Berto Jongman: War on the Rocks Zachery Tyson Brown What If Sherman Kent Was Wrong? Revisiting the Intelligence Debate of 1949

What If Sherman Kent Was Wrong? Revisiting the Intelligence Debate of 1949 Zachery Tyson Brown, War on the Rocks One of Kent’s contemporaries noted in 1962 that most policy decisions were made without any input from intelligence — something Kent himself begrudgingly acknowledged and that has since been confirmed again, again, and again. Even when …

Evan Ellis: Reflections for the Army from a year at the State Department

Reflections for the Army from a year at the State Department EXTRACTS: . . . despite everything, we were not achieving significant advances in important U.S. policy goals. . . . I observed the balance of the work that came across my desk to be about “transmitting” rather than “receiving.” Every high-level meeting involves the …

ANSWERS Robert Steele for a Professor Thinking About How Intelligence Should Access Outside Experts

The IC inability to leverage external expertise is rooted in a number of factors: 01 arrogance and insularity centered on believing that only stolen secrets matter 02 lack of structures, funding, and mind-sets for external exploitation of experts on all topics in all languages and mediums — this includes the obvious cut-outs to conceal the …

Andrey Kortunov: Middle East Needs Crisis Management Mechanism

A Crisis Management Mechanism in the Middle East Is Needed More Than Ever . . .it is clear that there is more than ever a need for some crises-management mechanism able to mitigate the potential consequences of new incidents, miscalculations, risks of escalation and so on. The absence of such a mechanism is already a …