Intelligence is Not the Same Thing as Confidence

There have been some updates on some national security mysteries. Let's review.

Photo by Katie Drazdauskaite on Unsplash

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World believes that there are three great mysteries vexing the national security chattering classes:

1. What were the origins of COVID-19?

2. What is causing Havana Syndrome?

3. What is the source of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs)?

The basic problem with the debates surrounding all three of these questions is that, in the end, there has been little in the way of definitive information. If anything, the trajectory in these cases has shifted from less to more uncertainty.

That was on display this past week with news coverage about recent intelligence updates regarding two of these three questions. Alas, the reaction to these updates has been more revealing than the updates themselves.

Let’s start with the origins of COVID-19. The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Gordon and Warren Strobel broke the news about on intelligence agency’s shift:

The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.

The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

That is definitely a shift in opinion! A lot of folks got very hopped up about this!

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Welp. The behavior of a certain cadre of scientists who used every trick in the book to suppress discussion of this issue is something I'll never forget. A huge disservice to science and public health. They should be profoundly embarrassed.

wsj.comWSJ News Exclusive | Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now SaysThe U.S. agency’s revised assessment of how the pandemic started is based on new intelligence.

In a narrow sense, Silver is correct. Way too many folks conflated “lab leak” with “China did this on purpose!” and “Trump was right!” This stifled debate on a question for which there remains no definitive answer.

But then there is this sentence from the WSJ story: “The Energy Department made its judgment with ‘low confidence,’ according to people who have read the classified report.”

Wait. What?! So there has been an entire hullabaloo because one of the intelligence agencies made a modest shift from “undecided” to “lab leak” with low confidence? Because unless I’m mistaken, that is the only change in the intelligence community’s assessment of this question. The National Intelligence Council and four other intelligence agencies still believe (also with “low confidence”) that COVID-19 emerged through natural transmission. Two other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, remain undecided. The FBI believes the lab leak hypothesis and still has “moderate confidence” in its assessment.

As one intelligence official told the Washington Post, “The bottom line remains the same: Basically no one really knows.”

In other words, the WSJ story reveals a modest shift in one agency’s assessment made with low confidence. But I have seen way too many contrarians, conservative crackpots, and members of Congress act as if this shift is epistemologically definitive. It ain’t.

Also this week, the Washington Post’s Shane Harris and John Hudson reported on an intelligence finding made with higher confidence about Havana Syndrome that seems way more significant:

The mysterious ailment known as “Havana syndrome” did not result from the actions of a foreign adversary, according to an intelligence report that shatters a long-disputed theory that hundreds of U.S. personnel were targeted and sickened by a clandestine enemy wielding energy waves as a weapon.

The new intelligence assessment caps a years-long effort by the CIA and several other U.S. intelligence agencies to explain why career diplomats, intelligence officers and others serving in U.S. missions around the world experienced what they described as strange and painful acoustic sensations. The effects of this mysterious trauma shortened careers, racked up large medical bills and in some cases caused severe physical and emotional suffering.

Many of the afflicted personnel say they were the victims of a deliberate attack — possibly at the hands of Russia or another adversarial government — a claim that the report contradicts in nearly every respect, according to two intelligence officials who are familiar with the assessment and described it to The Washington Post.

[Okay, sure, but did this assessment come with “low confidence as well?—ed.] I’m glad you asked!

Five of [the seven intelligence] agencies determined it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible for the symptoms, either as the result of purposeful actions — such as a directed energy weapon — or as the byproduct of some other activity, including electronic surveillance that unintentionally could have made people sick, the officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the findings of the assessment, which had not yet been made public.

One agency, which the officials did not name, determined that it was “unlikely” that a foreign actor was at fault, a slightly less emphatic finding that did not appreciably change the consensus. One agency abstained in its conclusion regarding a foreign actor. But when asked, no agency dissented from the conclusion that a foreign actor did not cause the symptoms, one of the intelligence officials said.

It should be noted that none of this implies that the individuals who reported suffering from Havana Syndrome are not suffering from something. As DNI Avril Haines said in her statement, “these findings do not call into question the very real experiences and symptoms that our colleagues and their family members have reported.” Whatever is going on, the medical ailments are real.

With that said, this finding bolsters those who have been skeptical of the “malevolent actor using directed energy” theory of Havana Syndrome. This finding represents a much stronger intel consensus than the minor shift about about the origins of COVID-19.

As I noted back in 2021, partisanship has profoundly affected Beltway thinking on some of these issues. It will be interesting to see how partisans react to these two news stories. From what I can see, the same folks who think COVID-19 was a lab leak tend to believe that Russia or some other malevolent actor is behind Havana Syndrome. The two intelligence reports provide modest support for one hypothesis and a lot of cold water for the other.

Let’s see who, if anyone, displays any intellectual consistency in response to these updates.