BUT LIKE JOSEPH BIDEN HAS SO MUCH FOREIGN EXPERIENCE OR SOMETHING

[BCR]

We live in an age of specialization. I’ve often wondered given how piss poor our intelligence has been lately, if it’s simply a byproduct of that. Like you have all these experts in whatever niche. Some Cyber. Some people are language specialists. Security experts. Infrastructure experts.

You see the postings and they’re looking for experts in this niche, with these language skills, and this degree, and 3 years of experience in this exact aspect of a conflict.

Makes you wonder if we lack or there is always a pissing match between someone who kind of has a grasp of it all.

Like some war hero, academy grad big picture thinker could have a grasp on the subject in a macro sense back when intelligence was humans and spies and such.

Now you need tech experts on cyber warfare. You need social media experts on terrorism recruiting. You need experts on actual tactics used in the real world. You need anthropologists and experts who understand the culture.

But you might lack the right people who have some overview of how it all works together. It’s so hard to be an expert in all those varying disciplines. And even if you happened to be, are the loudest voices in the room the heads of all these niches and you’re just a jack of all trades intelligence guy. That we lack people who can explain if you pull this piece out of the jenga it all comes down and be able to explain why it all comes down.

Like you see all these people who nailed how the Afghan army would fall apart. Or this aspect. Or that aspect. And you’re left wondering how the fuck did someone screw this up so bad, and you start wondering about concepts like paralysis by analysis, or just too many chefs and idiocy by committee. Like do we lack people who can bring all these niches under an umbrella and make a common sense recommendation to the president or leaders at this point. Someone who everyone respects. And instead they get 50 different reports in conflict from all these different heads of this niche specialty or that niche specialty. And they aren’t qualified to assess the accuracy of any of them being almost all old now.

When things go terribly wrong in big spawning companies or agencies like the gov’t with resources, there tends to be a serious flaw in things had become too segmented and there wasn’t a singular vision to the point you forget what the original purpose of shit was. You ended up with too much mgmt and heads all talking and it just sprawls and no one really understands what the other department are doing and how they’re important.

i literally know people personally who are like 'ive been sending reports upstream for ages on afghanistan exit scenarios' and a lot of their plans included everything we've seen play out and much, much worse. so its not a talent vacuum. i think the real issue is partisan bullshit corrupting the process for analysis and dispersal of data. its not like they are briefing potus and being ignored, its that there are 3 sets of eyes between them and potus and at least 2 of them dont want to rock the boat because they all saw what happened to brian murphy, alex vindman, etc.

Yeah, for as much information that is out there, you also have the ability to bring it all together.


It seems impossible we don’t have brilliant people who could spell out if you do w, then x,y, and z will happen.

Guys on TV long retired can. So then is it simply every leader is on some kickback from some aspect of the military industrial complex and answers to politicians who certainly are, so they just ignore them and do as ordered?

I’m sitting here wondering why when we had 2500 troops there, we have tens of thousands of Americans, forget the other 100k people who are allies you need to get out. Wtf were all these Americans still there for other than to line the pockets of corporate interests?

When we talked of pulling out, I never doubted it would be chaotic for those who had been our allies. But that we still had this many peripheral American people there for clearly financial reasons is staggering even for a cynic like myself. I keep hearing about them and thinking, who are they? Oil execs, private contractors, arms dealers? You never see it explained, or at least I haven’t, what the deal is and who the Americans there are.