Over time, employees developed narrower, agency-specific expertise about emerging threats. There was no spirit of collaboration, because the workforce wasn't designed for it. This is the institutional reason so many dots about terrorism remained unconnected before Sept. 11.
I believe that certain agencies put this in the water and food for their trainees and it only gets worse over time. Note that I said agencies because I see the same tendency inside the military when it comes to what I call the "corporate warriors" who see anything new or innovative as a threat to the the corporation, ego as a threat to them.

I am reading John Nagl's book--I got it when I bought Tenet's 500 page sleeping pill--and it is truly a joy to read. John examines the culture of non-learning in the US military and makes truly applicable comparisons to the Brits. I have long been a fan of reading about Queen Victoria's quirky army and how it adapted to the fight. John even brings up Duffer's Drift as an adaptive learning tool; I used Duffer's Drift as an example of COIN learning in a history lesson in 2003. The point being that the Brits might and often did get it wrong at first. But they adapted and then got it right without some doctrine ghuru turning red-faced because it was not in a manual.

We have had a similar experience; no more TF Smiths was the training battle cry in the 80's and 90's, meaning we would have it right from the beginning. I believe we succeeded in doing that on a conventional battlefield, be it in the rainy forests and plains of Germany or the sands of Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Where I think we went astray is where John Nagl's book is truly useful; we seem to believe that doctrine and training according to that doctrine is the answer to all. That does not work on the unconventional battlefield. Adaptive leadership does.

The same applies to intelligence. Rigidity in thinking applied as "trade craft" just means you are offering a template for everything you do. From there it is a quick slide into a "cover your ass" mentality that seethes the paranoia and backstabbing that Stan and I encountered together. It was so bad that it continued across international borders.

Like Stan said, great post and an interesting read.

Tom