Combating Proliferation: Strategic Intelligence and Security Policy - Softcover

Ellis, Jason D. D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801886260 ISBN 13: 9780801886263

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Jason D. Ellis, previously senior research professor at the National Defense University, is senior advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Geoffrey D. Kiefer is a researcher at the National Defense University's Center for Counterproliferation Research.

Review

"Ellis and Kiefer, professional U.S. government threat assessors, present an excellent, informative, stark, nonpolemical, and persuasive analysis of the challenges for the U.S. in its monumental task of combating proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)."

(Choice)

"Both college-level military and political science holdings will find this a key addition promoting understanding, debate and classroom discussions."

(Midwest Book Review)

About this edition

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0801886260
• ISBN 13: 9780801886263
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320