Course Overview
To quote a cliche: “There are operational successes and there are intelligence failures.” Unfair perhaps, yet the Intelligence Community has been criticized for not preventing the catastrophic events of 9/11. Repercussions of 9/11 have required the Intelligence Community to assess itself and refocus its ability to support Homeland Security. Intelligence agencies have been forced to review some of the basic tenets of the profession and develop new techniques, tactics and procedures to combat the new threats to the security and stability of the United States.
The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the ensuing War on Terror have focused the nation’s attention on homeland security. This course examines key questions and issues facing the U.S. intelligence community and its role in homeland security and homeland defense. Course reference materials will provide an overview of diverse intelligence disciplines and how the intelligence community operates. Course emphasis will be on issues affecting policy, oversight, and intelligence support to homeland defense/security and national decision-making. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 is presented and the course is shaped to focus on homeland intelligence support issues at the State / Local / Tribal levels. [Updated 2011]
Here are a sample of suggested books for those interested in additional reading related to the topic of Intelligence.
- Lowenthal, Mark M., Intelligence from Secrets to Policy. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press 2009
- Sims, Jennifer., Transforming Intelligence. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005.
- Zegart, Amy B., Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI and the Origins of 9/11. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007.
- Johnson, Loch K., Wirtz, James J., Intelligence: The Secret World of Spies: An Anthology. Oxford University Press (USA), 2010.