Strategic Warning Intelligence: History, Challenges, and Prospects

By: John A. Gentry, Joseph S. Gordon

Narrated by: Andy Dix

John A. Gentry and Joseph S. Gordon update our understanding of strategic warning intelligence analysis for the 21st century. Strategic warning - the process of long-range analysis to alert senior leaders to trending threats and opportunities that require action - is a critical intelligence function. It also is frequently misunderstood and underappreciated.

Gentry and Gordon draw on both their practitioner and academic backgrounds to present a history of the strategic warning function in the US intelligence community. In doing so, they outline the capabilities of analytic methods, explain why strategic warning analysis is so hard, and discuss the special challenges strategic warning encounters from senior decision-makers. They also compare how strategic warning functions in other countries, evaluate why the United States has in recent years emphasized current intelligence instead of strategic warning, and recommend warning-related structural and procedural improvements in the US intelligence community.

The authors examine historical case studies, including postmortems of warning failures, to provide examples of the analytic points they make. Strategic Warning Intelligence will interest scholars and practitioners and will be an ideal teaching text for intermediate and advanced students.

The book is published by Georgetown University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2019 Georgetown University Press (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

Should be read by students, by professionals in intelligence and national security, and by everyone seeking to understand the many challenges facing the intelligence community today. (Erik Dahl, Naval Postgraduate School)

Very well researched work on a complex subject

An excellent, well researched, and highly detailed book on this complex topic. There were three primary themes which really grabbed my attention. First, the variation between how different nations and their security apparatuses handle the warning process. I had not expected that there would be such a broad patchwork of administrative processes. Secondly, the different "types" of warning mechanisms, such as a dedicated department, the "every employee as warning participant," or a hybrid model. This was a new set of problems I had not really thought about before, but the book did an excellent job of laying out the contrasts between the approaches and why they are important.

Third, and most strikingly to me, was the political aspect. I knew that politicians of course carry biases and cater to their constituencies, but I was stunned by the extent to which political actors would ignore legitimate intelligence as a result of psychological blind spots, deliberate bias, and other "human nature flaws" rather than deliberate examination of the information being presented. Highly recommended for policy professionals, and for any citizen curious about how many types of intellence lapses can occur.

Quite interesting!

The book has alot of content that i had no idea about and brought to light several key issues in the IC that have had major inpacts on how we the US view and execute warning intelligence.