There is a reasonable possibility that I am wrong. However, I just finished reading a book by a modern-history scholar, Derek Leebaert - The Fifty-Year Wound, that has quite adifferent view of CIA performance during and after the Cold War. The Russians ran circles around us in the espionage arena. Their analysis was not very good though, even though analysis is the reason intelligence is gathered in the first place.
We definitely had less than skillful people somewhere in the mix. Real mental ability has great difficulty insinuating itself into and operating within bureaucratic structures.
They've had more years to practice. They've had an espionage service of one sort of another ever since the Rus barricaded themselves inside the Kremlin.
:O)
I read the reports Russia was publishing about our initial blitzkrieg into Iraq. It was utter and total fantasy b.s. They were reporting tank loses into the 100s!!! Can't remember if their casuality projects from the first push was over 3000, but I'll wager anything that it was.
I just remember reading the section on tanks destroyed and realized right there they were flat-out making up stuff to support their fantasy expectation of what they (and our media for that matter) thought would be the outcome.
Ivan your hardware is crap, and both Gulf wars proved it.