Why the Pentagon leaks are Biden’s latest disaster.

How is it highly distributed? Reports about the war on Ukraine Looking for their way to the Internet? The short answer is: Washington doesn’t seem to know. And that should frighten every American and all of our allies.

This is a failure of first order intelligence.

According to the Pentagon, Thousands of people with security clearances had access to the reports before they were released. The two most likely scenarios: one of them posted the reports to obscure corners of the Internet (assuming they would eventually become public knowledge) or forwarded them to someone else without permission.

Russian officials have suggested that the leaked documents may be an attempt to ‘mislead the enemy’

Either way, it’s a mess., One is baffled that the documents have been floating around the Internet for weeks without the US government noticing.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby cautioned against sharing the leaked documents.

Why would someone leak these documents? At this point, it’s all still a guessing game.

“The arrest of a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman in connection with classified documents leaked online in recent months has sparked outrage as critics wonder how a young man could have such a high level of access to national security information,” Fox News Digital reported.

FBI agents arrested Massachusetts Air National Guard Jack Douglas Teixeira Thursday after US intelligence documents containing critical information about the war in Ukraine and China’s ties were posted on the chat app Discord. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixeira is being investigated for the ‘unauthorized removal, retention and transfer of classified national defense information.’

At this stage, in the absence of further explanation, it does not appear to have been intentional by either our government or the enemy. This phenomenon seems similar to Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers or the 2010 documents Chelsea Manning leaked to WikiLeaks – individuals who have taken it upon themselves to release classified information.

However, the purpose here is not so obvious. Instead of speculating, let’s wait for more information to emerge.

But, while we wait, let’s take a look at what all the leaked information tells us about the progress of the war in Ukraine. For now, we can analyze the other issues the documents touch on (like the trailer teasing the next Jason Bourne movie).

What those documents reveal about the war is not quite what you might expect. This goes up Nature of intelligence reports and summaries.

Spy Operators on Netflix offers blinding flashes of truth that drive the plot forward. In real life, strategic thinking is often ambiguous, counterintuitive, or wrong. Think back to the famously flawed assessment of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs.

Intelligence may be accurate, but outdated, as may be the case with some of these documents.

Intelligence can also be corrupted. These documents have no chain of custody. They may be subtly produced by doctors or directly. We don’t know what was added, omitted or changed from the moment they were released.

In short, anyone who believes, reading these now public documents, can guess exactly what is going on in Ukraine, a glimmer of faith is breaking out. It remains to be seen what can be confirmed.

This leak is beyond embarrassing. It undermines the confidence of our friends and allies in the competence of our Department of Defense. It can lead to operational failure and even kill people.

The main question here is: How much damage has been done? That remains to be seen. One of the biggest constrains in the intelligence community is the fear that leaked information will compromise and compromise valuable resources or allow our adversaries to identify the methods they use to collect it. This could seriously hamper future intelligence gathering operations.

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After such a major spill, one of the first steps to take – beyond trying to figure out how it happened – is to assess the potential damage risks and then take action to minimize the damage. These efforts are often highly classified, so the public may hear very little of what is being done unless it is leaked.

If this all sounds overwhelming, that’s because it is. The US government needs to do a better job of keeping secrets. Intelligence operations are a constant war of steps and countermeasures between adversaries. Only an idiot would think that the intel whining that hurts them will never happen. But they will fight like hell to keep it from being good thinking jobs.

This leak is beyond embarrassing. It undermines the confidence of our friends and allies in the competence of our Department of Defense. It can lead to operational failure and even kill people.

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This serves as a stark reminder to the Pentagon that our national security is their #1 job. Some people think that the armed forces should make excuses for the failures to fight global warming or advance the DEI or the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But national defense is not about advancing political agendas.

Defense officials can beat their chests all they want about how seriously they take this incident and how much they take the task of protecting America’s interests. But when you look at the state of the Pentagon today, it’s hard not to ask: Do we really trust them?

Click here to read more from James Jay Carafano