Intelligence and Foreign Policy (WWS 556B)
The 9/11 attacks and the intelligence pertaining to the Iraqi WMD programs have led policy-makers, academics, and journalists to criticize the practices and judgments of the US intelligence community, acknowledge the gap between ideal and practical intelligence-policy relations, and revisit the sources of intelligence failures and their implications for US foreign policy.
To address these issues, the task force will examine several topics that are central to putting the recent controversies over the 9/11 attacks and the War in Iraq in context. We will explore the various sources of intelligence failures; the challenges terrorism and nuclear proliferation in particular pose in the context of intelligence analysis in the pre and post Cold War environments; the sources and implications of politicization of intelligence by policy-makers; as well as evaluate the effectiveness of past and more recent attempts to reform the intelligence community. The task force will primarily focus on the US intelligence community, although it may also consider the experiences of Israel and Britain. It will review different perspectives on the role of intelligence, and the challenges in forging a trusting relationship between intelligence officers and policy-makers.
The final task force report will be in the form of recommendations to the Director of National Intelligence and the United States Senate Select Committee.
Please click here to learn more about specific course and enrollment requirements.