What We Mean When We Call Something an Intelligence Failure
Gary Gomez
February 20, 2025
When most people hear the words “intelligence failure,” they think of a surprise event that an intelligence service failed to predict.
But what if that’s all wrong?
Are the assumptions surrounding that term based on an inaccurate understanding of the capabilities of intelligence? Has the term evolved to include problems beyond the scope of intelligence community responsibilities? Is it premature to immediately label a surprise attack an intelligence failure?
To address these questions, I seek to critically review what we mean by intelligence failure and how the term is used and perceived in the public sphere. Our country would be better off if this point of view moved beyond intelligence organizations and the academy, into the halls of Congress and newsrooms, whose perspectives are swayed by the narratives generated by the intelligence failure moniker. This diverse group’s more enlightened understanding of the capabilities and influence of intelligence can positively impact reform initiatives about the mission, structure, funding, and use of intelligence.
Defining the Term Intelligence Failure
Intelligence failure is one of the most researched topics in intelligence studies. To be sure — intelligence has and will make errors. Faulty analysis can result from mistakes in intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination. In 1962, U.S. intelligence assessments incorrectly assessed that the Soviet Union would not place missiles in Cuba. Before the Yom Kippur War in 1973, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies assessed that Arab armies would not attack despite having intelligence showing military activity consistent with an attack; and in 2004, U.S. and other Western intelligence services relied too heavily on the information of an unreliable Iraqi defector regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
https://warontherocks.com/2025/02/what-we-mean-when-we-call-something-an-intelligence-failure/
