Could even "Black Hawk Down"-like or Iran hostage crisis TV images of captured Americans alter the political situation in the US today to the disfavor of the administration? We hope we don't need to test that -- but it's difficult to believe they would.

... one important caveat is that the political risks are lower than they've ever been, barring some terrible novelty that we hope doesn't happen. Americans tuned out of Iraq and A'stan and ignored Libya and Syria and so long as F-35 played pretty for TV in blowing stuff up in Caracas, prolly fine

We appear to be emerging from a Gunshy Foreign Policy Supercycle into an 80s/early 90s Aggro Foreign Policy Supercycle -- Mrs Thatcher and Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush loved them right up until the luck ran out with Mr. Clinton

Easy to imagine, therefore, with a sense of Leadership Exigency about the whole NK nuke sitch back in the day, ppl at the head shed weren't trying to hear NSA and CIA and DIA be like, "eh, we can tap the comms switch (or whatevs) but we need to recruit and train some Korean shellfish divers"

But it's true on the spy agency side too. So much of Bob Gates' book is about Bill Casey reaching deep into the CIA org chart to find people who would do what he wanted, irrespective of their roles and responsibilities and the laws and Congress (lol) ... and winding up with Iran-Contra

... the CIA was like, no, if we send somebody it needs to be a real, Farsi-speaking Persian dude whom we recruit and pay and control -- that's how you run a human agent. Which is fine and correct but also takes much longer to set up and pay off. Principals find their own ways to get what they want

Tensions between the intelligence agency side of the Doing Secret Stuff House and the uniformed DoD side are an old story. David Crist has an anecdote in "The Twilight War" about Army intel's plan to send a man basically in costume, with a fake mustache, to try to pose as an Iranian business guy

... of course we start to run out of airspeed and altitude because so many of these operations were + remain secret. Is it actually the case, in our era, that 9 out of 10 go flawlessly and everything is fine most of the time? We can't know but when the 1 of those goes this bad that is cold comfort

Then there are cases like that of poor old Buster Crabbe, likely sent by UK Naval Intelligence to conduct surveillance on a Soviet cruiser visiting England back in the day -- another debacle en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_...

SO stealthy, the helicopters -- look what a difference they make!

I wish the whole thing had gone to plan and the US was collecting intel about NK leadership and none of this had ever happened but now we have not only a terrible international incident but yet more evidence for the juice-jock war criminal narrative around SpecWar that it desperately needs to shed

... and what do the professional fishers and divers in this area have? Professional fishing and diving capabilities! When they discover a boat missing that's a big deal and they have the ability to go down and find, good heavens, Smitty and Donny and Louie have been shot to hell and gutted!

... this would be the equivalent of Spetsnaz frogmen mounting a raid against Bar Harbor but not realizing there might be lobster boats, and then killing a sinking a lobster boat crew. Pretty soon all the other ole bois are going to say, "hey, what happened to Smitty and Donny?"

... maybe there was no choice but to drive their mini-subs into waters where small-boat divers were operating but they had no plan? And, when they discovered the poor guys were there, shot the sh*t out of them and stabbed their corpses so they'd sink ... in an area frequented by fishers and divers!

… if all the world needs to be is some B-Roll of things you produced as an anchor reads the script establishing the next scene ((which is itself a movie trope)) than you can have your fantasy and millions will buy it too b/c it’s what passes for reality — an oppression montage

Much as the principal saw “Clear and Present Danger” and said, “let’s do that!” it’s as though he saw those old 70s crime-revenge movies and said, “great idea, somebody just needs to be tough.” And if the pictures are all that matter, done!