US Intelligence Community Strengths and Weaknesses

Paying people off is probably a more fruitful approach than spending a lot of effort understanding people.

People are irrational and do things counter to their interests all of the time.

But one weakness of the intelligence community seems to be generating a conclusion first and working backwards from there to justify it.

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US Intelligence Community Strengths and Weaknesses

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Strength: They can get dirt on just about anyone without repercussions

Weakness: You can't trust them

I'll bookmark a place here. Would like to discuss later. I will say that HUMINT is a lot like ID witness testimony--it can be your ace in the hole, or it can be a complete piece of crap. Sources lie, obfuscate, misremember, pass on second and third-hand garbage as though it's first-hand etc. And when you get a good, vetted, well-placed source, you have to hope like hell he stays motivated to help (unless you have some degree of control over him) and doesn't get caught, transferred, die whatever. Pound for pound it can be more resource intensive than technical collections (after the initial investment in the capability) and is generally less reliable.

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One obvious reason is the conscious decision to divest from human intelligence and rely more on different forms of technology(SIGINT/Imagery/ELINT/Cyber).

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I had a physics professor that worked on the U2/SR71 optics programs, that was some pretty wicked shite for that day. Very strange cat, but you could tell he was brilliant. We could probably rely on "tech" in those days to gain a pretty big advantage.

As far as cyber goes, I briefly worked on a project with EDS and Navy about 15 years ago. It wasn't intelligence, but from a tech standpoint it was a complete cluster. Way too much bureaucracy and red tape to ever be a success. To be successful in cyber you need a very unstructured organization with little regard for who you hire and how much you incentivize them to be successful. Maybe down deep we have that, who knows.

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Very few Americans are bilingual. Very few grew up in foreign countries or frequently travel.

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All very true, but I'd guess our "double naught spy" program has probably been pretty successful through the years. No idea in the muslim world though, that seems like a different animal.

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our ability to understand other cultures just isn't where it needs to be

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We think too short term. Probably part of our short political cycle and being so internally focused. Going back to the Japan threads from yesterday, I read a book years ago that talked about Mitsubishi having a 500 year business plan, and having several thousand employees studying US markets, meanwhile the US had very few college students taking courses in Japanese and very few companies doing real research on Japanese markets. And here we are still bitching about "fair trade" being the problem.

Wanted to cover your original post before I dove in on some of the responses.

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The US has never been the world's preeminent espionage player. We may not be the worst but others certainly do it better and for a long time.

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I believe that the reason this is true is that America has been the wealthiest super power in the history of the world. Money and equipment is no object for us, and because full retaliation against the US is simply not on the table for other government, we can pretty much just invade and shift shite around how we please. The willingness of our population to re-elect politicians who launch large scale wars is the only real limitation of the USG ability to literally kill anything that disagrees with it.

That kind of environment does not lend itself to an exceptional espionage capability. Even the USSR at its peak was operating on fumes. Thier shite socialist nightmare economy and constant need for expansion (and failures in doing so) kept them bluffing the US for almost their entire reign. Their access to east Germany, Europe, and the US through well designed propaganda and recruitment programs allowed them to piggy back on US technological advances, disrupt American allies in places where the US had key economic relationships, and be a general thorn in our side in Cuba, Turkey, Hungary, and all of latin America (it seems). The Russians were playing small ball with America all throughout the 50s well into the 80s. Their sponsorship of the castro brothers and Che in Cuba coupled with their influence with the not-so-hidden marxists in the US and Europe cost America billions of dollars and one massively failed interdiction (bay of pigs).

The cold war would be America's golden era of espionage, and our success in that era was paltry compared to what China, Iran and the USSR achieved in that time. One thing all three had/have in common: They are forced to achieve more with less, which lends itself to irregular warfare capabilities and espionage. In a way, we should be thankful that it wasn't a necessity to have the premier espionage element during that era, because it would have been almost impossible to achieve given our circumstances and the nature of government.

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HUMINT is probably our biggest weakness. I think there are several reasons for this. One obvious reason is the conscious decision to divest from human intelligence and rely more on different forms of technology(SIGINT/Imagery/ELINT/Cyber). I think the reason for this shift was two fold. 1. It's less risky. Politicians and by extension political appointees that run the intelligence community are risk averse by nature. 2. We can afford to do the high tech type of espionage allowing us to be lazy with HUMINT. We're a rich nation and can buy/develop any type of satellite or computer system or surveillance equipment our heart desires.

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HUMINT is a huge weakness for us. Much of the reason for that is the 4 year leadership cycles, which are honestly abbreviated because the last 18 months are about getting re-elected, thus risk aversion increases.

Our Cabinet positions are politically appointed and have almost ZERO autonomy of decision making. There are advantages and disadvantages of this. I certainly don't advocate for the kinds of systems the Iran, Russia, and China utilize, because that implies something far more authoritarian and nothing close to constitutional.

I would never advocate for one type of intel over all others, but I will say that I tend to believe HUMINT is the most versatile of the collection methods, and while it is difficult, time consuming, and resource intensive, it can provide the critical "context" or "atmospherics" where all the other methods struggle in that regard. Most of my experience is in the HUMINT world, and I am quite familiar with the limitations of that speciality. Displaced_Buckeye mentioned leadership, and I think that without a question leadership is the most important factor in having solid HUMINT. I'm talking about all the way up to the POTUS. WHAT we are collecting on (Collection requirements or PIR) are CRUCIAL in forming an effective collection system in the HUMINT world. You can't just suck it all into a computer and sort it out later. In many cases you have limited windows. Sources die, get bored, change sides, retire, lose access etc... Having a constantly rotating national objective (COIN in Iraq AFG, or WMDs, or Force PRO Etc.. kills momentum and development of HUMINT assets. Which brings up another leadership issue: The CIA is far too diverse in its efforts, and its focus on operations vice intel collection is highly detrimental to our national collection strategy. The big boy agencies have been down playing in the fricking mud with our DOD for 15 years, in what I can only describe as glory hunting and careerist minded bullshite. they claim to be interested in strategic level information, but my years of experience tell me that's just a load of shite. they are interested in getting their names out there, being patted on the head, and above all else, protecting their politically appointed chief so they can all get that desk they always wanted. Their organization is one of the most cut-throat that I have ever seen. The amount of lying and fabrication that goes on the get that pat on the head is astonishing. There is no "greater team" concept with them and that is a massive leadership problem. Unfortunately they are the nations keeper of the realm for HUMINT, and all collection tactics and approvals go through them (and the Chief of mission) in all areas not specifically exempt from such an arrangement such as Iraq was from 2003-2011. that's enough railing on them for now, because really they are just a symptom of the greater problem, which is a far too ambitious and destructive foreign policy.

the USG tries to do far too much in far too many places. We have massive manning issues, we lose our best because they get burned out or tired of working around the cut-throat careerist types who inevitably rise up the ranks. We can't keep our people operating in the same environments for 10 or 15 years like so many other countries do. We have people who have deployed or worked in dozens of countries in their careers, learning almost nothing about any of them. We change alliances in our small wards virtually overnight with no warning whatsoever, which destroys our ability to build meaningful, peaceful relationships with indigenous partners in those countries. Partnerships that help prevent 9-11 style attacks, or that warn us when ISIL is about to be a problem. Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and a dozen other countries should be premier performers in terms of early warning and atmospherics. They aren't, because everyone is chasing that shiny object and not unified around a singular objective: Identifying legitimate threats to US national security. I could talk about this for years. Ill just leave it there for now. To be continued