Where intelligence is stupid... and dangerous

Nothing new about this issue.  We saw it coming over a decade ago, maybe longer.  Dana Priest and William Arkin gave it substantial coverage in their front-page WaPo series, "Top Secret America," now a book.  Paul Pillar has been talking and writing about it since 9/11.  Eric Schmidt and Thom Shanker of the New York Times have been covering the searches for and campaigns against Al Qaeda, and they, too, have summarized their findings in "Counterstrike."  In a review of their books, and of where our "secret American security state," has taken us, Steve Coll writes:

... After September 11, newspaper Op-Ed pages were full of recommendations for radical departures in American intelligence, changes that might place new emphasis on lean and adaptable operations. There was much talk of a long-term development of “human sources of information”; of the need for risk-taking and the bold penetration of what are known in the intelligence agencies as “denied areas,” such as Iran and North Korea. Some of that ambition has been fulfilled; it is difficult to measure how much, since so much of the detail of post–September 11 covert action and intelligence collection remains secret.

What is plain, nonetheless, is that the larger story of the American intelligence system is one of continuity. The bureaucracy has defended itself from outside investigation and oversight and has followed many of the trajectories set during the Eisenhower years. The relative strengths of tactical American intelligence tradecraft today include innovative technology, vacuum cleaner–like collection of electronic data worldwide, computer algorithms that sort valuable information from noise, and the bludgeoning effects on adversaries of huge if wasteful spending. These methods look very similar to those of the anti-Soviet intelligence system. The bureaucracy’s weaknesses—inefficiency, ignorance of local cultures, revolving doors, self-perpetuation, vulnerability to political pressure, and an overall lack of accountability—are deeply familiar, too. ...NYRB

Younger Americans can throw about the word "commie" without really knowing what they're talking about.  Our right-leaning leaders have, for years, used the word to separate themselves from what was in fact a very authoritarian, not communistic, state, riddled with corruption and cover-up.  But we're finding the cold warriors of the Republican party, at least, are hardly different from the methodical Soviet totalitarians their Cold War intelligence agencies were created to defeat. What was once a democracy is now governance in which the state is allowed to know everything about its citizens and in which the citizens are permitted to know less and less about their governance.

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Eisenhower, of course, saw it coming.  Thomas Powers notes that "the cold eye of history has altered its verdict on Eisenhower considerably in the last half-century, finding within the Sunday painter a man with a learned understanding, firmer than that of perhaps any other president, of the nature of the power wielded by nations—that thing, described by Thucydides, which explains why 'the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.'” ...NYRB

Comments

[Dan]

It's telling that Coll describes "vacuum cleaner–like collection of electronic data worldwide" and "computer algorithms that sort valuable information from noise" as relative strengths.

How does he know the algorithms doing the sorting are valuable? Has he examined them or is he taking some anonymous intelligence agency source's word for it? What about the false sense of security and complacency that comes from the feeling that everything is being caught?

Has Coll ever forgotten where he put something on his hard drive and attempted to find it? Imagine doing that against a server farm containing petabytes of data. How much time is wasted just trying to traverse such an immense territory?

Would a smaller agency with less blind trust in technology produce better outcomes? I'd personally feel a lot more confident in an agency that had actual human beings living in or near the areas of interest, reading papers (in the local language!), listening to news reports (even state-sponsored propaganda), talking to people who live and work in that environment, etc.

Look at the outputs. For all of Coll's gee whiz marveling at our (ahem) awesome surveillance infrastructure, we still seem to be taken completely unawares by every major goddamn development on the global stage. That ain't my idea of ROI.

[PW]

Reading Maddow's (excellent)tracing of the steps to permanent war has turned my dog walks into a time of reexamining those "awesome ... infrastructures..." (whether intelligence or military).

I think about how we naive we have been about what those capabilities are used for. You're right on about the impracticality of that great vacuum bag in Nevada! Take a step back and ask yourself why we would build a vast and unwieldy database that doesn't get the intelligence we need and hasn't for decades, as well as a huge and mega-equipped military that hasn't won a "war" in how long? Then at least play with the proposition (in my view a certainty) that these megastructures have different purposes altogether.

That they are ends in themselves (yes, I believe that) and/or they represent goals we have been distracted from noticing (yes, also probable)because we keep believing we are fighting conventional wars.

The R of your ROI isn't meant for you and me and other heirs of the Founders. We just chug along with our little TV's, our pledges of allegiance, and our quaint "thank you for your service." At best we and our kids in Afghanistan are pocket-lint for the real beneficiaries. During each decade since Eisenhower's statement the investment has more than doubled, I bet, not that our return has changed in value. Instead it comes back to haunt us once or twice a decade -- if you count Grenada and the Contras.

I think you mistake Coll's view of the issue. I don't fault Coll at all for what you call his gee-whiz marveling, and not just because boys will be boys! But I read him a lot and so maybe just have a different impression. I would fault him, though, for a kind of vinyl blandness and detachment that seems to possess the entire New America Foundation.

[Dan]

All I know about Coll is what's in that block quote, so I'll defer to your more extensive knowledge.

And yes, us boys love our gadgets.

[PW]

Not extensive knowledge. Acquaintance!

Dan, BTW, did you see the David Brooks piece in the Times today just dripping with patronizing comments about kids "bursting with enthusiasm for some social entrepreneurship project: making a cheap water-purification system, starting a company that will empower Rwandan women by selling their crafts in boutiques around the world" -- versus "moral realists"?