Awards

• Winner of Winner of the 2011 Edgar S. Furniss Book Award giv.

Overview

What is the role of intelligence agencies in strategy and policy? How do policymakers use (or misuse) intelligence estimates? When do intelligence-policy relations work best? How do intelligence-policy failures influence threat assessment, military strategy, and foreign policy? These questions are at the heart of recent national security controversies, including the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq. In both cases the relationship between intelligence and policy broke down-with disastrous consequences. In Fixing the Facts, Joshua Rovner explores the complex interaction between intelligence and policy and shines a spotlight on the problem of politicization. Major episodes in the history of American foreign policy have been closely tied to the manipulation of intelligence estimates. Rovner describes how the Johnson administration dealt with the intelligence community during the Vietnam War; how President Nixon and President Ford politicized estimates on the Soviet Union; and how pressure from the George W. Bush administration contributed to flawed intelligence on Iraq. He also compares the U.S. case with the British experience between 1998 and 2003, and demonstrates that high-profile government inquiries in both countries were fundamentally wrong about what happened before the war.

Full Product Details

9780801448294

Table of Contents

Reviews

<p> Does intelligence shape policy, or do policy and politics shape intelligence? Joshua Rovner's careful theorizing and in-depth historical studies provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the complex relationships among intelligence, policy, and politics. Fixing the Facts is essential reading for theorists, historians, and the intelligence and policy communities. -Jack S. Levy, Board of Governors' Professor, Rutgers University

<p> Does intelligence shape policy, or do policy and politics shape intelligence? Joshua Rovner's careful theorizing and in-depth historical studies provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the complex relationships among intelligence, policy, and politics. Fixing the Facts is essential reading for theorists, historians, and the intelligence and policy communities. Jack S. Levy, Board of Governors' Professor, Rutgers University

Author Information

Joshua Rovner is the John Goodwin Tower Professor of International Politics and National Security at Southern Methodist University, where he also serves as Director of Studies at the Tower Center for Political Studies.

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