Missing the Wake-up Call: Why Intelligence Failures Rarely Inspire Improved Performance

After major intelligence failures it is often asked why intelligence and security officials failed to heed the many ‘wake-up calls’ that had been provided by earlier failures and surprises. This article addresses this question by examining intelligence failures as ‘focusing events’, which is a concept used in the literature on government policy making to explain how disasters and crises can stimulate policy change and help organizations and decision-makers learn. It argues that in order for an intelligence failure such as a major terrorist attack to inspire improved intelligence performance – to be a true wake-up call – that failure must not only act as a focusing event to bring more attention to the threat, but it must also lead to increased intelligence collection and greater receptivity toward intelligence on the part of decision-makers.     

Connecting Intelligence and Theory: Intelligence Liaison and International Relations

Intelligence liaison increased exponentially during the so-called ‘War on Terror’. Today it continues as the most significant dimension of intelligence, including impacting on accountability and oversight considerations. Nevertheless, the intelligence liaison phenomenon remains largely under-studied and substantially under-theorized. In this article, preliminary suggestions are offered concerning how this dearth of theory can be addressed. Firstly, the relevance of international relations theory and other bodies of theory, together with significant approaches concerning how international relations – extending to how intelligence and intelligence-related phenomena (such as, in this article, intelligence co-operation) – can be studied, are explored. These theories, and equally, approaches, are arguably most appropriate when deployed in an arrangement of ‘complex co-existence plurality’ across the different interrelated levels of experience and analysis, and they offer more effective explanations when intelligence liaison is disaggregated into at least eight systemic attributes or variables. More broadly, the suggestion that international relations theory, and indeed theory generally, is ‘irrelevant’ to intelligence studies is simultaneously challenged.     

The Church Committee Investigation of 1975 and the Evolution of Modern Intelligence Accountability

Since 1975, lawmakers have displayed four responses to the call for greater intelligence accountability on Capitol Hill. Some have taken the approach of ‘ostriches’, content to bury their heads in the sand and continue the earlier era of trust when members of Congress deferred to the decisions of the executive branch within the domains of intelligence. Others – indeed, a majority – have chosen to become unalloyed boosters for intelligence –‘ cheerleaders’ who view their job primarily as one of explaining the value of intelligence to the American people and supporting intelligence missions with robust funding and encouragement. Taking the opposite approach, another set of lawmakers – the ‘lemon-suckers’ – have consistently found fault with America's attempts to spy on adversaries or overthrow regimes that fail to accommodate US interests. Finally, some lawmakers have been ‘guardians’, striking a balance between serving as partners of the intelligence agencies on Capitol Hill and, through a persistent examination of budgets and operations, demanding competence and law-abiding behavior from these agencies. The guardian model fits best into the framework of democratic theory.     

Libra rising: Hitler,astrology and British intelligence, 1940–43 1

During the Second World War Nazi Germany presented British intelligence with two intellectual challenges: to acquire its tactical‘secrets’ and to comprehend the strategic ‘mysteries’ of its commanding elite. The former were hidden, but knowable through the miracles of Ultra. The latter – Hitler's strategic intentions – were by contrast virtually impenetrable. Consequently, between 1940 and 1943 British intelligence used the talents of an astrologer, Louis de Wohl, who claimed – wrongly – that Hitler's strategic plans were astrologically inspired. However, as de Wohl's star began to wane he was talent-spotted by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which employed him to disseminate black propaganda. He consequently travelled to the United States where, in tandem with British Security Co-ordination, he undermined American confidence in the invincibility of Hitler through astrological prognostications. This article aims to demonstrate that although Britain had unprecedented access to Germany's tactical ‘secrets’, the ‘mysteries’ of Hitler's strategic mind-set remained just that.     

Cold War Pioneers in Combined Intelligence and Analysis

From its inception in 1947 until the late 1970s the primary missions of the United States Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) involved maintaining a presence in East Germany for confidence building measures and reporting on items related to indicators and warnings of hostilities initiated by the Soviet Army. While not abandoning its traditional missions, the unit underwent a major transformation in the early 1980s and became the first Humint integrated collection, analysis and production center. Through a combination of factors, USMLM was able to link targeting, single-source collection and analysis while providing insights in a wide range of areas, from nuclear weapons, troop morale, equipment production, technical data, health and ethnic issues and literacy. Most significantly, USMLM confirmed severely reduced manning levels in GSFG combat arms units.

‘Intelligence is best done by a minimum number of men and women of the greatest possible ability.’ (R.V. Jones, the ‘father’ of modern scientific and technical intelligence)     

Introducing Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT)

Abstract

We introduce the latest member of the intelligence family. Joining IMINT, HUMINT, SIGINT and others is ‘SOCMINT’ – social media intelligence. In an age of ubiquitous social media it is the responsibility of the security community to admit SOCMINT into the national intelligence framework, but only when two important tests are passed. First, that it rests on solid methodological bedrock of collection, evidence, verification, understanding and application. Second, that the moral hazard it entails can be legitimately managed. This article offers a framework for how this can be done.     

Eberstadt,Dulles and NSC 50: The Impetus for CIA Evolution through 1953

Despite outward appearances, the CIA's evolution between 1945 and 1953 was influenced by two objective investigations – the Eberstadt Task Force and Dulles Commission – and was accelerated, but not instigated, by the shock of the Korean War. The role of these two investigations, which ultimately resulted in NSC 50 and the establishment of the CIA as a viable member of the US intelligence community, has been overlooked in recent literature. While these panels played a critical role in shaping the CIA's organization during this period, the Truman administration never achieved its goal of establishing a truly ‘central’ intelligence organization. This article examines the formation of the CIA, discusses both reports, national policy changes enacted in response, and relevance to the US intelligence community's current operations.     

Big Data and Strategic Intelligence

This article examines the intersection of Big Data and strategic intelligence from a theoretical-conceptual viewpoint. Adopting Popperian refutation as a starting point, it approaches methodological issues surrounding the incorporation of Big Data into the intelligence cycle, and argues that Big Data analytics is best used to discern long-term developments, generate intelligence hypotheses, and adduce refuting facts. The article then briefly examines the use of Big Data via social media, an increasingly fertile platform for intelligence analysis. Finally, the article argues that despite its potential in filling our epistemic gaps, Big Data should continue to complement traditional subject-matter expertise, supported by game theory, as part of a tripartite analytical framework for strategic intelligence consisting of ‘subtext’, ‘context’ and ‘metatext’. In this respect, Big Data may well become the midwife for more open modes of intelligence management and, ultimately, a more open society.     

Reflections on Technology and Intelligence Systems

Abstract

The impact of individual technological innovations on intelligence operations is often discussed, but the influence of technological change per se on intelligence systems remains less well understood. The historical literature on this topic is uneven – filled with detailed narratives on certain aspects, but also with surprisingly little attention to larger trends and their meaning. This is significant for two reasons. First, it means we have an incomplete understanding of what happened in the past, particularly for the ‘analog revolution’ in intelligence in the twentieth century. Second, it leaves us with few clues for understanding another wave of technological change washing over the intelligence profession at this time (a ‘digital revolution’). Looking at the second revolution in the light of the first can give us important clues to what to watch for in coming years.     

Orientalism and Intelligence Analysis: Deconstructing Anglo-American Notions of the ‘Arab’

Despite revived notions of a ‘cultural divide’ between East and West, Edward's Said's ‘Orientalism’ has received little attention from scholars of intelligence and diplomacy. This article brings to light for the first time a number of recently declassified documents of a different nature to usual assessments produced by Anglo-American analytic bodies: those focussed primarily on the issue of ‘national character’. Using and critiquing Said's thesis of Western ‘Orientalism’ it reveals some critical and enduring conceptualizations articulated by the diplomatic and intelligence community about Arab culture such as the role of Islam, rhetoric, political motivation and notions of ‘honour’. Such a critical approach demonstrates how diplomatic and intelligence history can also be a history of culture, ideas and institutional mentalité.     

An historical theory of intelligence

This article consists of three parts. First, ‘The past’ defines physical and verbal intelligence and maintains that intelligence, after centuries of insignificance, rose to prominence in modern times as a consequence of the increase in intelligence targets and the growth of verbal intelligence. Second, ‘The present’ explains that the function of intelligence is to optimize resources, that it is but an auxiliary element in war, and that it is necessary to the defense but is only contingent to the offense. Third, ‘The future’ articulates intelligence's two perpetual insoluble problems: foretelling everything and getting leaders to accept information that they do not like.     

US intelligence and communist plots in postwar France

In 1946, as the cold war deepened and American officials grew alarmed by the prospect of a communist-dominated France, US intelligence analysts began to report rumors of mysterious ‘parachutages’ of unidentified containers over the French countryside. Alongside equally sensational stories about the resurrection of international brigades and discoveries of hidden arms caches, these reports seemed to provide definitive evidence for widely held beliefs about communist intentions to seize power. This article investigates these claims and reveals the influence of a transnational network of informants hoping to stoke fears of revolutionary activity in order to encourage US involvement in postwar France.     

Organizational Culture and US Intelligence Affairs

Both US intelligence officials and intelligence studies scholars claim that ‘organizational culture’ is a cause of ‘intelligence failure’ and the proper locus of post-9/11 intelligence reform efforts. This essay uses a postmodern perspective to demonstrate how the dominant discourse of ‘organizational culture’ shapes stakeholders' understandings of accountability and what constitutes necessary, correct, or effective intelligence reform. By exploring institutional struggles over the meanings of ‘culture’ and ‘accountability’, this essay calls for reconsideration of the ways US intelligence officials and intelligence studies scholars talk about ‘organizational culture’ vis-à-vis post-9/11 intelligence reform.     

Operation ‘Surgeon’ and Britain's post-war exploitation of Nazi German aeronautics

After 1945, Allied acquisition of intelligence on Nazi Germany's wartime aeronautical innovations became one of the most important immediate post-war aims. From July 1945 to July 1947, Operation ‘Surgeon’ became the focus of British efforts to exploit Nazi aeronautical advances. The objectives of the operation were the evacuation of state-of-the-art equipment from aeronautical research institutes and the recruitment of high-grade aviation experts for postwar work in Britain. This article analyzes the conduct and results of Operation ‘Surgeon’. The limited literature on this topic has fuelled a popular orthodoxy which holds that the UK intelligence effort and policies to recruit German defence scientists were classic examples of the ‘British disease’, or a more general inability to exploit a technological opportunity that was harnessed so effectively by the other victorious Allies. Drawing on the experience of Operation ‘Surgeon’, the article challenges this orthodoxy that has dominated the historiography of Britain's intellectual reparations from the Third Reich.     

Shadowing ‘the exceptional’ behind the ‘ordinary’: mapping a network of intelligence laundering

ABSTRACT

Under the imperative of ‘prevention’, the process of information production for investigatory purposes forms a crossover between intelligence gathering and law enforcement. Digital surveillance programmes collect personal data prior to any probable cause of suspicion, whereas law enforcement activities are concerned with collecting evidence of crimes after the event. When future looking preventative approaches to the prosecution of crimes are forced into the linear, temporal narrative by which criminal investigations unfold, a tension emerges. The article demonstrates the ultimate incompatibility between ‘out of the ordinary’ intelligence activities and ‘ordinary’ criminal investigations by unearthing the procedural character behind evidence laundering.     

Intelligence,crises and security: Lessons from history?

The scholarly study of intelligence has grown steadily into what is now a distinct sub-field of history and political science. Recent events – notably jihadist attacks on the US, Spain and the UK and the war on Iraq and its aftermath – have generated debate and controversy about the use and representation of intelligence. A plethora of official inquiries have fuelled debates into the ‘intelligence failures’ involved. This essay explores how lessons might be learned from the history of intelligence for contemporary debates and controversies. An overview of the issues includes discussion of how different approaches are apparent between American and British perspectives. Challenges and opportunities for applying lessons from the past are explored and a case is made for greater engagement between academia and officialdom.     

Reading the Riot Act: The Schlesinger Report, 1971

The difficulty of satisfying competing needs of both national and sub-national officials and commanders for intelligence support capabilities that are too sensitive and expensive to duplicate for both sets of requirements emerged with the growth of industrial-scale imagery and signals intelligence assets and production during the Cold War. The literature of intelligence history and intelligence studies covers the symptoms of this problem, but says less a rigorous and well-documented nature on its causes. Thanks to recent declassifications in the United States, however, we can now read key documents in an American attempt to understand and deal with the dilemma. A study prepared for President Richard Nixon in 1971 and now dubbed the ‘Schlesinger Report’ has been published virtually intact by the US Department of State. In addition, the Central Intelligence Agency has released two official histories which indirectly have added significant detail to the story. With these new releases, it is now possible to explain the genesis of the Report and chart its effects through the remainder of President Nixon's presidency. The Schlesinger Report marked a watershed for the intelligence community, helping the Nixon Administration to conceive and enact reforms that were both consequential in themselves and presaged the findings of later surveys and inquiries. A better understanding of the Report's background, text, and results can shed light not only the policymaking process in the Nixon Administration but also the trajectory of the intelligence community – and of foreign intelligence establishments that may, in some respects, be following in its path.     

Eyes of the underground: Jewish insurgent intelligence in Palestine, 1945–47

This article represents an attempt to fill in some gaps in the historiography of Israeli ingelligence. It describes the origins and development of Jewish insurgent intelligence organizations and their operations against the British in Palestine, 1945–47. The essay presents a picture of rudimentary but effective intelligence serivces that made a significant, if not decisive, contribution to the armed struggle against the Briitsh. It examines critically some mysteries and myths surrounding Jewish intelligence in that conflict. By examining insurgent intelligence from the ‘bottom up’ ‐ against a government ‐ the article suggests there is a whole new ‘missing dimension’ of intelligence studies that bears scholarly attention.     

What's the Harm? The Ethics of Intelligence Collection

Abstract

As the professional practice of intelligence collection adapts to the changing environment and new threats of the twenty-first century, many academic experts and intelligence professionals call for a coherent ethical framework that outlines exactly when, by what means and to what ends intelligence is justified. Reports of abuse at detention centres such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the ever increasing use of technological surveillance, and the increased attention on the use of torture for intelligence collection purposes have all highlighted a need to make an explicit statement about what is and what is not permissible intelligence practice. In this article an ethical framework will be established which will outline under what circumstances the use of different intelligence collection activities would be permissible. This ethical framework will first underline what it is about intelligence collection that is ‘harmful’ and, therefore, should be prohibited under normal circumstances. The ethical framework then outlines a set of ‘just intelligence principles’, based on the just war tradition, which delineate when the harm caused can be justified. As a result, this article outlines a systemic ethical framework that makes it possible to understand when intelligence collection is prohibited and when it is permissible.     

Creating a commonwealth intelligence culture: the view from Central Africa 1945–1965

This article examines attempts by the British intelligence community to improve the security arrangements of members of both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Commonwealth in the post-war era. The process was regarded not only as a means of countering Communist subversion and protecting Britain's key relationship with the United States, but also as a way of entrenching British influence, particularly in countries nearing independence. The result of this process was a complex network of intelligence contacts reaching across the Commonwealth. Viewing this network from the perspective of the Federal Intelligence and Security Bureau (FISB), the intelligence organization of the Central African Federation, the article suggests that it offered both opportunities and dangers. It provided a potential channel for covert diplomacy. Yet it also threatened to undermine the credibility of Commonwealth intelligence chiefs whose links with the United Kingdom were perceived as being excessively close.