Some noteworthy new books on intelligence policy, reform and history include these.
Former CIA analyst and outspoken CIA critic Melvin A. Goodman decries “The Decline and Fall of the CIA” in his new book “Failure of Intelligence” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008).
UCLA professor Amy Zegart examines pre-9/11 intelligence failures and their implications for intelligence reform in “Spying Blind” (Princeton, 2007).
Journalist Jefferson Morley traces “the hidden history of the CIA” through the career of Winston Scott, the CIA station chief in Mexico City from 1956 to 1969, in “Our Man in Mexico” (Univ. Press of Kansas, 2008).
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.