Fusing algorithms and analysts: open-source intelligence in the age of ‘Big Data’

In the age of ‘Big Data’, the potential value of open-source information for intelligence-related purposes is widely recognised. Of late, progress in this space has increasingly become associated with software that can expand our ability to gather, filter, interrelate and manipulate data through automated processes. The trend towards automation is both innovative and necessary. However, techno-centric efforts to replace human analysts with finely crafted algorithms across the board, from collection to synthesis and analysis of information, risk limiting the potential of OSINT rather than increasing its scope and impact. Effective OSINT systems must be carefully designed to facilitate complementarity, exploit the strengths, and mitigate the weaknesses of both human analysts and software solutions, obtaining the best contribution from both. Drawing on insights from the field of cognitive engineering, this article considers at a conceptual level how this might be achieved.     

James Bond,Ian Fleming and intelligence: breaking down the boundary between the ‘real’ and the ‘imagined’

This article looks to answer the question of why the James Bond novels and films should matter to scholars of intelligence and national security. We argue that Bond is important because, rightly or wrongly, and not without inaccuracy, it has filled a public knowledge vacuum about intelligence agencies and security threats. On another level, this article explores the unexpected yet important interactions between Bond and the actual world of intelligence. We contend that the orthodoxy dictating that Bond and spying are diametric opposites—one is the stuff of fantasy, the other is reality—is problematic, for the worlds of Bond and real intelligence collide, overlap and intermesh in fascinating and significant ways. In short, Bond is important for scholars because he is an international cultural icon that continues to operate at the borders of fiction and reality, framing and constructing not only public perceptions but also to some degree intelligence practices. Core narratives of intelligence among not only the public but also policymakers and intelligence officers are imagined, sustained, deepened, produced and reproduced through and by Bond. We conclude that Bond and intelligence should be thought of as co-constitutive; the series shapes representations and perceptions of intelligence, but it also performs a productive role, influencing the behaviours of intelligence agencies themselves.     

Allied economic intelligence and strategy during the ‘Phoney War’

This article examines the efforts of French and British intelligence services to assess the German economy before and during the opening stage of World War II. The French and British, attached to a long‐war strategy based on the assumption time worked in their favour, looked to economic intelligence to indicate whether this was in fact the case. Yet for a variety of reasons clear and consistent assessments were impossible. Rather than accept uncertainty, the French and British chose to impose certainty by assuming the worst, a decision which contributed to the abandonment of a long‐war strategy as the Allies began to search for some way to win a short war.     

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.     

‘A reach greater than the grasp’: Israeli intelligence and the conflict in south Lebanon 1990–2000

This article examines the way in which intelligence was used by Israel in its war against Hizb'allah in south Lebanon. By using ideas drawn from the literature on strategic culture, it argues that in trying to replicate methods used in countering Palestinian insurgents, Israel's intelligence agencies failed to appreciate fully the finite political aims of Hizb'allah's guerrilla struggle. As such, the paucity in Israel's collective intelligence effort allowed operatives of Hizb'allah's military wing, al-Muqawama, to score notable intelligence triumphs over Israel, triumphs that did much force the IDF into a unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000.     

‘The clash of races’ and ‘the Jewish intelligence’: a specifically French form of social antisemitism

The phenomenon of ‘social antisemitism’ is well known. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, an idiosyncratic variant had emerged in France. Where, elsewhere, social antisemitism tended to be ingrained and unthinking, this French variant was (typically) more theoretical, and its practitioners tended to be among the most prominent authors and thinkers. It stressed the essential cultural differences between the ‘French’ and the ‘Israelites’, and the ‘separateness’ of the Jews within France, and also developed a series of facile generalizations about the essentially inferior nature of the Jewish intellect. Griffiths examines this phenomenon, both for its characteristics and for its widespread existence in French intellectual circles, by taking a specific subject: the reception of Lacretelle’s 1922 novel Silbermann. A wide range of writers and critics—a number of whom had in other circumstances a reputation for liberal values and attitudes, and had been among those who had deplored the excesses of the antisemitic mob during the Dreyfus affair—are found to echo the views put forward by Lacretelle in that novel, and even to elaborate on them. Many of these writers were to adopt a completely different attitude towards the Jews after the Second World War; when the position of the Jews was fully realized, their earlier ‘social antisemitism’ proved less powerful than their human sympathies. But this is not to devalue the importance of the danger posed by social antisemitism, which could provide the basis for far more virulent forms of racism to flourish.     

Human-cyber Nexus: the parallels between ‘illegal’ intelligence operations and advanced persistent threats

‘Illegals’ are extensively trained individuals dispatched abroad under false identities with no observable links to their operating country. Technology has made possible a new kind of ‘virtual illegal,’ one that extends beyond the operating country’s borders without putting a human at risk. When this is done in a targeted manner by a sophisticated attacker it is called an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). This article draws from historical illegals cases to identify parallels in the preparation, insertion, and control of malware by APTs. Ultimately, the methods for countering the two parallel phenomena can also be similar, despite their physical differences.     

‘Grow your own’: cold war intelligence and history supermarkets

Most of the records of the three British secret services relating to the Cold War remain closed. Nevertheless, the Open Government initiative in the UK and the Clinton Executive Order of 1995 have resulted in some disclosures, often from consumer agencies who were in receipt of intelligence material. There have also been limited releases from other countries. Against that background, this essay considers two questions: First, how far has the study of intelligence affected the broad context of Cold War history during the last decade? And second, how effective have we been in probing the institutional history of secret services during the Cold War? The essay concludes that while some secret services are breaking new ground by recording their own oral history, academic historians have been less than enterprising in their investigations and tend towards a culture of archival dependency.     

Evaluating intelligence oversight committees: The UK Intelligence and Security Committee and the ‘war on terror’

After a brief introduction giving a short history of legislative oversight, a number of criteria by which committees can be evaluated are enumerated, including their mandate, membership, resources and access to information. The development of parliamentary oversight in the UK culminating in the creation of the Intelligence and Security Committee in 1994 is outlined. Its performance between 2001 and 2006 is described and assessed. It is concluded that, while it has made some appropriate criticisms of the agencies, it can be faulted in that both the style and substance of its reports are essentially managerialist and have paid inadequate attention to questions of human rights and the need for public education.     

The devil’s advocate in intelligence: the Israeli experience

Many intelligence services around the world maintain mechanisms intended to help minimize the risk of erroneous intelligence assessments. One of the best-known mechanisms is the ‘devil’s advocate’ whose goal is to present – sometimes artificially – an intelligence assessment that contradicts the prevailing view. The goal of this practice is to try to encourage doubts, both among intelligence assessors and among decision-makers. This paper will describe the importance and function of the 'devil’s advocate' mechanism in intelligence. Using Israel as a test case, the paper will seek to draw conclusions regarding the desirable format of operations of this mechanism.     

Devolution and identity: Multidirectionality in ‘Welshness’ and ‘Northern Irishness’

In an era of Brexit and on-going constitutional debates in the UK, questions around devolution and national identifications currently attract scholarly attention as never before. This article focusses on national identification in two devolved regions, Wales and Northern Ireland, never before compared in this way, to explore how devolution can act in a fluid and multidirectional way to produce differing framings of national identification. Using original qualitative research, combining the tools of documentary analysis, structured interviews and focus groups, it considers these theoretical ideas through the prism of both political elites and everyday life to explore and compare the reasoning behind the politicization of key national identifications.     

Searching for ‘pockets of effectiveness’ in weak governance states: Preliminary examination of the securities and exchange commission of Myanmar

After decades of military rule, internal conflict, and international isolation, Myanmar has embarked on a course of institution building. In light of Myanmar's low rating on the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank Group), the nation faces an enormous challenge in developing public institutions that meet its needs and expectations. This challenge includes development of institutional capacity that will allow Myanmar to participate in international economic affairs. A step in this direction involves the creation of a securities exchange market mechanism. The current study considers the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Myanmar (SECM) to support securities regulation. It applies a novel organization level of analysis strategy that considers SECM as a ‘pocket of effectiveness’ (POE) in the context of a low-performing public institutional setting in terms of the good governance criteria of responsiveness, accountability, and transparency (RAT). While the study finds evidence of progress in building Myanmar's securities regulation, it also finds limits in RAT development that challenges the SECM's potential designation as a ‘POE’. Based on feedback from proximate stakeholders in the daily work of the SECM, recommendations are offered for revised policies and practices in order to resolve them.     

Inventing the ‘axis of evil’: the myth and reality of us intelligence and policy-making after 9/11

George W. Bush has claimed that the latest intelligence estimates single out Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an ‘axis of evil’ fomenting terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. However, the intelligence itself demonstrates that this concept has been largely manufactured and the CIA bypassed in favor of a pre-existing political consensus among right-wing Republicans. In reality, the ‘axis’ serves to perpetuate an American ‘preponderance of power’. It justifies specific policies which had already been decided before Bush came to power and which now have popular acceptance through their association with the successful war on terrorism.     

‘The importance of being honest’: Switzerland,neutrality and the problems of intelligence collection and liaison

This paper seeks to contribute to a number of debates that have attracted scholarly attention over the last few years. Firstly, by examining the experiences of the Swiss foreign intelligence service, the paper takes issue with what one scholar has dubbed ‘intelligence history snobbery’; a process that has privileged the study of the major powers and overlooked the contribution made to the secret world by the intelligence agencies of small states. Secondly, the paper explores the extent to which a state's engagement in the secret world is affected by its preconceived ideas over its place and standing in the international community. It asks whether the behaviour of a neutral foreign intelligence service is likely to differ from that of any other ‘small’ state, and whether neutrals can be both honest brokers in international affairs, and earnest players in the field of secret intelligence. The final section of the paper looks at the impact of the end of the Cold War and the emerging ‘global war on terror’ on the shape of the Swiss intelligence community.     

Redeeming the ‘Indian’: sport and ethnicity in post-revolutionary Mexico

For many historians of Latin America and others, twentieth-century Mexico offers a shining example of a country that has been able to overcome its ethnic divisions. Following a decade of brutal civil war (1910–20) the state devised a range of reforms designed to incorporate previously marginalized sectors of society. Semi-autonomous indigenous communities were singled out for particular attention as rural teachers and cultural missionaries engaged in the dual task of bringing ‘civilization’ to the ‘Indian’ and simultaneously gathering cultural remnants of ‘traditional’ indigenous culture for inclusion within an all-embracing new national culture. Within an environment of mutual understanding and respect, mestizo children in Mexico City, for example, would learn the dances of the Yaquis in Northern Mexico, and Yaqui children would practise the games of Mayas from the South. But what were the motives behind such measures, and how successful were they? Using sport as his focus, Brewster suggests that the political rhetoric accompanying these reforms contained an inner contradiction: the cultural diversity of Mexico's ethnic groups would be celebrated within a homogeneous national culture. He argues that there is little evidence that mainstream mestizo society ever compromised its own values in order to embrace those of its indigenous compatriots. Rather, the underlying trend was one in which indigenous communities were forced to accept an urban-based model of civilized society completely alien to their own. Moreover, Brewster argues, the frequently ostentatious public celebration of indigenous culture, whether in sport, dance or other arenas, rarely moved beyond a level of paternalistic tokenism. Behind the facade of national unity, the reality of ethnic divisions lay hidden, only to re-emerge at the end of the twentieth century to the surprise of a complacent mestizo society.     

Theorizing identity: beyond the ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy

ABSTRACT

Yuval-Davis discusses three interconnected questions relating to identity. She first examines whether and in what ways the notion of identity should be theorized, on the one hand, and empirically researched, on the other, focusing on the opposing views of Stuart Hall and Robin Williams. She then examines the contested question of what is identity, positioning it in relation to notions of belonging and the politics of belonging, and in relation to several influential schools of thought, especially those that construct identity as a mode of narrative, as a mode of performativity or as a dialogical practice. Her third interrelated question concerns the boundaries of identity and the relationship between self and non-self. She explores both social psychological and psychoanalytical approaches to that question, and deals with questions such as reflexivity, identifications and forced identities. The last part of the article explores several types of relationships between self and non-self, such as: ‘me’ and ‘us’; ‘me/us’ and ‘them’; ‘me’ and other ‘others’; ‘me’ and the transversal ‘us/them’. Yuval-Davis's basic argument here is that dichotomous notions of identity and difference, when theorizing boundaries of individual and collective identities, are more misleading than explanatory.     

‘Voice and Equality’: Young People’s Politics in the European Union

Academics and policy-makers have highlighted the increasing disconnection between citizens and electoral politics in Europe. Declining citizen involvement in traditional forms of politics has manifested itself in lower voter turnout and a dramatic shrinkage in the membership of political parties. Citizens have turned to alternative forms of civic and political engagement. These trends are most marked amongst young people. Whilst a number of studies have examined the nature of political participation in Europe, and the participation of young people in individual countries or specific political activities (such as voting), hardly any research has looked at patterns of engagement ‘within’ a generation of young people across different democracies. This article examines the political participation of young Europeans in national democracies in 15 European Union member states. Previous studies have shown that citizens are increasingly moving away from electoral forms of participation towards alternative forms of engagement that are (for the population as a whole) much less socially equal. Using data from the European Social Survey, this article finds that the social inequalities of participation are (with the major exception of voting) much less profound for young people. This latter finding has important implications for public efforts to promote greater youth participation in democracy.