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The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
- rurban 2y ago[flagged]
- riehwvfbk 2y agoIt's not that nobody listens, it's that the information disseminated via the media is not what's correct, but rather what is politically expedient at the moment. Case in point: where in the article is the INR's brilliant prediction about the future of the war in Ukraine?
- meowface 2y ago>Case in point: where in the article is the INR's brilliant prediction about the future of the war in Ukraine? Maybe the INR doesn't reveal predictions of that nature to the public or media?
- toyg 2y agoTheir production is not public. All links in the article to past production actually go to third-party papers analyzing their historic, declassified production. TBH the article makes it clear they are not perfect, by mentioning that they got Iran badly wrong.
- alfiedotwtf 2y agoSounds like their success comes from not starting with the results you want and reverse engineering the reasoning to justify the outcome. Who would have thought removing top-down agendas and starting with a bottom-up approach would end up with a better picture of the truth!
- alfiedotwtf 2y agoAlso... I wonder if this article was specifically published because internally to INR they can see it's happening /yet again/ on some politicised matter (e.g China) and this is their cry out for help.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- firesteelrain 2y agoWhat I gathered from this is that not the INR is full of oracles or people who have the magic skill to foresee the future but rather really smart people who based on past experience can see patterns of behavior and infer future state from that. Then, they are so small they are required to innovate and iterate on intelligence.
- yterdy 2y agoFor sources with similar protocols/track record that you can actually see the work of, I'd look at people like Sarah Kendzior and Cory Doctorow. One focuses on how corruption and autocratic rule become entrenched in a society, the other on tech issues, with an emphasis on corporate malfeasance wrt user freedom and safety. Both are a bit melodramatic, but they also both emphasize that their predictions are based in, as you say, inferring future state from patterns of past behavior.
- tonetegeatinst 2y agoNew defense budget includes a large portion dedicated to orbs for pondering raw intelligence and data.
- jongjong 2y agoI'm guessing the purpose of the CIA is to produce information which leads to political actions that yield financial benefits for the country while the purpose of INR is to produce accurate information without concern for financial benefits. The fact that the government thought it needed 2 organizations to do what is supposed to be the same job shows that neither organization is doing the full job properly. It's almost like they need 2 versions of the 'truth' so that they can weigh up convenient half-truths against inconvenient whole truths.
- ghaff 2y agoThat's a reasonable cynical take on it. Another is that different organizations have different biases, incentives, historical perspectives, and so forth. So it's reasonable to consider different points of view.
- jajko 2y agoBy that logic, 10 is always better than 2, so they are still seriously lacking balanced info
- ghaff 2y agoMaybe 10 is better than 2 if there's some independence of data gathering and perspectives. In general, though, at least a couple of different takes is probably valuable--assuming they're bringing at least some diversity of experience.
- kklisura 2y agoOk so what's the INR take on China-Taiwan?
- andrewflnr 2y agoClassified, I'm sure.
- baud147258 2y agoThere's two classified versions and only one will get revealed once that situation is resolved. The version which would have gotten it wrong will just get burried to protect the agency's reputation...
- andrewflnr 2y agoWhich is why OP didn't have any examples of the INR getting it wrong, right?
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoTaiwan, looking side to side "I'm in danger".
- hiddencost 2y agoWhat a curious article... I wonder who the intended audience is.
- 0xbadcafebee 2y ago3 things right over 70 years, that's.... quite a track record
- llamaimperative 2y agoThis is an interesting comment because it's stated with an air of confidence but interpreting statements like "got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right" this way (i.e. got everything else wrong or there were no other tests) would really distort someone's perception of reality.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dralley 2y agoYou clearly didn't read more than the headline
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tivert 2y ago> The most important factor in building this culture, every veteran I spoke to stated, is the unusual way that INR selects and uses analysts. The CIA and DIA tend to favor generalists. Analysts rotate between roles every two to three years, often changing countries or even regions. At INR, the average analyst has been on their topic for over 14 years. “At most of the other intel organizations you rotate out of your portfolio every two to three years,” McCarthy says. “At INR, they die at their desks.” That seems like lesson MBAs should take to heart.
- pjc50 2y agoYou know they'll take the "die at their desks" part out of context. And not absorb the fundamentally unpalatable truth that expertise is real but specific.
- throw0101d 2y agoSomewhat meta-ish question about the Vietnam War for someone who has perhaps studied the topic more: Did the US "lose" the war or did they simply stop 'bothering' with it? In 1973 there was the Paris Peace Accords that crystallized (Communist) North Vietnam and (non-communist) South Vietnam, just like the two Koreas. Then in 1975 the north invaded: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_spring_offensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_spring_offensive and the US (military) basically did nothing to help the south. Kind of like Afghanistan more recently: as long as the US had an interest in it the Taliban could not "win", but the US simply concluded that they didn't want to be involved any longer and pulled out. If the US had continued support and presence, like with South Korea, would it have been possible that South Vietnam would still be around? Bothering with (South) Vietnam wasn't of strategic importance (?) any more, and so the US pulled out and let the chips fall where they may. If the US had continued to care about Vietnam strategically, could they have continued to make tactical (military) decisions to support the south?
- mcphage 2y ago> Did the US "lose" the war or did they simply stop 'bothering' with it? I think it all depends on (a) what was our desired outcome, and (b) did it come to pass? If we didn't achieve our desired outcome, then we lost.
- poochipie 2y agoDepends what you mean by "win". I suppose it implies "achieved some defined geopolitical goals". Those wars, perhaps, didn't have defined goals -- so what does "win" mean in the context of not having a win condition?
- vundercind 2y agoThe question doesn’t make much sense because “stopped bothering with it” is how rich foreign states meddling in colonized territory usually lose wars. It’s not like Vietnam was gonna invade the US, or like we couldn’t have stuck around indefinitely if we’d really wanted to. This is just what losing looks like in that situation. Yes, we lost.
- 2y ago
- bawolff 2y agoGetting iraq not having WMD right probably isn't that hard. Allegedly canadian intelligence knew this, but had it all marked "for canadian eyes only" because they were worried about consequences if usa found out they weren't on board. I highly doubt canada has super-spies, the problem is usa really wanted there to be WMDs, so they came to the conclusion there was. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-intelligence-assessments-of-saddam-s-iraq-got-it-right-new-paper-says-1.5697028 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-intelligence-asses...
- jajko 2y agoi recall GWB speech in UN on this. Literally everybody called BS on this, it was glaringly obvious. Then nations leaned on each side if they simply wanted war to happen (and subsequent contracts from all the change and damage) or not. It wasnt a stellar day for US, and history showed why.
- jayd16 2y agoDon't forget Powell throwing away his career by waving a little vial of prop anthrax to get the UN on board.
- segasaturn 2y agoI particularly remember the mainstream media in the US cheerleading for the war and shouting down anybody who raised doubts as being "with the terrorists". The truth is that the intelligence never mattered, it was always meant as an act of revenge against the Arab/Muslim world for 9/11 and a settling of scores from the 90s Gulf War.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoI remember when the US invaded Iraq(II) it was treated like a party. The media loved it, it was like a football game. And when out to eat, I saw a lot of Americans were loving it , it was entertainment. Shock and Awe, it was spectacle.
- vundercind 2y agoIraq was pretty easy to call. I got it largely right as a high schooler at the time it started. One thing that threw me was that we stayed so damn long, which put my “cross-border islamist group destabilizes Syria” prediction off by years. I underestimated our stomach for throwing money and lives away I guess.
- foobarian 2y ago> throwing money away When thinking about this it's very important to recognize what this means exactly. The money is not put on a pile and set on fire. It goes somewhere where it has very significant impact, most likely flowing into military-industrial complex which is a huge chunk of domestic economy.
- vundercind 2y agoA bunch was deficit spending straight into corporate profits, so, inflationary hand-outs to the rich (and a bit to 401ks probably). Also, though far from a majority of the spending, we did ship whole pallets of cash and those just kinda vanished to wherever but I’m pretty sure if they made it back state-side it was a similar deal, deficit spending going more or less directly to someone already rich in return for very little. A quick google yeah about $12B of cash with awful accounting, and that’s just Iraq, same thing happened in Afghanistan.
- vharuck 2y ago> The money is not put on a pile and set on fire. In a small way, it kind of was. We used the money to produce weapons and ammunition. The producers took the cash and provided the arms. In an ideal economy, both sides would have a net gain: the producers reap profits, and the military uses the goods for a goal it (supposedly) believes is more valuable than the money spent. But we shot the ammo, used the rifles, and detonated the bombs. And the USA didn't achieve the valuable goals it promised. So, while the arms manufacturers came out ahead, the military was left with little value. If they had put that money into research or upgrading bases overseas, then there'd be civilian profits and nice things the military could use for years.
- 2y ago
- comfysocks 2y agoMaybe it’s because “nobody’s heard of them” and “nobody listens to them” that they are allowed to come to correct conclusions? Maybe if they were as influential as the CIA they would get a ton of political pressure to throw out their analysis and echo the current administration’s foregone conclusions?
- PNewling 2y agoThis is an interesting take, that I think might hold some water. With a budget of $59 million (according to wikipedia), they are definitely a small entity in the grand scheme of the US Government. Big enough to run their reports, but not big enough to stop them from being ignored if they are the only (or one of the few) going against the popular consensus. Also, while I am not anywhere familiar with them enough to know their overall track record, even if they did correctly predict the topics listed in the article 'correct', that is three items in 60 years? I'd be curious to know how their intelligence has compared with the numerous things inbetween. That would be a huge lift though. Still fun/interesting to learn about these agencies, even as someone who grew up in the US and took higher level classes on US Government, you never really get a complete view everything.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- antisthenes 2y agoIntelligence bureaus are like stock pickers. You're going to get one eventually that went on a lucky streak and guessed several international developments in a row. What about other non-war events? Does INR also do better in that regard?
- mmsc 2y agoPeople join the likes of the CIA because they know the name CIA and set it as a goal. No different from large companies. But as people set goals the work at a certain place, people lesser-qualified slowly join the ranks until the place is a shell of what it used to be, made up of posers. Can't let the truly skilled individuals do great work either, otherwise it'll expose the unskilled individuals' lack-of-purpose in that place, so bureaucracy gets built and gets in the way of everybody trying to do real work.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- no_exit 2y agoINR was also the source of the concentration camp ("strategic hamlet") strategy in South Vietnam. > The INR director saw the counterinsurgency effort's emphasis on military security as insufficient. Hilsman was much more receptive to ideas for population resettlement and control along lines advanced by Robert G. Thompson, a British consultant to the Diem government, and adopted them as his own. Kennedy asked Hilsman to prepare a paper showing how this concept could work. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB121/prados.htm https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB121/prados.htm
- pquki4 2y agoIs there any cherry picking in the article? Do we have statistics about when INR was correct about the course of history while other agencies were wrong?