Caught Off Guard
The U.S. intelligence community has a very fine reputation. On screen it is portrayed as practically omniscient and omnipotent. When it is criticized, it is usually more for evil genius than for bumbling. But this so-called Arab spring, and the instabilities and dangers it has brought, seems to have caught U.S. intelligence asleep on the job. What went wrong?
I recommend this whole New York Times "Room for Debate." I particularly like the main points in Reuel Marc Gerecht's reply. He blames group-think and scientism:
The intelligence community comprises many bureaucracies, which even when small and bright -- the State Department’s intelligence and research bureau, for example — usually reflect the established views of the larger institutions that house them. The dreaded disease — “group think” — is an unavoidable, and usually undetectable, affliction for intelligence analysts who want to prosper professionally...
The power of conformity is even greater elsewhere in the intelligence community, where the intellectual claustrophobia that comes with working in isolated, highly classified environments is more acute. (State is a realm of audacious libertines compared to the Central Intelligence Agency’s “campus” in suburban Virginia.) Intelligence bureaucracies ruthlessly extirpate intuition, the key ingredient that makes first-rate analysis. For wholly understandable reasons, bureaucracies can’t handle intuition: you can’t quantify it, you can’t really teach it and those who don’t have it — the vast majority of analysts — will rise in indignation against its use.
I have no experiential knowledge of the intelligence community, but these seem like plausible explanations. A typical analyst may have a bright idea about what's going on in Egypt. But if that idea waivers too much from the consensus of her respected, higher-pay-grade superiors she will (1) either convince herself her idea is ridiculous or (2) think it's not worth the risk of alienating herself from higher-ups, thus risking her job, for a prediction that is unlikely and won't gain her very much if it is correct anyways. Her incentive is clearly to stay within the consensus. Institutions have substantial intellectual inertia, which may be increased by hierarchies. We should perhaps consider restructuring analysts' incentives (giving very high rewards for unlikely but proven-correct predictions, perhaps?) to overcome that inertia.
The second point -- that intelligence only considers those factors that can be quantified -- is part of the more general scientistic conviction that a thing only counts as knowledge if it can be measured. Rendering everything quantitatively is also a way of deflecting responsibility ("That's not my claim! It's just what the numbers say!") and so may also may be a problem of the incentives of the intelligence community.
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Re: Caught Off Guard
A fine reputation? The U.S. intelligence community? Matt, Matt, Matt.
The CIA did more to undermine the administration of George W. Bush than the New York Times or the Democratic Party, leaking viciously and persistently. Just a week ago, indeed, I completed an Uncommon Knowledge interview with Donald Rumsfeld, who explained that he lost faith in the CIA so completely that from 2004 on he refused to permit the CIA officer assigned to the Pentagon to participate in his, Rumsfeld's daily intelligence briefing. And--this is really all anybody needs to know--at the time we invaded Iraq, as the Silberman-Robb Commission learned, the number of full-time analysts the CIA had assigned to the country was exactly one.
Edited on Mar 6, 2011 at 2:35pmDec '10
Re: Caught Off Guard
Isolationism, from being in the sandwich of two vast oceans, encased with security on each end, makes a giant slumber and its indulgence in the creature comforts of Washington more appetizing than ordering an attack on the enemy we no longer name.
Also echoing in the corridors of Foggy Bottom, the Pentagon, and the White House is the silence of the top echelon of leaders’ not sounding the death knell for murderous Mohammedan jihadists because of the senescence of their will.
Dec '10
Re: Caught Off Guard
I grew up in the world of CIA, FBI, and other alphabet intelligence services. When you are a kid in the midst of both sides, you make kid judgements. I loved the field agents and nobody, outside of Washington, even liked the "College Boys".
I have been horrified by the modern CIA, rooted for Porter Goss, but, alas.
I read this, today and didn't even flinch, much. Pillar is a classic example of the sort of person I grew up around that nobody liked, respected, or trusted.
Many agents and analysts were, mostly, mainstream. Everybody fought, played rugby and "Jungle Rules", (no rules) sports. As a skinny teenager, I broke a Gunny's leg and separated his shoulder, playing volleyball, because we were taught to hit. Locals played with us, because they knew we were real and our sporting events were the place to be.
I haven't seen that attitude in the foreign service, since the 1970s. I learned American football from former pros that used to sit around under palm trees, sweating, with nobody crying and everybody leaning towards a shortwave, listening to games. Locals hung out with us and both trusted and respected Americans.
Now compare.
Jul '10
Re: Caught Off Guard
Obama has played golf for a combined two months of eight-hour work days since taking office. Then there are hoops in the White House gym and who knows what else. Even if they were worth bothering with -- our "intelligence" community has been a joke going back to OSS days, long before the neutering effect of political correctness -- it must be hard to work in briefings around all the recreation. I wouldn't be surprised if the government media began to murmur about the bald incompetence of this White House.
Jan '11
Re: Caught Off Guard
I spent some years as an Army intelligence officer and I would say that a bigger problem than group think among analysts (which clearly exists, don't get me wrong) is the quality of information they have to analyze. How many sources, if any, did our intelligence agencies have among the people of Egypt? The reality is that we have no strategic human intelligence capability to speak of and our diplomats generally exist in a diplomatic bubble. Without good information to analyze, the best analyst is worthless.
May '10
Re: Caught Off Guard
I think communication between the various intelligence agencies is still a big issue. There's a large volume of data and deciding what's pertinent and what should be shared are obstacles to providing accurate and timely intelligence.
The article seems to be more critical of the CIA, than of the intelligence community as a whole. That said, I've heard the prediction of an Arab spring-type domino effect in the Arab world for over year at dinner parties. If I got wind of it, it wasn't a secret. Gerecht's having dinner with the wrong people, I guess. It's funny he mentions the State Department, when everyone knows it's crawling with CIA folks. Maybe he should reach out to members of other intel agencies for the big picture. It didn't catch all the intelligence community off guard. I don't understand this theory that the intelligence community dropped the ball. Why are people believing this political spin? If they knew about or even initiated it in some way, they couldn't take credit for it. They've become very good at falling on their swords for the Executive Branch.
Feb '11
Re: Caught Off Guard
Matthew Shafer:
The intelligence community is best summed up by Patrick Moynihan's quote: Intelligence should not be confused with intelligence.
Peter Robinson:
What took Rumsfeld so long? Or even more so George W. Bush. They should have lost all confidence on Sept. 12th and heads should have rolled.
Slam dunk? Remember that. Instead they were being conned. Too easy a mark because they were being fed what they wanted to hear.
Dec '10
Re: Caught Off Guard
Heads should have rolled?
Has everyone forgotten the abbreviated term of Porter Goss at CIA?
I will confess to knowing not enough about Porter Goss, certainly not enough to vouch for him, but what I watched was a bureaucratic lynching by the very insiders that failed on 9/11, in the first place. I knew enough about the people in the lynch mob to suspect that Porter Goss would have been the good shake-up that agency needed.
Please recall that this was such an ineffectual period for the Bush administration that Edward Kennedy was handed the "Know Child Left Behind" legislation, for which Bush has been ceaselessly blamed, plus next the prescription drug addition to Medicare. Bush was trying to build coalitions everywhere, at home and abroad and chose wrong on several issues.
I suspect Bush chose wrong when he abandoned Goss to the bureaucrats with the long knives. I don't know that, but I think it might make for an interesting book. Are you up for that book, Matthew Shaffer? It might be worth looking into.
Were I to judge Goss by his enemies, I might consider him to be an interesting subject for exploration.