Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and National Leadership: A Practical Guide [Hardcover]

Gary Berntsen (Author), Seth G. Jones (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2008 | ISBN-10: 1597972541 | ISBN-13: 978-1597972543 | Edition: 1

The next president of the United States faces innumerable complex problems, from a possible prolonged recession to climate change. An immediate difficulty for the president will be the global conflict between the West and Islamic jihadists and state sponsors of terrorism. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission notwithstanding, the administration needs to be armed and ready to tackle much more in the areas of intelligence and counterterrorism. The president can and must assume a hands-on, informed leadership role if the United States wants to make progress in the war on terror.

Gary Berntsen has written this book as a guide for an incoming president and White House staff so that they may master current human intelligence and counterterrorism operations. After reading its highly specific recommendations and policy prescriptions, the president and his or her staff will be able to draft a First Directive for the leadership of the intelligence and national security communities outlining how the administration wants those communities to proceed and to defend the nation’s interests.

Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and National Leadership will be of interest to legislators, policymakers, and anyone concerned about intelligence and terrorism policy. With a foreword by Seth G. Jones, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation and Adjunct Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is the author of In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan and The Rise of European Security Cooperation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A wise tutorial for anyone seriously interested in how [human intelligence] actually works -- or doesn't. . . . Far from a rehash of the woes that are continuing to chase experienced and talented CIA counterterrorism officers out of the building as soon as they're eligible for retirement, Berntsen offers a wide array of thoughtful Rx's for sharpening the point of the spear." --Jeff Stein, CQ Homeland Security, October 31, 2008

About the Author

Gary Berntsen is a retired senior CIA operations officer who has served as a chief of station on three separate occasions. He led the CIA’s most important counterterrorist deployments from 1995 through 2005. Since May 2007 he has been serving as an intelligence and counterinsurgency adviser in eastern Afghanistan. Berntsen is the author of the bestseller Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (Crown, 2005). He has done more than seventy-five television appearances as well as numerous appearances on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and NBC. He lives in Forest Hills, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 154 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.; 1 edition (October 31, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597972541
• ISBN-13: 978-1597972543
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Primer for the Non-Professional, October 24, 2008

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and National Leadership: A Practical Guide (Hardcover)

This is a publisher's idea of a quick buck. The author did what he could within the constipated formula. It is recommended for anyone who knows very little about intelligence and wants a useful overview that avoids the nitty-gritty. Indeed, this is a very fine companion to Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy(3rd Edition), which is deficient in the very areas where this book offers a rather gross-level overview to the student new to the intelligence discipline. The price is reasonable, one reason I was tempted.

I tried hard to justify four stars but I just cannot do it. There is nothing wrong with this book, if you want a Middle School reader with a handful of ideas that are good but not unique, while avoiding anything that could have held the book up when being reviewed by the CIA, this is it. It is a small book with 19 brilliantly selected chapter titles each receiving as many as six or as few as two (small) pages.

I tried reading each "chapter's" Core Points a second time, and found little to arrest my attention (or that of a future President). Support Colombia. Spray crops in Afghanistan. Special Ops is under-represented. Hmmm.

The eleven recommended books are an afterthought. Obviously the author is an experienced case officer but he is not broadly read and none of the books deal with the profession of intelligence--a couple by bubbas, a couple on counter-insurgency, a couple on the Islamic mind--you get the idea. In this instance, "practical guide" appears to mean "my personal view, without bothering to look into anything anyone else has recommended...)

All of my books are free online, and of course here on Amazon, so I won't flog them. The core chapters can also be found online, notably "Presidential Leadership" from the first book, "New Rules for the New Craft of Intelligence" from the second, and so on.

I cannot do justice to all the deep books, including the author's own, Jawbreaker: The Attack on bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander which I strongly recommend instead of this book, as well as First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan. See my varied lists, especially the early ones before I started focusing on Earth Intelligence across the board.

Here are the aspects of intelligence as it pertains to national security, and a single recommended book for each, among many others I have read and reviewed here at Amazon:

1) Does it inform policy?

Informing Statecraft

2) Does it avoid doing harm?

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

3) Do policymakers abuse it for their own ends?

A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies

4) Do we tell ourselves and the public the truth?

None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam

5) Can intelligence make a difference?

Intelligence Power in Peace and War

6) Can intelligence see the invisible?

Seeing the Invisible: National Security Intelligence in an Uncertain Age

7) Do we do as well as we can analyzing what we collect?

Lost Promise

The author is a good, brave, and talented man in the field. We are losing too many like him now, before their retirement age, because we are allowing contractors to steal them and rent them back to us at twice the price. If anyone were listening to me, which they are not, I would have two policies:

1) Pay for performance at commercial rates

2) Lose your clearances for two years if you leave before retirement age, and start the clearance process over when you come back, but if you get to retirement, we hold your clearances for five to ten years without your having to commit to a vendor (or any single vendor) right away and to allow you to free lance while still having your original agency as "home base."

The US Intelligence Community consists of incredibly good and earnest people trapped in a very bad system with multiple sucking chest wounds from security to acquisition to leadership (no middle, losing the seniors at the directorate levels) to you name it. Nothing in this book is going to fix that, I am sorry to say. We need a firehose, not another Happy Hour menu to throw on the fire.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clear and concise book, November 17, 2008

By 

J. Armstrong (Florida) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and National Leadership: A Practical Guide (Hardcover)

Fascinating book. Berntsen provides some interesting insights and recommendations on how we should fix problems at the CIA and in the national security apparatus. At a time when most critics want to destroy the Agency, Berntsen provides some plain spoken sanity. Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism and National Leadership needs to be read by anyone entering into defense, foreign affairs or intelligence - and anyone else with an interest in how the CIA works.

It is a fast and enjoyable read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Serves as an open letter of sorts to the next leader of the free world, February 8, 2009

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and National Leadership: A Practical Guide (Hardcover)

Knowledge is power, but knowledge is a power that's hard to use well. "Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, & National Leadership: A Practical Guide" serves as an open letter of sorts to the next leader of the free world on dealing with the many problems America faces in coming years. Pulling no punches, Berntsen discusses the war on terror with great deal, its policies, its leaders, and the political parties, and criticizes both a great deal. Educated and scholarly reading on America's problems when it comes to dealing with terror, "Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, & National Leadership" is very much recommended reading.