Quote Originally Posted by Beelzebubalicious View Post
The problem with analysts is that if they're analyzing data in an office in Langely, then they're at a double disadvantage. They have their own American models and then they have their CIA training and culture to overcome. Kind of hopeless if you ask me. Hence, the efforts like these, I suppose.
I do have to say that there is some real quality product coming out of the IC--much, much better, I think, than many people presume.

That having been said, there is the problem of the analyst being cocooned in an organizational box. It is more of a potential problem in the US IC, where its possible to spend 95%+ of your time at (say) interacting with colleagues from your own agency, and very little reaching across DC to share (differing) perspectives with people in other branches of government, let alone the NGO, academic, (etc) communities. In the past couple of years ODNI and the NIC have been trying to address this, with some success.

In smaller ICs, there simply aren't enough folks in the analytical community to make this sort of organizational cocooning possible (although there are obviously other serious problems with a smaller analytical community).

A related complication for the US IC is that US diplomats are either restricted, self-restricted in their functioning in some countries of high interest, or not even present at all. Given the very considerable value of quality diplomatic reporting, this can be quite the disadvantage.