The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies
Written by Michael V. Hayden
Narrated by Michael V. Hayden
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
A blistering critique of the forces threatening the American intelligence community, beginning with the President of the United States himself, in a time when that community's work has never been harder or more important
In the face of a President who lobs accusations without facts, evidence, or logic, truth tellers are under attack. Meanwhile, the world order is teetering on the brink. North Korea is on the verge of having a nuclear weapon that could reach all of the United States, Russians have mastered a new form of information warfare that undercuts democracy, and the role of China in the global community remains unclear. There will always be value to experience and expertise, devotion to facts, humility in the face of complexity, and a respect for ideas, but in this moment they seem more important, and more endangered, than they've ever been. American Intelligence—the ultimate truth teller—has a responsibility in a post-truth world beyond merely warning of external dangers, and in The Assault on Intelligence, General Michael Hayden takes up that urgent work with profound passion, insight and authority.
It is a sobering vision. The American intelligence community is more at risk than is commonly understood, for every good reason. Civil war or societal collapse is not necessarily imminent or inevitable, but our democracy's core structures, processes, and attitudes are under great stress. Many of the premises on which we have based our understanding of governance are now challenged, eroded, or simply gone. And we have a President in office who responds to overwhelming evidence from the intelligence community that the Russians are, by all acceptable standards of cyber conflict, in a state of outright war against us, not by leading a strong response, but by shooting the messenger.
There are fundamental changes afoot in the world and in this country. The Assault on Intelligence shows us what they are, reveals how crippled we've become in our capacity to address them, and points toward a series of effective responses. Because when we lose our intelligence, literally and figuratively, democracy dies.
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Reviews for The Assault on Intelligence
62 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Outstanding observation of the Post-Truth world that we live in. Highly recommend for military and intelligence community professionals.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A must-read that helps one understand what is most important today.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enlightening, thoughtful, and should be required reading for anyone who cares about America.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The author Michael V. Hayden brings a great deal of personal experience as a former head of the CIA and NSA to this discussion on the state of our intelligence today. He discusses how two important factors are affecting the gathering and use of intelligence, especially in the age of Trump. The first important concern is the lack of importance given to the "truth" based on facts and not "truth" based on feelings, a wish for things to be a certain way or simply just lying - the preference to the Trump White House and its followers. He discusses how this lack of enthusiasm for fact based truths are affecting our intelligence collection and our standing in the world. He goes on to discuss how Russia interference in our elections, both past and in the future, benefits from this lack of belief in facts and resulting distrust of competent intelligence gathering. We will see what happens when Mueller ends his search for the truth but regardless, this is an important look at where we are today as well as how our intelligence organizations work to try to find the truths based on objective facts. Our democracy and freedom depends on this process so we as citizens need to understood and support these entities.
3 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The role of the intelligence community is to inform the President of potential and actual threats to the United States. There needs to be trust, respect, and honesty between any given president and the intelligence community. The intelligence community and the President's team must function seamlessly during the transition between administrations. The intelligence community in many ways represents the cadre career professionals that remain in place while Presidents and their administrators change every 4 to 8 years. As a group the intelligence community take an international -ist view of the world.
After explaining this in detail, Hayden examines how the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations have worked with the intelligence community. Hayden is an equal opportunity critic. Each president is subjected a withering attack on the decisions they made. His arguments changed my opinion of effective the Obama administration foreign policy was.
The majority of the book is dedicated to the deconstruction of the Trump administration. Hayden starts with Trump's candidacy and walks the reader through his current actions as President in detail.
I think the book does a good job of examining the contrasting needs of the intelligence community with the peculiar personalities of the various office holders. In a lot of ways Hayden portrays the intelligence community as the secret heroes of the nation. He demonstrates how they are the whipping boys subject to each President's view , and uses of the truth the community presents to them. Overall this is a scary book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5It's not difficult to take the moral high-ground or criticise Donald Trump - possibly the least courageous thing you can do. Admitting mistakes or writing about all the "unsavoury" (I can't remember the exact word the author used for these "necessary" operations) things CIA does around the world would be brave but the author is not.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another one of the pillars of our democray and one more example of how Trump is going to try and wreck our 250 year Republic. Pretty good book and easy to read.