I understand what you are saying in the rigorous sense, but I think what matters is a practical analysis. You are probably imagining things like Facebook and t

I understand what you are saying in the rigorous sense, but I think what matters is a practical analysis. You are probably imagining things like Facebook and twitter being arms of Americas propaganda machine. Russia's machine successfully got a powerful faction in America to turn our tools inward to be used on Americans against American interests. America is now gridlocked and unable to project power. Not to stop russia, not to stop israel, not to stop China, not to marshal our allies. Russia has compromised our oligarchs (like Musk and Thiel), and co-opted their power to be used against Americans. It doesn't matter if you have a slingshot or an M16. What matters is if you get to eat venison from your hunt the next day. The hunting has less to do with the weapon and more to do with the hunter. Your model of nationality is monolithic. Oligarchs are trans-nationalits and act solely based on whats in their own self interest. Many oligarchs literally wield the resource or nations. Elon has more money than 150 different country's GDP. So if you want to analyze a nations intelligence stance you have to first look at the state of its aristocracy. The cold war was largely about authoritarianism vs democracy. Democracy is clearly in decline. Authoritarianism is clearly on the rise. Given that these are understood to be the main geopolitical goals of the east and west, I feel very confident about saying that we are being out competed. Ukraine was invaded and China is marshaling an army while openly talking about how they are going to use it. Our main geopolitical adversaries are telling us that we are weak and vulnerable. If they are rational actors, then you shouldn't be feeling very confident about the state of America's intelligence apparatus. That's not feedback to just throw away and ignore. Throwing away that feedback is using hope as a strategy. Our enemies are telling us they think we are weak, not that we are fundamentally sound but got surprised.