One of the very first operations undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after its founding in 1947 was to create an army to fight the Soviets in Ukraine. Dubbed Operation Nightingale, the CIA aimed to reconstitute Nazi death squads in Ukraine that the Germans called Nachtigall.
The newly created U.S. intelligence community figured we’d partnered with communists to destroy fascism. Now, post war, we could team with the fascists to destroy communism.
Unsurprisingly, Nightingale was a spectacular failure. The Kremlin’s spies discovered every aspect of the plan well before it was initiated. (RELATED: BETSY MCCAUGHEY: Trusting China Could Lead To Another Catastrophic Pandemic)
In its early years, the CIA lurched from one fiasco to another. On Sept. 20, 1949, CIA analysts declared the Soviet Union would not produce a nuclear weapon for at least another four years. Three days later, Truman had to tell the country that Russia had the bomb.
Sadly, things are hardly better today.
In 2021, U.S. intelligence agencies looked into their crystal ball and told senior congressional leaders that Afghanistan’s national security forces could keep the Taliban at bay for a year or perhaps longer. The Taliban took Kabul in a matter of hours.
“Clearly we didn’t get things right” on that intelligence, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby dryly remarked later.
The next year, U.S. intelligence took the opposite tack on Ukraine, predicting the capital, Kiev, might fall within days of Russia’s 2022........