Comment by Talanes
3 years ago
Being good at inciting chaos isn't the same thing as having control. The CIA has a demonstrable history of being good at the first, but much less so the second.
The most pop-culture conspiracy theories vastly overestimate the precision of the organization: they're more like painters than programmers. It's a whole lot of improv.
I think it's fair to say that if you can stage coups and install puppet governments then you have a fair amount of control.