Intelligence Failures

Someone just forwarded me this article: US intelligence community launches review following Ukraine and Afghanistan intel failings

‘Bout time. They should back date it to cover the 1991 Gulf War predictions and the failure in the late 1980s to predict the fall of the Soviet Union; oh, and maybe those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003, and those estimates of duration and losses during the war (see Modern American Wars). Also, might want to discuss the defenses of Tang Island in 1975 and the failure to secure the Marine Barricks in Lebanon in 1983. And then was the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Anything I am forgetting?

A few highlights:

1. They are carrying out “…a sweeping internal review of how it assesses the fighting power of foreign militaries…” Wonder if anyone will call me.
2. “…sent classified letter…pointing out that the agencies broadly underestimated how long the Ukranian military would be able to fend off Russian forces and overestimated how long Afghan fighters would hold out against the Talban last summer…” They probably need to add an adjective or two to this sentence like “grossly” or “sadly” underestimated or overestimated.
3. “CNN has learned that one smaller intelligence agency within the State Department did more accurately assess the Ukrainian military’s capability to resist Russia.” Would like to see that estimate. It was done by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
4. “Critics say the US might have moved to arm Ukraine sooner and with heavier weaponry if the intelligence community had assessed that it stood a fighting chance against the Russian army.”
5. “…suggest a widespread acknowledge within the US government that the intelligence community needs to reassess how it judges the strength of other nation’s militaries…” This blog post is kind of relevant: Are There Only Three Ways of Assessing Military Power? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).
6. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research “…was also the leading dissenting voice in 2002, when the majority of US intelligence agencies assessed wrongly that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq war in 2003…:”
7. “Current and former intelligence officials acknowledge that only looking at military ‘capabilities’ leaves out the quintessentially human factors that could prove decisive.” I think we have discussed one or two or several dozen times.

If there has been any consistent element to this story, it that we consistently have major intelligence failures decade after decade after decade after decade after decade after decade after decade after decade (did I get in all the decades?).

P.S. While we are at it, still dying to know who inserted a provision in the 2020 defense budget for validation testing of combat models and then who mysteriously removed that provision in the final budget. See: U.S. Senate on Model Validation | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and No Action on Validation In the 2020 National Defense Act Authorization | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).