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I will have an op-ed up tomorrow at Pajamas Media on Leon Panetta’s nomination to be the Director of the CIA. For now here are some other views:

Lewsis Shepherd – Swap Panetta and Blair: A Modest Proposal

The ideal candidate is someone who is smart, who is not looking to feather his or her nest to reap economic benefits, and who understands that the President needs an honest broker. Look at the Clinton choices-Jim Woolsey, John Deutch, and George Tenet. Horrible choices and a terrible legacy. And George Bush did no better-George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden. Hayden is awful because he has perpetuated the militarization of the intelligence community. Goss played politics. And Tenet? Two words. SLAM DUNK! Enough said about that clown.

Josh Marshall ( TPM ) – Really a Mystery

Marshall quotes a retired military senior member of the IC:

“….I think there is a lot more here than is being said. I believe that Feinstein did not want someone like Panetta who has a large and independent power base and network. If you get a career guy they are a lot easier to isolate and move around. Panetta has been around for a long time and has his own network. I actually think that it is a good choice. He knows how intelligence needs to be presented to the President – that is the critical issue here.

…. We need a significant re-orientation away from tactical support by CIA and other National agencies and back to their primary mission – direct intelligence support to the President. The last 15 years have seen an explosion of tactical intelligence capability with the advent of UAVs (which DoD fought against for so long due to the fighter pilot mentality). National systems need to be re-oriented to national priorities and away from tactical or operational desires of the warfighter. “

More later.

I’m getting errors in trying to download the Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World from the DNI.gov/NIC site despite having up to date Adobe Acrobat/Reader. Is anyone else having a similar problem ?

UPDATE:

Thanks Charles and Dan. 

In the meantime, while we wait for the USG to post a working link, here is some early analysis by Jeff at IntelFusion.

UPDATE II.

Courtesy of Shlok Vaidya –  Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed. Thanks Shlok – Fingar should offer you a job.  Will have comments on the report later tonight.

UPDATE III.

Commentary on 2025 in a series of posts at Atlantic Council by James Joyner, by Dr. Barnett and SWJ Blog,

UPDATE IV.

I’m still sifting the report but I’m not impressed. Aside from the cautious positions on possible developments heavily rooted in presentist analysis I kind of get the drift that the possibilities have not been looked at too closely as to how their interactions might or might not be countervailing with one another. Sort of an implicit assumption of synergism.

Michael Tanji sums up his views on the recent DNI OSINT conference that he and other blogfriends attended in Washington, DC.

Official DNI OSINT blog can also be consulted ( hat tip to Suki Fuller)

Danger Room was most excellent today. Two items here worthy of attention:

Michael Tanji, my CTLab colleague, put in an appearance at Danger Room with How to Fix the Spooks’ New ‘Vision’:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently released their new vision for the future of the spooks and spies community. And, shockingly enough, it’s actually pretty smart — sparking a bit of optimism for those who think serious change is too long in coming. It’s a more far-reaching document than I have seen come out of the IC (Intelligence Community) in the past. The parts about supplying intelligence to everyone from the Departments of Health and Human Services to international organizations to private sector and non-governmental organizations were especially heartening.

That said, it still doesn’t reach far enough. Everyone in the IC likes to say that we’re in a period of unprecedented and extensive change. If that’s the case, I’d expect the response to match the challenge. Some suggestions:

They’re good ones. Go read them!

Next, Noah Shachtman brings us some official Pentagon futurism pried loose by Justin Elliott of Mother Jones magazine with a FOIA request, Military Study Looked to Rome for Lessons:

The Pentagon’s legendary Office of Net Assessment is known for peering into the future of conflict — at subjects like wartime biotech, fighting robots, networked battles, and the military in space. The office’s head, Andrew Marshall, has been called the Pentagon’s “futurist-in-chief.” But for one study, concluded in 2002, Net Assessment-funded researchers looked back, to the empires of Alexander the Great, Imperial Rome, Genghis Khan, and Napoleonic France.

 Military Advantage in History  (PDF) is a fascinating read but very quirky in it’s historical interpretation. I base this assessment on a spot check of the Roman section where some elements are correct but some variables are underplayed – the political dynamics of proconsular authority begetting Roman aggressiveness and adaptiveness in the field or the resilience of the Roman state for example. The rush to try and synthesize such a vast scope of history in a few paragraphs will inevitably create distortions ( Napoleon or Alexander are far more manageable subjects for such abstraction – but they influenced rather than institutionalized in the long run).

I’ve come to greatly appreciate the intellectual depth and range of Charles Cameron ever since having been “introduced” to him (in the online sense) by my seagoing friend, Web 2.0 visioneer Critt Jarvis. Today, Charles pointed me to a veritable archive of writings by Michael Wilson, a futurist, scholar and former member of the IC. Some of the ideas and conclusions that I have been working toward on this blog these past few years were literally being advocated by Wilson well over a decade ago.

I’ve only just begun to look at these and I’m posting them here for those readers whose interests gravitate toward issues of intel analysis and futurism:

7Pillars Partners – Papers by Michael Wilson

Continual & Complete Intelligence: A 21st Century Approach

Addendum:

Charles Cameron is cordially invited to expand on the subject of Mr. Wilson and I will happily publish such remarks here.