The battle for intelligence : how a new understanding of intelligence illuminates victory and defeat in World War II
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Thesis (M.A.)--Georgetown University, 2011.; Includes bibliographical references.; Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. Does intelligence make a difference in war? Two World War II battles provide testing grounds for answering this question. Allied intelligence predicted enemy attacks at both Midway and Crete with uncanny accuracy, but the first battle ended in an Allied victory, while the second finished with crushing defeat. A new theory of intelligence called "Decision Advantage," illuminates how the success of intelligence helped facilitate victory at Midway and how its dysfunction contributed to the defeat at Crete. This view stands in contrast to that of some military and intelligence scholars who argue that intelligence has little impact on battle. This paper uses the battles of Midway and Crete to test the power of Sims's theory of intelligence. By the theory's standards, intelligence in the case of victory outperformed intelligence in the case of defeat, suggesting these cases uphold the explanatory power of the theory. Further research, however, could enhance the theory's prescriptive power.
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http://hdl.handle.net/10822/553559Date Published
2011Type
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Georgetown University
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