The CIA’s Analysis of Chinese and North Korean Politics During the Cold War: Forgotten and Set up For Failure
Nick Miller is PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh.
Before pursuing my PhD, I served as an East Asian analyst for the United States Air Force.
The purpose of the thesis was to understand the roots as to why the U.S. has had a history of incorrectly assessing Chinese and North Korean politics. This is especially pertinent as there is a concern for a new Cold War in the 21st Century with China serving as the new core adversary of the United States. Largely the study of Chinese and post – Korean War North Korean history has been neglected by researchers due the archives being closed to researchers.
In the case of the CIA throughout the Cold War the Chinese and North Korean analytical divisions were profoundly neglected for resources and funding compared to the Soviet departments. CIA management blocked and disregarded calls for improvements and continued to enforce certain viewpoint in all analytical writings. Those who did not comply had their careers threatened. CIA experienced profound bureaucratic infighting that prevented an equitable sharing of intelligence resources to improve assessments. Lastly, neither country had a robust human intelligence network as the CIA gave up on correcting and improving the past failures it had experienced in the 1950s. The failure to develop these programs left the Agency forever blind to knowing what was occurring in either nation.
Image 1: Mao Zedong
Source: неизвестный (unknown), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_Zedong_in_1959_(cropped).jpg
.jpg){kind=link}
Image 2: Central Intelligence Agency, ‘An Appraisal of Intelligence Sources and Analysis in the Fall of Teng Hsiao-p’ing and in the Rise of Hua Kuo-feng,”
Source: Central Intelligence Agency, ‘An Appraisal of Intelligence Sources and Analysis in the Fall of Teng Hsiao-p’ing and in the Rise of Hua Kuo-feng,” CIA-RDP82M00311R000100170001-3. January 31, 1978, 1
Image 3: Kim Il-sung
Source: Unknown Author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_Il_Sung_Portrait.png
CONNECT WITH NICK
E-mail: N.Miller-11@sms.ed.ac.uk