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Notes -
They missed October 7th, a pretty stunning lapse. They called the Russia-Ukrainian war but then they thought Kiev might fall in 72 hours (as did I tbh) - then they overcorrected and went 'yeah, launch this massive telegraphed armoured thrust into a fortified enemy with air superiority, they'll run and panic'. Then they went back and said 'oh you should've attacked sooner in a more focused direction, been more Western and less Soviet - the defeat had nothing to do with attacking while outnumbered and outgunned'.
Let's not forget the constant fumbling over their own feet on Russiagate. I would've thought it was pretty important to know whether or not Russia was 'interfering' in your elections so you could then provide assurance about what exactly happened. Instead they just spread confusion and distrust all over the place with endless dossiers - confusion and distrust in elections is exactly what Russia wants.
US intelligence is pretty bad in a holistic sense. They have excellent technical capabilities (finding things via satellite for example) but their ability to achieve positive results is poor. Why couldn't the CIA rustle up a countercoup in Niger and keep their huge base there? Why are the Russians of all people making gains in Africa?
Did the US miss October 7th? I thought the emerging narrative is that the Egyptians and Israelis (and therefore certainly the Americans) knew ‘something’ was going to happen, they just didn’t expect it to be as big as it was and as well-planned as it was. Similarly re. Ukraine it seems they overestimated Russian competence rather than underestimating Ukrainian resolve (they predicted an ongoing guerilla campaign which wouldn’t happen if they were unmotivated). That’s a failure, but I guess it’s one they’ve been making since 1945 (arguably since 1917) and is probably better than the reverse.
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Bad/good is different from worse/better. Besides many things you are demanding of them are not of intelligence but executive which belong to a completely different part of the government. I doubt that CIA runs the country. And it is good that they don't.
Intelligence/analysis:
October 7th. Ukraine war. Russiagate.
Executive:
Africa coup/countercoups.
There's more I could add - the FBI for instance has been mobilizing lone wolves, encouraging them to launch terror attacks that could then be foiled. This isn't really productive behaviour.
https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/
US intelligence used to do quite a decent job. Coups and regime change, they got some wins down on the board. They got some high-profile Soviet defectors, funding Solidarity. A fair few failures but a pretty good showing compared to now.
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