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Intelligence Innovation: Sputnik, the Soviet Threat, and Innovation in the US Intelligence Community

2018; Springer International Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-319-75232-7_3

1613-5113

Jon Schmid,

Twentieth Century Scientific Developments

It is well-documented that the 1957 launch of Sputnik I initiated a flurry of US government activity aimed at reducing a perceived shortfall in US scientific, technological, and military capacity vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Less well known, however, is that Sputnik’s launch immediately preceded a period of rapid organizational and technological innovation within the US intelligence community. This article investigates the contribution of the Sputnik scare to this innovation. In particular, this article applies Barry Posen’s model of innovation to the historical case of post-Sputnik innovation in the US intelligence community. I find the historiographic and documentary record to indicate that Posen’s theory of innovation has substantial explanatory power in the empirical context examined here. In particular, the US intelligence services’ improved capacity to collect and analyze information regarding Soviet rocket and missile programs appears to have been initiated by a process of external auditing motivated by an increase in the perceived level of threat posed by the USSR.