The assault on intelligence : American national security in an age of lies / Michael V. Hayden.

Why this? Why now? -- Whither America...and everyone else? -- The candidate and the campaign -- The transition -- The first hundred days (more or less) -- Getting on with it -- Trump, Russia, and truth -- The future of truth.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-280) and index.

"In the face of a President who lobs accusations without facts, evidence, or logic, truth tellers are under attack. Meanwhile, the world order is teetering on the brink. North Korea is on the verge of having a nuclear weapon that could reach the United States; Russians have mastered a new form of information warfare that undercuts democracy; and the role of China in the global community remains unclear. There will always be value to experience and expertise, devotion to facts, humility in the face of complexity, and a respect for ideas, but in this moment they seem both more important, and more endangered, than they've ever been. American intelligence--the ultimate truth teller--has a responsibility in a post-truth world beyond merely warning of external dangers, and in[this book], General Michael Hayden takes up that urgent work with profound passion, insight, and authority. It is a sobering vision. The American intelligence community is more at risk than is commonly understood, for every good reason. Civil war or societal collapse is not necessarily imminent or inevitable, but our democracy's core structures, processes, and attitudes are under great stress. Many of the premises on which we have based our understanding of governance are now challenged, eroded, or simply gone. And we have a President in office who responds to overwhelming evidence from the intelligence community that the Russians are, by all acceptable standards of cyber conflict, in a state of outright war against us, not by leading a strong response, but by shooting the messenger. There are fundamental changes afoot in the world and in this country. [This book] shows us what they are, reveals how crippled we've become in our capacity to address them, and points toward a series of effective responses. Because when we lose our intelligence, literally and figuratively, democracy dies."--Dust jacket.