Team B

Ilan Goldberg correctly notes that the sort of funny business on the NIE that I attributed to Yossi Klein Halevi below is popping up all around the conservosphere. He also rightly notes that this should be connected to the long "Team B" legacy on the right, where conservatives look at intelligence reports then jump up and down screaming that they're insufficiently alarmist. Most of the time, this kind of Team Bing succeeds in bringing political pressure to bear to gin up more alarmist reports, which then turn out to be false, and then in typical up-is-downist manner this becomes adduced as evidence in favor of the unreliability of conventional intelligence methods the next time around.

Laura Rozen's 2003 Washington Monthly article about "an obscure essay, 'Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous),' published a few years ago by Gary Schmitt and Abram Shulsky" remains a vital explanation of the higher theoretical basis for behaving in this manner. But suffice it to say that there are no accidents here, there's a deeply flawed method that almost invariably produces unduly alarmist conclusions.

Comments

You have got to include a hyphen in "Team B-ing."

Posted by jhupp | December 7, 2007 2:00 PM

Although wingnuts such as Richard Pipes and Paul Wolfowitz are associated with Team B, the person most responsible for this travesty is CIA Director George H. W. Bush, who agreed to the creation of Team B, a move his predecessor William Casey refused to take. That the CIA Headquarters Building in Langley has been named in his honor is a disgrace.

Posted by Vadranor | December 7, 2007 2:30 PM

They argue that Strauss would have attacked the prevailing trend in U.S. intelligence analysis known as the "social-scientific method," an approach advanced by Sherman Kent, a former Yale history professor and member of the WWII-era Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor to the C.I.A.). Kent's method, say the authors, urged U.S. intelligence analysts to operate more like social scientists, conducting systematic research and analysis to predict the future behavior of adversaries.
....
But, according to the authors, this method assumes that those foes act according to universal principles. In other words, you can guess the enemy's next move going by what you would do in his position--as if the two of you are engaged in a giant game of chess.

What?

How does "basing conclusions on systematic research and analysis" necessarily equate with "guessing the enemies next move based on what you would do"?

It doesn't. Whenever I play poker I base my judgment of other players on my empirical observations of their previous play but I never "assume" they will play like me. It is precisely the empirical observations that usually tell me where they are different from me - more/less aggressive, more/less selective regarding pre-flop hands, etc.

No wonder their analysis is so flawed.

Posted by r4d20 | December 7, 2007 6:02 PM

Actually, if you do it right - which is the hard part, as always - you don't assume that they "play like you." Instead, you put yourself in their shoes and play like them. Which tells you how they will play.

But again, that's damn hard to do without really complete understanding of the enemy.

And that's really hard for any human - humans just aren't genetically wired to be that empathetic.

I'm not saying it's the best way to act - I prefer the notion of "improve your own game, don't worry about the other guy's game."

But it's standard Sun Tsu that if you know yourself AND know your enemy, you cannot be defeated. If you only know one or the other, you can be defeated. And most of the time, most people at war don't know either, and defeat is almost certain, or at least up to chance.

To get back to the post, again, this NIE is not the savior of peace people think it is. It's a two-edged sword, and the neocons are using it as such by pointing out that it claims they were right that Iran HAD - and may still have - a nuclear weapons program.

The problem is that there's no evidence of that. The Russians are carefully pointing that out. The Chinese haven't said yet. The IAEA isn't saying it either.

Most of the media seems to have either jumped to the conclusion that Iran did have one or didn't have one. Neither concept is supported by the evidence. Then they jump to the conclusion that this guarantees no war with Iran - which is pure speculation given the possibilities.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 7, 2007 6:13 PM

If the Right was really clever they would spin this ac a victory for Bushism and NeoCon foreign policy by claiming that the Iranians were cowed by the invasion of Iraq. I've heard that line from an individual conservative or two, but for some reason the spinmeisters haven't stumbled on it yet. Things must be worse than I thought on the Right.

Posted by JonF | December 7, 2007 7:08 PM

Perhaps we should be more concerned in the short run about an Islamic takeover of power in Pakistan, which does have nuclear weapons. In such a circumstance, it is doubtful that India will dither around like the US and Israel are currently doing relative to Iran but will take action. Thus, we could be faced with a war in the Indian subcontinent at any time in the near future. The administration should be asked, in close Congressional session, what plans we have made to prevent Pakistans' nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of such Islamicists.

Posted by SLC | December 7, 2007 7:15 PM

If the Right was really clever they would spin this ac a victory for Bushism and NeoCon foreign policy by claiming that the Iranians were cowed by the invasion of Iraq.

If, as is assumed, the goal is to start a war with Iran, then this line of thought would actually make things worse from their POV. It would imply that Iran is rational and can be reasoned with - thus undercutting their argument for war.

Posted by BFR | December 7, 2007 7:36 PM

"But, according to the authors, this method assumes that those foes act according to universal principles. In other words, you can guess the enemy's next move going by what you would do in his position--as if the two of you are engaged in a giant game of chess."

Neocons always assume their enemies act like crazy people. However, they assume that their enemies act like how they would act. In conclusion, even neocons realize that they are crazy people.

Posted by Reality Man | December 7, 2007 11:29 PM