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Title: On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World by Robert David Steele ISBN: 0971566100 Publisher: OSS International Press Pub. Date: 22 November, 2001 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.78
Rating: 5
Summary: relevant to DC sniper case
Comment: For over a decade, Steele has been trying to draw attention to the fact that intelligence needs in the post-Cold-War era require different strategy, organization and tactics. This book is a useful summary of his views.
One point of emphasis is "open source" intelligence--the information that is available from sources outside of the secret intelligence community. Steele argues that the institutional secretiveness of the FBI and CIA is a hindrance rather than a help.
Another point of emphasis is language translation. A further point of emphasis is the fact that threats no longer exclusively take the form of powerful nation-states. I wish that the book focused more specifically on Islamic terrorism, since the other potential threats seem more remote at the moment.
Yet another point of emphasis is database integration. Writing this review in the aftermath of the DC sniper investigation, this seems to be an important point. Before the suspects drove to Maryland, they were involved in a murder in Alabama at which one of them left a fingerprint. Had the Alabama police been able to access a national database, they would have been able to identify the murderer and perhaps apprehend him. Instead, the fingerprint was matched only after a dozen more murders and after the suspects themselves told police to connect the dots to Alabama.
Lack of database integration kills.
Rating: 3
Summary: Nice contents, ugly packaging.
Comment: As a book, it's rather ugly. The pages are obviously printed out by an inkjet printer or something (you can actually see some jaggies in the font), and the index is created by MSWord indexing menu, which has multiple entries of the same item, and the way he indexes whole phrases makes it very hard to look up.
It's contents are extremely repetitive. You'll see the same ideas and examples expressed over and over and over and over again, in almost exact same wording. With proper editing, this book would have become 1/3 the volume that it is. The ideas are interesting, although some part, like his suggenstion that the US government should engage in industrial spying, seems questionable. Also, when he uses the word "Open Source", it's not the open source that the people in the software community is used to, so be careful. But it's a book worth skimming through.
Rating: 5
Summary: 9/11 is for intelligence what Sputnik was for science
Comment:
This book, the second edition, is an exact copy of the first edition with two changes: the publisher, and a new one-page Publisher's Foreword that itemizes the six intelligence and counterintelligence failures that allowed 9/11 to happen.
9/11 is for intelligence what Sputnik was for science. The across-the-board failure of clandestine intelligence (overseas), counterintelligence (at home) and our generally mediocre understanding of the real world (since we lack a properly funded, language-qualified foreign or diplomatic service), all contributed equally.
Henry Kissinger is absolutely right when he laments the lack of any serious consideration of foreign policy in recent presidential and congressional elections, and that is what 9/11 must change--this book is intended to be useful to citizens as well as government and business intelligence professionals. It lays out with great precision (see the index) both $11.6 billion dollars (out of $30 billion a year) in potential savings that could be applied to the new craft of intelligence, and it recommends with great precision all that should be in a new National Security Act of 2002.
Intelligence in the 21st Century is too important to be relegated to a chaotic cluster of secret government agencies. It is time for all citizens to take an interest in intelligence, to migrate the proven process of intelligence (there is a great deal that is good about the U.S. intelligence community) into the business sector as well as over to the sovereign states and their localities, and to demand of our elected representatives a proper accounting for the failure, and measures to prevent future failures.
Less than 2% of the $30 billion a year intelligence has been spent on terrorism--the policy and intelligence leadership over several administrations have given lip-service to the war on terrorism--and there will be no improvements, no matter how much money we pour into intelligence and counterintelligence, unless we change the fundamentals--who's in charge, how we do it, who we do it with, and how seriously we take our responsibilities for protecting America.
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Title: The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption by Robert David Steele ISBN: 0971566119 Publisher: OSS International Press Pub. Date: 08 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy by Mark M. Lowenthal ISBN: 1568027591 Publisher: CQ Press Pub. Date: 2003 List Price(USD): $35.95 |
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Title: Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence by Abram N. Shulsky, Gary James Schmitt ISBN: 1574883453 Publisher: Brasseys, Inc. Pub. Date: 15 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The U.S. Intelligence Community by Jeffrey T. Richelson ISBN: 0813368936 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $47.00 |
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Title: The Warning Solution : Intelligent Analysis in the Age of Information Overload by Kristan J. Wheaton ISBN: 0916159302 Publisher: AFCEA International Press Pub. Date: 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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