Intelligence Failures

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how intelligence operations are essential for the conduct of foreign policy as well as the protection of the national territory and the preservation of homeland security. The paper explains that since gathering intelligence involves people and is difficult to control, there is always the possibility of failure, as in the Cuban Missile crisis, World War II events that took place at Pearl Harbor and the 9//11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

From the Paper:

"One of the moments in contemporary history which is considered to have been influenced by intelligence failure was the Cuban Missile crisis during the Kennedy Administration. More precisely, reports following the actual crisis underlined the lack of proper interpretation of the information on the deployment of the soviet missiles in Cuba which spurred the crisis.
"I chose this particular example because I consider it to be a milestone in the information gathering process seeing the evolution from the pre World War II era (Rohwer, 1999) and, at the same time, it marked an important event in the Cold War era. Following the World War, policies modernized, due to the influx of technology and the increase in the operability of the staff engaged in secret data gathering."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Knorr, K. (1964) Failures in national intelligence estimates. The Case of the Cuban Missiles. World Politics, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 455-467. Accessed 13 August 2007, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-8871%28196404%2916%3A3%3C455%3AFINIET%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
• Porch D., Wirtz, J. (2002) Surprise and Intelligence Failure Strategic Insights, Volume I, Issue 7 Accessed 13 August 2007, from http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/sept02/homeland.pdf
• Rohwer, J. (1999) Signal Intelligence and World War II: The Unfolding Story. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 939-951. Accessed 13 August 2007, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0899-3718%28199910%2963%3A4%3C939%3ASIAWWI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W
• United States Congress. (2004) Intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004. Accessed 13 August 2007, from http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ458.108

More papers on Intelligence Failures:

• Analytical Essay # 148089 : "9/11 Intelligence Failures"
• Term Paper # 137001 : "Signals Intelligence"
• Analytical Essay # 9948 : "Pearl Harbor as an Intelligence Failure"

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