Intelligence as a tool, rather than facts.

 IT SEEMS MOST INTELLEGENCE IS NOW WORTHLESS

USED TO SHAPE POLICY RATHER THAN INFORM

We continue to hear about new negotiations and new breakthroughs in talks on important issues, yet there really is no progress. I suspect much of this has to do with negotiators acting on poor or intentionally misinforming intelligence. 

We can start with the Russia/Ukraine talks. Since even before the outbreak of hostilities the narrative has been the same. Russia will fold in weeks, it has no military resources, it will run out of ammunition, there will be a popular uprising at home. It has now been 4 years and no signs of any of this being true.  Within weeks of the onset of the present conflict Ukraine and Russia came to an agreement that would have left Ukraine intact, except for Crimea. It was sabotaged by the U.K. and U.S., telling Ukraine that Russia will be easily defeated. Every few weeks we hear of new efforts by negotiators going to Moscow for new talks. I suspect intelligence is telling these negotiators that Russia is now ready to quit, they will collapse any moment and nothing happens, because Russia's position is the same as it was in 2021. There will be no ceasefire, no end, until an agreement is reached that deals with the causes of the conflict. It will need to be in fact an actual treaty approved by the U.S. senate. Based on the quality of U.S. intelligence, that will never happen. 

In the middle east, lets face it, most intelligence comes for Mossad and it has proven to be tailored to accomplish goals of Israel rather than facts. From weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to the present, Iran is within weeks of nuclear weapons,  has been the go to narrative for over 20 years. The goal is to get the U.S. into a major war with Iran that it has to fight to the end. I suspect that all intelligence coming out of Israel is suspect as to the truth. We hear that Iran is weak, now vulnerable and easy to defeat, once committed and with the loss of U.S. assets and troops, every president will be required to commit to winning at all costs.

We hear similar analysis about China, they are dependent on U.S. trade, in fact it seems many believe the world is dependent on U.S. trade. They believe that without U.S, trade the world economy will collapse. Are US trade decisions made on that assumption?   All negotiations and policies based on false assumptions and misleading information are destined to fail.

I suspect the Intelligence organizations in the west spend more time on interventions and covert actions and little on real intelligence gathering.  Much of the narrative is tailored by think tanks that are more in the business of fashioning policy than allowing elected officials to make informed decisions. The media reinforces these narratives by accepting leaks by these same intelligence operatives. I fear this will not be easy to correct until we all suffers a serious disaster.