This book is an inquiry into the intelligence failures at the CIA that resulted in four critical strategic surprises experienced by the US over a fifty-year period which still play out today.

Milo Jones is Managing Director of a consulting firm and teaches geopolitics and strategy as a Visiting Professor at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain.Philippe Silberzahn is Professor of Strategy at EMLyon Business School in France and a Research Fellow at Ecole Polytechnique in France.

"The authors should be complimented for providing a fresh look at the functioning of the CIA as they analyze the commonalities underlying its numerous intelligence failures. The book touches upon some of the most profound issues that have divided the Directorate of Intelligence as it struggles to understand the often complex and confusing international realities with a special emphasis on the analytical tradition of Sherman Kent, the intellectually architect of the DI. It is a welcome addition to the literature on intelligence failures and a timely remainder of the difficulties that American intelligence faces in coping with the Arab Spring."