Korea

The Intelligence Community Is Not Solely to Blame for North Korea

The Kim regime got this far, so the narrative goes, because the intelligence community was working on outdated and stale assumptions about the technology the North Koreans were using and underestimated Kim Jong-un’s devotion to developing an operational nuclear weapons arsenal. The Timesplaces the blame on the backs of the analysts, supervisors and collectors of Washington’s vast intelligence bureaucracy.

But what about the policymakers responsible for resolving the North Korea problem before it got out of control? They too deserve a healthy dose of critique—it is the policymakers, not the spooks, who run U.S. foreign policy. Pointing the finger at the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency for not connecting the proverbial dots, while a favorite Washington tradition (see: Iraq and weapons of mass destruction), lets the men and women who craft policy off the hook too easily.

If the spies and analysts at Langley and Fort Meade were unable to pick up red flags at critical junctures of Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development, the policymakers were unable to think outside the box. The lack of imagination on North Korea in the policy world is stunning.