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Uncovering Ways of War

U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918–1941

Thomas G Mahnken author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cornell University Press

Published:15th Oct '09

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Uncovering Ways of War cover

Intelligence operations face the challenging task of predicting the shape of future wars. This task is hindered by their limited ability to warn of peacetime foreign military innovation. Using formerly classified sources—in particular, the reports of military attachés and other diplomat-officers—Thomas G. Mahnken sheds light on the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence-gathering, tracing how America learned of military developments in Japan, Germany, and Great Britain in the period between the two world wars.

The interwar period witnessed both a considerable shift in the balance of power in Europe and Asia and the emergence of new ways of war, such as carrier aviation, amphibious operations, and combined-arms armored warfare. American attempts to follow these developments, Mahnken says, illustrate the problems that intelligence organizations face in their efforts to bridge the gulf between prewar expectations and wartime reality. He finds three reasons for intelligence's relative lack of success: intelligence agencies are more inclined to monitor established weapons systems than to search for new ones; their attention is more likely to focus on technology and doctrine already demonstrated in combat; and they have more success identifying innovation in areas their own country is testing.

Uncovering Ways of War substantially revises the perception of how American intelligence performed prior to World War II. Mahnken challenges the assumption that intelligence regarding foreign militaries had little influence on the development of U.S. weapons and doctrine. Finally, he explains the obstacles these agencies must still negotiate as they seek to understand foreign efforts to exploit the information revolution.

An important argument rendered with deftness and economy and rich in insights for those contemplating more recent failures of intelligence.

* Foreign Affairs *

Mahnken has illuminated a significant but neglected topic. His important book will interest students of interwar military history and will be required reading for intelligence historians.

* Journal of Military History *

Overall, the book is a useful, readable survey of an important aspect of the overlap of military and naval affairs, diplomacy, and intelligence.

* International History Review *

This book is an important contribution to the scholarship on intelligence and its role in determining how militaries plan for future wars.

* Virginia Quarterly Review *

This is an analytic study of American intelligence gathering about technological developments in Britain, Germany, and Japan, as well as what was—or wasn't—learned and the uses to which the information was put. In the process, the book discusses the American military attaché system, which, it appears, was the most extensive of any of the great powers, evaluates the overall effectiveness of the effort, and throws some light on a few surprising corners, such the obstacles created by the Neutrality Acts in terms of intelligence co-operation with Britain.

* NYMAS Newslett

ISBN: 9780801475740

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 16mm

Weight: 454g

208 pages