Abram Shulsky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abram Shulsky is a noted U.S. government intelligence analyst, serving most recently as Director of the Office of Special Plans, heading its Iranian Directorate.
Contents |
[edit] Background
Shulsky earned his doctorate University of Chicago in 1972, and was a student of German-born Jewish political philosopher Leo Strauss.
Shulsky was the director of the Office of Special Plans or OSP, created by Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 as an intelligence group apart from the CIA. Shulsky reported to Paul Wolfowitz. In 2006 he has been associated with the Iranian Directorate. In the 1980s Shulsky served on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee under Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle.
[edit] Affiliations
He has associated with the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC which formulated neoconservative political strategy, strongly influencing The Bush administration particularly in shaping US policy toward Iraq.
[edit] Worldview
Shulsky wrote, in a book coauthored with the American Enterprise Institute's Gary J. Schmitt, called Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence that "truth is not the goal" of intelligence operations, but "victory", which coincides with a Straussian view of the use and handling of knowledge.
In a 1999 paper, “Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence,” also co-authored Schmitt, Shulsky writes that “Strauss's view certainly alerts one to the possibility that political life may be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception.”[1]
[edit] Publications by Abram Shulsky
- The United States and Asia: Toward a New U.S. Strategy and Force Posture, Project Air Force Report with Zalmay Khalilzad and David T. Orletsky (Rand Corporation, 2001).
- Deterrence Theory and Chinese Behavior (Rand, 2000).
- Patterns in China's Use of Force: Evidence from History and Doctrinal Writings with Mark Burles (Rand, 2000).
- The US and a Rising China: Strategies and Military Implications with Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Daniel L. Byman, Roger Cliff, David T. Orletsky, David Shlapak, and Ashley J. Tellis (Rand, 1999).
- The "Virtual Corporation" and Army Organization with Francis Fukuyama (Rand Corporation, 1997).
- Preparing the U.S. Air Force for Military Operations Other Than War, Rand Corporation, 1997, with Vick Alan and John Stillion
- Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence (1991), with Gary J. Schmitt.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Daniel Schulman (October 6, 2006). Meet the "Whack Iran" Lobby. Mother Jones.
