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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Sharpening Strategic Intelligence
- 1 Strategic Intelligence and American Statecraft
- 2 Debunking Cold War Myths
- 3 Stumbling after the Cold War
- 4 Blundering in the “War on Terrorism”
- 5 Spies Who Do Not Deliver
- 6 Analysts Who Are Not Experts
- 7 Facing Future Strategic Intelligence Challenges
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
5 - Spies Who Do Not Deliver
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Sharpening Strategic Intelligence
- 1 Strategic Intelligence and American Statecraft
- 2 Debunking Cold War Myths
- 3 Stumbling after the Cold War
- 4 Blundering in the “War on Terrorism”
- 5 Spies Who Do Not Deliver
- 6 Analysts Who Are Not Experts
- 7 Facing Future Strategic Intelligence Challenges
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
Summary
The craft of human intelligence operations for the public, and even for many inside the halls of government, is shrouded in a glamorous mystique. The CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) responsible for U. S. human intelligence operations traditionally parlayed that mystique into winning public and congressional support for its budget. Too often, in the face of human intelligence failures, executive and legislative branch overseers as well as the public had given the DO the benefit of the doubt and not raised serious and sustained questions about its performance in stealing secrets to reveal the plans and intentions of U. S. adversaries.
The director of national intelligence (DNI) in 2005 renamed the CIA's DO the National Clandestine Service (NCS), but that move probably is more a bureaucratic show to diffuse outside criticisms than for substantive internal reform. For all intents and purposes, the new NCS remains the old DO. The spate of recent presidential panels and congressional studies centered on the 9/11 and Iraq episodes have touched on human intelligence failures, but these studies still have not probed deeply enough into the DO's human intelligence operations. These studies, moreover, are too narrow in focus because the United States has faced a greater array of national security challenges in the past and will have many others in the future.
Examination of the CIA's human intelligence performance in a broad-er array of cases from the Cold War, post–Cold War, and 9/11 security environments reveals persistent and systemic shortcomings.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sharpening Strategic IntelligenceWhy the CIA Gets It Wrong and What Needs to Be Done to Get It Right, pp. 95 - 118Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007