Puzzles

and pieces thereof

I have written about this before, but it seems to need repeating, or at least said a different way. There is a huge difference between having enough pieces of the puzzle to understand what the picture is after seeing the puzzle box and knowing what it is without seeing the box or having many pieces in place. Let’s use puzzle pieces as pieces of intelligence.

Imagine going to Toys R Us, we still have them in Japan, and buying all the puzzles in stock. Not just one copy of each, but all, including multiples of some of the same puzzles. Then shake up each box and pull a handful of pieces out of many of the boxes, but not all, and throw them on the floor. Intelligence analysts then try to make sense out of all the incomplete puzzles that are jumbled together in a pile on the floor. One is an expert on fowl, another on fauna. Another on seaworthy sailing vessels, another of Japanese woodblock prints and still another on the great masters of western art. An expert for every topic rendered into puzzles. Some pieces will easily be recognized as belonging to a specific genre, many will not be, most could be a part of many different puzzles; does this sky blue piece go with a puzzle of a ship at sea, a flower garden or bird in flight or architecture?

Often, pieces from any number of the boxes are added to the pile. Often, the source is known, these are from x, but x may be passing on info they received on a different subject, so the experts cannot always be certain which puzzle they are pieces of. There will be discussion, disagreements and sometimes, heated arguments. “That blue piece goes with my puzzle, it is a different shade than the sky in your’s.” “Take a closer look, the blue of the shy is gradually getting dark towards the right, I think it fits in near the right edge of my puzzle.” “Don’t you see that there is a building at the right of your puzzle, it will block the sky from view before it gets to that shade of blue.” “Not if the building is only a few stories tall, say, no more than 4 or 5.” “That’s quite an assumption, isn’t it? What we currently have of the building looks more substantial than such a short structure.” The blue piece may not go with either’s puzzle.

Puzzle pieces are constantly being added, many are copies of the same. Some pieces the source of which says are of vital importance, yet fit none of the partially completed puzzles that they currently have. In fact, given all the rest of assembled pieces, seems to be completely unrelated to any of the puzzles they are working on. What to do with these pieces?

Another layer of complexity is that many of the puzzles they are working on, even when completed, will not have any relationship with reality. In fact, most of the information in the form of pieces of puzzles will be of zero value regardless of their connection with reality. But some may. Which ones?

Thus, it can be the case that intelligence agencies have the information in their possession that would warn them of an impending attack IF it had been processed, put in its proper place and seen by the correct people before the attack came. That does not mean that the intelligence agencies knew of the attack and did nothing. It may only mean, and I believe almost always only means, that the information they had either was not yet processed or its importance not known until afterwards.

It need not be only ‘the boy who cried wolf” scenario. The are plenty of creative minds out there that see danger lurking within every shadow who are flooding intelligence agencies with well intentioned information that only serves to distract or overwhelm those trying their best to learn before hand of attacks. The public also does not know of the successes of our intelligence agencies, we only know of their spectacular failures.

Another way to think about this is to compare it to suicide. Armed Forces Network (ARN) radio airs numerous suicide prevention spots, many listing the warning signs that their shipmates, coworkers, family members and friends missed. Would it not be cruel in the extreme if we blamed these people for the suicide of someone close to them? Of course it would be. However, if we were to treat such people as we do intel people, we would blame them for the loss of their loved ones. We would accuse them of either leading the deceased to suicide or to faking the suicide and actually murdering them. We would cite the benefits the survivors get from the death; life insurance policies, inheritance, possible promotions and whatever else we could dream up. Yes, such things do happen, humanity has plenty of evil doers amongst its members, but not every suicide is a case of malfeasance on the part of those who missed the signs. Few are. So to it is with intel failures. In is likely that with any big failure that it will be found that the intel community did have in its possession clues that could have led it to understand the danger and prevent it. Just as with suicide, that does not mean that they intentionally allowed it to happen and it is wrong to blame these people for malfeasance. It may not be wrong to blame them for missing important information or misinterpreting it. Frankly, I often wonder if the money we spend on intelligence is worth it, given the big misses. However, we do not know of their successes until decades later, if ever. Still, when they get things this wrong, heads should roll, but that does not mean that are bad actors, that they intentionally allowed it to happen.