Limited Intelligence

Intelligence involves three major phases: the acquisition of material, its selection and collation and, finally, assessment and evaluation. How these phases are integrated determines the decisions made in response. Yet all too often, the process of integration incorporates preconceived ideas that bind the intelligence into a straitjacket detached from strategic and political realities. Ultimately, cultural constraints inhibit intelligence far more dramatically than the nature of the regime at hand.

The topic? Bush's interpretation of Saddam's WMD threat? The International Atomic Energy Agency's interpretation of Iran's nuclear program? Nope, it's about how Hitler blindsided Stalin in 1941. But plenty of observations that could apply to modern situations in this book review.