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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Stupider Intelligence: The IC in a Post-Truth World
Author(s)
Matthew Crosston
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DOI:10.17265/2578-4269/2023.01.003
Affiliation(s)
School of Security and Global Studies, American Military University
ABSTRACT
Articles and commentaries abound about how we live in a “post-truth” world, where alternative facts, fake news, and anti-intellectualism freely compete with recognized authoritative sources and peer-reviewed research in the battle for control over public opinion. Substantive topical engagement has been set aside by a reliance on talking points and buzz words, while factual rebuttals are easily dismissed as irrelevant and non-consequential. While most of these analytical commentaries are motivated to get to conclusions about the darker consequences of a hyper- technologized society or criticisms of the current political environment in America, this paper looks at an angle of the debate that has gone wholly unnoticed and unanalyzed: how does intelligence operate in a world no longer uncomfortable with the manipulation and corruption of information? The assumptions that intelligence professionals should feel adept in an environment overwhelmed by informational subterfuge are missing a crucial element for practitioners: dealing with subterfuge while acquiring information from targets is normal; dealing with it from the people you are meant to provide intelligence product to is highly detrimental. Analyzing how the IC attempts to overcome this problem fundamentally addresses the current state of Intelligence in American politics today and likely for the foreseeable future.
KEYWORDS
IC, Post-Truth World, fake news, intelligence
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