Hi and thanks for commenting. My purpose is to warn and unfortunately the subject matter requires discussing terrifying events, ideas and the people behind them. Professionally I have always tried to provide value as an intelligence analyst and strategic planner.
Professional tangent -
A comparatively new area of intelligence in the US is called "anticipatory intelligence" (see link below). There is a long history behind why this is "new". Which means it's not new, but has been rediscovered because US intel became far too much about reporting past events and leaving interpretation/anticipation to others - who had not done the research. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/National_Intelligence_Strategy_2019.pdf
I pride myself on frequently getting predictions right. It's not about a crystal ball it's about understanding the strategic context, knowing the history, understanding the motivations of the actors involved - on all sides - and reading the trends. It's not perfect but I've gotten it right more often than wrong. Often the problem has been my work has been too early. For example, in 2014 when I was a strategic planner at Socom I wrote the command strategic plan. It focused on the rise of great power competition, the rise of authoritarianism, and turmoil generated by states - as likely to be more important than the problems then being created by terrorist movements - the focus of special operations command at the time. I argued that we needed to reorientate our effort - to downplay CT and return to an emphasis on those things special operations can do to prevent or prevail in major conventional wars. My colleagues could not get their heads around the document and canned it. Later one of them reached out to me and apologized saying he reread it a year later and realized what a lost opportunity it was for the command to not get ahead of the wave. Now all they focus on is great powers. I was grateful he made the effort. It was good of him.
You do realize your writing is a bit terrifying to ponder? I’m torn between staying in the U.S. for the “good fight” or looking at emigrating to another country.
Hi and thanks for commenting. My purpose is to warn and unfortunately the subject matter requires discussing terrifying events, ideas and the people behind them. Professionally I have always tried to provide value as an intelligence analyst and strategic planner.
Professional tangent -
A comparatively new area of intelligence in the US is called "anticipatory intelligence" (see link below). There is a long history behind why this is "new". Which means it's not new, but has been rediscovered because US intel became far too much about reporting past events and leaving interpretation/anticipation to others - who had not done the research. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/National_Intelligence_Strategy_2019.pdf
I pride myself on frequently getting predictions right. It's not about a crystal ball it's about understanding the strategic context, knowing the history, understanding the motivations of the actors involved - on all sides - and reading the trends. It's not perfect but I've gotten it right more often than wrong. Often the problem has been my work has been too early. For example, in 2014 when I was a strategic planner at Socom I wrote the command strategic plan. It focused on the rise of great power competition, the rise of authoritarianism, and turmoil generated by states - as likely to be more important than the problems then being created by terrorist movements - the focus of special operations command at the time. I argued that we needed to reorientate our effort - to downplay CT and return to an emphasis on those things special operations can do to prevent or prevail in major conventional wars. My colleagues could not get their heads around the document and canned it. Later one of them reached out to me and apologized saying he reread it a year later and realized what a lost opportunity it was for the command to not get ahead of the wave. Now all they focus on is great powers. I was grateful he made the effort. It was good of him.
What you have read focuses on the US. For a bigger picture of where all this sit in the global context pls see an assessment I did on one of my other pages: https://thirdoffset.substack.com/p/global-strategic-assessment
Golden calf - nice and apropos term for Trump.
You do realize your writing is a bit terrifying to ponder? I’m torn between staying in the U.S. for the “good fight” or looking at emigrating to another country.