Abram Shulsky

Abram Shulsky is a neocon who served as the Director of the Office of Special Plans, the unit that produced the bogus intelligence used to sell the Iraq war. Presently he heads the Pentagon's Iranian Directorate (which operates out of the same office as the erstwhile OSP).

Background

Shulsky earned his doctorate University of Chicago in 1972, and was a student of political philosopher Leo Strauss. Shulsky started his career under two of the original neocon hawks, Daniel P. Moynihan and Henry "Scoop" Jackson.

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]

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.

Related Articles

• ^Daniel Schulman, Meet the "Whack Iran" Lobby, Mother Jones, 6 October 2006