3 things right over 70 years, that's.... quite a track record
You clearly didn't read more than the headline
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The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
71–80 of 85 posts
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#72Getting 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-intelligenc…
Sometimes I feel like I was taking crazy pills, but I distinctly remember major news agencies like the BBC calling BS with pretty hard facts about the whole WMD thing, but no one really cared. (In America or Britain anyways)
They did for a bit and then Powell was wheeled out and everyone got in line.
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#73Is 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?
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Classified, I'm sure.
There'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...
Which is why OP didn't have any examples of the INR getting it wrong, right?
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 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.
Even in wars between peer-level nations, it doesn't end with total destruction. Did Germany lose world war 1 or did they just decide to stop bothering with it? I think the answer is clearly the former, but in the end they still kept an independent state, weren't occupied, etc.
> Did Germany lose world war 1 or did they just decide to stop bothering with it?
Germany and Japan unconditionally surrendered.
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even in wars between peer-level nations, it doesn't end with total destruction. Did Germany lose world war 1 or did they just decide to stop bothering with it? I think the answer is clearly the former, but in the end they still kept an independent state, weren't occupied, etc.
> Did Germany lose world war 1 or did they just decide to stop bothering with it? Germany and Japan unconditionally surrendered.
Pretty sure germany did not unconditionally surrender in world war 1. Japan was on the winning side so they definitely did not surrender.
World war 1 is not the same as world war 2.
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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?
Presumably that's an important part of being able to get it right.
I can also get everything right post-factum. I R genius!
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#78Somewhat 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 and the US (mil…
Something that strikes me as really ironic is that, here we are in 2024 and tons of goods are being manufactured in Vietnam for a pittance and exported to the west. We are effectively just a small step above having enslaved this country, without a single boot on the ground.
The Vietnamese do not generally see it that way.
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#79Somewhat 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 and the US (mil…
I depends on what "win" would've meant. South Vietnam was the creation of the US. It didn't really have any popular support, it was dictatorship, massively and systematically corrupt, and existed because of US aid. It's doubtful that the US could've continued to keep troops in Vietnam. By the time (1973) the Paris Peace Accords happened, there was little US domestic support in the public, in business leaders, or in C…
> It didn't really have any popular support, it was dictatorship, massively and systematically corrupt, and existed because of US aid.
Bears repeating. This was true of a lot of "anti-communist" US actions: propping up a hated local elite who were in no way democratic.
Re: The obscure intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right
#80Iraq 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.
The "cross-border islamist group destabilizing Syria" were spawned from Obama's "moderate rebels" who were extensively sponsored with weaponry to fight against Assad. They carried those American weapons into the invasion of Mosul because they kept failing against the battle-hardened Syrian armed forces and Iraq was a far softer target at the time.
Not sure this could have been predicted from the Iraq war though unless you are talking about the general prediction that any rebel group that the U.S. sponsors turns into a terrorist group that the U.S. bombs within a decade. Its kinda of funny when you compare news articles across years.