A passage from Manuel DeLanda’s book “War in the Age of Intelligent Machines” (1991), which I’m almost done with.
Almost without exception, secret service organizations have thrived in times of turbulence and, conversely, have seen their power vanish as turmoil slows. For this reason, they survive by inciting social turbulence, spreading rumors and inventing imaginary enemies, fifth columns, and bomber and missile gaps. They need to keep society in constant alert, in a generalized state of fear and paranoia, in order to sustain themselves. This has led to the development of a gigantic “espionage industry, ” whose entire existence is based on a bluff few governments dare to call:
The agencies justify their peacetime existence by promising to provide timely warning of a threat to national security… Over the years intelligence agencies have brainwashed successive governments into accepting three propositions that ensure their survival and expansion. The first is that in the secret world it may be impossible to distinguish success from failure. A timely warning of attack allows the intended victim to prepare. This causes the aggressor to change its mind; the warning then appears to have been wrong. The second proposition is that failure can be due to incorrect analysis of the agency’s accurate information… The third proposition is that the agency could have offered timely warning had it not been starved of funds. In combination, these three propositions can be used to thwart any rational analysis of an intelligence agency’s performance, and allow any failure to be turned into a justification for further funding and expansion*.
Shouldn’t this be mandatory reading in every country at a very early age?
This is an incredible book. Go buy it.
*Knightley, Second Oldest Profession., pp. 6 and 389.
