Without Warning: Threat Assessment, Intelligence, and Global Struggle

By Mikhail A. Alexseev

Book Overview

In the last century, competition among the global powers has relied heavily upon the concept of war threat assessment. However, the ways in which these powers define security have differed among them, leading in some instances to miscommunication, conflict, and even war. In Without Warning, accomplished scholar Mikhail Alexseev compares the intelligence priorities of principal decision makers in such various parts of the world as the Mongol Empire and Sung China (1206-1220), Great Britain and France (1783-1800), and the USA and the Soviet Union (1975-1991). In his analysis Alexseev reveals that while the leading powers see security primarily in military and economic terms, their challengers focus primarily on political vulnerabilities. As a result, Alexseev asserts, the world powers have consistently failed to detect or deter aggressive challenges. A sharp, deciphering look at the interactions among the major global players, Without Warning makes a crucial contribution to the study of international relations.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312175388
• ISBN13: 9780312175382
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A Challenging View of Intelligence Requirements

The author was a journalist in the Soviet Union before the wall came down and he subsequently went to study at Oxford and University of Washington. This book is based on his doctoral thesis.The basic premise of the book is that different political strategies result in widely differing intelligence strategies, depending on whether the country in question is a global leader or a challenger. Alexseev then argues this case using three case studies from the last thousand years: Mongols vs the Sung Empire; France vs Britain in the eighteenth century; and Russia vs the U.S. in the twentieth century.The author's thesis is very persuasive, and he has a sound grasp of history, as well as the advantage of looking at much of the material "from the other side" so to speak.The book would rate higher but for the fact the first two chapters are incredibly hard work. I almost put it down, which would have been a shame as the real value is in the later chapters.