentleman I was talking to said: Well, I guess, you know, the recruiter.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:47:34] So, my second cousin ended up being my recruiter. So he continued along the process of trying to introduce me to different jobs. And I don’t know what clicked, but I do know when I was watching the video for intelligence, it clicked for me. I think if I really have to reflect on it, it was probably because it gave me the impression that I’d be trying to solve problems. I like a good problem to solve. And so I think for me, that was probably the thing that really reeled me in. And it’s funny because when I went to the processing organization, so, you know, once you determine what you’re going to do, you go to this place called MEPS (military entrance processing station). I don’t remember what it stands for, but that’s basically where you go do your paperwork and ensure that you are physically able to join the military.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:48:34] And I remember going there. At the time they had a twenty five thousand dollar bonus for two jobs. One was essentially being a cook and the other one was being a truck driver. And the gentleman said: There’s a twenty five thousand dollar bonus for you. And I said: No, I know what I want to do. I want to do intelligence. He said: Are you sure? I said: Yes, this is the one I want. I don’t care about the bonus. I know what I want to do. And so that is how it happened. I’m really happy to say that throughout my entire 20 years I can say that 100 percent I loved what I did. It didn’t matter what the problem set was. It sort of mattered where I was living. But I thoroughly enjoyed my job. And like I said, I have two loves, which is intelligence and teaching. And it’s always been the requirement to apply a little bit of humility to realizing that you don’t know everything and you just need to dig deep to try to find some answers. So that’s one of the things that really stood out to me, and that’s probably how I started on my path of joining the Army and choosing intelligence.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:49:44] Within the area of intelligence in which you worked. From what I understand, you concentrated predominantly on analysis. Did you ever conduct human intelligence on the ground?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:50:08] No, for those that are in the military, based on your military occupational specialty, is where you focus. Very, very rarely does one dabble in something that they haven’t been trained to do. So no, strictly all source intelligence for me.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:50:27] Collection as a term is that related directly ground human intelligence gathering or is that again removed and as far as connected to the analysis side of the fence?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:50:44] So from a collection perspective, there’s the intelligence cycle and one of the steps in that is collection. As I mentioned, the intelligence disciplines before, those are oftentimes referred to as single source intelligence disciplines. Those are the ones that are collecting the information. For me as an all source, I am effectively taking that information and then trying to put the pieces of the proverbial puzzle together to understand the operational environment and what exactly is going on. So from a single source, intelligence discipline, whether it’s HUMINT or SIGINT or whatever, those entities are collecting information and intelligence based on what their particular focus is.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:51:32] So did people from the area of human intelligence report into you so that you could then as part of the intelligence cycle package, then analyze or how did it work? Because, of course, as a warrant officer, you become part of, I guess, an elite officer group. How did that work, if you are allowed to talk about it?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:52:03] So it’s not an individual process. It is literally looking into problem sets. Of course, collaboration and coordination is very important. So, you know, from an all source perspective, yes, I will talk to a HUMINT or talk to a SIGINT or whatever and try to understand the information. But they go through a process where they’re collecting and processing that information and then they’re disseminating reports. So from an all source perspective, we oftentimes will read the reports that have been published by the different intelligence disciplines. And then if we need further information or we have additional questions, we may talk to that particular organization or entity that published the document or we might actually just request more information. So it’s very collaborative, but it’s not like they reported directly to me or anything like that when I was in the Army.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:53:09] At the moment, you’re an instructor at the National Intelligence University, but you’ve also acted as a senior instructor within military intelligence. You’ve trained over four hundred warrant officers. Can you talk to us a little bit about that process to the extent you’re allowed to?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:53:29] Sure. So when I was at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, for three years, I believe it was from 2012 to 2015, part of my job was to train and certify warrant officers. So, I taught warrant officers that were former non-commissioned officers and had just transitioned into becoming warrant officers. And that was a certification process. And then I also trained warrant officers that were coming in for what’s called the advanced course, in which case they had already been working in their particular field. And so it is really just refocusing and on some of the systems and processes applying different techniques to how they conduct their business. And, it’s part of the military education program in the Army. And I believe all the forces have that same process where as you continue to grow and develop, you occasionally go to a course to learn information that’s going to get you ready for the next position, if you will.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:54:42] Looking to the future. Can you talk a little of the main threats as you see them to USA Security, global security as well? You mentioned the threat of cyber. We’ve also touched upon climate change, including flooding. Could you talk about the main threats?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:55:05] Sure. I think those are definitely two. And it pains me to use the general term cyber because it’s misused so frequently. But for the sake of this, I would say technology overall and how technology is being used. As I mentioned before, technology itself is not bad. But there are some individuals with nefarious intent when it comes to utilizing technology. I think from a global perspective, we’ve all either endured an action or a cyber incident or we read about it. Whether you’re thinking about Ukraine in December 2015, or you’re thinking about the recent Microsoft hack or SolarWinds, which is very popular, I guess, in the news. So all of those things are challenges we believe in terms of trusted systems, turning on your cell phone and trusting that your conversation that you choose to have with someone remains yours and that your information is not being hacked. So from a technology perspective, I would say that is going to be a continued threat just because things are sometimes literally changing at the speed of light. I do believe that climate change is also an issue because it has the potential to create additional points of contention between nation states, whether you’re thinking about it from a domestic perspective of us responding to natural disasters, or if you’re thinking about it internationally, where the change in geography creates additional points of contention between nation states that may have already been struggling for water, food or things of that nature. So I would say those two, if I had to look at it from a very broad perspective globally, are certainly two of the greatest threats.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:57:08] What about pandemics?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:57:17] I think we have certainly learned that pandemics are also another threat. And I think that the challenges (and this is just across the board) my personal opinion, looking beyond the next year or two, looking far in the future and identifying what those subtle shifts are and how they may actually come to fruition. And pandemics is one of those. It is really important to understand the importance of medical intelligence and collaboration, both at a domestic level but also internationally to increase communication and collaboration across nation states when it comes to pandemics.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:58:06] Some of the other subjects that you have mentioned in the past being threats of water. Food and also agro-terrorism. Could you talk of those three areas, please?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [00:58:22] I think the food and water falls within climate change and some of the systemic issues that come with that. So, when I was working on my dissertation, I wanted to look at potential targets that we don’t think about very often. And so I chose agro-terrorism. There is limited reporting that would indicate any particular entity is actively targeting agriculture. So in my dissertation, I found one article that talked about material that was found in one of the caves used by al Qaeda that highlighted a lot of agricultural information. And so as part of my dissertation, I went to Yuma, Arizona, and Yuma, Arizona, is important because it is responsible for 90 percent of all leafy vegetables that we consume in the US from the months of November through March. But it’s a small town. I really enjoyed going there. I interviewed several citizens from Yuma and asked specific questions to find out about food and water risk. I asked them: What would you do? What entities or organizations would you expect to assist you in a situation created by agro-terrorism? Where would you go to find information and things of that nature? And it was very interesting in analyzing their responses in terms of how little that has actually really been thought about in terms of how would you assess that, from that citizen perspective. How would you assess that and what secondary and tertiary impacts would it have?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:00:30] And so what’s interesting, though, is initially in thinking about agro-terrorism, the literature that has been published, highlights or looks at where within the supply chain process of basically from farm to table are vulnerable. What parts in that, I think it’s like fourteen points. What parts of that fourteen point process are there vulnerabilities that enable an adversary to actually target the produce? When we think about this continued effort across the board to implement smart technology, smart farms, smart cities, all those things, it changes the dynamics in terms of where you might even look as an indicator to someone trying to target agriculture. You may not need to look in a field to see if someone is out of place. And looks to be doing something that is nefarious. If you rely on smart technology to feed and water your crops, someone can easily tinker with those systems and create environments that may damage the produce as well. So it’s very interesting to have written about it as a PhD. candidate and now looking at it, I can easily put on a cyber lens and realize that increased technology also could cause more challenges within critical infrastructure.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [01:02:15] Could we talk about weapons of mass destruction and the threat that they pose now? And after that, could we talk about the countries who are considered a threat? I read in the Introduction to Intelligence book that Iran is not considered as high a threat as possibly the media would lead us to believe. We’re going first to the question of where would you put the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the list of top threats, the first and foremost threat being the cyber threat.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:02:58] Well, I would rather not talk about WMD just because I’m not a specialist on that. I’m not a specialist on WMD because I haven’t studied that.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [01:03:14] No problem at all. So you would not like to talk about the threat of particular nation states either?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:03:24] No. Not when it comes to WMD.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [01:03:27] As a separate thing. Just which nation states do you consider the biggest threat?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:03:34] No. Because I’ve already covered that when I addressed your question relating to the cyber threat. You asked me to identify threats within the context of cyber and I said Russia, China, North Korea and Iran from a cyber perspective. Anything else, I would say still falls within that category.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [01:03:52] As a final question, you have had an incredible career to date and have been on an amazing journey. Could you talk of the people with whom you have connected richly, who have moved your human story or your career or and your career forward?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:04:20] Sure, obviously there’s been a few within a 20 year career. But the one person that I would say significantly played a role in my decision to become a warrant officer, which obviously has led to a lot of great experiences and positions of being able to identify information that’s very important to policymakers and decision makers and also as a warrant officer for being able to teach other individuals. So the person that really started that whole process for me was my first sergeant in Germany. So, there I was probably within two or three years of having joined the military. And I was starting to wonder what to do next. I had just come from the deployment in Kosovo and I did very well. I realized it further solidified my decision to be an intelligence analyst, and I really felt like I had definitely chosen the right path. So I asked my first sergeant, his name is Peter Hall. I have no idea where he is now. It’s been years. I asked him what he thought about my pursuing becoming a warrant officer, and he wrote an email to me and I still have it to this day. It’s in my fireproof box! He wrote an email to me and he explained from his perspective what being a warrant officer means and the value of having warrant officers.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:06:03] He also gave me a warning. He said: Here are some really good warrant officers and this is what you want to aspire to. And here’s what you don’t want to be. You don’t want to be a warrant officer that says: Hey, I’m the cool kid on the block and I’m just going to be over here in my corner. I’m only going to work on my work. I’m not going to talk to anyone else. But he explained to me the value of being a warrant officer and what that means to enlisted soldiers as well as officers and why if it’s something I wanted to pursue, some things that I wanted to consider. And then, of course, he ended by telling me that he thought I would make a good warrant officer. And he told me why he thought I would make a good warrant officer. So he definitely set that whole chain in motion as it pertained to me deciding to transition from being an enlisted soldier, to becoming a warrant officer.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [01:06:56] Are you allowed to share why he thought you would be a good warrant officer?
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:07:04] Well, I think he said I was feisty. At that time, I probably was. I used to be a bit feistier than I am now. But in addition to that, he said that because I was basically in constant pursuit of more information, identifying, you know, things that still needed to be resolved and not settling with just getting one thing right or not settling with the information that is readily available to me, but continuing to dig a little deeper. So, you know, if I had to categorize that now, I would say basically intellectual curiosity and also intellectual humility, being able to admit when I didn’t know everything and I still needed to continue to search for something deeper. So those are some of the things that he mentioned in there and the fact that he really believed that I could do whatever I wanted to do. And he basically ended it with saying, it doesn’t matter what you choose to do, you will do exceptionally well, whatever you choose.
Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [01:08:14] Dr. LaMesha Craft, consultant instructor at the National Intelligence University, USA. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Dr. LaMesha Craft, Contract Faculty Member, National Intelligence University, USA: [01:08:25] Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
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Dr. LaMesha Craft
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If you enjoyed this interview please check out ideaXme’s interview with Brian Holmes PhD. Dean Anthony G. Oettinger School of Science and Technology.
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