Today we're joined by Dr. Rob Johnston. He's an anthropologist, an intelligence community veteran, and author of the cult classic Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community, a book so influential that it's required reading at DARPA. But first and foremost, Johnston is an ethnographer. His focus in that book is on how analysts actually produce intelligence analysis.
Johnston answers a lot of questions I've had for a while about intelligence and spying, such as:
* Why do we seem to get big predictions wrong so consistently?
* Why can't the CIA find analysts who speak the language of the country they're analyzing?
* Why do we prioritize expensive satellites over human intelligence?
We also discuss a meta-question I always come back to on Statecraft: is being good at this stuff an art or a science? By “this stuff,” I’m referring to intelligence analysis, but I think that the question generalizes across policymaking. Would more formalizing and systematizing make our spies, diplomats, and EPA bureaucrats better? Or would it lead to more bureaucracy, more paper, and worse outcomes? How do you build processes in the government that actually make you better at your job?
You can find the full transcript for this conversation at www.statecraft.pub.
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