James Igoe Walsh takes the page 99 test

Taking Ford Maddox Ford’s suggestion to heart (“Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you”), The Page 99 Test asks authors to focus in on this particular page.

Recently Kelly Oliver took the test and now James Igoe Walsh, author of The International Politics of Intelligence Sharing explains what page 99 of his book reveals about the larger arguments he is making regarding the complexities of governments working together to obtain more reliable intelligence.

Here is an excerpt from Walsh’s piece on The Page 99 Test:

“My” page 99 starts out with a detailed summary of the complaints that political leaders in the European Union have made about their counterparts’ willingness to share intelligence…. It is an example, though, of the key barrier to effective intelligence sharing, which is that one state cannot reliably insure that another is living up to promises to share fully and honestly.

It begins to suggest [the] solution is closer European integration of intelligence activities. That is, these countries would be better off if they applied some of the institutions they have developed to govern trade or money to intelligence sharing. A key benefit these institutions provide is the ability to monitor partners to determine if they are complying with their promises to share. You will have to keep reading, though, if you want to find out why this is unlikely to happen.