Very detailed review of intelligence failure in Viet-Nam,
April 8, 2000
James J. Wirtz
Jim, a very respected member of the faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School, has provided us with a very well documented study of how the U.S. missed the Tet Offensive in Viet-Name. Among his findings: we knew fully two months in advance at the tactical collection level, with several additional collection successes and some modest analysis successes in the weeks preceding the offensive. We were distracted by Khe Sanh, the commanders did not want to hear it, “intelligence to please” was the standard within the Military Assistance Command Viet-Nam intelligence bureaucracy, and when we finally did grasp, one day before the attack, its true strategic nature, we failed to disseminate the warnings to the tactical commanders with sufficient effectiveness.
This book dedicates itself entirely to fixing the underlying process of intelligence. The authors place intelligence in the larger context of information, and draw a plethora of useful comparisons with emerging private sector capabilities and standards. They place strong emphasis on the emerging issues (not necessarily threats) related to ethnic, religious, and geopolitical confrontation, and are acutely sensitive to the new power of non-governmental organizations and non-state actors. The heart of their book is captured in three guidelines for the new process: focus on understanding the consumer's priorities; minimize the investment in fixed hardware and personnel; and create a system that can draw freely on commercial capabilities where applicable (as they often will be). Their chapter on the failure of the bureaucratic model for intelligence, and the need to adopt the virtual model-one that permits analysts to draw at will on diverse open sources-is well presented and compelling. Their concluding three chapters on analysis, covert action, and secrecy are solid professional-level discussions of where we must go in the future.
No Better View of the Clandestine Mentality Exists,
April 8, 2000
Victor Marchetti
This is one of perhaps ten books from prior to 1985 that I decided to include because of their continuing value. I believe that both history and historians will credit these two individuals with having made a difference by articulating so ably both the clandestine mentality and the problems extant in the lack of oversight regarding proprietary organizations, propaganda and disinformation, and intrusive not-so-clandestine operations.
Strategic and Sensible Reference for Intelligence Reform,
April 8, 2000
Stansfield Turner
Stansfield Turner was a Rhodes scholar and naval officer who rose to command of a carrier task group, a fleet, NATO's southern flank, and the Navy's most prestigious intellectual institution, the Naval War College. He served from 1977-1981 as Director of Central Intelligence under President Jimmy Carter, and his book in my mind was the first serious contribution-perhaps even a catalyst-to the growing debate over whether and how much reform is required if the U.S. Intelligence Community is to be effective in the 21st Century. His eleven-point agenda for reform is of lasting value, as are his ideas for intelligence support to those responsible for natural disaster relief and other non-military challenges.
Too Hard to Fix on the Margins–Fix Big or Don't Fix At All,
April 8, 2000
Amy Zegart
This is a very worthy and thoughtful book. It breaks new ground in understanding the bureaucratic and political realities that surrounded the emergence of the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA was weak by design, strongly opposed by the military services from the beginning. Its covert activities emerged as a Presidential prerogative, unopposed by others in part because it kept CIA from being effective at coordinated analysis, for which it had neither the power nor the talent. Most usefully, the book presents a new institutionalist theory of bureaucracy that gives full weight to the original design, the political players including the bureaucrats themselves, and external events. Unlike domestic agencies that have strong interest groups, open information, legislative domain, and unconnected bureaucracies, the author finds that national security agencies, being characterized by weak interest groups, secrecy, executive domain, and connected bureaucracies, evolve differently from other bureaucracies, and are much harder to reform. On balance, the author finds that intelligence per se, in contrast to defense or domestic issues, is simply not worth the time and Presidential political capital needed to fix but that if reform is in the air, the President should either pound on the table and put the full weight of their office behind a substantive reform proposal, or walk away from any reform at all-the middle road will not successful.
Thinking Strategically Is More Important Than Tanks and Guns,
April 8, 2000
David M. Abshire
This book, apart from being the world's longest job description (for a Counselor to the President for Grand Strategy), remains a vibrant and provocative discussion relevant to guiding the Nation into the 21st Century. Part I discusses the “world theater” and Part II discusses in turn a grand strategy and then political, public, deterrence, negotiating, resources, technology, Third World, and economic strategies. The book ends with thoughts on organizing for strategy that should, because of who wrote them and how good they are, be required reading, in their twelve-page entirety, for the President and his entire Cabinet team.
Smart Thoughts Important to Future of National Security,
April 8, 2000
George Friedman
The authors begin by noting that there is “a deep chasm between the advent of technology and its full implementation in doctrine and strategy.” In their history of failure they note how conventional wisdom always seems to appreciate the systems that won the past wars, and observes that in the U.S. military there is a long history of transferring power from the political and military leadership to the technical and acquisition managers, all of whom have no real understanding of the current and future needs of the men who will actually fight. They address America's vulnerability in both U.S. based logistics and in overseas transport means-“Destroying even a portion of American supply vessels could so disrupt the tempo of a logistical build-up as to delay offensive operations indefinitely.” They have a marvelous section on the weaknesses of U.S. data gathering tools, noting for example that satellites provide only a static picture of one very small portion of the battlefield, rather that the wide-area and dynamic “situational awareness” that everyone agrees is necessary. They go on to gore other sacred oxes, including the Navy's giant ships such as the carrier (and implicitly the new LPH for Marines as well as the ill-conceived arsenal ship) and the largest of the aircraft proposed by the Air Force. They ultimately conclude that the future of war demands manned space stations that are able to integrate total views of the world with control of intercontinental precision systems, combined with a complete restructuring of the ground forces (most of which will be employed at the squad level) and a substantial restructuring of our navel force to provide for many small fast platforms able to swarm into coastal areas.
