Overview

An in-depth analysis of why COVID-19 warnings failed and how to avert the next disaster Epidemiologists and national security agencies warned for years about the potential for a deadly pandemic, but in the end global surveillance and warning systems were not enough to avert the COVID-19 disaster. In The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure, Erik J. Dahl demonstrates that understanding how intelligence warnings work—and how they fail—shows why the years of predictions were not enough. In the first in-depth analysis of the topic, Dahl examines the roles that both traditional intelligence services and medical intelligence and surveillance systems play in providing advance warning against public health threats—and how these systems must be improved for the future. For intelligence to effectively mitigate threats, specific, tactical-level warnings must be collected and shared in real time with receptive decision makers who will take appropriate action. Dahl shows how a combination of late and insufficient warnings about COVID-19, the Trump administration’s political aversion to scientific advice, and decentralized public health systems all exacerbated the pandemic in the United States. Dahl’s analysis draws parallels to other warning failures that preceded major catastrophes from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, placing current events in context. The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure is a wake-up call for the United States and the international community to improve their national security, medical, and public health intelligence systems and capabilities.

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9781647123055

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Reviews

Overall, Erik Dahl’s book is a most worthy and enjoyable read. It adds to the important academic and policy literature regarding debates on the COVID-19 pandemic and its origins, as well as its profound intelligence failure. * The Cipher Brief * Dahl has strengthened our understanding of the costly intelligence failures that contributed to so much preventable death and illness from COVID-19 and identifies concrete ways to mitigate future failures when new threats emerge in infectious diseases and elsewhere. * Intelligence & National Security * The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure presents an empirically rich and compelling contribution to our understanding of how the intelligence community performed in the lead-up to the pandemic and the critical need for reform. * Political Science Quarterly *

Overall, Erik Dahl’s book is a most worthy and enjoyable read. It adds to the important academic and policy literature regarding debates on the COVID-19 pandemic and its origins, as well as its profound intelligence failure. * The Cipher Brief *

Author Information

Erik J. Dahl is an associate professor in the National Security Affairs Department and a faculty member of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the US Naval Postgraduate School. He is the author of Intelligence and Surprise Attack: Failure and Success from Pearl Harbor to 9/11 and Beyond (Georgetown University Press, 2013).

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