President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
Faulty assumptions about the ideological realities on the ground, at both the popular- and elite-level, are not unique to the Russian case, but can be widely applied to current geopolitical concerns that attract the attention of U.S. policymakers, especially those which are hypothesized to potentially require future American military operations.
For a relatively short volume, Intelligence and the State manages to fill a range of gaps in the existing literature on the intelligence community. First and foremost, it provides a timely look at the issues confronting both policy makers and intelligence analysts that will only grow more relevant as technological advances increase the volume of raw information available to the intelligence community. Second, it offers the reader a condensed history of the European and American experiences with developing intelligence communities that would otherwise require combing through a range of academic literature. Finally, author Jonathan House leverages his decades of experience as a U.S. Army intelligence officer with valuable advice that can alleviate some of the pressures on the intelligence community and help the national security establishment avoid missing warning signs in the current environment.
Written in the style of an engaging spy thriller, the story takes the reader through a series of events involving real individuals with capabilities and intentions to harm others. The plot in a nutshell: a handful of individuals inspired–and in some cases trained–by al-Qaeda attempted to smuggle liquid explosives on board U.S.-bound transatlantic flights. If successful, they would have destroyed multiple aircraft, murdered thousands of people, and increased public fear worldwide about aviation travel. The economic toll could have been comparable to that of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the end, the most impactful thing these plotters did was provoke a change in aviation security wherein passengers can no longer bring over three ounces of liquids through the airport security checkpoints. This is a story, certainly a compelling one, about the failure of a terrorist plot.
This book has many strengths. The style is concise, and the main concepts are understandable, focusing on important state and non-state actor related issues. Each chapter ends with a summary, critical thinking questions for students and readers, as well as a detailed bibliography and notes section. Possible weaknesses derive, on the other hand, from a low level of granularity offered in the text when it comes to the illustration of some specific techniques such as structured analysis technique that could help intelligence professionals to refine their level of analysis.
The intelligence community’s analytic product dissemination needs to move to a more transactional framework. Accumulated consumer feedback delivered back to the producer would result in more rapid changes from the community, improve the client’s decision-making, and elevate the national security impact of both producers and consumers.
