A common refrain in the intelligence world is that the public sees what goes wrong and doesn’t see what goes right. It looks like a long list of failures becaus

A common refrain in the intelligence world is that the public sees what goes wrong and doesn’t see what goes right. It looks like a long list of failures because we never see the terrorist attacks that didn’t happen or the double agents who were stopped before they did any damage. Of course, that’s an easy answer that helps intelligence services to minimise their failures, but there’s probably some truth in it.