Advice to an aspiring intelligence analyst is John Kiriakou’s answer to a question from a 21-year-old student pursuing a career in intelligence analysis, who asked what degrees were most applicable and what he should be reading.
Kiriakou called it a great question and answered it in three parts. The first is geographic specialisation: “I would focus on your geographical area of interest. For me it was the Middle East. Some people devoted their whole lives to Latin America, Eurasia, China, whatever.”[1]
The second is depth within it — “become the go-to person on that issue” — and the third is volume: “honestly consume everything, everything.”[1][2] He drew one boundary around that instruction, distinguishing it from indiscriminate consumption of conspiracy media: “I don’t mean go to InfoWars and watch people for 2 hours every day. But in your field, in your area, be sure to get everything.”[2]
Reading what you don’t enjoy
The example he gives of the discipline involved is Foreign Affairs, which he describes as “sometimes so dense,” with articles “usually written by people who have never actually created or implemented foreign policy, they’ve just studied it.” He forces himself through it anyway, on the principle that “you have to know what everybody is saying.”[2]
The reason is practical and, in his account, applies to his own working life. “Oftentimes — and I mean this literally — there are issues that I know I’m going to have to comment on that I just simply haven’t formed an opinion on. And so I need to see what other people whom I respect are saying, so that I can form my own opinion.”[3]
He agreed with the related suggestion that the value of such publications lies partly in reading the establishment’s mind — Foreign Policy being “what the Beltway is thinking” — and gave as the example the moment the magazine began conceding that Ukraine had lost the war, which he took as the establishment accepting a conclusion he and his co-host had reached years earlier.[3][4]