A new theory of intelligence performance that speaks to contemporary debates about intelligence failures and US foreign policy in the Middle East

Why do states fail to anticipate revolutions, coups, or other seismic ruptures, despite having intelligence officers and diplomats embedded in societies on the brink of change? While scholars have long debated the causes of surprise, failure, and misperception, existing explanations tend to emphasize information overload, bureaucratic silos, or policy bias.

In Agents of Empire, Jeffrey G. Karam takes a different approach. He foregrounds the human factor: the cognitive, relational, and contextual elements that shape how individuals in the field observe, interpret, and report on political developments abroad. Focusing on the Middle East during the revolutionary upheavals of 1958, he investigates how US intelligence officers, diplomats, and policymakers understood, or misunderstood, critical political transformations in Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan. He argues that accuracy in political intelligence depends not only on institutional capabilities but also on the degree of openness and receptivity among both field officers and policymakers. He develops a theory of openness and receptivity to capture this dynamic.

At stake in this book is more than the accuracy of intelligence. What ultimately matters are how empires perceive disorder and political transformation, and how these perceptions shape the decisions that sustain, recalibrate, or unravel their power.