Totally agree. While they do get a few wins, I wonder what's the ROI when you take all the failures and waste of resources into account. My guesstimate is not much but like other useless government programs, it hires a lot of people so nobody dares questioning it.

> Totally agree. While they do get a few wins, I wonder what's the ROI when you take all the failures and waste of resources into account.

Very far into positive territory, I'd imagine. Most day-to-day intelligence work probably doesn't have much effect, but every once in awhile they probably get a big win that's so massive that it justifies all the effort.

I have an working theory that as an organization the CIA thinks it can 'win' via various cunning skulduggery. But the world doesn't really work that way.

Like this, France in 1700 wasn't powerful because it's king and ministers were geniuses, it's military competent. It was powerful because it's agriculture could support 20 million peasants.

>Maybe (much) spy work isn't quite the serious business the national security apparatus would have us believe?

Well,... the saying is "Allen Dulles was much of a clown first, politician second, and serviceman the third."

Regarding US foreign intel service: when something the size and budget of CIA does recon, something useful will come out of it regardless of how lame is their tradecraft.