On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World [Hardcover]

Robert David Steele (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 22, 2001

This is the second edition of the book, identical in all respects to the first but with the addition of a single page detailing the six intelligence and counterintelligence failures that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur. This book is about the reinvention of national, defense and business intelligence within the larger context of an open world--a world where "Evil Empires" and the Berlin Wall have fallen--but also a world where transportation, power, financial, and communications infrastructures are so open as to dramatically increase the vulnerability of America to trans-continental epidemics, anonymous information terrorism, and nation-wide power black-outs and financial melt-downs. As the world enters the Information Century, and simultaneously confronts the fragmentation of many nation-states and the emergence of widespread ethnic, tribal and criminal gang terrorism and confrontation, no topic can be more important to federal, state, and local governments--and to international, national, and local businesses than the topic of "intelligence". Thankfully, there are many positive lessons and methods to be drawn from the U.S. Intelligence Community, and there are a wealth of open sources and services that can be drawn upon to make both government and business "smarter" about their environment, their customers, and their competitors. This book is a primer on the role of intelligence qua sources, methods, and community at the dawn of the 21st century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Robert Steele storms into the core of intelligence issues without fear. The scope of his work is impressive and whether you agree with him or not, you cannot ignore what he says. The book is an important addition to the literature on intelligence. --The Honorable Richard Kerr
Former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence

From the Back Cover

The Honorable John A. Bohn
Former CEO, Moody's Investors Service, Former President, Export-Import Bank

Peter Drucker told us in 1998 that the next information revolution for business will be in the exploitation of external information. This book is an essential reference because it defines how government, business, and the academy can finally share intelligence without being tainted by espionage or handicapped by secrecy.

Rear Admiral Dr. Sigurd Hess, German Navy (Retired)
Former Chief of Staff, Allied Command Baltic Approaches

As NATO, its Partnership for Peace and the European Defense and Security Initiative devise new models for meeting their future intelligence needs, this book ought to be considered and discussed. Robert Steele's vision for the future of intelligence is clearly "internationalist" in nature. It focuses on regional partnerships between governmental and non-governmental organizations and on the value of open source intelligence collection. European Institutions should seize the opportunity to be the first to succeed in implementing this new model.

Ralph Peters, author of
Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph?

Robert Steele is as consistently fascinating as he is consistently right; his insights on intelligence have always been at least a decade ahead of the establishment.

Commodore Patrick Tyrrell, OBE, Royal Navy

Over a broad canvas reflecting the changing nature of information and information technologies, Robert Steele lays the foundation for the future of e-intelligence.

John G. Heidenrich, author on genocide prevention

Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor--genocide has become a feature of the post-Cold War world. Robert Steele's book shows how genocide and other global problems can be effectively monitored without shortchanging traditional national security. This book is invaluable to both humanitarians and national security experts.

Major General Oleg Kalugin, KGB (Retired)
Former Elected Deputy to the Russian Parliament

All intelligence services--as well as non-governmental organizations and non-state actors--will benefit from a study of this book. Robert Steele goes well beyond the original visions of the best of the former Directors of Central Intelligence, and has crafted a brilliant, sensible, and honorable future for the intelligence profession.

Bruce Sterling, Author of Hacker Crackdown : Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier

Robert Steele is about 100 times as smart and 10,000 times as dangerous as the best of the hackers, for he is successfully hacking the most challenging of bureaucracies, the U.S. intelligence community, and doing it for the right reasons. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 495 pages
• Publisher: OSS International Press (November 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971566100
• ISBN-13: 978-0971566101
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,031,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative look at the future of intelligence, April 28, 2000

By 

Ralph H. Peters (Washington, D.C. area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Intelligence : Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (Hardcover)

This book should appeal to a variety of readers, from intelligence professionals, to strategists, to legislators and decision-makers, and, finally, to interested lay readers. Steele consistently has been well ahead of the pack in his appreciation of everything from open-source research to the implications of technology. While it is fashionable to belittle "inside the Beltway" experience, in this case the author's understanding of government, allied with his past military experience, makes his work practical and immediately applicable, rather than one more pipe dream from a campus ivory tower. Steele's thinking is always provocative and his work thrills with its insights and ideas. While such a book may not be as easy as a fictional thriller read on the metro, the author manages to make very complex concepts digestible to all. In the end, the quality of thought makes this far more exciting than any Clancy novel--at least for me as a former intelligence officer with extensive field experience. A solid, rewarding book from a very alert mind.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Blueprint for Change -- Unfortunately Ineffective, September 9, 2008

By 

David M. Dougherty (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On Intelligence : Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (Hardcover)

This is a very difficult review for me to write. I want all those in positions where they can have some effect on American Intelligence gathering and analysis to read this book, but the book's organization and construction will ensure that won't happen. Hence the four star rating.

The book (the Oct 2001 edition) looks to be the author's collection of lecture notes or lecture passouts organized in one or two hour presentations. They are full of one-liners and short paragraphs making sweeping statements, and I wanted space below them to write my comments and questions. Perhaps they are indeed lecture passouts that formerly contained those spaces in which listeners could jot notes on the author's detail comments and examples supporting those statements. Without such support, there is simply far too much to be taken on faith for the author's ideas to be accepted or implemented.

A simple example should suffice to make this point: Steele says on page 6: "Today there is insufficient emphasis on defining and meeting the intelligence needs of overt civilian agencies, law enforcement activities, and contingency military forces." OK, what would be sufficient? What are we doing wrong today (examples would be nice), and what agencies are doing such? What emphasis do we currently have, and how can that be morphed into something meeting the author's definition (unstated) of necessary and sufficient emphasis? What are we spending today on activities that must be de-emphasized or eliminated, and how much will it cost to achieve the proper necessary and sufficient emphasis? Without this level of detail, the author's statement is simply a platitude that will be roundly ignored by those agencies and personnel who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

This defect remains throughout the book. Although the author's statements have much merit and his recommendations for organizational structures and missions to achieve necessary and sufficient intelligence for US policy makers and general security are generally well considered and excellent starting points for implementating the necessary changes, the missing detail allows opponents to dismiss his points out of hand as being simplistic, unsupported by evidence, and dangerous.

Nor is the public ready for this book, even after 9-11 and seven years having passed since publication. There has been no political movement towards addressing any of Steele's charges or implementating any of his ideas discernible by the general public or myself -- quite the contrary, the intelligence agencies have become increasingly ossified, bureaucratic and bureaupathic. CIA employees now arrange their work schedules around their children's activities, and providing day care to the CIA's time-serving employees is more important than providing intelligence to the President of the United States. Steele cannot be an effective change agent until he gets his message (this book) out to the public, but it must be in a form that the public can comprehend -- which is not this book.

I agree with the author that turf wars are the primary activity of all intelligence agencies in the US (my words, he just inferred this), and they must be limited as much as possible. It seems impossible that the US possessed better intelligence on enemy and potential enemy activity before the computerization of information data bases than at present, but that is my conclusion. An example of how turf wars destroy is that the world's best data base management system, the multivalued system created by Dick Pick in the US in 1968, is not being used in US federal agencies but has experiences acceptance in Russia. Meanwhile we are saddled with cumbersome systems like Microsoft's SQL Server, IBM's DB2, Oracle and others. The "free" marketplace doesn't always allow the best product to filter through the weeds -- powerful organizations protect their turf at the expense of the general welfare. Other examples would include the Christie suspension system for Soviet tanks and Deming's ideas seized by Japanese industry.

In short, the book's content is excellent but so many things must be taken on faith due to its organization and presentation that it almost neutralizes itself. It ends up being a handbook of ideas for the intelligence professional -- precisely the individual who will not implement any (or very few) or the ideas in the book. Steele would have done better to take his own advice and provide intelligence to the general population that "remain(s) desperately ignorant of history and culture (and what is happening in the intelligence community" (page 273).)

Nevertheless, BUY, READ & STUDY THIS BOOK.

By the way, the bibliography alone is worth the price of the book.

And lastly, it will take a powerful US President to force through any of this book's recommendations on the American intelligence community. His support will have to come from an informed populace to overcome the opposition certain to come from current organizations. It may be possible, or it may be too late. If this book does as well in the next four years as it has in the last eight, then it was too late.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligence Transformation, January 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: On Intelligence : Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (Hardcover)

The author of this book has produced one of the very best and most interesting books to date on intelligence reform and transformation. It is extremely well written and provokingly thoughtful on many critical issues as we decide what we want from our Intelligence Community in the 21st Century and how we want to achieve those results. His economic, business and organizational logic is right on track for a wide range of relevant and timely topics. One is amazed at how much detail the author provided without getting the reader "lost in the trees with no sense of the forest". His reference approach is also outstanding in two regards: (1) he carefully documents the source of many of the great authors and thinkers and practitioners sited, and (2) he gives the reader access to a much broader set of view points (some of which no doubt conflict with his own views). Whether you agree with all of Steele's ideas or not is irrelevant. This is just excellent stuff and should be required reading for all members and staff of all of the Congressional oversight committees as well as the various commissions that review aspects of one sort or another of our national intelligence community. Beyond that it will undoubtedly be of interest to anyone who is concerned about the role of Intelligence in National Security.