Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative look at the future of intelligence, April 28, 2000
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.
|
|
|
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blueprint for Change -- Unfortunately Ineffective, September 9, 2008
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.
|
|
|
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
relevant to DC sniper case, November 8, 2002
For over a decade, Steele has been trying to draw attention to the fact that intelligence needs in the post-Cold-War era require different strategy, organization and tactics. This book is a useful summary of his views.One point of emphasis is "open source" intelligence--the information that is available from sources outside of the secret intelligence community. Steele argues that the institutional secretiveness of the FBI and CIA is a hindrance rather than a help. Another point of emphasis is language translation. A further point of emphasis is the fact that threats no longer exclusively take the form of powerful nation-states. I wish that the book focused more specifically on Islamic terrorism, since the other potential threats seem more remote at the moment. Yet another point of emphasis is database integration. Writing this review in the aftermath of the DC sniper investigation, this seems to be an important point. Before the suspects drove to Maryland, they were involved in a murder in Alabama at which one of them left a fingerprint. Had the Alabama police been able to access a national database, they would have been able to identify the murderer and perhaps apprehend him. Instead, the fingerprint was matched only after a dozen more murders and after the suspects themselves told police to connect the dots to Alabama. Lack of database integration kills.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Robert David Steele
by Allen W. Dulles
See all Editorial Reviews
