ONE FIGHT,ONE TEAM: THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE,FRAGMENTATION AND INFORMATION

In its report published in 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the ‘9/11 Commission’) analyses the functioning of the Intelligence Community (ICo). It indicates that the ICo is both over‐fragmented and guilty of not sharing enough information. The Commission recommends that central control of the ICo needs to be strengthened and that more incentives for information‐sharing should be designed. This article takes a critical look at these two recommendations. Sharing information carries major risks and is therefore not something that can take place as a matter of course. Moreover, information has to be subject to a selection process before it can be shared. This selection cannot be measured objectively, so mistakes in the selection are unavoidable. Strengthening central control also poses risks: it engenders more battles over territory, it does not improve understanding of the capillaries of the organization – the capillaries being where the primary processes of information gathering, validation and assessment take place – and it involves the destruction of checks and balances. Fragmentation may even be functional since it leads to redundancy, itself a safeguard against the risk of misselecting relevant information.     

SELF-INTEREST,EQUITY, AND CRIME CONTROL: A GAME-THEORETIC ANALYSIS OF CRIMINAL DECISION MAKING

Employing the analytic technique of game theory, we attempt to answer questions about how individuals with different proclivities to use crime to accomplish ends, and different beliefs about society's fairness, are likely to respond to different incentives and disincentives that are derived from strain and neoclassical deterrence theories. Our analysis indicates that the crime control policies typically recommended by adherents of both theories are often logically invalid, given the premises upon which they are supposedly based. For example, our analysis suggests why punishment strategies like “three strikes and you're out” and “entitlement strategies” such as welfare and other short-term redistributive payment programs fail to deter crime. Finally, after including notions of equity with traditional rational choice assumptions, our analysis identifies a mix of theoretically derived strategies that may more effectively deter crime.     

The Liberian Centenary

As the republic of Liberia celebrated its centenary on the 26thJuly, the Liberian Minister was asked in May to address a jointmeeting, under the Chairmanship of Sir Drummond Shiels. Liberiaalways raises a number of important and delicate questions,so that we give a rather larger space than usual to discussion,and further comments by Mr. Lewis Smart, an engineer with extensiveknowledge of the subject.     

What Next： beijing After the Olympics

FEW will argue that the recently concluded beijing Games will stand as a great example in the annals of the Olympic movement. but beyond the obvious, concrete legacies represented by beijing’s entirely modernized, envy-inducing infrastructure, the true impact of the 2008 Olympics will take time to manifest itself as China continues its march forward.