Enemies of intelligence knowledge and power in American national security

Description

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the false assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons arsenal were terrible reminders that good information is essential to national security. These failures convinced the American public that their intelligence system was broken and prompted a radical reorganization of agencies and personnel, but as Richard K. Betts argues in this book, critics and politicians have severely underestimated the obstacles to true reform. One of the nation's foremost political scientists, Betts draws on three decades of work within the U.S. intelligence community to illuminate the paradoxes and problems that frustrate the intelligence process. Unlike America's efforts to improve its defenses against natural disasters, strengthening its strategic assessment capabilities means outwitting crafty enemies who operate beyond U.S. borders. It also requires looking within to the organizational and political dynamics of collecting information and determining its... Preface 1. Twenty-first-Century Intelligence: New Enemies and Old 2. Permanent Enemies: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable 3. Theory Traps: Expertise as an Enemy 4. Incorruptibility or Influence? Costs and Benefits of Politicization 5. Two Faces of Failure: September 11 and Iraq's WMD 6. An Intelligence Reformation? Two Faces of Reorganization 7. Whose Knowledge of Whom? The Conflict of Secrets 8. Enemies at Bay: Successful Intelligence Notes Index