Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security

Tom Fingar offers readers an inside look into the role of intelligence analysts and how he used his experience, the shortfalls of the Iraq WMD NIE, and his new position to improve analytical performance across the intelligence community. Fingar argues that analysts are needed to provide context, assess implications, and anticipate how events will unfold in order to reduce uncertainty and enable policymakers to avoid mistakes. He believes analysts should spend more time then they do on opportunity analysis so decisionmakers can change or reinforce the trajectory of events. As DDNI/A, his number one priority was to restore confidence in the intelligence community, starting with national estimates and the president's daily briefing. This led to the development of common analytic tradecraft standards for the entire intelligence community which were codified into intelligence community directives and incorporated into training and education efforts. The author believes the intelligence community must overcome several challenges, including increased expectations and data overload.

Excellent analysis with a very concise writing style. This book doesn't create suspense it gets to the heart of the issues quickly. His sources and references make it a must read. Very factual in his approach.

Dr. Fingar's book paints a broad but trenchant picture of how the Intelligence Community (IC) works and its roles and responsibilities in the American national security enterprise. The author's insights and stories -gained from years of experience as a senior analyst at the State Department, and most recently as DNIC- make this book a highly engrossing read.This should be required reading for all seasoned intelligence analysts and senior policymakers in Washington, but I would also strongly recommend it to curious students interested in the intelligence field.

Came as described and fast shipping

Fingar does an excellent job of outlining the work and mission of intelligence analysts. He also gives the reader a much better understanding of the flawed intelligence assessments that facilitated the launch of the U.S.-led Iraq War in 2003.That being said, I do quite strongly disagree with Fingar's assertion that the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's Nuclear Program "got it right," especially when compared to the 2002 NIE on Iraq's WMD program. While I do believe that the tradecraft from the 2002 to the 2007 NIE significantly improved, I still believe that the intelligence authors of the 2007 NIE were similarly vulnerable and perhaps impaired by the same pressures of the political "atmosphere" and sensitivity to past intelligence failures that plagued the 2002 NIE. Fingar completely fails to address these issues, but it seems apparent to me that these same vulnerabilities existed both in 2002 and 2007, but from essentially diametrically opposed directions.Whereas in 2002 Fingar argues that the intelligence community (IC) may have been affected by the "war fervor" in Washington, it is reasonable to conclude in 2007 that the IC was affected by war weariness, especially as the U.S. was in the bloody depths of insurgency in Iraq. The U.S. Congress, the American public and even the White House were in no mood for an intelligence estimate that could be viewed as supporting U.S. (or perhaps even Israeli) military action against Iran's nuclear program. Furthermore, in 2002 the IC was operating in the shadow of the catastrophic September 11 attacks and the failure to detect the scope of Iraq's WMD program before 1991. This not surprisingly led to a tendency to overhype the WMD threat in Iraq. In 2007, in comparison, the IC was seeking to overcome the debacle of the 2002 Iraq WMD intelligence, and in my view, the IC not surprisingly downplayed the intentions and capabilities of the Iranian regime acquiring a nuclear weapon. Could the IC really have dug itself "out of the very deep hole created by the Iraq WMD estimate" if it had come to a more alarmist conclusion on Iran's nuclear weapons program?

Descriptive and a good source of tradecraft wisdom.

About as good as you can get in the subject area for today. A useful analysis doctrine and apllicatble for humanitarian and UN Operations as much as academia.