Integration of strategic and operational intelligence during the Peninsular war

Wellington is well known for his understanding of the importance of intelligence, but so far history has recorded that he presided over a one-man intelligence department, himself being the only analyst of what proved to be a massive quantity of raw information. New research highlighted in this article reveals that this has been an inaccurate interpretation. The British government also acted to establish a civilian network of correspondents and agents communicating with the British ambassadors to Spain and Portugal. Wellington's main priority was to integrate the ‘strategic intelligence’ collected by government agents with his own ‘operational intelligence’. Instead, analysis was conducted more by Wellington's subordinates in the field, applying their personal localized expertise to the information they received. In this way, an early and primitive form of the staff system later developed by the Prussians was created in the Peninsular War.     

The Next 100 Years? Reflections on the Future of Intelligence

Abstract

A growing interest in the history of intelligence might be a way to learn more about not only the past, but also the dynamics shaping the future of intelligence. Intelligence is an evolving activity and the twentieth-century experience must be regarded as a phase in an ongoing transformation of its institutions, methods and roles. At least six fundamental processes can be identified as relevant to this re-shaping of intelligence in long perspective; the decreasing hegemony of national intelligence, the rise of new fields of knowledge with intelligence relevance, the diminishing relative importance of exclusive sources and methods, the rise of new actors producing and providing intelligence, the loss of an intellectual monopoly in a competitive knowledge environment and finally an increasing demand for reliable assessments and verification in a fragmented world of information.     

Halfway down the road to supervision of the Spanish intelligence services

For most of its history the United Nations was reluctant to deal with intelligence and major powers were reluctant to share intelligence with it. But as the UN's peacekeeping operations intensified in some of the world's hot spots in the early 1990s, the UN found it both necessary and wise to create an information analysis capability at UN headquarters in New York. To funnel selected intelligence to the headquarters, several countries (including the US, UK, France and Russia) loaned intelligence officers to the UN's Situation Centre on a secondment basis. This paper describes the activities of the SitCen's Information and Research (I&R) Unit that existed from 1993 to 1999 under the informal motto ‘Keeping an Eye on the World’. Using a case study of I&R reporting on the situation in Eastern Zaire (1996), where UN-run refugee camps were under attack, it is possible to examine the nature and utility of the intelligence provided by the intelligence officers to UN decision-makers and the planners of the Canadian-led multinational force in the region. It reveals that the Unit provided significant and useful intelligence about arms shipments, belligerent activities, and the status of refugees and made several prescient predictions and warnings. The Unit sought to minimize national bias and incomplete information, though both problems were still in evidence. Still, in many ways, the I&R Unit remains a useful model for the development of a future intelligence capability.     

情报信息主导警务战略下基层民警信息素养的提高

情报信息工作是公安工作的重要内容,公安机关要履行三大政治和社会责任,实现全方位服务人民的宗旨,就必须构建情报信息主导警务战略机制,切实把情报信息工作置于公安工作的基础性、先导性位置,以情报信息引导实战,指导防范和打击犯罪。然而,当前基层公安机关存在的思想认识不到位、信息系统分散、信息化素质不高、信息研发滞后等问题,严重制约了公安工作的深入开展,因而有必要对基层公安民警的信息素养进一步加强和提高。     

Is the Department of Homeland Security an Intelligence Agency?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) applies a variation of the intelligence cycle – the process of planning, collecting, processing, analysis, and dissemination of information characteristic of intelligence agencies – to mitigate the risk of terrorist attack and respond to national security breaches. The intelligence cycle helps DHS encourage voluntary security measures, serve its customers, and avoid economic disruption, but the Department's program setbacks and failures illustrate the difficulty of applying the intelligence model to the needs of homeland security. The Department's particular means of producing intelligence and information challenge the conventional conception and definitions of the intelligence cycle.     

Intelligence reform: The logic of information sharing

A cornerstone of US intelligence reform is ‘information sharing’ as a means of adapting to contemporary security challenges. It was a central recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, reflected in the wide-ranging ‘Information Sharing Environment’ mandated by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Yet the underlying logic of information sharing for intelligence reform has received little attention. Drawing on information and communications theory, this paper critiques the logic by highlighting problems of sense-making and interpretation overlooked amid the scholarly enthusiasm for an intelligence ‘culture of sharing’. With their impersonal, technical, and highly bureaucratic approach, today's reforms may favor the flow of information and its sheer volume at the expense of the context and analytic tradecraft that render it meaningful, actionable intelligence. For effective information sharing, the paper suggests reformers pay more attention to the socio-technical environment of analysis when interpreting ambiguous, uncertain information.     

Intelligence for the Twenty-First Century

The transformation of intelligence architectures, particularly in the West, is no less profound than that of the weapons, platforms, warfighting systems and governments they are designed to support and inform. Moreover, the cumulative weight of the changes in prospect will redefine the way in which intelligence is used and conceived. The old demarcation lines between strategic and operational intelligence and between operations and intelligence, once starkly differentiated will blur. Decision-makers will have better access to intelligence as a result of advances in ‘pull’ technology which have made possible intelligence on demand while open source intelligence will enrich and add value to national intelligence databases.

Although information will become more plentiful and less of a privileged source in the global information environment of the twenty-first century, paradoxically the demand for timely, high quality strategic and operational intelligence will intensify rather than diminish. What will distinguish the successful practitioners of twenty-first century intelligence is the ability to fuse and integrate all elements of the process to provide seamless support for policy-makers and operational commanders. However, despite impressive advances in integration, technical collection and communications no intelligence system, no matter how efficacious, will ever be able to completely dispel the fog of war.     

Missing revolution: the American intelligence failure in Iraq, 1958

Why were American officials caught by surprise with the military coup and later revolution in Iraq on 14 July 1958? Drawing on American intelligence and diplomatic records as well as multilingual sources, this article argues that the US intelligence failure is the product of two factors: the collection of information from too few and too similar human sources of intelligence in Iraq’s ruling regime, and the unreceptivity of US officials to assessing new information and their unwillingness to update assessments of local Iraqi developments. It revisits America’s intelligence failure in Iraq and suggests important lessons for the study of intelligence.     

From the horse's mouth: Luftwaffe POWs as sources for air ministry intelligence during the battle of Britain

British military intelligence as derived from the interrogation of prisoners‐of‐war (POWs) during the Second World War has been under‐valued by historians, whose attention has focused primarily on signals intelligence. While Sigint, in particular Ultra, was of undoubted value, Britain's armed services nevertheless attached much credence to POW‐derived intelligence, and by the war's end an abundance of information had been gleaned from the half a million plus Axis prisoners by then held in Britain. This article will examine the work of the Air Ministry Intelligence section known as AI1(K), which was responsible for POW interrogation, during the Battle of Britain, and attempt to illustrate both the wealth and value of such intelligence at a time when Ultra was still in its infancy.     

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.     

The Fate of an Orphan: The Hawley Board and the Debates over the Postwar Organization of Medical Intelligence

The US Army's medical intelligence program developed during World War II to meet the requirements for information on the medical threat facing soldiers deployed in the first truly global military conflict. The war served as a proving ground for the application of medical intelligence on a strategic, operational and tactical level. However, hasty postwar demobilization decimated many wartime intelligence programs, including medical intelligence. The US intelligence community recognized the utility of medical intelligence as part of the overall strategic scientific and technical intelligence program and sought ways to rebuild the program. During the post-World War II debates over the unification of the military services and the responsibilities of the nascent CIA, the ‘Hawley Board’ was one of several committees which studied the problems facing the medical intelligence program. Although there was broad consensus on the need for better coordination of medical intelligence, the intelligence community ultimately failed to adopt the recommendations of the Hawley Board. The principal reasons behind the failure of the Hawley plan were the re-emergence of prewar interservice rivalries, the dominant role of the Army medical intelligence program, and the lack of a joint military–CIA vision of a centralized medical intelligence service.     

Intelligence and the formulation of policy and strategy in Early Modern Europe: The Spanish Monarchy in the Reign of Charles II (1665–1700)

This article seeks to explore the means whereby the Spanish Monarchy under the last Habsburg, Charles II (1665–1700), contributed to its own survival in the era of Louis XIV by exploring its acquisition and use of intelligence. There was nothing particularly distinctive about Spain's intelligence machinery. Nor was it always effective. Nevertheless, Spain's extensive diplomatic and imperial network facilitated the acquisition of a great deal of information which on occasion was clearly of great importance – for example, in preventing the destruction of Charles II's fleet in the summer of 1693 by that of Louis XIV. In sum, intelligence contributed to the remarkable resilience of the Spanish Monarchy in an age of supposed Spanish decline.     

British Intelligence through the Eyes of the Stasi: What the Stasi's Records Show about the Operations of British Intelligence in Cold War Germany

Abstract

The German parliament's Law on the Stasi Records, passed in 1991, extended the principle of freedom of information to the records of a Communist security service. By so doing, it has given historians, former targets of Stasi intelligence collection and others an unprecedented insight into the operations of such a service. Enough records of the Stasi's trials department have been made available to reconstruct a picture of the work of British intelligence agencies in the years 1945–61, and above all the work of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). They show that SIS was a very skilful service which obtained the high-grade intelligence it sought. However, SIS's work in East Germany was undone in the late 1950s by the treason of the KGB's penetration agent in it, George Blake.     

论刑侦信息意识的培养

刑侦信息意识,是指刑侦人员和专门情报工作人员对刑侦情报信息客观存在的反映过程及其选择、吸收、利用情报进行创造性思维的一种能力。由于自身思想认识及目的不明确,一部分民警在刑事犯罪信息工作中表现出意识不强。因此,必须从加强刑事侦查情报理论知识的学习,培养情报主体高度的事业心和强烈的责任感;积极参加刑事侦查信息工作,不断积累实际经验;培养刑侦信息主体的观察发现能力;要善于汲取、借鉴别人的做法和经验等方面提高侦查人员的信息意识。     

Bletchley Park and the RAF Y Service: Some Recollections

The RAF Y Service and the German Air Section at Bletchley Park collaborated in producing a great deal of intelligence about GAF (German Air Force) operations in World War II. However, two errors in pre-war planning reduced this output. The first error was the decision that the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) should be responsible solely for cryptography, the interpretation of Sigint to be the task of the Intelligence recipients. The second was the general assumption that the information obtainable from intercepting the low-grade codes and plain language used in the control of Air operations would only be of intelligence interest while the operations were in progress. After-the-event study of these communications by the German Air Section produced unique information needed by the RAF Commands. The Air Ministry took an unduly long time to agree that this information should be provided to them.     

Axis prisoners of war as sources for British military intelligence, 1939–42

It was during the Second World War that the Allies developed a sophisticated intelligence system to harness information garnered from the hundreds of thousands of Axis captives taken during hostilities. Indeed, prior to 1942, many Allied field commanders displayed a healthy scepticism towards intelligence obtained from this source. Such suspicions were eventually overcome. This article examines British efforts during the formative period 1939–42 when an integrated infrastructure was painstakingly established to extract, collate and assess material obtained from Axis POWs. It not only examines the intelligence organisations which were established by each of the British armed services, but also analyses the variety of military and political information obtained and how it was interpreted and disseminated.     

Comparing US and UK Intelligence Assessment in the Early Cold War: NSC-68, April 1950

US and British intelligence assessments regarding the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War contained substantial differences despite the remarkable level of cooperation and information sharing that existed between the respective services in the period. Using NSC-68 as a "pivot", this article examines these discrepancies as well as those similarities that did exist, considering their significance and evolution in an effort to understand what factors drove and shaped intelligence analysis on both sides of the Atlantic.     

Spies and Policymakers: Intelligence in the Information Age

Massive changes and continuous developments in the uses and applications of technology and communications have changed the way we see the world. The Information Revolution has had an impact upon intelligence collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination, and upon the way policymakers can access reliable information, in a timely manner, and upon the sources they are most likely to rely on when a specific piece of information is needed to support a decision. This study attempts to describe, analyze and explain the nature of the ongoing Information Revolution, to present its main impacts on the intelligence and policy communities, to discuss the relationship between the Intelligence Community and policymakers, and to propose what the IC should do to meet the high expectations of decision-makers.     

Introducing the special issue: bringing in the public. Intelligence on the frontier between state and civil society

ABSTRACT

This special issue is based on the observation that today’s intelligence services stand before a difficult task of, on the one hand, having to manage the uncertainties associated with new threats by inviting civil actors in to help, while also, on the other hand, having to uphold their own institutional authority and responsibility to act in the interest of the nation. In balancing this task, we show how today’s intelligence practices constantly contests the frontiers between normal politics and security politics and between civil society and the state. In this introduction we argue that these changes can be observed at three different levels. One is at the level of managerial practices of intelligence collection and communication; another is in the increased use of new forms of data, i.e. of social media information; and a third is the expansion of intelligence practices into new areas of concern, e.g. cybersecurity and the policing of (mis-) information.     

The Disclosure Dilemma: Nuclear Intelligence and International Organizations

Scholars have long argued that international organizations solve information problems through increased transparency. This article introduces a distinct problem that instead requires such institutions to keep information secret. We argue that states often seek to reveal intelligence about other states' violations of international rules and laws but are deterred by concerns about revealing the sources and methods used to collect it. Properly equipped international organizations, however, can mitigate these dilemmas by analyzing and acting on sensitive information while protecting it from wide dissemination. Using new data on intelligence disclosures to the International Atomic Energy Agency and an analysis of the full universe of nuclear proliferation cases, we demonstrate that strengthening the agency's intelligence protection capabilities led to greater intelligence sharing and fewer suspected nuclear facilities. However, our theory suggests that this solution gives informed states a subtle form of influence and is in tension with the normative goal of international transparency.