WHY WE CAN'T HAVE AN EMPIRE

(h/t curv3ball)

Leaving aside the moral issues, it's not because we don't have enough bullets, missiles and bombs, it's because we don't have a clue about cultures and societies that differ much from our own. A recent paper by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the U.S. Army's top intelligence officer in Afghanistan, and two other specialists makes this painfully clear.

Here's the key point(page 7):

Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy. Having focused the overwhelming majority of its collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade. Ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers – whether aid workers or Afghan soldiers – U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency.