"We lurch from near disaster to near disaster," said James Monnier Simon Jr., the assistant director of central intelligence for administration from 1999 to 2003. John MacGaffin, a 31-year C.I.A. veteran and a senior White House counterterrorism consultant, warned recently that "the national counterterrorism effort more closely resembles kids' soccer than professional football."
This quote from today's NY Times piece got me to pondering how the America people, most of its industries, and even its INTELLIGENCE agency are stuck thinking inside the box.
What is happening to the CIA, its disarray and its lack of function within its own government, is exactly what has been happening to other bloated US businesses that cannot put aside their old way of thinking in order to save themselves EXCEPT the CIA is far more critical to the country than IBM or GM.
I suppose what MacGaffin meant was that the CIA counter-terrorism effort lacks coherence and strategy--a blob of effort-expending players following one ball around and around a field with the slight chance of a goal or two. And extending his metaphor, I suppose professional football embodies some infinitely more precise "game" where finely tuned human specimens score or prevent touchdowns in full color and in slow-motion before the wide eyes of the whole country.
But here is the thing, "intelligence" doesn't have a touchdown, or a soccer goal. It is NOT a game. Intelligence is far more parallel to the insurance industry than it is to a sport. Methodical and statistically accurate, calculations based upon solid research, not Vince Lombardi exhorting his steaming gang to Herculean feats.
Sports are a diversion, it doesn't really matter when one team wins or loses. And businesses that can't look ahead and adjust to changing conditions often fail. People lose their jobs but they rebound and find new jobs. However, accurate intelligence, interpreted WITHOUT ridiculous political pressure from above is crucial for our country. But when intelligence is botched it has far more grave consequences than what any sport metaphor suggests.