DISCUSSING RECESSION IN TERMS OF PROBABILITIES. About a year ago, I argued here that it would be useful to use probabilities to discuss foreign intelligence, just as we have over the last forty years gotten used to using probabilities in discussing the weather. Recession is an unfortunate possibility, but I am pleased that people are using probabilities to talk about it.
But not in the public discussion of intelligence.
The public generally manifests less interest in and knowledge about foreign and national security policy than any domestic issue area. The attentive public is small, exagerating the influence of agenda setting groups like the Heritage Foundation, the American Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings, etc. When I put numbers on a world outline map at the beginning of last term (yes 2007!), half the class missed Iraq, 80% Afghanistan and one benighted soul identified India as Italy and Venezuela as Vietnam. (I guess getting the first letter right is a beginning!)
There she is: Miss America!
Probablities have long been a key element embodied in the phrase “intelligence estimates.”