The relationship between intelligence organizations and the national security policymakers which they support has its ups and downs. Sometimes the relationship is a good one; communication flows and both sides benefit from the interaction, but sometimes difficulties arise and problems develop. For example, when knowledge is required for decision but is not available or is inaccurate the outcome is frequently described as an intelligence failure. A subset of this kind of intelligence failure occurs when knowledge is distorted in order to reinforce or oppose policymaker preferences or expectations. Another less successful outcome occurs when good, accurate knowledge is not used to improve policy, but is instead set aside or ignored by those who have the responsibility and obligation to make decisions. This collection explores the difficulties that can arise in the relationship between intelligence and policy. The chapters consider both politicization of, and lack of receptiveness to, intelligence on the part of policymakers from a variety of different angles. Readers will find that this book challenges conventional wisdom and offers new ways of thinking about this important but understudied area. This book was published as a special issue of Intelligence and National Security.

Product Description: From the New York Times’s veteran foreign policy editorialist, a lucid analysis of the harm caused by America’s increasingly misdirected national security stateAmerica is trapped in a state of war that has consumed our national life since before Pearl Harbor...read more

Product Description: In The Emergency State, leading global affairs commentator David C. Unger reveals the hidden costs of America's obsessive pursuit of absolute national security. In the decades since World War II, presidents from both parties have assumed broad war-making powers never intended by the Constitution and intervened abroad to preserve our credibility rather than our security, while trillions of tax dollars have been diverted from essential domestic needs to the Pentagon...read more

Product Description: Even at the time it was announced near the end of the first term of the Reagan administration, such luminaries as William Safire mischaracterized the Weinberger Doctrine as a conservative retreat from the use of force in U.S. international relations...read more

Mistakes, in the form of bad decisions, are a common feature of every presidential administration, and their consequences run the gamut from unnecessary military spending, to missed opportunities for foreign policy advantage, to needless bloodshed. This book analyzes a range of presidential decisions made in the realm of US foreign policy―with a special focus on national security―over the past half century in order to create a roadmap of the decision process and a guide to better foreign policy decision-making in the increasingly complex context of 21st century international relations. Mistakes are analyzed in two general categories―ones of omission and ones of commission within the context of perceived threats and opportunities. Within this framework, the authors discuss how past scholarship has addressed these questions and argue that this research has not explicitly identified a vantage point around which the answers to these questions revolve. They propose game theory models of complex adaptive systems for minimizing bad decisions and apply them to test cases in the Middle East and Asia.

Product Description: When presidential candidate Jimmy Carter advocated defense budget cuts, he did so not only to save money but also with the hope of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons. Three yearslater, when President Carter announced his support of full-scale development of the MX missile and modernization of NATO’s Long-Range Theater Nuclear Force, it marked a dramatic policy shift for his administration...read more

The author of Bush At War presents an intimate account of the present state of national security decision-making, placing Bush's presidency in a historical context that discusses how his team at the White House, the Pentagon, CIA, and State Department have attempted to transform warfare; overcome security, intelligence, and policy failures; and change the strategy of Iraq's occupation. Reprint. 100,000 first printing.

An account based on interviews with top officials surveys the first eighteen months of the Bush administration to consider how the president and his advisors are responding to wartime circumstances and a faltering economy.

Product Description: In this balanced and thought-provoking study, Russell Crandall examines the American decision to intervene militarily in three key episodes in American foreign policy: the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama. Drawing upon previously classified intelligence sources and interviews with policymakers, Crandall analyzes the complex deliberations and motives behind each intervention and shows how the decision to intervene was driven by a perceived threat to American national security...read more

Looks at President George W. Bush's handling of the War on Terrorism, offering thoughts on such topics as intelligence failures, claims of weapons of mass destruction, and the scandal at Abu Graib Prison.

Product Description: William Newmann examines the ways in which presidents make national security decisions, and explores how those processes evolve over time. He creates a complex portrait of policy making, which may help future presidents design national security decision structures that fit the realities of the office in today's world...read more

Investigating President's Bush's response to the earth-shattering events of September 11, this behind-the-scenes story tells how President George W. Bush and his top national security advisers led the nation to war on Iraq.