Strategic Restructuring of the U.S. Intelligence Community: A Civilian Intelligence Reserve

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen G. Swicker
Keyword(s):  
Intelligence Community ◽  
The U.S

The Troubled Inheritance: The National Security Agency and the Obama Administration

2010 ◽  
pp. 241-256
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Aid
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
National Security ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Coordinator ◽  
Signals Intelligence

This article discusses the National Security Agency under the Obama Administration. Upon his inauguration on January 20, 2009, Obama inherited from the Bush administration an intelligence community embroiled in political controversies. Of the sixteen agencies of the intelligence community, the National Security Agency (NSA) faced the greatest scrutiny from the new Obama administration and the Congress. NSA was the largest and the most powerful member of the U.S. intelligence community. Since its formation in 1952, NSA has managed and directed all U.S. government signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection. It is the collector and processor of communications intelligence (COMINT) and the primary processor of foreign instrumentation signals intelligence (FISINT). And since 1958, NSA has been the coordinator of the U.S. government's national electronics intelligence (ELINT) program. It has also the task of overseeing the security of the U.S. government's communications and data processing systems, and since the 1980s, NSA has managed the U.S. government's national operation security (OPSEC) program. In this article, the focus is on the challenges faced by the NSA during the Bush administration; the role played by the NSA during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the challenges faced by the Obama administration in confronting a series of thorny legal and policy issues relating to NSA's eavesdropping program.

The U.S. Intelligence Community: Foreign Policy and Domestic Activities

1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 356
Author(s):  
Patrick M. Morgan ◽  
Lyman B. Kirkpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Domestic Activities ◽  
The U.S

The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn't: Soviet Military Buildup in the 1970s—A Research Note

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Podvig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Military Buildup ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Exchange ◽  
The U.S

The Soviet strategic modernization program of the 1970s was one of the most consequential developments of the Cold War. Deployment of new intercontinental ballistic missiles and the dramatic increase in the number of strategic warheads in the Soviet arsenal created a sense of vulnerability in the United States that was, to a large degree, responsible for the U.S. military buildup of the late 1970s and early 1980s and the escalation of Cold War tensions during that period. U.S. assessments concluded that the Soviet Union was seeking to achieve a capability to fight and win a nuclear war. Estimates of missile accuracy and silo hardness provided by the U.S. intelligence community led many in the United States to conclude that the Soviet Union was building a strategic missile force capable of destroying most U.S. missiles in a counterforce strike and of surviving a subsequent nuclear exchange. Soviet archival documents that have recently become available demonstrate that this conclusion was wrong. The U.S. estimates substantially overestimated the accuracy of the Soviet Union's missiles and the degree of silo reinforcement. As the data demonstrate, the Soviet missile force did not have the capability to launch a successful first strike. Moreover, the data strongly suggest that the Soviet Union never attempted to acquire a first-strike capability, concentrating instead on strategies based on retaliation.

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