Combating Proliferation

Strategic Intelligence and Security Policy

Jason D. Ellis, Geoffrey D. Kiefer

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781421402635
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title

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.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1 Proliferation 101: A Dynamic Threat, An Evolving Response
• 2 Standards of Evidence: Intelligence Judgments and Policy Determinations
• 3 Through a Glass Darkly: Estimative Uncertainties and Policy Trade-offs
• 4 Intelligence Surprise: Deception, Innovation, Proliferation
• 5 Intelligence Sharing: Prospective Risks, Potential Rewards
• 6 Military Support: Intelligence in an Operational Context
• 7 Warfighting in a WMD Context: Intelligence Gaps, Operational Capabilities, and Policy Implications
• 8 Combating Proliferation: Toward a National Strategy
• Notes
• Index
• About The Authors