While the United States government allocates billions of dollars to the nation's numerous intelligence agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and those attached to the five branches of the Armed Forces, there were just recently a number of intelligence failures.
The United States government, including members of the White House national security team, were taken by surprise when President Vladimir Putin sent aircraft, troops, vehicles and weapons systems into Syria. The world was told that the Russian military's mission is to join the Iranian military and jihadists from Hezbollah in helping that nation's dictator, Bashar al-Assad. The Russian military immediately began battling both secular and Islamist rebels who control a large portion of that war-torn Arab country.
