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Intelligence and the National Security Strategist: Enduring Issues and Challenges
Intelligence and the National Security Strategist: Enduring Issues and Challenges presents students with a useful anthology of published articles from diverse sources as well as original contributions to the study of intelligence. The collection includes classic perspectives from the history of warfare, views on the evolution of U.S. intelligence, and studies on the delicate balance between the need for information-gathering and the values of democratic societies. It also includes succinct discussions of complex issues facing the Intelligence Community, such as the challenges of technical and clandestine collection, the proliferation of open sources, the problems of deception and denial operations, and the interaction between the Intelligence Community and the military. Several timely chapters examine the role of the intelligence analyst in support of the national security policymaker. Rounding out the volume are appendices on the legislative underpinnings of our national intelligence apparatus.
- GenresPolitics
620 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2004
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November 15, 2021
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Reprint Analysis
The majority of the articles of this intelligence anthology consist of reprints from various publications ranging from books to intelligence periodicals. These articles are, not surprisingly, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) centric since the book is really designed as a textbook for training analysts destined for the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) of the CIA.
As such the book throws a good deal of light on what is wrong with the DI and helps explain its unenviable record of intelligence failures. Indeed it should be noted a number of the authors (all current or former DI analysts/officers) contributing to this book deny that that DI has any failures in intelligence to explain.
This, given the public record of the DI's performance, is quite illuminating in its self.
The book is divided up, somewhat randomly it appears, into sections each containing two or more chapters on a particular intelligence subject.
The section on the "Challenges of Technical Collection" is remarkably weak suggesting that the editors really aren't all that interested in either Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) analysis or Imagery (IMINT) analysis as sources to be understood and used by DI analysts.
This is confirmed in another section, "Challenges of Intelligence Analysis" which astonishingly manages to avoid any serious discussion on the transformation of data (unprocessed information) acquired by source into intelligence (knowledge) organized by subject.
This should be the heart of the intelligence process, but in this section it is not. The DI has been the neglected brother at the CIA, with every CIA Director in living memory concentrating on `reforming' the Directorate of Operations (DO). Living in the perennial shadow of the DO, the DI has developed an insular, complacent culture that always assumes its analytic so-called `tradecraft' is the best there is and really could not be improved upon.
In these uncertain times such a culture is not reassuring private citizens looking to the Intelligence Community to prevent or at least warn us of potential threats to U.S. security.
retired reader
Reprint Analysis
The majority of the articles of this intelligence anthology consist of reprints from various publications ranging from books to intelligence periodicals. These articles are, not surprisingly, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) centric since the book is really designed as a textbook for training analysts destined for the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) of the CIA.
As such the book throws a good deal of light on what is wrong with the DI and helps explain its unenviable record of intelligence failures. Indeed it should be noted a number of the authors (all current or former DI analysts/officers) contributing to this book deny that that DI has any failures in intelligence to explain.
This, given the public record of the DI's performance, is quite illuminating in its self.
The book is divided up, somewhat randomly it appears, into sections each containing two or more chapters on a particular intelligence subject.
The section on the "Challenges of Technical Collection" is remarkably weak suggesting that the editors really aren't all that interested in either Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) analysis or Imagery (IMINT) analysis as sources to be understood and used by DI analysts.
This is confirmed in another section, "Challenges of Intelligence Analysis" which astonishingly manages to avoid any serious discussion on the transformation of data (unprocessed information) acquired by source into intelligence (knowledge) organized by subject.
This should be the heart of the intelligence process, but in this section it is not. The DI has been the neglected brother at the CIA, with every CIA Director in living memory concentrating on `reforming' the Directorate of Operations (DO). Living in the perennial shadow of the DO, the DI has developed an insular, complacent culture that always assumes its analytic so-called `tradecraft' is the best there is and really could not be improved upon.
In these uncertain times such a culture is not reassuring private citizens looking to the Intelligence Community to prevent or at least warn us of potential threats to U.S. security.
retired reader
Displaying 1 of 1 review