The Cassandra of American intelligence
June 1, 2024 12:53 AM Subscribe
Intelligence analysis is a notoriously difficult craft. Practitioners have to make predictions and assessments with limited information, under huge time pressure, on issues where the stakes involve millions of lives and the fates of nations. If this small bureau tucked in the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters has figured out some tricks for doing it better, those insights may not just matter for intelligence, but for any job that requires making hard decisions under uncertainty. from The obscure federal intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right [Vox]
Niger, currently: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/5/1/whats-next-as-heavy-handed-us-negotiates-pullout-from-niger "The situation is critical."
posted by HearHere at 1:49 AM on June 1 [2 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 1:49 AM on June 1 [2 favorites]
The bureau’s stellar track record seems, on paper, inexplicable. INR is tiny, with fewer than 500 employees total. The DIA has over 16,500, and while the CIA’s headcount is classified, it was 21,575 in 2013I don't understand how Dylan Matthews can write that INR's stellar track record seems on paper inexplicable in the very same paragraph in which he goes on to explain it.
Anybody who has ever worked in software development, or indeed in any kind of engineering, understands that small teams of competent people always outperform vast armies of drones.
posted by flabdablet at 2:59 AM on June 1 [38 favorites]
Interesting link, thanks!
I'm just finishing up Philip Tetlock's Superforecasting, which says (tl;dr) that both generalist information and insider specialism play their part, as does knowing contingent information that would have to be true for the prediction to be true (eg anodised aluminium tubes being unsuited for uranium centrifuge work), plus taking feedback again and again as you intentionally choose high-detail predictions, say two or three digits of percentage.
posted by k3ninho at 3:32 AM on June 1 [2 favorites]
I'm just finishing up Philip Tetlock's Superforecasting, which says (tl;dr) that both generalist information and insider specialism play their part, as does knowing contingent information that would have to be true for the prediction to be true (eg anodised aluminium tubes being unsuited for uranium centrifuge work), plus taking feedback again and again as you intentionally choose high-detail predictions, say two or three digits of percentage.
posted by k3ninho at 3:32 AM on June 1 [2 favorites]
flabdablet: that point gets much stronger a bit further on when it discusses how INR hires experts, doesn’t rotate them just as they’re getting up to speed, and doesn’t have many layers of intermediaries stifling feedback loops with the users.
posted by adamsc at 4:58 AM on June 1 [10 favorites]
posted by adamsc at 4:58 AM on June 1 [10 favorites]
Why be right? Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons but it also didn't have any trade links with the US or a particularly strong army. And Saddam supposedly tried to assassinate the first Bush. So yeah, it was going to have "nuclear weapons."
posted by kingdead at 5:30 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
posted by kingdead at 5:30 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
Man, that sounds like a dream org to work in. And, it definitely shows the importance of specialization.
I’m kind of surprised, though, the INR still exists, what with Trump working to gut the State Dept. throughout his term. Seems like killing-off the INR would seriously hamstring State.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:43 AM on June 1 [5 favorites]
I’m kind of surprised, though, the INR still exists, what with Trump working to gut the State Dept. throughout his term. Seems like killing-off the INR would seriously hamstring State.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:43 AM on June 1 [5 favorites]
Gosh, it's almost like the INR are the real intelligence agency and the CIA are just an imperial goon squad for resource extractors.
posted by CynicalKnight at 6:01 AM on June 1 [17 favorites]
posted by CynicalKnight at 6:01 AM on June 1 [17 favorites]
The CIA has the problem of not being strictly an intelligence office, as it’s also the private military arm of the executive branch.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:07 AM on June 1 [9 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 6:07 AM on June 1 [9 favorites]
Yeah, I think we run the risk of begging the question when we just assume that "intelligence" in imperial parlance refers to "objective, factual information about the world and the terrain of conflict." Iraq is a great example because the evidence was facilely poor, provided by demonstrably untrustworthy assets, but the point of the "intelligence community" wasn't to shrug and say "ah well, I guess we can't invade then."
He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."posted by jy4m at 6:38 AM on June 1 [17 favorites]
I've seen this TV show and it got cancelled after one season because it was too good. Rubicon.
posted by srboisvert at 6:38 AM on June 1 [7 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 6:38 AM on June 1 [7 favorites]
jy4m: That quote is what kept bouncing around in my head as I was reading this, too.
I think the flat structure is massively important here, paired with that "retirement or death" culture. If analysts aren't looking for their next promotion or lateral move, they have far less reason to try to twist intelligence to say what the brass wants it to.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:09 AM on June 1 [6 favorites]
I think the flat structure is massively important here, paired with that "retirement or death" culture. If analysts aren't looking for their next promotion or lateral move, they have far less reason to try to twist intelligence to say what the brass wants it to.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:09 AM on June 1 [6 favorites]
From my slight reading the CIA knew there were no WMD's in Iraq, reported that in detail, then were told to find a way to justify going in. This can almost certainly be a standard pattern that will likely continue... oh gosh Niger.
posted by sammyo at 7:36 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 7:36 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
How could anyone have guessed the WMD story was bogus?! There must be an elaborate explanation about how only a bunch of really smarty pants Ph.D.s with years of experience and a unique organizational structure could possibly have figured this out. And they had to be specialists focused on a single country and culture, not generalists, but also they needed to know about how to separate Uranium isotopes and about French business motives and Iraq and how they sign their name in Niger, but definitely not be generalists.
Or you could have just asked pretty much any 18-year-old I knew back then, for whom it was abundantly clear that, hey, these guys are just throwing spaghetti at the wall to justify an invasion.They went real quick from "Iraq did 9/11" to "WMDs!" and, whoa, now they're already on to "Doesn't matter anyway we just want to liberate Iraq!"
No intelligence organizational structure or academic training would have helped you figure out they didn't really care about liberating the Iraqi people, after all, but a small spoonful of common sense was more than enough.
And none of these supposed institutional factors will ever serve as a panacea for the United States' intelligence "failures" so long as the press is staffed by sycophantic headline kittens, for whom this article seems to be bending over backwards to apologize for.
posted by dsword at 4:26 PM on June 1 [10 favorites]
Or you could have just asked pretty much any 18-year-old I knew back then, for whom it was abundantly clear that, hey, these guys are just throwing spaghetti at the wall to justify an invasion.They went real quick from "Iraq did 9/11" to "WMDs!" and, whoa, now they're already on to "Doesn't matter anyway we just want to liberate Iraq!"
No intelligence organizational structure or academic training would have helped you figure out they didn't really care about liberating the Iraqi people, after all, but a small spoonful of common sense was more than enough.
And none of these supposed institutional factors will ever serve as a panacea for the United States' intelligence "failures" so long as the press is staffed by sycophantic headline kittens, for whom this article seems to be bending over backwards to apologize for.
posted by dsword at 4:26 PM on June 1 [10 favorites]
I seem to remember that one of Bush's cronies built his own little faux intelligence organisation because none of the established ones would deliver the lies they wanted. I could look it up, but I don't want to, I'm sure I'll be triggered by reading all that shit again.
Anyway, the article was very interesting, thanks for posting it.
posted by mumimor at 2:42 AM on June 2 [1 favorite]
Anyway, the article was very interesting, thanks for posting it.
posted by mumimor at 2:42 AM on June 2 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: sycophantic headline kittens
posted by sammyo at 7:35 AM on June 2 [2 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 7:35 AM on June 2 [2 favorites]
PHOTO CAPTION: Engineers from the 173rd Air Cavalry make their way through forest on Chu Phong mountain, in the Ida Drang Valley, Vietnam, in 1965. Corbis via Getty Images
I am only halfway through the essay praising the INR. I must point out that no organization such as the "173rd Air Cavalry" existed. The Cavalry unit assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade (SEP) was Troop E of the 17th Cavalry. However, the 173rd did have an engineering company. The Chu Phong mountain probably exists somewhere in the I-Coprs area, as does the Ia Drang Valley. Although the 173rd was briefly deployed to the II-Corps (Pleiku and parts of the Central Highlands) in the spring of 1966, they were never near the Ia Drang Valley in 1965. Maybe the "Ida Drang Valley" is just a typo.
The 173rd moved its base camp from Bien Hoa (in III-Corps, near Saigon) to II-Corps in 1967 - 68.
The INR is perhaps a buffo intelligence unit, but the piece's editors don't seem to have applied the same rigor to its content. It could be those fictional military units and where they were deployed are not relative to the content of the essay but are merely eye candy for the weary reader. Go figure. I suppose this misinformation might be of more interest to the several hundred troopers of the 1st Air Cavalry or the 101st Airborne who actually fought and died in the Ia Drang Valley than to the casual reader of a tengential essay. Sin loi.
posted by mule98J at 9:02 AM on June 2 [9 favorites]
I am only halfway through the essay praising the INR. I must point out that no organization such as the "173rd Air Cavalry" existed. The Cavalry unit assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade (SEP) was Troop E of the 17th Cavalry. However, the 173rd did have an engineering company. The Chu Phong mountain probably exists somewhere in the I-Coprs area, as does the Ia Drang Valley. Although the 173rd was briefly deployed to the II-Corps (Pleiku and parts of the Central Highlands) in the spring of 1966, they were never near the Ia Drang Valley in 1965. Maybe the "Ida Drang Valley" is just a typo.
The 173rd moved its base camp from Bien Hoa (in III-Corps, near Saigon) to II-Corps in 1967 - 68.
The INR is perhaps a buffo intelligence unit, but the piece's editors don't seem to have applied the same rigor to its content. It could be those fictional military units and where they were deployed are not relative to the content of the essay but are merely eye candy for the weary reader. Go figure. I suppose this misinformation might be of more interest to the several hundred troopers of the 1st Air Cavalry or the 101st Airborne who actually fought and died in the Ia Drang Valley than to the casual reader of a tengential essay. Sin loi.
posted by mule98J at 9:02 AM on June 2 [9 favorites]
Gosh, it's almost like the INR are the real intelligence agency and the CIA are just an imperial goon squad for resource extractors.
Cue "Slow Horses" citation.
posted by rongorongo at 11:37 PM on June 2
Cue "Slow Horses" citation.
posted by rongorongo at 11:37 PM on June 2
Not that this excuses inaccuracies you've identified, but that's simply the photo caption provided by Getty Images. So in my opinion it doesn't reflect very much on the essay itself.
> PHOTO CAPTION: Engineers from the 173rd Air Cavalry make their way through forest on Chu Phong mountain, in the Ida Drang Valley, Vietnam, in 1965. Corbis via Getty Images
posted by secretseasons at 7:13 AM on June 3
So in my opinion it doesn't reflect very much on the essay itself.
Yeah, I agree. I suppose a different editor did the fact-checking for the essay itself. History is who wrote it, not who did it.
posted by mule98J at 10:59 AM on June 4
Yeah, I agree. I suppose a different editor did the fact-checking for the essay itself. History is who wrote it, not who did it.
posted by mule98J at 10:59 AM on June 4
Intelligence, like economics, is too close to power for strictly evidence-based arguments to prevail. INR is right so much of the time precisely because nobody pays attention to them. If they became the go-to interpreter of raw intel, they would swiftly fall prey to the ass-covering, finger-pointing culture of the more prominent parts of the intel community.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:31 AM on June 5 [2 favorites]
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:31 AM on June 5 [2 favorites]
A good point, and one that IMO opens the door to a retelling of the Cassandra story in which the divine blessing/curse of being ignored sets her free to tell the unvarnished truth. Her fellow prophets all know what she knows, but she's the only one who is free to say it. Maybe it's been done?
posted by Not A Thing at 12:09 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]
posted by Not A Thing at 12:09 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]
> I've seen this TV show and it got cancelled after one season because it was too good. Rubicon.
Just finished it. Superb. Thought I wouldn't finish before the AMC+ 7-day trial ran out & was resigned to paying for a month, but so good I finished a day early. Slow, but that's part of the appeal if you can flow with it.
It's curious because I agree that the show's API sounds more like INR than Wikipedia's claim of a Private Intelligence Agency like STRATFOR. It attribute that to Alan Sepinwall. Do co's like Booz Allen Hamilton get access to classified intel?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:22 PM on June 9
Just finished it. Superb. Thought I wouldn't finish before the AMC+ 7-day trial ran out & was resigned to paying for a month, but so good I finished a day early. Slow, but that's part of the appeal if you can flow with it.
It's curious because I agree that the show's API sounds more like INR than Wikipedia's claim of a Private Intelligence Agency like STRATFOR. It attribute that to Alan Sepinwall. Do co's like Booz Allen Hamilton get access to classified intel?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:22 PM on June 9
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posted by rongorongo at 1:39 AM on June 1 [13 favorites]