Just an idea BSL. I do not think DND will be telephoning me for blueprints. Why are the Americans wanting to keep warheads in storge though in this current round of arms talks.

Fred, "Why are the Americans wanting to keep warheads in storge though in this current round of arms talks" I used to keep up with the details of this stuff, but I don't any longer. I imagine the idea is to reduce the overt threat of warheads married to delivery systems while retaining their capabilities for use in certain contingencies when the implicit assumptions behind arms control turned out to be wrong. In military terms, warehousing the warheads affects the sensitivity of the nuclear force to mistaken use, accidental use, accident, or (these days) terrorists. In political terms, I suppose, the notion would be to create a mojo that things are getting safer. This is a bit abstract, and it's never been entirely grounded in reality, but, essentially, we've had generations in which a sizable contigent of diplomats, political scientists, some senior politicians, and some others have felt that the Cold War involved a psychology of confrontation, which was, itself, dangerous. The idea in warehousing warheads, in this sense, would be that it would continue the "momentum" (there are some, especially in the diplomatic and media community who absolutely ***love*** this word) towards...well...here it gets even more hazy, but, basically...disarmament, eliminating the basic confrontational stance between America and Russia, and general international niceness. Actually, since there is no longer a basic, underlying confrontational stance between the US and USSR - no Cold War, after all - this one gets weaker. The third area which might be worth considering is how much of this involves the internal political dynamics of the US and Russia. Both countries have bureaucracies and political systems which have grown used to the SALT/SAR process over a generation, and this sort of thing tends to develop a momentum towards continuing down the same road. Institutional reasons, iow; almost an end in itself. Each leader can claim a victory, of sorts, on some level. (And, believe me, in America, a significant element of the media and some think tanks/academic centers are still very, very interested in this. There are careers built on and around SAL/SAR.) Warehousing, rather than destroying, represents a compromise between those completely opposed to any further reductions and those who want even more. It smacks of bureaucractic compromise rather than being a preferred policy of any element in either government.

Your opinion is very wel stated for someone who does not keep up. I agree with evrything you said. I find your points about security and bureacracy very telling. I realise my posts may be taking the form of questions but I am enjoying a well stated opnion that differs significantly from my own. What do you think of this flsp in the press about Bush admin knowing something was going to happen last year and did not react well? I am not saying they did but asking what you think.

Bill, Re: Who knew what? My guess, based on the published stories of the last few days, is that there is very little behind the complaint that a useful warning was missed, but quite a lot behind general problems with the intelligence and police bureaucracies, in general. Basically, when you go back and carefully examine the circumstances around the major fubars of the last century, there is ALWAYS a piece of paper, somewhere, which you can point to and say that if only it had been taken seriously by the right people in a timely fashion, the bad thing wouldn't have happened. Most of the time, though, those pieces of paper weren't anything like real tip-offs. They turn out to be either speculation or contingencies, rather than some 007's report, containing the secret plans of Dr. No. Useful things in themselves, but not the revelations they're said to be. Other times, there is real information, but it gets lost in the background of the mass of information which the CIA/FBI/DIA/etc. have to deal with every day. In fact, there turn out to have been a couple of specific bits of information which we had which would, had they been identified and correctly interpreted, have warned us that the Russians were moving nuclear missiles into Cuba, *before* the Cuban missile crisis. They got lost in the signal to noised ratio. This latter IS a significant problem and it requires some work to get the agencies fine tuned to pick up the significant stuff they have access to and move it through their internal systems so it gets to the right people in a timely fashion. More, the intelligence community has been drifting for the best part of a generation. They began to be the wrong end of serious, political attacks in the Ford years. Most of the present stories seem unaware of that. And, apart from some support during the Reagan years, they've spent MOST of the last generation on the defensive from attack (mostly from Congress) and neglect. Indeed, the dems have had to be careful in the last week about who they put out front, because there are several senior democratic Senators who, themselves, have led major, prolonged attacks on the intelligence community for years, now. Torricelli, especially. Dodd, too. You can't spend years going after them, their careers and their budgets without having some effect. As has been written about, often, we lost most of our "human intelligence" capabilities. How could we have penetrated these groups without human intelligence? Sigint goes only so far. Think about this; ANY serious attempt to deal with the real threat from the Islamic world would have HAD to focuss on moslems. Can you say, "profiling"? The sad fact is that, until 9-11, any serious operation directed against an Islamic group, ESPECIALLY inside the borders of the US risked getting the people running it made the butt of serious political attacks, including by groups in Congress. Career breakers, IOW. This is a big, messy area, and I've just begun to skim the surface of the problems. BUT, basically, I have no reason to believe there was any way to have known the SPECIFIC attacks which occured were coming, at those times and places. And, any warning short of that wouldn't have prevented them.

What you say about the intelligance community makes sence. I think Western intelligance has become overly reliant on mechanical intelligance gatherring. We need more old-fashionned spies. I think a big hit was taken by the American intelligance community during the Carter years. There was an Admiral put in charge of the CIA whose name escapes and there was a major shift to satellites et cetera. The main obstacle to the Canadian intelligance community was the fact the RCMP ran it. They are by and large excellant police but as intelligance operatives they made good plumbers. When a new Intelligance agaency CSIS was created they intially were stuck with the same old hacks but gradually became more efficent. The biggest thing holding them back now is I believe the present regime in Ottawa has ignored some sound advice from them. We do not have the problem of interagency conflict because CSIS is largely it. I think I read the new Homeland Defence organization is supposed to bring all the intelligance together to garner a better overall picture. This sounds like a good idea. I beleive the idea was also floated to create a domestic version of the CIA. I think this is a bad idea because it simply spends more money to replicate already present ability. There simply needs to be better coordination. It does seem though the FBI has a bit of a problem with moles. Hard to cetch these types and I imagine everyone has them.

I imagine you're thinking about Stansfield Turner. The move towards electronic intelligence and away from human intelligence was politically motivated, and it came from outside the CIA. It was the orders of the Presidents, and heavy Congressional pressure over a generation. One thing to keep in mind when thinking about how the American military and intelligence communities operate is that they take orders from the President, and take pressure from Congress, who makes their budgets. For all the blather, over the years, about one or the other being out of control, the truth is that when an Administration wants something, especially when Congress agrees, both communities will accomodate, even against their better judgement. Over a few years, as the top levels are appointed by politicians, they can change their policies, completely. BTW, I read a major story today about the FBI agent who wrote the report which was ignored. He turns out to have had some specific, relevant information regarding the moslems who were attending flight school. So, there was more of a basis to pay attention than earlier reports suggested.

I sence some heavy water coming down the point. That could be devastating to the present admin.

To piggyback on BSL's comments of 21 May there has been innumerable failure for organizations to fail to comprehend the information from the data. One of the best examples was Pearl Harbor. Gordon Prange's "At Dawn We Slept" is a superb book on this. The Americans knew something was up but totally mis-judged the potential target. For one reason we didn't know that the Japanese could refuel at sea. Tet is another example. A different one is where MacArthur refused to believe that the Chinese were getting ready to attack. With this being said I believe that some high profile hangings should be made and a LOT of blame given to Congress with names given. Starting with Frank Church to Barbara Boxer and Toricelli we have to say plainly why we got in the deficit human intelligence position we are in today. BSL is right that to buck Congress or to be noticed by Congress was a career killer. One of my classmates told me that his supervisor (a vetern of many such adventures) said that only bad things can come out of a congressional hearing. The best thing was that they left you alone and forgot your name by the next day. You cannot build intelligence bureaucracies. Bureaucracies have a dampening effect on information. We have to devise network type agencies that can sift and pass info along with "reasoned" human judgement. It takes a long time to train a person to have an intuitive sense of what the data is telling you. These people should be treated like gold. One of the reason that we are so short in this capabilities is that the bureaucracies was so in tune with the old times and very slow to change. We knew since 1979 that Islamic Fundamentalism was going to be an issue/foe yet the bureaucracy did little to prepare. The lack of vetted language interpeters (people who don't work for the agency but have been pre-security cleared) is a serious blunder. The results of congressional witch hunting and scapegoating has come home to roost and several thousand Americans paid with their lives.

hindsight is wonderful.... ain't it.

Actually there wasn't much hindsight regarding the deficiencies on our intelligence. It has been published and discussed since 1996 onwards. It just didn't get the attention or effort to fix. When the Torricelli admendment was passed it was widely published the effect that it would have on our Humint and it was true. Hindsight is grand as far as looking at the pieces now let's see if we can learn from our errors. Right now I would give us a D to D-. What do you think?