5 ms·

I find it hard to believe that the NSA/CIA don't have the capability to uncover, insert own players and stop this.

alephnerd 2y ago
During Cold War 1.0, a lot of analysts and operatives were 1st and 2nd gen immigrants from Eastern Europe, and had ties and culture experience to help inform policy against the Warsaw Pact. After the 2000s, the US began increasingly limiting those with ethnic or potential familial ties from working beats related to those countries. A Chinese American wouldn't pass the security clearance muster for the China role, nor a Jewish American for an Israel role. There were attempts to potentially remediate this during the Biden admin, but it fell to the wayside [0][1] Some white dude who went to high school in White Plains and college at Tufts just isn't going to have the domain or cultural experience or knowledge needed to really understand China or Iran, and it legitimately has caused a lot of IR Policy to become divorced from reality. [0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/16/state-department-diversity-problem-476161 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/16/state-department-di... [1] - https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/asian-americans-state-department-477106 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/asian-americans-sta...
- neilv 2y ago
  Interesting. Do US colleges and US TV/movies provide sufficient cultural understanding of US to other countries' governments, without them needing US immigrants as staffers?
  - ianburrell 2y ago
    Also, other countries send lots of students to the US. Some become immigrants but lots go back home.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      Also, US-Europe immigration is largely moribund, so familial and social ties to European states are much weaker now than 50 years ago. Most immigration to the US now comes from Asian and LatAm states, so a lot of us Americans prioritize those problems and needs above Europe.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > Do US colleges and US TV/movies provide sufficient cultural understanding of US to other countries' governments Do French/German/Italian/<insert country here>? They don't, and whatever global media Americans do consume tends to be Asian (overwhelmingly Japanese and Korean) or Latin American. This isn't the 20th century anymore when a lot of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants had European ties. American in the 21st century is now Asia and Latin America facing.
- maxwell 2y ago
  This squares with Edward Luttwak's take: https://unherd.com/2025/02/the-breakdown-of-the-cia https://unherd.com/2025/02/the-breakdown-of-the-cia
UltraSane 2y ago
I'm shocked at how impotent they seem against Russian cultural warfare.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Because we have the 1st Amendment. It's (correctly) very hard to combat people just saying stupid shit in the US.
  - titzer 2y ago
    It's a cultural problem that we let so much bullshit slide. America has come to love the spectacle, and loud wrong people can make quite a show. In a just society, there'd be a price to pay for lying. Free speech has consequences. Be loudly and persistently wrong (even when corrected by actual experts with real facts) and you get penalized with turning down the volume. But it's the exact opposite in today's media atmosphere.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      Totally agreed, just not an easy thing for intelligence agencies to fiddle with/defend.
      - titzer 2y ago
        Sure, that's not their job. It's the cultural shift we've allowed in the face of an overwhelming onslaught on our attention span.
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        I agree… I was responding to GP who said it’s surprising that the IC has been “incompetent” at mitigating it. I believe, like you, it is not a job for the IC.
    - UltraSane 2y ago
      Alex Jones, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Joe Rogan are the four horsemen of the disinformation apocalypse.
zeroCalories 2y ago
U.S intelligence agencies have never been particularly good at their job. Complaining about the deep state and such is cope from fascist and commies that have continually folded under no pressure.
bg24 2y ago
The amount of incompetence, incomprehensible ideology and red-tape slows everything down. NSA and CIA still look powerful because of huge amount of funds that flow in. Other countries happily hack into our infrastructure. You hardly hear NSA doing such accomplishments anymore (last was the Iranian nuclear hack). I doubt if America has any powerful spy network in places in Russia or China. But hey, I am just a dumb citizen.
- wavemode 2y ago
  > You hardly hear NSA doing such accomplishments anymore To be fair, that could also mean that they've been successful at keeping their covert operations... covert.
  - bg24 2y ago
    Maybe yes. If so, that is great. But then why do we not see any damage to those countries either due to misinformation or any other hacks. On a related note, Snowden incident shows the depth of our ability.
rcpt 2y ago
Well when the president hands over all the data they've been collecting it makes their job a lot harder https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-russia-intelligence-trump-dg/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-rus...
UncleOxidant 2y ago
Which is why they put pro-Putin Gabbard in as DNI. She's been purging.

During Cold War 1.0, a lot of analysts and operatives were 1st and 2nd gen immigrants from Eastern Europe, and had ties and culture experience to help inform policy against the Warsaw Pact. After the 2000s, the US began increasingly limiting those with ethnic or potential familial ties from working beats related to those countries. A Chinese American wouldn't pass the security clearance muster for the China role, nor a Jewish American for an Israel role. There were attempts to potentially remediate this during the Biden admin, but it fell to the wayside [0][1] Some white dude who went to high school in White Plains and college at Tufts just isn't going to have the domain or cultural experience or knowledge needed to really understand China or Iran, and it legitimately has caused a lot of IR Policy to become divorced from reality. [0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/16/state-department-diversity-problem-476161 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/16/state-department-di... [1] - https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/asian-americans-state-department-477106 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/asian-americans-sta...

neilv 2y ago
Interesting. Do US colleges and US TV/movies provide sufficient cultural understanding of US to other countries' governments, without them needing US immigrants as staffers?
- ianburrell 2y ago
  Also, other countries send lots of students to the US. Some become immigrants but lots go back home.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Also, US-Europe immigration is largely moribund, so familial and social ties to European states are much weaker now than 50 years ago. Most immigration to the US now comes from Asian and LatAm states, so a lot of us Americans prioritize those problems and needs above Europe.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > Do US colleges and US TV/movies provide sufficient cultural understanding of US to other countries' governments Do French/German/Italian/<insert country here>? They don't, and whatever global media Americans do consume tends to be Asian (overwhelmingly Japanese and Korean) or Latin American. This isn't the 20th century anymore when a lot of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants had European ties. American in the 21st century is now Asia and Latin America facing.
maxwell 2y ago
This squares with Edward Luttwak's take: https://unherd.com/2025/02/the-breakdown-of-the-cia https://unherd.com/2025/02/the-breakdown-of-the-cia

UltraSane 2y ago

I'm shocked at how impotent they seem against Russian cultural warfare.

llamaimperative 2y ago
Because we have the 1st Amendment. It's (correctly) very hard to combat people just saying stupid shit in the US.
- titzer 2y ago
  It's a cultural problem that we let so much bullshit slide. America has come to love the spectacle, and loud wrong people can make quite a show. In a just society, there'd be a price to pay for lying. Free speech has consequences. Be loudly and persistently wrong (even when corrected by actual experts with real facts) and you get penalized with turning down the volume. But it's the exact opposite in today's media atmosphere.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Totally agreed, just not an easy thing for intelligence agencies to fiddle with/defend.
    - titzer 2y ago
      Sure, that's not their job. It's the cultural shift we've allowed in the face of an overwhelming onslaught on our attention span.
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        I agree… I was responding to GP who said it’s surprising that the IC has been “incompetent” at mitigating it. I believe, like you, it is not a job for the IC.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    Alex Jones, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Joe Rogan are the four horsemen of the disinformation apocalypse.

zeroCalories 2y ago

U.S intelligence agencies have never been particularly good at their job. Complaining about the deep state and such is cope from fascist and commies that have continually folded under no pressure.

bg24 2y ago

The amount of incompetence, incomprehensible ideology and red-tape slows everything down. NSA and CIA still look powerful because of huge amount of funds that flow in. Other countries happily hack into our infrastructure. You hardly hear NSA doing such accomplishments anymore (last was the Iranian nuclear hack). I doubt if America has any powerful spy network in places in Russia or China. But hey, I am just a dumb citizen.

wavemode 2y ago
> You hardly hear NSA doing such accomplishments anymore To be fair, that could also mean that they've been successful at keeping their covert operations... covert.
- bg24 2y ago
  Maybe yes. If so, that is great. But then why do we not see any damage to those countries either due to misinformation or any other hacks. On a related note, Snowden incident shows the depth of our ability.

rcpt 2y ago

Well when the president hands over all the data they've been collecting it makes their job a lot harder https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-russia-intelligence-trump-dg/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-rus...

UncleOxidant 2y ago

Which is why they put pro-Putin Gabbard in as DNI. She's been purging.