Product Description

The intelligence community's flawed assessment of Iraq's weapons systems -- and the Bush administration's decision to go to war in part based on those assessments -- illustrates the political and policy challenges of combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In this comprehensive assessment, defense policy specialists Jason Ellis and Geoffrey Kiefer find disturbing trends in both the collection and analysis of intelligence and in its use in the development and implementation of security policy.

Analyzing a broad range of recent case studies -- Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons, North Korea's defiance of U.N. watchdogs, Russia's transfer of nuclear and missile technology to Iran and China's to Pakistan, the Soviet biological warfare program, weapons inspections in Iraq, and others -- the authors find that intelligence collection and analysis relating to WMD proliferation are becoming more difficult, that policy toward rogue states and regional allies requires difficult tradeoffs, and that using military action to fight nuclear proliferation presents intractable operational challenges.

Ellis and Kiefer reveal that decisions to use -- or overlook -- intelligence are often made for starkly political reasons. They document the Bush administration's policy shift from nonproliferation, which emphasizes diplomatic tools such as sanctions and demarches, to counterproliferation, which at times employs interventionist and preemptive actions. They conclude with cogent recommendations for intelligence services and policy makers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #885641 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review

"Ellis and Kiefer, professional U.S. government threat assessors, present an excellent, informative, stark, nonpolemical, and persuasive analysis of the challenges for the U.S. in its monumental task of combating proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)." -- Choice

"Both college-level military and political science holdings will find this a key addition promoting understanding, debate and classroom discussions." -- Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Jason D. Ellis, previously senior research professor at the National Defense University, is senior advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Geoffrey D. Kiefer is a researcher at the National Defense University's Center for Counterproliferation Research.

Customer Reviews

A key addition promoting understanding, debate, and classroom discussions.
Many social and political challenges are involved in combating proliferation of weapons, from analyzing intelligence data for accuracy to understanding how technology transfers and how security policies are directed and implemented. COMBATING PROLIFERATION: STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY POLICY comes from two specialists who analyze trends in the collection and applications of intelligence data, providing hard-hitting chapters questioning the accuracy of both data and methods used to compile and scrutinize it. Both college-level military and political science holdings will find this a key addition promoting understanding, debate, and classroom discussions.

Strategic Intelligence
There are really two categories of intelligence that concern the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). The first category concerns the international transfer of WMD technology from nations possessing it to nations (or transnational groups) that do not posses it. The second category concerns the development of indigenous WMD capabilities by a nation that did not previously have such capabilities. Clearly the two categories are related, but require quite different intelligence methods and techniques. This book covers both categories and demonstrates how each supported counter-proliferation strategy and policy execution.

The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) has always been a key factor in the development of U.S. counter-proliferation policies, but has not always been in harmony with broader U.S. geo-political strategy. As a result often very good WMD intelligence on countries such as Pakistan and Iraq, has been ignored because it was not relevant to U.S. strategy at the time it was produced. It is also true that, as in the run up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, U.S. WMD intelligence was in harmony with U.S. strategy, but was badly flawed. This book covers both intelligence successes and failures in a balanced and generally accurate manner. Elllis and Kiefer provide quite a good history of U.S. counter-proliferation policies and strategies and the rather uneven WMD intelligence efforts that sometimes supported them and sometimes did not.

Of course both Ellis and Kiefer at the time they wrote this book (2004) worked for the Defense Department and were constrained to maintain their objectivity throughout the book. They therefore describe but do judge counter-proliferation policies and strategies of various U.S. Presidential Administrations over some thirty years. In the same manner they make every effort to fairly reflect the efforts by the IC to support counter-proliferation including the IC failures, successes, and challenges. A workman like, but good history of symbiotic relationship between counter-proliferation and intelligence.