This collection of articles is by experts in the field who are convinced that intelligence has an important role to play, not only in times of war and confrontation, but also in times of conciliation and political processes.

Intelligence services form an important but controversial part of the modern state. Drawing mainly on British and American examples, this book provides an analytic framework for understanding the 'intelligence community' and assessing its value. The author, a former senior British intelligence officer, describes intelligence activities, the purposes which the system serves, and the causes and effects of its secrecy. He considers 'intelligence failure' and how organisation and management can improve the chances of success. Using parallels with the information society and the current search for efficiency in public administration as a whole, the book explores the issues involved in deciding how much intelligence is needed and discusses the kinds of management necessary. In his conclusions Michael Herman discusses intelligence's national value in the post-Cold War world. He also argues that it has important contributions to make to international security, but that its threat-inducing activities should be kept in check.

Thomas Leahy investigates whether informers, Special Forces and other British intelligence operations forced the IRA into peace in the 1990s.

That guide is given in this book in a checklist of anthropological, cultural and behavioral factors that filter military and political predictions.

A career of nearly three decades with the CIA and the National Intelligence Council showed Paul R. Pillar that intelligence reforms, especially measures enacted since 9/11, can be deeply misguided. They often miss the sources that underwrite failed policy and misperceive our ability to read outside influences. They also misconceive the intelligence-policy relationship and promote changes that weaken intelligence-gathering operations. In this book, Pillar confronts the intelligence myths Americans have come to rely on to explain national tragedies, including the belief that intelligence drives major national security decisions and can be fixed to avoid future failures. Pillar believes these assumptions waste critical resources and create harmful policies, diverting attention away from smarter reform, and they keep Americans from recognizing the limits of obtainable knowledge. Pillar revisits U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War and highlights the small role intelligence played in those decisions, and he demonstrates the negligible effect that America's most notorious intelligence failures had on U.S. policy and interests. He then reviews in detail the events of 9/11 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, condemning the 9/11 commission and the George W. Bush administration for their portrayals of the role of intelligence. Pillar offers an original approach to better informing U.S. policy, which involves insulating intelligence management from politicization and reducing the politically appointed layer in the executive branch to combat slanted perceptions of foreign threats. Pillar concludes with principles for adapting foreign policy to inevitable uncertainties.

Winner of the 2019 William E. Colby Award "The book I had been waiting for. I can't recommend it highly enough." —Bill Gates The era of autonomous weapons has arrived. Today around the globe, at least thirty nations have weapons that can search for and destroy enemy targets all on their own. Paul Scharre, a leading expert in next-generation warfare, describes these and other high tech weapons systems—from Israel’s Harpy drone to the American submarine-hunting robot ship Sea Hunter—and examines the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. “A smart primer to what’s to come in warfare” (Bruce Schneier), Army of None engages military history, global policy, and cutting-edge science to explore the implications of giving weapons the freedom to make life and death decisions. A former soldier himself, Scharre argues that we must embrace technology where it can make war more precise and humane, but when the choice is life or death, there is no replacement for the human heart.