My CIA Tactic

When it comes to the battle for public support in this country, the CIA is in the difficult position of having their successes private and classified, and some of their failures public and well-known. They generally do great work, and make mistakes like any group of humans would doing complicated tasks with incomplete information, but generally speaking, we're talking about a group of dedicated individuals who have given up any possibility of public glory to protect what they believe in.

That said, here's an amusing human interest story about a successful CIA tactic. The story was written by the Washington Post and has been cited by Reuters, MSNBC, and the Wall Street Journal (among other news outlets covering the Post's coverage). Apparently, Viagra is a fantastic item to have in your pocket when bartering with warlords. It's a rare commodity that can't be easily bought, traded for, or stolen in rural Afghanistan, and it provides a benefit to the Warlord that doesn't tag him as an informer (as a sudden windfall of visible wealth would). It's also completely non-dangerous to American operatives (not necessarily the case with money or weapons).

I think this is a fairly ingenious solution, and a great example of how differing interests and utility functions can result in a HUGELY beneficial trade. The Warlord gets something that seems like magic, and gives up virtually nothing. All he has to do is tell some American some of the things he's seen and heard and let American operatives walk through his land. It costs him nothing but a little bit of his time. From the perspective of the CIA, they get hugely valuable intelligence and access to passages and alternative routes through a hostile country. These things save American lives, and help the CIA do their job much more effectively. In return, they give up some pills that cost less than the price of a one-way airplane ticket to the country in which they're negotiating. Both sides get something hugely valuable and give up something negligible. This kind of extremely productive trade is so fundamental that it's the first step in both the study of economics and the evolution of economies.