I was surprised to find reading a book called Intelligence in an Insecure World[0] that the general consensus amongst intelligence studies scholars is apparently that there's no empirical evidence for the effectiveness of intelligence work and there probably never will be (although I read the book some time ago so I might be misremembering it).

[0] https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Intelligence+in+An+Insecure+Worl...

For those of us who haven't read the book, could you summarize please?

Anecdotally that claim seems untrue. Intelligence services have had a tangible effect on world history.[1][2][3]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann#Capture

It looks like both of the authors are academics with no actual experience in intelligence work. Considering how much intelligence work is classified and non-public, their conclusion sounds like the equivalent of claiming that there is no proof IT people are necessary because your computer works.

That's whatever the opposite of "appeal to authority" is. For starters there's a lot determined researchers can learn from declassified information about old ops and public information about current budgets and so on. And even if they worked in intelligence they wouldn't be able to publish anything classified.

What intrigues me is the claim "intelligence work is never useful". This is easily falsifiable with Wikipedia, which I assume even university professors deign to glance at on occasion. It's such a weird statement to make I feel like there's either more or GGP is mis-remembering something important from the book.

> Intelligence services have had a tangible effect on world history.[1][2][3]

You forgot the most important:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

>Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare",[9] [...] Most significantly, American cryptographers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to prepare its own ambush.

Best of all: it was (partially) a chosen plaintext attack!

> Admiral Nimitz had one critical advantage: US cryptanalysts had partially broken the Japanese Navy's JN-25b code. Since early 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF". It was initially not known where "AF" was, but Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team at Station HYPO were able to confirm that it was Midway: Captain Wilfred Holmes devised a ruse of telling the base at Midway (by secure undersea cable) to broadcast an uncoded radio message stating that Midway's water purification system had broken down. Within 24 hours, the code breakers picked up a Japanese message that "AF was short on water". No Japanese radio operators who intercepted the message seemed concerned that the Americans were broadcasting uncoded that a major naval installation close to the Japanese threat ring was having a water shortage, which could have tipped off Japanese intelligence officers that it was a deliberate attempt at deception.

Good one. There are many more, I'm sure.

The Dutch intelligence service helped Britain crack Argentinian crypto during the Falklands War.

Tangible and in the national interest yes, but not necessarily in the interest of the general public. E.g. the interception of an offer from Siemens (Germany) for a high speed rail system for South Korea intercepted by the French intelligence, see https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&r... (look for TGV)

That makes sense, because barred the possibility of putting all the population in jail, there will always be people with the ability to do harm to others that cannot be stopped by so-called intelligence. 99% of what they do is to infringe on personal freedoms and lobbying the government for more money.

Hm maybe it is to protect against China/Russia/Iran/NK stealing our military secrets, you know those ones that protect you and your family from being absorbed into an authoritarian system where you have zero voting rights?

They can steal our secrets because the NSA couldn’t keep its own Crown Jewels secret, they were leaked by Shadow Brokers and subsequently used by the US’ enemies to infiltrate US civilian systems. In a very real sense, we would be safer against the Russians if the NSA didn’t exist.

Can intelligence agencies be the case of "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." (A line from Futurama)?

Sure, that would be possible in an abstract tabula rasa sense, if we had no awareness at all of the last seven decades. At this point, we've seen quite enough evidence to conclude that they mostly do wrong, and occasionally we find out about it. Mike Pompeo and James Clapper are typical "intelligence officials", which means that there are much worse actors lurking deep in those organizations.

"Cryptonomicon", a Neal Stephenson novel, delves into the idea that you can mask your intelligence gathering by failing to act on it within some statistical margin. Numerous other ideas are explored.

You only need to look into the Danish investigation of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 to know, if anyone in the intelligence community, they know their stuff.

You’re confusing Dutch with Danish. MH17 was investigated by the Dutch :)

Can you expand on that, it sounds interesting

Exactly the place to look at to understand they don't