So we may conclude either that: there are no PSI successes to tout, OR the administration prizes secrecy above good press.

Seems to me that either is possible.

There is also a deterrent value in PSI that can never be measured. Can’t see what people aren’t doing because they’re concerned they might be caught. But, like airport security, we need to balance the costs against these unmeasurable benefits.

The State Department is just covering up for the fact that PSI is not what John Bolton trumped it up to be. He wanted regularly exercises and very high profile interdictions as a deterrent. It looks like PSI has evolved into a “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass” arrangement that is hardly used — if at all.

Normally I would discourage patterning policy off of one-in-a-million situations (like the assassination of Abu Ali Harithi using phone taps and a Hellfire-armed Predator drone), but PSI is such a low cost mechanism that keeping it probably a good idea.