Product Description
The tragedy of 9/11 placed homeland security and the prevention of further attacks into the central focus of our national consciousness. With so many avenues of terror open to our enemies in terms of mode, medium, and location, effective management and mitigation of threat must be grounded in objective risk assessment. The structure of national security decisions should be premised on decision theory and science with minimal political posturing or emotional reactivisim.

National Security Issues in Science, Law, and Technology demonstrates a mature look at a frightening subject and presents sound, unbiased tools with which to approach any situation that may threaten human lives. By applying the best of scientific decision-making practices this book introduces the concept of risk management and its application in the structure of national security decisions. It examines the acquisition and utilization of all-source intelligence, including the ability to analyze data and forecast patterns, to enable policymakers to make better informed decisions. The text addresses reaction and prevention strategies applicable to chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons; agricultural terrorism; cyberterrorism; and other potential threats to our critical infrastructure. It discusses legal issues that inevitably arise when integrating new legislation with the threads of our Constitution and illustrates the dispassionate analysis of our intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations and actions. Finally, the book considers the redirection of our national research and laboratory system to investigate the very problems terrorists can induce through the use of weapons we have as yet to confront.

Taking the guesswork out of hard choices, National Security Issues in Science, Law, and Technology provides anyone burdened with the mantle of responsibility for the protection of the American people with the tools to make sound, well-informed decisions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"National Security Issues" is a First-Rate Resource
National security studies comprise an academic field exhibiting exponential growth.This excellent textbook describes the basic component parts of this area of study in a straightforward style and well-organized format.It also makes sense of the mass of essential individual disciplines that are necessary elements of the concept of "national security."Many threads are well-woven into a clear, cogent, and perceptive tapestry making a complicated area of study readily accessible to professionals, students, academics, and laypersons alike.

The book is also an indispensable guide for policy-making and implementation, made possible by the far-ranging expertise and experience of the authors.It is a veritable almanac in the breadth of its coverage, yet more than that since each chapter goes into sufficient depth to give the reader a good grasp of the topic as well as directing the avenues available for further study. Carefully researched and usefully, unobtrusively footnoted, the book makes penetrating a vast and often unwieldy area of study more approachable and manageable.

Well-written and edited throughout, even the fairly complex technical passages are understandable and digestible to the non-technical or non-scientific user.The index is thorough and the appendices are relevant.Scientists, intelligence professionals, law-enforcement and government officials, as well as attorneys will find it a solid resource.Students, in particular, will benefit because it provides a comprehensive first footing in an area of study still being defined.

This book stands apart from the hastily cobbled together and mass-produced offerings often rushed to market of late.It would be an excellent textbook for a variety of courses as well as a professional reference resource.It is sincerely and unreservedly recommended.

By:
Prof. Roy Shannon and
Prof. Micah Van Zandt
Lawrence Livermore/Sandia National Laboratory
and Los Alamos National Laboratory

... Read more

Product Description

Reflects a decade of leading-edge research on intelligence and security informatics.

Dr Chen is researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the NSF COPLINK Center for Homeland Security Information Technology Research.

Describes real-world community situations.

Targets wide-ranging audience: from researchers in computer science, information management and information science via analysts and policy makers in federal departments and national laboratories to consultants in IT hardware, communication, and software companies.

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Ultimate information on US Senate Select Committee On Intelligence ... Read more

Product Description
Original fiction/satire by Patrick L. Halliwell, rich in food for thought.
Now also available in the Kindle collection, "Spying in the 21st Century and other selected humor/satire"
Available here in its original version, for those who wish to read it on its own.


A secret memo, washed up in the pocket of an unidentifiable corpse on a distant shore in a far-off country, outlines all the new methods of spying in the 21st century. This memo also shows how spying can be a very profitable enterprise.

Here is a complete list of the projects and methods outlined in this memo:
1. Internet Search Engine Project (ISEP)
2. The Internet Advertising Division (IAD)
3. The Free Mail Service Project (FMSP)
4. The Social Networking Project (SNP)
5. The Short-Texting "Snitcher" Project (STSP)
6. The Free Phone Project (FPP)
7. De Disinformation Division (DDD)
8. The Technology and Gadgets Division (TGD)
9. The Surveillance Division (SD)
10. The Military Satellite Division (MSD)
11. The Operating System Project (OSP)
12. Industrial Espionage: the "Information in the Clouds" Project (IETIITCP)
13. The Video Brainwashing Project (VBP)
14. The "Blame it on the Kids" Project (BIOTKP)
15. The "Recruit the Smokers" Pilot Project (RSPP)

Enjoy! And watch your backs out there!


About the author
Patrick L. Halliwell is a Canadian author, composer and musicologist. His publications include fiction, humor, practical items, serious essays, and scholarly articles on traditional Japanese koto music. He is also creator and producer of "Phonobites," a unique set of exercises for English pronunciation. His original music combines musical principles and elements from a variety of the world's great traditions.
Patrick has never worked for a spy organization. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Spying for fun and profit!
Spying in the 21st Century reveals the humorous side of the modern spy world; it's "not just about information: it's about profit, too!" What if all our technological devices that we depend on every day(cell phones, etc.)were actually part of a covert scheme to keep tabs on everything we do? Halliwell writes- "Social networking is another area for intelligence growth in the 21st century. We have great expectations for this.(Please note that we do not mean the intelligence of the users will grow; in fact, people will just get dumber and dumber as they forget how to deal with real people, and get accustomed to blabbing about anything to people they don't actually know.)" There are so many fun quotes here, but I don't want to give away the whole thing, so I'll just say, "Further reports will be given as necessary, or leaked to the media as seen fit." ... Read more

Product Description

Over recent years, security and intelligence issues have been pushed to the forefront of global political debate to an unprecedented degree. Books on all aspects of intelligence have been released, but significant gaps remain. One important gap lies in the absence of an authoritative and comparative look at national approaches to security and intelligence and the resulting impact on international cooperation. Given the range of countries that need to be represented to produce an authoritative account of an issue of such global relevance and importance, a single volume would prove inadequate. This two-volume work provides chapters on national cultures of security and intelligence, which address common questions and themes. Countries have been chosen that are representative or significant to given regions, with authors covering strategic environment, regime type, accountability, impact of 9/11, international cooperation, and national cultures of intelligence.

While concerned with national approaches, the volumes recognize and analyze developments in international intelligence co-operation. The authors address the extent of co-operation with other national security and intelligence agencies and consider special relationships' where they exist.Each volume contains a separate chapter on developments in the internationalisation of intelligence.

Product Description
In the wake of the war on terrorism, it seems today’s parents are bombarded with news of the latest threats and messages of fear. But how do we achieve national security or even protect our children when we feel so insecure? Gina M. Bennett, a 20- year veteran of the US Intelligence Community, answers this burning question through an insider perspective on national security and a unique “soft” approach to achieving it.

NATIONAL SECURITY MOM demystifies the underworld of terrorism and examines how the age-old, practical lessons we teach our children, such as “clean up your mess,” “tell the truth” and “don’t give in to a bully,” apply to the covert intelligence approach to national security.

Through her comparisons, Bennett empowers all of us to engage withconfidence in the national security debate and reinforces the fact—true and lasting security is a nationwide effort that begins at home.

As a Senior Counterterrorism Analyst, Gina M. Bennett has authored some of the earliest warnings of today’s terrorism trends, including the 1993 report that foreshadowed the danger of Osama bin Laden and the extremist movement he represented. Her analysis has been called “prescient” and “genius” by commentators in major media and former senior government officials, who nearly a decade later recognized the insightfulness of her work.

Mother of five, Ms. Bennett brings a unique perspective to national security by comparing the skills she uses at home with those required in her work. Observing that running a household requires balance, objectivity, and the ability to remain focused on the long-term, Bennett
demonstrates the importance of these qualities in securing America.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mom vs Terorism Expert: Different jobs, Similar Goals
A new book by Gina M. Bennett, a 20-year veteran of the US Intelligence Community and mother of five children, National Security Mom: Why "Going Soft" Will Make America Strong, takes the complicated issues involved in our national security, particularly in the "post 9/11 world," and distills them into easily digestible pieces. The book's unique twist is how Ms. Bennett relates the issues of national security to what goes on in a typical family. That the values that we learned as children and, as parents, are instilling in our own children, are the very same values needed to run government and handle some of the complex issues involved in national security, such as:

* Tell the truth
* If you make the mess, you clean it up
* Don't give in to a bully
* Choose your friends wisely
* Learn from your mistakes

And of course, the job description for parents also requires an in-depth knowledge of issues such as crisis management, conflict resolution, budgeting and diplomacy.

So why aren't there more women in government? On paper, many women--especially mothers--are uniquely suited to participating in government, on whatever level they choose. There are of course other qualifications that must be met--particularly for higher office--but there should be more women serving on city counsels, as mayors, as governors and in Congress. Ms. Bennett pulls this telling statistic from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University:

"In 2008 women hold only 16.3% of the seats in Congress; 16% of the Senate seats; 23.5% of the statewide elective executive offices across the country; 23.7% of the state legislative positions; and of the mayors of the hundred largest cities in America, only eleven are women."

She also notes that "We can blame history, the educational system, men, and many other underlying factors for why this is the case. But we also have to ask ourselves whether our disengagement perpetuates the myth that men are somehow more naturally suited to govern."

Sure, some days we barely have time to do the laundry and the grocery shopping--where on earth are we going to find time to volunteer at our child's school, much less to run for elected office? I work from home part-time and have only been able to volunteer in my daughter's classroom once. And she's in first grade, so that's two years of not being able to find the time.


Because we are living in the "post 9/11 world," Ms. Bennett tackles some of the larger questions that relate directly to her argument that more women, more mothers should be in government:
* How much personal freedom are we willing to give up in the name of "security"?
* How do we protect our children while making sure that they enjoy the freedoms granted in the Bill of Rights--freedoms we used to take for granted?
* The terrorists win if we to afraid to go about our lives as usual. They are generally unpopular even in their own countries and feed off the fear and attention they engender.

And as to the title's assertion "Why `Going Soft' Will Make America Strong,"
"[in matters of national security, foreign policy and counter terrorism] Anything other than belligerent speech is considered to be weak . . . [but] strength and security come from more than just physical might . . . I believe that to resolve problems, we have to understand them first. I prefer to believe that American policies have had bad results in some places rather than sticking my head in the sand. . . . I believe it demonstrates more courage to allow people whose beliefs you reject to have their say; it takes more integrity to admit you've made mistakes; and it takes far more strength to reject change in the face of a threat. I am a mother and that is the strength I know. That is the definition of strength that I will pass to my children so that they understand that there is a balance."

I've been a stay-at-home, work-from-home mom for the past six years. In six years I've spent a lot of time in playgroups, at the playground and on play dates. And I've never ceased to be amazed at the number of women who don't think that politics has anything to do with them. But everything that happens in government--from the local, to the state, to the national level has ripples of consequence.

Imagine that you're at the park with your child. You go the lake to feed the ducks and your child tosses a rock into the pond. Watch what happens to the ripples. That's politics. And what's at stake? The laws that are passed effect your family; the judiciary, both elected and appointed, and how they interpret those laws; the military--will the draft be reinstated, and where will our soldiers--our sons and daughters--be sent?; the national debt--will our kids and grandchildren really be paying for our excesses? All of it affects us every day.

But how does this apply to me? I am the ultimate armchair political junkie. If I don't get an hourly fix--or at least several times a day--I start twitching--particularly in an election year. There's a little panic: What happened? Something must have happened in the time I've been away from my computer. But, other than haranguing friends and a few strangers, and writing a few letters to the editor, I'm a passive audience. I hear "Are you going to get involved? Maybe run for office?" and my answer is always "No." I don't have the time, the mental capacity, the self-confidence, or the ambition. All of those things that I imagine politicians need to be successful. But then I've always thought being involved in government meant running for city counsel and higher. It never occurred to me to start smaller--the PTA? A position on the board of one of my groups?

But after reading National Security Mom, I'm at least thinking about it.

Because being more involved does matter. To me, to my family, to my children's future. ... Read more

Product Description
Congressional Research Service Report for Congress

....The 9/11 Commission, in its recent report on the attacks of September 11, 2001,
criticized the U.S. Intelligence Community’s (IC) fragmented management structure
and questioned whether the U.S. government, and the IC, in particular, is organized
adequately to direct resources and build the intelligence capabilities that the United
States will need to counter terrorism, and to address the broader range of national
security challenges in the decades ahead.
The Commission made a number of recommendations, one of which was to
replace the current position of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) with a National
Intelligence Director (NID) who would oversee national intelligence centers on
specific subjects of interest — including a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)
— across the U.S. government, manage the national intelligence program; oversee
the agencies that contribute to it; and.....

Congressional Research Service

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) serves shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. CRS experts assist at every stage of the legislative process — from the early considerations that precede bill drafting, through committee hearings and floor debate, to the oversight of enacted laws and various agency activities.

CRS's analytic capabilities integrate multiple disciplines and research methodologies. In a fast-paced, ever-changing environment, CRS provides Congress with the vital, analytical support it needs to address the most complex public policy issues facing the nation. Its work incorporates program and legislative expertise, quantitative methodologies, and legal and economic analysis.




... Read more

Product Description
In a bold and penetrating study, Gregory Treverton, former Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council and Senate investigator, offers his insider's views on how intelligence gathering and analysis must change. Treverton suggests why intelligence needs to be contrarian and attentive to the longer term.Believing that it is important to tap expertise outside government to solve intelligence problems, he argues that involving colleagues in the academy, think tanks, and Wall Street befits the changed role of government from doer to convener, mediator, and coalition-builder. Hb ISBN (2001): 0-521-58096-X ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Essential to Understanding Intelligence Challenges
Greg Treverton has written a much needed overview of the national intelligence process and correctly identified the challenges which face the US, in a post-9/11 world.His views of the world beyond 2010 are quite revealing and his challenges to the intelligence community to assess threats to the US are precisely focused. His views on the major intelligence entities reveal urgent modifications of structure and process, if the intelligence community is going to regain relevance with national customers.As a teacher of intelligence process, specifically as it relates to strategic warning, I believe this book is essential reading for anyone who aspires to be a true intelligence professional. This book will help even the wisest analyst understand how to maximize available sources and methods.The quest to provide the best possible intelligence is a goal which must be achieved.

Core Reference for Intelligence Reform in 2001

There are other books on intelligence reform--the best being those by Bruce Berkowitz and Allan Goodman and by Loch Johnson--but this book is very special because it is written by an insider who has come to grips with the imperative for change and who is able to articulate the case for change in a way that others have not.This is arguably the single best and most elegant presentation for why our $30 billion a year intelligence industry must be turned upside down and shift resources away from secret satellite technology and toward analysis, analytic tools, and access to open sources of information.

The author very correctly focuses on the fact that intelligence is about getting useful tailored information to the policy consumer, not about secrets per se.He is perhaps the best spokesperson for the view that the old paradigm--collecting secrets at great expense about a single enemy--must be replaced by the new paradigm--making sense of vast quantities of information that is not secret and covers a diversity of constantly changing targets.He correctly focuses on the selection and intelligent analysis of information rather than the collection of isolated secrets--on making the most of open information.

The book is rich with anecdotal examples and makes a compelling case for dismantling the current intelligence stovepipes while simultaneously dismantling the culture of secrecy that prevents the sharing of useful information, not just within the Nation (e.g. with state and local law enforcement) but with coalition government and non-government allies of the moment.

The author, a past Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and a learned man with deep ties to Harvard, the Council on Foreign Relations, and RAND, concludes on a bitter-sweet note that demands Congressional and Presidential reflection.He firmly believes that both the intelligence community budget and as much intelligence analysis as possible should be made public and be in the public service.This book is highly recommended, and could-together with the the other intelligence reform books published in the past two years--reasonably be used as the starting point for a complete make-over of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

... Read more

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Product Description

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the false assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons arsenal were terrible reminders that good information is essential to national security. These failures convinced the American public that their intelligence system was broken and prompted a radical reorganization of agencies and personnel, but as Richard K. Betts argues in this book, critics and politicians have severely underestimated the obstacles to true reform.

One of the nation's foremost political scientists, Betts draws on three decades of work within the U.S. intelligence community to illuminate the paradoxes and problems that frustrate the intelligence process. Unlike America's efforts to improve its defenses against natural disasters, strengthening its strategic assessment capabilities means outwitting crafty enemies who operate beyond U.S. borders. It also requires looking within to the organizational and political dynamics of collecting information and determining its implications for policy.

Combining academic research with personal experience, Betts outlines strategies for better intelligence gathering and assessment. He describes how fixing one malfunction can create another; in what ways expertise can be both a vital tool and a source of error and misjudgment; the pitfalls of always striving for accuracy in intelligence, which in some cases can render it worthless; the danger, though unavoidable, of "politicizing" intelligence; and the issue of secrecy& mdash;when it is excessive, when it is insufficient, and how limiting privacy can in fact protect civil liberties.

Betts argues that when it comes to intelligence, citizens and politicians should focus less on consistent solutions and more on achieving a delicate balance between conflicting requirements. He also emphasizes the substantial success of the intelligence community, despite its well-publicized blunders, and highlights elements of the intelligence process that need preservation and protection. Many reformers are quick to respond to scandals and failures without detailed, historical knowledge of how the system works. Grounding his arguments in extensive theory and policy analysis, Betts takes a comprehensive and realistic look at how knowledge and power can work together to face the intelligence challenges of the twenty-first century.

Customer Reviews (3)

Interesting philosophy but with a political bent
The author raises some interesting points about how intelligence is produced and analyzed, but his political bias (Left) forces him to adjust facts to make events fit his theory.Possibly worthwhile for those in the business, but not of much interest to the general reader.

Very Disapointing, Incomplete, Dated, and Annoying
EDIT:Amazon's new review system will not load images.If and when...
see Comment for URLs to the images on the Web.

Retired Reader is as usual being kind.I agree that the book is useful as a sense of what the insider's want us to think, but it is at best a superficial summary (easily read) that has so many errors (of perception) and omissions (of fact) as to hardly be worthy of the read.

I quickly realized the general shallowness,but out of respect for the author stopped reading and instead went and read every single footnote, every single index entry, and indeed confirmed that this is a mix of old work, draws only on "members of the club" work, and fills in the gaps with Op-Eds and newspaper stories written by people who generally have no clue.Then I read the whole book.

Anyone who cites Deborah Burger's pabulum about "revolution in intelligence affairs" is kissing the institution's ass (pun intended); and anyone who considers the Sims-Gerber book to be transformative (as opposed to useful if you want the status quo), is simply out of touch with reality, with the possibilities, and with the complex pathologies that plague both the intelligence community (see my five images) and our politicians, every one of them, but most especially Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi, impeachable for breach of trust.For additional background, see my IJCI commentary on "Intelligence Affairs: Evolution, Revolution, or Reactionary Collapse?"

This is in fact what annoyed me most about this book--it glosses over the high crimes and misdemeanors of the White House but also of the Cabinet, as well as the blatant errors and omissions of virtually every senior intelligence officer.The USS Liberty and USS Pueblo were outrageous acts of war that could have been defended against and also justified retaliation, but instead both Administrations covered up, as they covered up on 9/11 and the Kennedy Assassination.In the case of George Tenet, he screwed up three big things: the clandestine service; the hunt for Bin Laden; and his ignorance in refusing to follow the recommendations made by Boyd Sutton in "The Challenge of Global Coverage," calling for 1.5B a year against the 95% of the world that we ignore at our peril.

This book gets three stars instead of the two I planned originally because the author is an original, has demonstrated he knows what the higher standard is, and I will simply assume that at this time in his life he too busy to read broadly.He could start with my reviews, which are free.

There are so many books over-looked by the author here that I just shake my head.I link to a few below.

I expected the author to be dismissive of open sources of information, and to ignore my own work despite the fact that he has been a speaker at one of my conferences and knows full well the contents of my varied books.What I was not expecting was what I consider to be an abject superficial apologia, almost a hearts and flowers farewell to the John McLaughlin's of the past.

I was also not expecting the quickly evident lack of familiarity (or lack of time to properly integrate if known) with the wealth of information from many authors on both policy and intelligence failures, and the facts thereof.Nowhere in this book, for example, does the author properly credit Charlie Allen with sending 35 line crossers into Iraq to confirm what we already knew from the defecting son-in-law: keep the cook-books, destroyed the stocks, bluffing for regional sake.

Although acceptable in an academic book of this kind, the author's lack of understanding of the magnitude of the budget (it is $60 to 70 billion, not the loose lips $44 billion that Mary Graham gave us) and his lack of understanding of how what we do now fails to address the ten high level threats to humanity that LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret) helped identify, fails to help us create the needed four forces after next including the White Hat Peace from the Sea and Peace from Above, relegates this book to the curiosity pile.

I was particularly annoyed by the disingenuous glibness in speaking of the value of an intelligence reserve, when the author knows full well that because of security blinders the secret puppies talk to just 14 of the 1400 Muslim experts in America; and either his obliviousness or naiveté in suggesting that dissent and multiple advocacy channels are worth anything when our young analysts are near idiots (the World Bank official I spoke to says their assumptions about Sudan and elsewhere are so ignorant as to be frightening); have no processing power, not even the analytic desktop that Diane Webb designed in 1985-1986, at which time I discovered we had no fewer than twenty "compartmented" projects to build the same all source fusion station, only each was a sweetheart deal with a different vendor; or access to the 96% of the information that the secret world does not have access to and will never have access to unless we first create a Multinational Information Sharing Activity outside the wire and able to share without restraint.

The book whimpers to an end.For a free and broader grasp of reality and pathology, see my reviews of other books on intelligence (especially the ones the author neglects to integrate), and sign up for the free weekly report, GLOBAL CHALLENGES: The Week in Review.See Earth Intelligence Network.

I won't even touch the lack of serious coverage of education, commercial intelligence, policy-maker ignorance, and all the other small but important details left out of this book.This book comes nowhere near the reality that you cannot create and maintain smart spies in the context of a dumb nation.This is what we get from a community that spends $60B a year creating a President's Daily Brief ($1.2B/week), largely ineffective at all else.

Below are the tip of the iceberg.

On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Who the Hell Are We Fighting?: The Story of Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars
Denial andDeception: An Insider's View of the CIA
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11--How the Secret War between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security
Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War

See my many lists for broader recommendations.

A View From the Top
This book seeks to balance the deluge of criticism that has been directed towards the U.S. Intelligence System (especially CIA) with a more sympathetic view of how the U.S. intelligence process works. Its author, Richard K. Betts is a recognized scholar specializing in national security issues who has held a variety of positions on the fringes of the U.S. Intelligence Community. This scarcely makes Betts an expert on intelligence processes, although he seems to accurately reflect the views of the senior executives who occupy the highest levels of that Community. For this reason this is a valuable book.

Betts identifies three categories of intelligence which he characterizes as: attack warning; operational evaluation; and defense planning. These are essentially military intelligence subjects and apparently he never considered the value to policy makers of economic, political, or technical intelligence. He also conflates warning with prediction even after reading Cynthia Grabo's book on Warning Intelligence. As he should know but does not, it is virtually impossible to predict the occurrence of discrete events, but entirely possible to provide warnings and risk assessments of potential threats. He also clearly has no real understanding of subject matter expertise (also known as target knowledge) as key to sound analysis.

Betts attempts to defend a number of CIA's alleged failures.For example, there is his defense of the CIA WMD NIE that was published prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to Betts, CIA analyst determined that ambiguous aluminum tubes were to be used as centrifuges and other principal intelligence agencies agreed with this conclusion. This is debatable, but more importantly he offers no evidence that any effort was made to determine if Iraq had acquired or was attempting to acquire the other components required to build centrifuges. As it turned out there are many uses for aluminum tubes. Then there is the issue of Iraqi biological weapon production. Betts informs the reader that in addition to the infamous and bogus German asset "Curveball", CIA had access to three other corroborating sources although two of these were also bogus. More to the point again CIA evidently made no effort to find independent verification of this claim. Its analysts could have asked outside experts about the technical details of the reports they had and they could have looked for supporting evidence such as Iraqi attempts to acquire containment technology or approaches to pharmaceutical firms for large amounts of antidotes (if you are going to use biological agents on the battlefield you had better be sure your own troops won't be stricken). Such omissions are inexcusable.

It is a sobering experience reading Bett's discussions of reform and analysis as applied to the U.S. Intelligence System. He clearly seeks to portray major reform as both unnecessary and dangerous. Further, his understanding of intelligence analysis and production is that of someone far removed from the actual processes. The fact that this probably represents the thinking of the senior managers of that system as well is disturbing indeed.
... Read more

Product Description
Congressional Research Service Report for Congress

....Questions have been raised regarding a number of issues associated with the
establishment of the NID and the NCTC. One set of such questions centers on
whether these proposed entities would be covered by various “general management
laws” — broad statutes designed to regulate the activities, procedures, and
administration of all or most executive branch agencies in such areas as regulatory
and information management, financial management, procurement, and strategic
planning....

Congressional Research Service

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) serves shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. CRS experts assist at every stage of the legislative process — from the early considerations that precede bill drafting, through committee hearings and floor debate, to the oversight of enacted laws and various agency activities.

CRS's analytic capabilities integrate multiple disciplines and research methodologies. In a fast-paced, ever-changing environment, CRS provides Congress with the vital, analytical support it needs to address the most complex public policy issues facing the nation. Its work incorporates program and legislative expertise, quantitative methodologies, and legal and economic analysis.

... Read more

Product Description
Based on his reading of top-secret files of the Israeli police and the prime minister's office, Hillel Cohen exposes the full extent of the crucial, and, until now, willfully hidden history of Palestinian collaboration with Israelis--and of the Arab resistance to it. Cohen's previous book, the highly acclaimed Army of Shadows,told how this hidden history played out from 1917 to 1948, and now, in Good Arabs he focuses on the system of collaborators established by Israel in each and every Arab community after the 1948 war. Covering a broad spectrum of attitudes and behaviors, Cohen brings together the stories of activists, mukhtars, collaborators, teachers, and sheikhs, telling how Israeli security agencies penetrated Arab communities, how they obtained collaboration, how national activists fought them, and how deeply this activity influenced daily life. When this book was first published in Hebrew, it became a bestseller and has evoked bitter memories and intense discussions among Palestinians in Israel and prompted the reclassification of many of the hundreds of documents Cohen viewed to uncover a story that continues to unfold to this day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Development of Israeli Society
A continuation of Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 which I still consider a better and more interesting book. Hillel Cohen takes a look at the relationship between the new Israeli government and its Arab citizens starting a couple of years after Independence in 1948 and roughly up to 1968 but focusing mostly on the 1950's and very early 60s.

Cohen presents a multi-toned image of Arab and Jewish interactions.Obviously concerned with security the GSS (General Security Services) built up a network of contacts and informers with the Arab community to gauge their mood and to take action where deemed necessary.This book contains numerous anecdotes and incidents in order to put together a picture of how things evolved.

There were definite teething pains as new Israeli State had difficulty defining its political and social stance in most areas, which is to be expected. Different agencies of the State had different interests.Whereas the concern of the GSS was state security and was concerned about infiltration and dissent that could lead to violent confrontation, the local police would also cover the same incidents and consider it to be a civil matter.About 20,000 Arabs successfully infiltrated themselves into Israel, mostly rejoining family who had remained, risking their lives bypassing border security.The State was also interested in building a sense of patriotic duty and obligation in all it's citizens, including Arabs, and tended to reward and offer incentives to those who supported it's point of view.One surprising tool for rewarding individuals was granting them permission to own guns! An acknowledgment of Arab traditions was the establishment of a separate Arab language school system, albeit teachers were vetted as to their sympathy towards the new State.

The main rivals for the political affections of the Arab population were the Communists, who garnered up to 20% of the vote (yes, Arabs in Israel voted from the establishment of the State) and, less significantly,the pan-Arab nationalists, the latter being represented as support for President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the preceived strong horse of the Arab world in that day.Whereas the Communists supported the idea of the State the Nasserites looked at it being wiped away sometimes using extremely violent language such as expressing a desire that the Israeli Jews be killed off.Balancing that you had many individuals who sought to build a positive relationship with the State as well as others who, within the framework of civil society, worked for improvements in minority rights.

Chapter 6,"Minorities within a Minority", was perhaps the most interesting as it looked at the how the Druze were viewed as a Muslim subgroup different from the Arabs, particularly as they had been more supportive of the Jewish population prior to the establishment of the State. Similar treatment was given to the much smaller Bedouin and Circassian minorities, though the coverage here was less extensive.

The book did have some weaknesses.One, quite minor, is that the frequently used acronym KKL (Karen Kayemet L'Yisrael otherwise known as the Jewish National Fund), while explained on pp17 does not appear in the glossary at the back. For younger readers Cohen should have mentioned that surveillance and suspicion of communists was common in that era in most Westernized countries - there was nothing special about Israel in that regard. Nor was there much difference between the Israeli concern that the education system be used to bring up patriotic citizenry and that of other countries. And though there was some coverage of differences between Christian and Muslim perspectives I think Cohen could have done more in this regard. Another problem is that the timeline jumps quite frequently - making it difficult to keep track of which events occurred around the same time.However given that we are looking at unconnected anecdotes this is not as bad as it sounds.

Finally the concluding chapter did an able job of revisiting and summarizing the preceding material while tying up a couple of loose ends.Kudos also to the fine job done by Mr. Cohen's translator, Haim Watzman.

Excellent research, only slighty flawed
Good Arabs is Hillel Cohen's followup to his earlier book, Army of Shadows. Army of Shadows detailed the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Palestine before the 1948 war mostly from the viewpoint of early Zionist intelligence agencies. Good Arabs continues on this theme, looking at how the Israeli military and police establishments interacted with Israeli Arabs from 1948 to 1967.

As with the earlier book, Good Arabs is filled with variants of the pejorative term "collaborate." It seems probable that Cohen, who wrote the word in Hebrew, agreed with this translation of the Hebrew word "". However that Hebrew term has two translations: "collaborate" and "cooperate." When reading the book and mentally replacing the former with the latter, an entirely different impression is given.

To be sure, the Arabs living in Israel during those nineteen years did not have it easy. Most of them were under military rule and many of them saw their lands expropriated from them. Cohen looks at the phenomenon of Arabs who cooperated with the Israeli authorities and finds many reasons for their actions.

Some were opportunists; trying to ingratiate themselves with the strong horse. Some were realists, who felt that Israel wasn't going anywhere and the best strategy was to give the Jewish leaders what they wanted. Some wanted the perks that the Israelis would give to those who helped them - often guns and jobs. Some were, in fact, ideologically inclined to support Israel. Others played both sides of the fence, or, as in one case Cohen brings, played Israel, Egypt and Jordan against each other.

Based on voluminous declassified Israeli police material, much of which quoted the testimony of collaborators against Arabs who were deemed a threat to the state, Cohen attempts to reconstruct the psyche of the minority citizens of Israel during that time, concentrated mostly in the 1950s. Israeli authorities, often heavy-handedly, attempted to stop any "nationalist" discourse and replace the Palestinian Arab narrative with the Zionist narrative in Arab schools. Many Arabs resisted these attempts, others went along with it.

To his credit, Cohen does not try to generalize. He seems wedded to the Palestinian Arab narrative (it is jarring to see him use the word "Nakba" as if the term was in wide use in the 1950s) but he willingly brings anecdotes about the Arabs who genuinely wanted to work with the Jews.

He goes into details about the Communists, who attracted many Arabs in the Triangle and northern regions and who were nominally supportive of Israel's existence but very much against the idea of a Jewish state. The Israeli authorities were keenly interested in Communist sympathizers among the Arabs and used their carrot-and-stick approach to minimize their influence.

As in the last book, Cohen uses the word "nationalists" a bit too freely; most of his examples do not seem to support the type of Palestinian Arab nationalism that we have become familiar with since 1967, but rather pan-Arabism.

Most Palestinian Arabs, especially before the rise of the PLO, cared far less about nationalism than they did about taking care of their families in honor. This simple fact is supported by Cohen's anecdotes, but he doesn't quite seem to grasp it himself. For example, he looks at the difficulty that Israel had to instill a strong Zionist ethos into their thinking as a failure, when in fact it is just the other side of the same coin of the apathy of Arabs towards their own nationalists. After all, the older generation of the 1950s Arabs had already lived under Ottoman, British and Israeli rule; to them their families were a far more permanent part of their lives than their rulers. This is why they worked hard to re-unite their families who were separated by the war. Sometimes this was done by smuggling them in and breaking the law; sometimes by being exceptionally cooperative with the Israelis who let a not-insignificant number return, and sometimes it was a combination of the two - bringing them in illegally and then appealing to past cooperation with Israelis, especially in 1948, to allow their relatives to stay.

The rise of Nasser and the seeming strength of the United Arab Republic union of Egypt and Syria convinced many Israeli Arabs that Israel would soon be destroyed; these Arabs tended to think in terms of how they could optimize their situations given that scenario playing out. Others analyzed the same facts and concluded that Israel was the power they needed to cooperate more with. These pragmatic issues usually trumped the ideological, and it does not appear likely that anyone thought that an Arab Palestine that would result from the Arabs sweeping the Jews into the sea would be any more independent than the West Bank Jordanians were. (One interesting footnote mentions that the Arabs of the Triangle were very happy when they ended up in the Jewish state after 1948, because the Iraqi fighters who had occupied their towns had a nasty habit of rape.)

Cohen also goes into detail into the different attitudes of the Druze, the Ciracassians and the Bedouin to the state, especially in terms of becoming members of the IDF. He notes that Israeli policy was to divide these groups and treat them separately from the mostly Muslim Arabs, which could be a method to help minimize the amount of danger that a united minority group could bring. However, he mentions that Israelis themselves justified this policy by accurately noting that the only reason there was any unity among those groups to begin with was because of the British policy of playing the Jews against the other minorities.

One shortcoming of the book is that after many specific examples of cooperation/collaboration throughout the 1950s by Arabs under Israeli military rule, Cohen dismisses the 1960s with a single paragraph mentioning that Israel's military government power waned, Israel's Arab citizens won more freedoms and then the military government apparatus dismantled in late 1966. There are no details, no examples, no discussion of how this affected the cooperators and the Israelis, especially on the eve of the Six Day War. He mentions that a significant number of Israeli Arabs were actively offering to help Israel on the eve of the war, even after the military government was gone and they were much closer to being equal citizens of the state. The entire seven years should have gotten more detailed attention.

Good Arabs sheds much light on 1950s Israeli Arabs and it demolishes some myths. As with Cohen's previous book, it is an important addition to understanding recent history and it gives us some lessons for today. ... Read more

Product Description
Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and strike platforms operating at medium and low altitudes pose special communications challenges.This analysis finds there is no one solution for all situations and platforms.A combination of options, which will vary depending on altitude, range, data rate, and threat, will be needed to ensure a robust communications link.Although communications does not appear to be a limiting factor for future ISR forces, programmatic action will be required to develop the necessary systems and the costs could be high. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from World Policy Journal, published by World Policy Institute on September 22, 1994. The length of the article is 6313 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Traitor and former CIA operative Aldrich H. Ames's claim that American counter intelligence work does not serve the US's vital interests is true in the light of the failure of the CIA to notify the government on various crucial developments in the international scenario. The CIA did not accurately report on the Berlin and Korean crises, and the work of several officers and agents overseas has not increased the security of the US. The CIA has also failed to coordinate its actions with other more successful intelligence wings. It values legally doubtful operations more than information collection and interpretation.

Citation Details
Title: Aldrich Ames and the conduct of American intelligence. (traitor and former CIA operative's criticism of US counter intelligence and CIA)
Author: Caleb Carr
Publication: World Policy Journal (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 1994
Publisher: World Policy Institute
Volume: v11Issue: n3Page: p19(10)

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Customer Reviews (1)

Far far far... far away form the truth
The article is far far far ... far away from the truth. So far, that this article is complete non-sense. By the way, the reality is much more excited than the article.
The biggest crime of the former FBI Director Freeh is that he lies the society. The uninformed society does not have the possibility to protect itself. This is big crime. An excellent example is the killing of the CIA Director William Colby. Freeh preferred to kill Colby, instead to charge him officially. The FBI stories of Ames and Colby are far far... far away form the truth. (If you are interested to read the real story, read the memoirs of Dekov at the Web, Google Groups, Search, "Dekov, Colby".) The society is the loser. The society will pay big money. The society will give victims. This is very dangerous criminal activity against the American people. The persons who praise the Director Freeh will pay the price, too. Their children will die, as the whole nation. The USA Senate must accept a special law, forcing the FBI to say the truth. The truth is the only chance for salvation of the American nation. And the most important - Freeh must go into the jail, as killer of the American nation. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides an in-depth analysis of UK-US intelligence cooperation in the post-9/11 world. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from APS Diplomat Recorder, published by Pam Stein/Input Solutions on May 25, 2002. The length of the article is 382 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: ARAB-US RELATIONS - May 19 - Cheney Warns Of More Terror Attacks.(Vice President Dick Cheney)(Brief Article)
Publication: APS Diplomat Recorder (Newsletter)
Date: May 25, 2002
Publisher: Pam Stein/Input Solutions
Volume: 56Issue: 21Page: NA

Article Type: Brief Article

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Product Description
This edited volume brings together a range of individuals who are centrally involved in the debate about the role and utility of theory in intelligence studies, and includes both classic essays and new articles that critically analyse key issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Convenient, but lacking in substance
This book provides a nice consolidated book that collects the very few "Intelligence Theory" papers that exist and puts them in one convenient place.Many of the attempts so far to apply "theory" to intelligence studies can be found in this volume. For this convenience, I'm happy to have the volume.

However, as an attempt to create a volume of "theory" these writers fail badly.Very few of the articles relate to each other in the sort of dialogue one would expect from a book on theory.Each writer has their own conception of what "theory" might mean and there is no consistency throughout the book.No author in this volume makes any serious attempt to situate intelligence within the context of other parts of the more developed social sciences.Part of this is a reflection of the "youth" of the intelligence studies discipline, but it sure makes for some frustrating reading.About the only thing that one can find common to multiple authors is the stated need for the "intel cycle" to be a central part of what "theory" is all about.

In short, this book has all the indications of a budding group of writers on intelligence attempting to create their own "discipline" and understanding that until they have a body of "theory" then their attempt will not get off the ground.
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Product Description
This report assesses intelligence analysis across the main U.S. intelligence agencies and makes a number of recommendations, some of which parallel initiatives that have begun in the wake of the December 2004 legislation, for instance, create a Deputy Director of National Intelligence as a focal point for analysis, establish a National Intelligence University, build a Long Term Analysis Unit at the National Intelligence Council, and form an Open Source Center for making more creative use of open-source materials. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Getting a Grip on Intelligence Analysis
This technical report put together by the Rand Corporation is remarkable for its understanding of arcane art of intelligence analysis and its thoughtful ideas on how to improve that art.It usefully divides intelligence challenges between `puzzles' that are solvable if only enough information can be acquired and `mysteries' that can be resolved only through intuition and target knowledge. This distinction has been one that co-author Gregory Treverton has long advocated. The book also divides the processes of analysis into three levels: 1) technical processing analysis; 2) single source analysis; and 3) all sources analysis. Perhaps most significantly the authors deplore the trend within the Intelligence Community (IC) to create `generalist' analysts rather than analysts with specific subject expertise. The logic behind this trend of course is that generalists can be moved about as needed from crises to crises as required. The folly of this concept has been repeatedly demonstrated most recently by the NCTC failure to "connect the dots" in the most recent terrorist incident (the Christmas Day underpants bomber).
The authors provide what appears to be an effective set of improvements to the analytic tradecraft, but their dissection of analytic processes, to this reader at least, comprise the most important part of the report.

Disappointing, Some Value
There are six (6) pages in this work that held my attention: pages 11-12 (Table 2.2 Analytic Concerns, by Frequency of Mention); page 14 (Figure 3.1, A Pyramid of Analytic Tasks); page 20 (Table 3.1, Wide Range of Analytical Tools and Skills Required); page 34 (Figure 5.1, Intelligence Analysis and Information Types), and page 35 (Table 5.1, Changing Tradecraft Characteristics). Print them off from the free PDF copy online (search for title).

My first review allotted two stars, on the second complete reading I decided that was a tad harsh because I *did* go through it twice, so I now raise it to three stars largely because pages 11-12 were interesting enough to warrant an hour of my time (see below). This work reinvents the wheel from 1986, 1988, 1992, etcetera, but the primary author is clearly ignorant of all that has happened before, and the senior author did not bother to bring him up to speed (I know Greg Treverton knows this stuff).

Among many other flaws, this light once over failed to do even the most cursory of either literature or unclassified agency publication (not even the party line rag, Studies in Intelligence). Any book on this topic that is clueless about Jack Davis and his collected memoranda on analytic tradecraft, or Diane Webb and her utterly brilliant definition of Computer Aided Tools for the Analysis of Science and Technology (CATALYST), is not worthy of being read by an all-source professional. I would also have expected Ruth Davis and Carol Dumaine to be mentioned here, but the lack of attribution is clearly a lack of awareness that I find very disturbing.

I looked over the bibliography carefully, and it confirmed my evaluation. This is another indication that RAND (a "think tank") is getting very lazy and losing its analytic edge. In this day and age of online bibliography citation, the paucity of serious references in this work is troubling (I wax diplomatic).

Here are ten books--only one of mine (and all seven of mine are free online as well as at Amazon):


Informing Statecraft
Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America's Quest for Security
Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age
Early Warning: Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies
The Art and Science of Business Intelligence Analysis (Advances in Applied Business Strategy,)
Analysis Without Paralysis: 10 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions
Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition
Lost Promise
Still Broken: A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, from Baghdad to the Pentagon
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption.

On the latter, look for "New Rules for the New Craft of Intelligence" that is free online as a separate document. Both Davis and Webb can be found online because I put them there in PDF form.

The one thing in this book that was useful, but badly presented, was the table of analyst concerns across nine issues that did not include tangible resources, multinational sense-making, or access to NSA OSINT.

Below is my "remix" of the table to put it into more useful form:

54% Quality of Intelligence
54% Tools of intelligence/analysis
43% Staffing
43% Intra-Community collaboration and data sharing
41% Collection Issues
38% Evaluation
32% Targeting Analysis
30% Value

Above are the categories with totals (first initial below connects to above). The top four validate the DNI's priorities and clearly need work.

32% T Targeting Analysis is important
30% V Redefine intelligence
30% Q Analysis too captive to current
30% To Directed R&D for analytic technology needed
27% T Targeting needs prioritization
27% S Analyst training important and insufficient
22% V Uniqueness
22% E PDB problematic as metric
22% To "Tools" of intelligence analysis are poor
22% To "Tools" limit analysis and limited by culture

The line items above are for me very significant. We still do priority based collection rather than gap-driven collection, something I raised on the FIRCAP and with Rick Shackleford in 1992. Our analysts (most of them less than 5 years in service) are clearly concerned about both a misdirection of collection and of analysis, and a lack of tools--this 22 years after Diane Webb identified the 18 needed functionalities and the Advanced Information Processing and Analysis Steering Group (AIPASG) found over 20 different *compartmented* projects, all with their own sweetheart vendor, trying to create "the" all-source fusion workstation.

19% C S&T underused, needs understanding
16% E Critical and needs improvement
14% E Assess performance qualitatively
14% Q Quality of analysis is a concern
14% Q Intelligence focus too narrow
14% S Language, culture, regional are big weaknesses
11% A Leadership
11% L Must be improved
11% Q Problem centric vice regional
11% Q Global coverage is important
11% C Open source critical, need new sources
11% I Lack of leadership and critical mass impair IC-wide
11% I IC information technology infrastructure needed
11% I Non-traditional source agencies need more input
8% V Unclear goals prevail
8% T Targetting analysis needs attn+
8% C Collection strategies/methods outdated
8% S Concern over lack of staff or surge capability
8% S Intelligence Community-wide curriculum desireable
8% I Should NOT pursue virtual wired network
8% I Security is a concern for virtual and sharing
5% E Evaluation not critical
5% Q Depth versus breadth an issue
5% Q Greater client context needed
5% C Law enforcement has high potential
5% S Analytic corps is highly trained better than ever
5% S Career track needs building
5% I Stovepiping is a problem, need more X-community
5% I Should pursue virtual organization and wired network
3% V Newsworthy not intelligence
3% L Radical transformation needed
3% E Metrics are not needed
3% E Evaluation is negative
3% E Audits are difficult
3% Q Long term shortfalls overstated
3% Q Global coverage too difficult
3% T Targeting can be left to collectors
3% C All source materially lacking
3% C Need to guard against evidence addiction
3% C Need to take into account "feedback"
3% S Should train stovepipe analysts not IC analysts
3% S Language and cultural a strength

For the rest, not now, but three at the bottom trouble me: the analysts do not have the appreciation for feedback; they do not understand how lacking they are in sources; and they don't know enough to realize that radical transformation is needed.

On balance, I found this book annoying, but two pages ultimately provocative.
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Product Description

Richard A. Clarke warned America once before about the havoc terrorism would wreak on our national security -- and he was right. Now he warns us of another threat, silent but equally dangerous. Cyber War is a powerful book about technology, government, and military strategy; about criminals, spies, soldiers, and hackers. This is the first book about the war of the future -- cyber war -- and a convincing argument that we may already be in peril of losing it.

Cyber War goes behind the "geek talk" of hackers and computer scientists to explain clearly and convincingly what cyber war is, how cyber weapons work, and how vulnerable we are as a nation and as individuals to the vast and looming web of cyber criminals. From the first cyber crisis meeting in the White House a decade ago to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the electrical tunnels under Manhattan, Clarke and coauthor Robert K. Knake trace the rise of the cyber age and profile the unlikely characters and places at the epicenter of the battlefield. They recount the foreign cyber spies who hacked into the office of the Secretary of Defense, the control systems for U.S. electric power grids, and the plans to protect America's latest fighter aircraft.

Economically and militarily, Clarke and Knake argue, what we've already lost in the new millennium's cyber battles is tantamount to the Soviet and Chinese theft of our nuclear bomb secrets in the 1940s and 1950s. The possibilities of what we stand to lose in an all-out cyber war -- our individual and national security among them -- are just as chilling. Powerful and convincing, Cyber War begins the critical debate about the next great threat to national security.

Customer Reviews (75)

A facinating perspective on technology & political challenges facing Cyber Security
In Cyber War, Mr Clark presents a fascinating analysis of some of the political and technological issues the United States currently faces in the Cyber arena. As Clark says in the introduction, it is my no means a technical book. With this fact aside, Clark leverages his three decades of national security expertise and his knowledge of world events to both uncover potential shortfalls within the United States Cyber community and present solutions for how to negate these issues.

Overall a book worth reading, with some caveats
The jacket for "Cyber War" (CW) says "This is the first book about the war of the future -- cyber war."That's not true, but I would blame the publisher for those words and not the authors.A look back to 1998 reveals books like James Adams' "The Next World War: Computers Are the Weapons & the Front Line Is Everywhere," a book whose title is probably cooler than its contents.(I read it back then but did not review it.)So what's the value of CW?I recommend reading the book if you'd like a Beltway insider's view of government and military information warfare history, combined with a few recommendations that could make a difference.CW is strongest when drawing on the authors' experience with arms control but weakest when trying to advocate technical "solutions."

Early in the book I liked the "modern history" of cyber war.I especially enjoyed comparisons with the US military's experiences creating Space Command.I lived through some of that period but was unaware how Space Command's history affected creation of Cyber Command.Later, the book is almost derailed by the over-the-top cyber-geddon described at the end of chapter 3.It's just not necessary to include several pages where everything fails simultaneously, and I bet it erodes the confidence some readers have in the story.I'd remove the doom-and-gloom in future editions because I think people can imagine disasters fairly easily.Push through to chapter 4 and the book is once again on a sensible path, at least with respect to policy and history.For example, I loved reading Microsoft's lobbying goals: don't regulate, keep the military as a customer, and don't critique China!These rang true for me.

Shortly thereafter we encounter the weakest part of CW: technical advice.These sections assume that inspecting and blocking traffic at the ISP level using "deep packet inspection" (DPI), especially "where fiber optic cables come up out of the ocean" (p 163), with signatures from malware companies, is a strategy to protect us from nation-states and other adversaries.I'd like to know how this silly idea is supposed to be any different from the defenses deployed on private networks.Even if .gov provided special "signatures" in "black boxes" at ISPs to "block attacks," sufficiently equipped and motivated adversaries would evade them.The authors admit this already happens on p 260.(On a final technical note: please replace the mathematically impossible IP addresses with something accurate, where each octet is less than 256!)

These weak technical defensive ideas erode one of the authors' main points: reliance on defense instead of offense to counter threats.This will not work because their defensive ideas will fail (and have already failed).They also promote a "declaratory posture" on pp 176-178, with which I agree because it warns adversaries how the US would react to cyber attacks.However, that echoes the concept that the best defense is a good offense, which the authors dislike.The authors also frown on ideas of deterrence, but they (like others) narrowly focus on deterrence via weapon systems (as was the case with nukes).Instead, deterrence in cyberspace should be (and already is) based on the *skill of operators* and their *reputation in battle*.For example, Israel is likely building itself a reputation in cyberspace; who cares about the specific weapons at play?

Finally, the authors discuss cyber war itself, with their definition on p 228 hinging on the word "purpose," meaning the adversary's intent determines whether war is happening or not.I can't believe someone would build policy based on adversary intent, because that can never be conclusively known and could be estimated to be whatever suits the victim's plans.I love General Minihan's quote on p 236 that "we are conducting warfare activities without thinking that it is war."The difference I see between the US and Chinese or Russians is that the Chinese and Russians know cyber war is already happening, but the US does not.The CW authors fall into this trap by talking about "economic warfare" (p 277) without realizing that undermining the US economy *is* the war.I liked the authors' recommendations to ban attacks on civilian infrastructure, along with "bilateral, private" discussions with adversaries; those are far more likely to help compared to DPI, encrypting the electrical grid (p 260), and a "Military Protocol" (p 274).

I bought and read CW, and I think you would enjoy it too.

Very good overview of a future the US is not prepared for
Richard Clarke provides one of the best non-technical overviews of network warfare available. The strength of the book is Mr Clarke's ability to look at the national security and diplomatic implications of recent attacks (even with a degree and job in network security, I wasn't familiar with all of the attacks he looked at). Anyone familiar with network penetration testers (security experts paid to hack into and test networks) knows that they almost always succeed, even with critical power/utility/military networks. As a result, most major countries have gained the ability to effectively shut down the US, which has spent more time developing network dependencies (and little effort on securing critical assets) than almost anyone else in the world.

Overall, the big picture presented is largely accurate, and worth pondering. There are a number of minor errors on the rare occasions Mr Clarke tries to get into the weeds (his technical grasp of the tools and techniques of cyberspace is extremely limited). Fortunately, Mr Clarke spends most of the book discussing the strategic and diplomatic issues network warfare raises, areas he is much better qualified to address. While his recommendations for diplomacy seem optimistic to me, I will defer and stick to my area of expertise... for anyone who is interested in the future of war, or who cares about US national security, this book is well worth reading.

True but still politically motivated
I have a PhD in MIS and IT Mgt.Clarke has politicized the debate on cyberwar for his own good. Yes the US is at risk but no we would not lose a cyberwar. We have too many assets in place and too many researchers countering the threats. He would have known this if he were a computer scientist. He is not - he is half politician half advisor to power.Russia and China as so far behind us they have to steal from us. No other country except the UK has a patents system like ours. We protect our secrets pretty good by laws.I am not saying he is lying about intrusions but his fears are because he is not fully understanding how to counter cyber attacks himself. If you don't know how to fight back of course you can say the sky is falling. This trick was done to sell the book.America has always had flaws in the system of freedom we enjoy. I would like to have seen some time devoted to constitutional issues of computing and internet. Also a discussion of why congress has not taxed internet yet.He has painted a drab screne as no win when in fact we are winning. Just login to the FBI cyber division and see how we are dealing with cyber crimes.He does not talk about this at all. I think he is dissolutioned about American government because he left on bad terms. I got the same feeling from his previous books.He may be telling us the scarey truth but it is his scarey truth not that of a lifelong computer manager.I suggest he take a course in cyber counter terrorism from DHS or maybe some programming classes. He is like the boy crying wolf.

Important book that will sometimes leave you frustrated at the lack of a national policy or strategy for cyber security
Discussions of the decline of US competitiveness are in fashion. The decline of our manufacturing base, educational institutions, etc. get a lot of coverage. Most of us assume however that we're the big boys on the block when it comes to technology, and the protection of that tech. With all of the major cyber security companies such as McAfee, Norton, etc being American companies, of course we as a nation are ahead of the competition. Mr. Clarke's timely book will disabuse you of the notion.

Through a well developed narrative, Mr. Clarke walks us through very recent historical events where cyber attacks have brought companies, banking systems, and even (so far small) nations to their knees. He then draws parallels between the development of U.S. national policy and strategy on the use of conventional and nuclear weapons across all civilian and military institutions in previous decades to the lack of a similar coordination on cyber policy today. Mr. Clarke is well qualified to speak on these subjects, as he was deeply involved for decades with U.S. policy in these areas, and was nominally in charge of recent efforts to devise a cyber security strategy, though he explains why his latest efforts failed to gain traction in the turf-protecting worlds of government, business and military today.

If that's not enough to start you worrying, he goes on to describe how the pervasiveness of technology in the Western world, and our reliance on it for most of what we do on a day to day basis, makes us inherently more vulnerable to attacks on that technology.

This book NOT a techie book, and is written at a level that is appropriate for people at all levels of technological competence. It addition to covering the relevant, major, technological components it covers politics, history, military strategy, capitalist/economic theory, international relations and finance.

It is my sincere hope that decision makers in all sectors of the economy are reading this book today. I really don't want to build a bunker and start canning food, but I'm starting to think that all of those 'crazy' people living off of the grid are not really that crazy after all. ... Read more