The great political scientist Robert Jervis has said that one exercise he would recommend for American intelligence analysis would be to imagine that they are an intelligence analyst in a foreign country with a bad relationship with the US, and write an analysis of the US from that perspective. For example, "Imagine, CIA analyst, that you are an intelligence analyst for the Russian government. Write their intelligence brief about America's intentions in intervening in the Crimea Crisis."
As I understand it, CIA analysts do not have to do these kinds of exercises. They do not have to understand how their own country is perceived by foreign states, and they often fail to appreciate that the latest action of a foreign state might be in *response* to something the US did earlier.
Osama Bin Laden (while not a state) is a good example. It is impossible to get someone who firmly believes the explanation that George W. Bush gave for why 9/11 happened ("they hate our freedom") to accept that Bin Laden clearly stated that 9/11 was a reprisal for three specific earlier actions of the US: (i) providing military and financial aid to Israel (AKA he was getting payback for the Palestinians) (ii) American sanctions on Iraq after the First Gulf War, and (iii) the presence of American military bases in the Middle East. Many Americans simply will not accept that *the things he said were his motivation* represented his actual motivation. This is probably because (A) those things didn't have a negative effect on the US/the West and therefore "weren't a big deal" and (B) many people simply cannot separate the idea of a factual explanation for a person or a country's behavior from a justification for that behavior. As Daniel sagely points out: what other people think of ourselves is rarely how we think about ourselves.
This gets to the problem of seeing conflicts like Afghanistan (or Vietnam) through the prism of our own intentions rather than how our actions are perceived by others.
I think your take on this is accurate. I would only add that having been in the federal bureaucracy, there is also the allure of possible advancement and of having a role in something big/important/historical if you promote and emulate the policies as announced from on high. If there is to be war then, an analyst, general, or even member of Congress, will align themselves with the idea that America is the good guy and those we oppose the bad guys. And that is about as deep as it goes. We’ve seen the results.
I read a good piece at The Atlantic by someone who served in Afghanistan and helped train the army and one of his observations is there was never a push to create a military that actually functioned as an institution. He said there was no thought put to pay scales or advancement. And I think that bolsters the thinking among American officials that we're never going to leave.
The great political scientist Robert Jervis has said that one exercise he would recommend for American intelligence analysis would be to imagine that they are an intelligence analyst in a foreign country with a bad relationship with the US, and write an analysis of the US from that perspective. For example, "Imagine, CIA analyst, that you are an intelligence analyst for the Russian government. Write their intelligence brief about America's intentions in intervening in the Crimea Crisis."
As I understand it, CIA analysts do not have to do these kinds of exercises. They do not have to understand how their own country is perceived by foreign states, and they often fail to appreciate that the latest action of a foreign state might be in *response* to something the US did earlier.
Osama Bin Laden (while not a state) is a good example. It is impossible to get someone who firmly believes the explanation that George W. Bush gave for why 9/11 happened ("they hate our freedom") to accept that Bin Laden clearly stated that 9/11 was a reprisal for three specific earlier actions of the US: (i) providing military and financial aid to Israel (AKA he was getting payback for the Palestinians) (ii) American sanctions on Iraq after the First Gulf War, and (iii) the presence of American military bases in the Middle East. Many Americans simply will not accept that *the things he said were his motivation* represented his actual motivation. This is probably because (A) those things didn't have a negative effect on the US/the West and therefore "weren't a big deal" and (B) many people simply cannot separate the idea of a factual explanation for a person or a country's behavior from a justification for that behavior. As Daniel sagely points out: what other people think of ourselves is rarely how we think about ourselves.
This gets to the problem of seeing conflicts like Afghanistan (or Vietnam) through the prism of our own intentions rather than how our actions are perceived by others.
I think your take on this is accurate. I would only add that having been in the federal bureaucracy, there is also the allure of possible advancement and of having a role in something big/important/historical if you promote and emulate the policies as announced from on high. If there is to be war then, an analyst, general, or even member of Congress, will align themselves with the idea that America is the good guy and those we oppose the bad guys. And that is about as deep as it goes. We’ve seen the results.
I read a good piece at The Atlantic by someone who served in Afghanistan and helped train the army and one of his observations is there was never a push to create a military that actually functioned as an institution. He said there was no thought put to pay scales or advancement. And I think that bolsters the thinking among American officials that we're never going to leave.