Milo Jones

Set up in 1947 to prevent another Pearl Harbor, the CIA failed on at least four major occasions in spite of the considerable means at its disposal. How was this possible? Researchers who have studied strategic surprises have worked out explanations that, though not incompatible with each other, are unable to explain the full situation. Since Max Weber, social scientists know that regular behavior patterns are to be understood in relation to their cultural context. Because social facts are… Pokaż więcej

Set up in 1947 to prevent another Pearl Harbor, the CIA failed on at least four major occasions in spite of the considerable means at its disposal. How was this possible? Researchers who have studied strategic surprises have worked out explanations that, though not incompatible with each other, are unable to explain the full situation. Since Max Weber, social scientists know that regular behavior patterns are to be understood in relation to their cultural context. Because social facts are ingrained in the work of intelligence, the latter is under the sway of the organization’s identity and culture. On the basis of this initial observation, a paradigm of strategic surprises is presented that emphasizes how the internal organization of the producer of intelligence is shaped through the identity of its analysts and the traits of its organizational culture. By examining the CIA’s endogenous characteristics, we come to understand how such surprises happen. Pokaż mniej

Les auteurs rendent compte d'une analyse systémique des surprises stratégiques qu'ils illustrent par quatre échecs de la CIA et qu'ils expliquent par le poids de l'identité des services de renseignement qui occulte des réalités pourtant accessibles simplement.

Constructing Cassandra conducts an inquiry into the intelligence failures at the CIA that resulted in four key strategic surprises experienced by the US: the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Iranian revolution of 1978, the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While some of these events may seem distant, these surprises still play out today in US policy. Although there has been no shortage of studies exploring how intelligence failures can happen, none of the prevailing… Pokaż więcej

Constructing Cassandra conducts an inquiry into the intelligence failures at the CIA that resulted in four key strategic surprises experienced by the US: the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Iranian revolution of 1978, the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While some of these events may seem distant, these surprises still play out today in US policy. Although there has been no shortage of studies exploring how intelligence failures can happen, none of the prevailing explanations has been able to provide a unified understanding of the phenomenon. Without that understanding, failures will happen again—with dramatic consequences.

The book brings culture and identity to the foreground to present a model of strategic surprise that focuses on the internal make-up the CIA. It also takes seriously those Cassandras who offered warnings, but were ignored. By providing this novel, unified model of strategic surprise—that links terrorist attacks to more conventional failures—this book offers the first deep and systematic exploration of the ultimate sources of the CIA's intelligence failures, and points to ways to prevent future strategic surprises.

A video of Milo discussing the book with Dr.Mark Lowenthal is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MapLTtI2-A

The first chapter, bibliography and footnotes are available at Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/238005377/Constructing-Cassandra-Reframing-Intelligence-Failure-at-the-CIA-1947-2001 Pokaż mniej

A French summary of the thesis proposed in Constructing Cassandra.