Intelligence and the National Security Strategist: Enduring Issues and Challenges

 (3 customer reviews)

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...Read more

This book is designed for those already aware of the basic tenets of intelligence and the U.S. Intelligence Community. It would be excellent for use at an intelligence training programs. It has none of the sexy intelligence fiction found in movies (sorry no fast cars and faster women), instead it debates the important, but very bureaucratic policy issues facing the intelligence community (organization, budget, tasking, etc) . It would also be useful for graduate level course work on intelligence or national security. The U.S. intelligence community is evolving so rapidly that books of this nature become out-dated very quickly, so much has already changed. The chapter on the challenge of briefing senior policy makers was well-done. The book is too heavily weighted on the work of the CIA, which has a small and shrinking role within the intelligence community. I did not think any of the essays were ground-breaking, but they were well written and presented a good picture of the...Read more

The intelligence organizations of the United States (I believe some 17 organizations, but since there probably some agencies that are still secret, I can't be sure.) have had their successes and failures. Their failures are well exposed, i.e. predicting the attack on the World Trade Center, their successes only come to the public's attention years, or even decades later.

This book is an investigation into the intelligence agencies, but heavily concentrated on the CIA. It was originally intended as a text for use at senior military colleges and certain civilian government training programs.

The book was written by a series of authors that came out of or had longstanding relationships of some kind to the American intelligence organizations, mostly CIA but including others. The range of their discussion is great, from history to the future, the legal basis for intelligence operations, relationship with the military and more.