Wilhelm Agrell and Gregory F. Treverton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199360864
- eISBN:
- 9780199360895
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199360864.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter considers various challenges for intelligence. It begins with a post mortem on post mortems: why do investigations of intelligence “failures,” especially in the United States, produce so ...
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This chapter considers various challenges for intelligence. It begins with a post mortem on post mortems: why do investigations of intelligence “failures,” especially in the United States, produce so much political heat and so little light in the sense of serious lesson-learning? It then turns to the challenges of transparency and to both the opportunities and pitfalls of what may amount to a paradigm shift, as intelligence moves from conceiving itself as a deliverer of finished products to “customers” and comes to think it is in the business of providing advice and help—to “clients.”Less
This chapter considers various challenges for intelligence. It begins with a post mortem on post mortems: why do investigations of intelligence “failures,” especially in the United States, produce so much political heat and so little light in the sense of serious lesson-learning? It then turns to the challenges of transparency and to both the opportunities and pitfalls of what may amount to a paradigm shift, as intelligence moves from conceiving itself as a deliverer of finished products to “customers” and comes to think it is in the business of providing advice and help—to “clients.”
