Russell Richard L. Sharpening Strategic Intelligence: Why the CIA Gets It Wrong and What Needs to Be Done to Get It Right

Cambridge University Press, 2007. — 230 p.Gaps in the author's reading (or writing) appeared from the very beginning. Lost first star there. He defines strategic intelligence as focused on threats and the use of force. Despite his mention of Adda Bozeman, he does not seem to have understood that the heart of strategic intelligence is deep and sustained study and understanding of foreign cultures, histories, languages, genealogies, and ties that bind--financial, religious, tribal, ethnic, etc. Lost second star here. There are ten high-level threats, twelve remediation policies, and eight global challengers, and all 30 of these factors must be studied as a whole and in relation, in the present, near, and far term. Anything less is not strategic intelligence. I am troubled by the author's rather black and white bias in tarring CIA with all the wrongs and exempting the policy-makers, and especially Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith, for their many errors and omissions as well as 25 specific high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Cheney alone as detailed in The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11.