Shelf Life of Intel Reports Is?

via and all rights belong to CDR Salamander, Substack (excerpt)

Amazing how fast things can change. Just 5 weeks ago, the Defense Intelligence Agency published its 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment.

Read it at the link, but let’s just look at pages 17 and 18, part of the assessment on Iran.

Talk about overcoming events. Light a candle for the Iran team that spent so much time arguing about every word, every clause … trying so hard to get the Ouija board to help them see what people should expect.

Don’t get me wrong, intel assessments and reports are important—but too often you find that people will use them as if they are written by magical beings with unique powers to see the future. They aren’t. They are usually smart people in hard jobs doing their best to find a consensus opinion with the knowledge in hand—and releasable at the classification level of the product.

Never be shy about challenging them.

I’ll bold and italic those things that, as of this Wednesday, are well overcome by events.