Politics, Paradigms, and Intelligence Failures: Why So Few Predicted the Collapse of the Soviet Union

Washington's failure to foresee the collapse of its superpower rival ranks high in the pantheon of predictive failures. Drawing on declassified documents, interviews, and contemporaneous literature, this book analyses this predictive failure at the paradigmatic, foreign policy, and intelligence levels.

Author: Ofira Seliktar
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 09/30/2004
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.52h x 6.46w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9780765614650

About the Author
Ofira Seliktar earned a bachelor's degree in political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and completed her doctorate in political science at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow. She teaches at Gratz College and Temple University and is the author of several books and many articles on the Middle East and predictive failures in intelligence. Failing the Crystal Ball Test: The Carter Administration and the Fundamentalist Revolution in Iran (2000) explores the American failure to predict the Khomeini revolution. Seliktar is currently working on a study of the politics of prediction and the war in Iraq.