For decades now “The U.S. Intelligence Community” by Jeffrey T. Richelson has been the best one-volume account of the structure and operation of the far-flung U.S. intelligence bureaucracy. The fifth edition has just been published.
When I encounter an unfamiliar intelligence term, an odd acronym or a reference to an obscure office somewhere in the bowels of U.S. intelligence, I find that Richelson’s book more often than not — more often than Google — provides the explanation and the needed background, typically with a footnote to an official source.
The latest edition includes new material on homeland security intelligence, detainee interrogation, and other post-9/11 developments.
“The U.S. Intelligence Community” by Jeffrey T. Richelson, 5th edition, is published by Westview Press.
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.