Intelligent Intelligence

David Brooks enters the debate on intelligence reform by citing a paper by my classmate, Sulmaan Khan. Following the paper, which deals with China, Brooks slams CIA intelligence reports as "bloodless compilations of data by anonymous technicians" that "do not draw patterns based on an understanding of ... history."

Overspecialization--looking too closely at the details and missing the big picture--can indeed be a problem, especially in Middle East studies. Just check out the article titles in the Arab Studies Journal. Nevertheless, I suspect that the generalist approach that Brooks supports, if it isn't grounded in some pretty significant details, can end up leading to bad predictions too. We ought to take advantage of what both analysis traditions have to offer, balancing them with each other.