‘Intelligence Culture’: The Missing Link in the Study of Intelligence Failures.

The present body of literature on the causes for intelligence failures has not shown so far the impact of cultural factors neither on traits in data collection, nor on the quality of information processing. Consequently, the literature lacks convincing explanations why certain organizations are more likely to fall victim to specific obstacles while others less so. In order to bridge this gap in the theory of intelligence failures, the suggested paper will: (a) Introduce the concept of ‘intelligence culture’ to explain the variance in the predisposition to analytical pathologies across various intelligence organizations, and (b) Illuminate the main cultural traits of the CIA, the Soviet/Russian Intelligence Services and Israel's Military Intelligence (AMAN), in order to present their impact on the way specific obstacles hamper high quality information acquisition and processing and lead to intelligence failures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]