Military Intelligence Blunders and Coverups

About this book

The events of 9/11 and the war on terrorism and the daily crises in the Israeli-Palestinian conflictbehind them lie some of the most shocking failures and misuse of military intelligence in history. In this updated edition of Colonel Hughes-Wilsons controversial book the long-serving professional military intelligence officer explores and exposes the often disastrous misunderstanding and mishandling of crucial intelligence by politicians and seasoned generals in recent times. Modern military history records major catastrophes in the air at sea and on the battlefield that originate in lapses of military judgmentfrom the crushing defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo to Stalins Operation Barbarossa to Yom Kippur. The reason frequently lies in the failure of the decision makers in power to understand and appreciate fully intelligence information. So it was that American bureaucratic bungling and interservice rivalries collaborated with the Japanese in their devastating attack on Pearl Harbordespite the fact that the U.S. was monitoring Japans top-secret radio traffic. So too the Viet Congs Tet Offensive of 1968 took the worlds most technologically advanced army completely by surprise. This book discloses the lapses errors miscalculations and underestimations of military intelligence that have shaped our wars and defined our times.