21 ms·

The Iraq war comes to mind.

ssully 7y ago
I thought the administration at the time pushed the WMD angle, while the intel said otherwise?
nostrademons 7y ago
That was one of the media-related ones that came to mind. Also, I had an International Relations professor who was a consultant for the State Department and had just finished giving the briefing for the next 5-year strategic plan on August 19, 1991. He said that nobody in the Pentagon ever considered the possibility that the Soviet Union might not exist within 5 years, let alone days. Some other experience is fairly obvious just growing up in a bicultural household with an immigrant parent who had firsthand experience living in other parts of the world, eg. the U.S. consistently underestimates the degree of corruption in many other countries and the degree to which the "state" that is ostensibly our ally is actually a fiction, with the majority of actual daily life ruled by family, ethnic, or business ties. A lot you can verify just by looking at our strategic decisions in the moment vs. how things turn out later and internal communications get declassified. We didn't understand that the Sino-Soviet split had happened until decades later, and still thought that China and Russia formed a united communist bloc well into the 80s. A number of people still think of China as communist, which isn't true at all. I'm actually seeking out information contrary to my experience here - I would love to see stories where U.S. intelligence agencies were completely on the mark but were ignored. But my knowledge base so far is that intelligence agencies are as vulnerable to human cognitive biases as the general public, and frequently get basic facts wrong.
- SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
  We (the west) are just starting to understand that China seems to be a mafia state in a similar way that Russia is. I was watching an ABC (the Australian one) report about the rampant corporate misconduct of the Crown Casino, and how they helped launder Triad money in Melbourne. It turns out that a major player in the racket was President Xi's cousin and a high ranking member of the CCP. Additionally, we've seen Triads deployed in Hong Kong recently to attack protestors.
  - wahern 7y ago
    > We (the west) are just starting to understand that China seems to be a mafia state in a similar way that Russia is. Probably because it's evolution into a mafia state has been much slower. President Xi has been slowly accumulating power for 15 years. Since Mao power was purposefully kept defuse, and while corruption has been rampant at least since the free market reforms, it was of a different kind and in some respects served to maintain competing power centers.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    This is good news, I guess, in the long run? Maybe. Except with nukes you never know.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    I think that's both true-and-not-true, depending on what level you zoom in. Generalizing very heavily (I have some personal experience in Chinese culture, but virtually none with Russian culture, and basically consider myself American despite partial ethnic heritage)... I think that Chinese corruption is very different in character from Russian corruption. Russian corruption stems from a sort of hyper-individualism and a belief that you need to take what you can get while you can get it, because somebody else will if you don't. Chinese corruption, however, often starts from the belief that the family is the fundamental unit of social organization, over the self, country, and God. Nepotism ("filial piety") is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture, and isn't really considered a bad thing. Beyond the family, there's the web of social relationships and obligations ("guanxi") through which business is conducted, but Chinese people usually don't buy appeals to higher organizing principles like patriotism or salvation. There's an odd relationship to the concept of nationhood, as well: here, you're American if you have a piece of paper proving American citizenship, while for a Chinese person you are Chinese if you are ethnically Chinese, regardless of where you're located or which passport you carry. (This is a source of occasional tension for Chinese-Americans: when interacting with another Chinese person, their immediate assumption is that you are Chinese too - "You're Chinese, why don't you X?" - while most of us are more likely to say "Actually, I'm American.") One thing that both China and Russia share is a weak rule of law, though. Laws are routinely bent in both of these countries if it suits the interest of a powerful person or furthers a relationship. America is headed in the wrong direction in this regard - and IMHO the words of the current president don't help here - but there's still a default assumption here that the law is the law, and that we're all equal before it. This is a fiction, but it's a powerful fiction that has led to a lot of prosperity for America, and would probably lead to much suffering if people stopped believing it.
- scarmig 7y ago
  > We didn't understand that the Sino-Soviet split had happened until decades later, and still thought that China and Russia formed a united communist bloc well into the 80s This is not true. See e.g. the 13 August 1969 Presidential briefing: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005976931.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005976931.... Choice quotes: "The potential for war between them clearly exists." "A climate of high tension, marked by periodic border clashes, is likely." "Peking, which appears to view the USSR as its most immediate enemy, will face stiff competition from the Soviets in attempting to expand its influence in Asia." The USA actually held discussions with the USSR to bomb China's nuclear missile facilities. Moreover, this knowledge aiding in reaching rapprochement with China in 1972.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  > the U.S. consistently underestimates the degree of corruption in many other countries and the degree to which the "state" that is ostensibly our ally is actually a fiction, with the majority of actual daily life ruled by family, ethnic, or business ties A related comment in that vein is people the west often don't get that people other places correctly see their corrupt semi-authoritarian governments as their best real option.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    You mean it's not a good idea to remove said government and bring (a naive attempt at) democracy? Yeah.

I thought the administration at the time pushed the WMD angle, while the intel said otherwise?

That was one of the media-related ones that came to mind. Also, I had an International Relations professor who was a consultant for the State Department and had just finished giving the briefing for the next 5-year strategic plan on August 19, 1991. He said that nobody in the Pentagon ever considered the possibility that the Soviet Union might not exist within 5 years, let alone days. Some other experience is fairly obvious just growing up in a bicultural household with an immigrant parent who had firsthand experience living in other parts of the world, eg. the U.S. consistently underestimates the degree of corruption in many other countries and the degree to which the "state" that is ostensibly our ally is actually a fiction, with the majority of actual daily life ruled by family, ethnic, or business ties. A lot you can verify just by looking at our strategic decisions in the moment vs. how things turn out later and internal communications get declassified. We didn't understand that the Sino-Soviet split had happened until decades later, and still thought that China and Russia formed a united communist bloc well into the 80s. A number of people still think of China as communist, which isn't true at all. I'm actually seeking out information contrary to my experience here - I would love to see stories where U.S. intelligence agencies were completely on the mark but were ignored. But my knowledge base so far is that intelligence agencies are as vulnerable to human cognitive biases as the general public, and frequently get basic facts wrong.

SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
We (the west) are just starting to understand that China seems to be a mafia state in a similar way that Russia is. I was watching an ABC (the Australian one) report about the rampant corporate misconduct of the Crown Casino, and how they helped launder Triad money in Melbourne. It turns out that a major player in the racket was President Xi's cousin and a high ranking member of the CCP. Additionally, we've seen Triads deployed in Hong Kong recently to attack protestors.
- wahern 7y ago
  > We (the west) are just starting to understand that China seems to be a mafia state in a similar way that Russia is. Probably because it's evolution into a mafia state has been much slower. President Xi has been slowly accumulating power for 15 years. Since Mao power was purposefully kept defuse, and while corruption has been rampant at least since the free market reforms, it was of a different kind and in some respects served to maintain competing power centers.
- jacobush 7y ago
  This is good news, I guess, in the long run? Maybe. Except with nukes you never know.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  I think that's both true-and-not-true, depending on what level you zoom in. Generalizing very heavily (I have some personal experience in Chinese culture, but virtually none with Russian culture, and basically consider myself American despite partial ethnic heritage)... I think that Chinese corruption is very different in character from Russian corruption. Russian corruption stems from a sort of hyper-individualism and a belief that you need to take what you can get while you can get it, because somebody else will if you don't. Chinese corruption, however, often starts from the belief that the family is the fundamental unit of social organization, over the self, country, and God. Nepotism ("filial piety") is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture, and isn't really considered a bad thing. Beyond the family, there's the web of social relationships and obligations ("guanxi") through which business is conducted, but Chinese people usually don't buy appeals to higher organizing principles like patriotism or salvation. There's an odd relationship to the concept of nationhood, as well: here, you're American if you have a piece of paper proving American citizenship, while for a Chinese person you are Chinese if you are ethnically Chinese, regardless of where you're located or which passport you carry. (This is a source of occasional tension for Chinese-Americans: when interacting with another Chinese person, their immediate assumption is that you are Chinese too - "You're Chinese, why don't you X?" - while most of us are more likely to say "Actually, I'm American.") One thing that both China and Russia share is a weak rule of law, though. Laws are routinely bent in both of these countries if it suits the interest of a powerful person or furthers a relationship. America is headed in the wrong direction in this regard - and IMHO the words of the current president don't help here - but there's still a default assumption here that the law is the law, and that we're all equal before it. This is a fiction, but it's a powerful fiction that has led to a lot of prosperity for America, and would probably lead to much suffering if people stopped believing it.
scarmig 7y ago
> We didn't understand that the Sino-Soviet split had happened until decades later, and still thought that China and Russia formed a united communist bloc well into the 80s This is not true. See e.g. the 13 August 1969 Presidential briefing: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005976931.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005976931.... Choice quotes: "The potential for war between them clearly exists." "A climate of high tension, marked by periodic border clashes, is likely." "Peking, which appears to view the USSR as its most immediate enemy, will face stiff competition from the Soviets in attempting to expand its influence in Asia." The USA actually held discussions with the USSR to bomb China's nuclear missile facilities. Moreover, this knowledge aiding in reaching rapprochement with China in 1972.
Gibbon1 7y ago
> the U.S. consistently underestimates the degree of corruption in many other countries and the degree to which the "state" that is ostensibly our ally is actually a fiction, with the majority of actual daily life ruled by family, ethnic, or business ties A related comment in that vein is people the west often don't get that people other places correctly see their corrupt semi-authoritarian governments as their best real option.
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  You mean it's not a good idea to remove said government and bring (a naive attempt at) democracy? Yeah.