There was a definitive period in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War--when the Berlin wall came down--and all the old parameters seemed to vaporize leaving leaders--both operator and intelligence--uncomfortable in the extreme with the changes. In writing the forward to my memoirs, GEN (ret) Denny Reimer chose to focus on that period.

The realization that suddenly the US did not have huge data banks of information and years of looking at it when it came to dealing with emerging crises in the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East was earth shattering to many. Consider also that the same elements in the strategic community that had built the huge apparatus to study the Soviets then sought to rob the capabilities watching the rest of the world to meet the challenge of the newly emerging republics.

I contend that what passed as strategic intelligence during the Cold War--especially that targeted toward the Warsaw Pact--was very much an institutionalized comfort blanket. Saying the same things over and over again--while they may have in fact been correct--became more important that detecting changes.

I can tell you where the two worlds of Cold War strategic intelligence and the post-Cold War confusion met head on: Desert Shield when DIA, CIA, and the service intelligence systems had to focus on a non-WP enemy. The DCSINT of the US Army was lost in space--he just never got it and he really didn't try. Note that in Jan 1990 at the World Wide Threat Conference, he as a former J2 CENTCOM and now DCSINT of the Army removed iraq from the threat list. GEM Schwartzkopf went ballistic at the conference. I knew nothing of this as I took over the middle east current intel desk in June 1990; I got roasted by the Dep DCSINT for daring to say in early July 1990 that conditions in the region were favorable for a war. The DCSINT to the day that Saddam invade Kuwait insisted that it was all bluff. Afterwards he said "we" a lot when offering mea culpas.

In facing Desert Shield the strategic community was forced by conditions on the ground to take over tactical analysis to a very large degree, something it was ill-suited to do but did so anyway. That later paid a very large part in the idea that reachback was somehow better than eyes on the ground.

Had lunch a week ago with senior official whom I worked with on Rwanda. that official referred to Rwanda as a time when Washington thought it knew what was going on in the region better than those in the region. Maybe things have changed; I am not so sure but I am hopeful.

Tom