ABSTRACT
A number of conditions define the setting in which intelligence operates and shape how intelligence is practiced at any given time in a state's history. The parochial views of intelligence held by other components of the intelligence-policy community reinforced the trends. Complicating any effort is the structure of the US intelligence community itself and its relationship to the US political system. The government's perception of the context in which it operates is another variable shaping the intelligence community. The nature of the regime is the last, and perhaps most important, variable in explaining the different ways in which intelligence is practiced and understood from state to state. Letting counterintelligence and covert action capabilities lapse may not prove fatal, given the advantages the United States enjoys today with respect to the world's other powers. America's leaders can ill afford to be reluctant supporters of a full-service intelligence capability.
