Comments on: Weekly Standard Wankathon II

By: MarkoB

MarkoB — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 02:35:19 +0000

One might add that the collaboration between the UK and the US on the replacement for the W76 warhead sets a nice precedent on international nuclear weapons collaboration. Both NK and Iran were listed as potential targets in Team Bush’s Nuclear Posture Review. If the US and UK can do it why not NK and Iran?

By: Robot Economist

Robot Economist — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:17:17 +0000

To springboard off of Andy, the traditional role of intelligence in the policy-making process has been to inform policy-makers, not decide policy.

As I’ve written before, Goldfarb and his ilk at the National Security Council have the right to be proliferation pessimists in the absence of evidence. They just can’t pretend like their pessimistic policies are an accurate reflection of the realities of proliferation.

http://roboteconomist.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-nonproliferation-means-to-them.html

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 04:17:19 +0000

Sadly, the kind of flawed thinking exemplified by Goldfarb is all too common.

Taking a “worst case scenario” is a policy decision, not an intel assessment. Intelligence professionals are in the business of analyzing and reporting evidence. When there is a lack of definitive evidence, as there often is, it is the responsibility of the intel person to give an assessment based on what evidence there is while providing caveats for unknowns. If there’s no evidence to support the worst-case-scenario that is not intel’s problem, nor is it intel’s job to speculate.

Goldfarb and others like him don’t understand the fundamental role intelligence plays – intelligence is for informing based on analysis of evidence – not speculation. Period.