Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts

Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad Review

Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad
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Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad ReviewAsymmetric warfare is the term used to describe any war in which the weaker side chooses to avoid set piece battles and conventional tactics in favor of guerilla tactics usually supported by terrorism. Counter-insurgency operations (COIN) and counter-terrorism (CT) are both responses to these tactics. It has been widely argued that the key to successful COIN and CT operations is effective tactical intelligence. This book supports this argument and provides an unprecedented account of how effective law enforcement training and techniques can be used against both. Its author spent 2005 in Iraq as director of something called the "Strategic Counter- Intelligence Directorate" (SCID) which in spite of its title was charged with developing intelligence in support of military COIN. The SCID was composed of military and civilian investigators and analysts from the Navy, Air Force and Army criminal investigation organizations. In describing the operations of the SCID, O'Hern implies that law enforcement methodology including use of informants, operational intelligence, and basic investigative techniques can be very effective against insurgents and by extrapolation terrorists. He has two issues that he presses with particular passion: the need for more effective Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in Iraq; and the increasing influence of Iran on Iraq's Shia majority.
The good news is that after this book was written the U.S. Army actually developed effective counter-insurgency techniques that incorporated more effective tactical intelligence. The bad news is that it took them almost four years to do this and the blundering and waste in the U.S. Intelligence System that O'Hern records remains uncorrected.
Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad OverviewSince the first heady months of the war in Iraq when President Bush celebrated aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln under a "mission accomplished" sign, US forces have been bogged down in a frustrating war of attrition against a largely unseen insurgency that attacks with ambushes and roadside bombs. In this revealing insider's look at the US intelligence community's efforts to fight the insurgency, author Steven K. O'Hern, who served in Iraq in 2005 as a senior intelligence officer, offers a critical assessment of our intelligence failures and suggests ways of improving our ability to fight an often elusive enemy. O'Hern criticizes America's military leaders for being enamored with high-technology solutions for all situations, including intelligence operations. Essentially, we are still relying on an intelligence system that was designed to beat the Soviet army. But with no troop formations or supply depots to spot by satellite and no radio signals to intercept, insurgent tactics significantly reduce the US military's technological advantage. Using examples from human source operations conducted in Iraq, this book explains why human intelligence--not technology--is the key to defeating an insurgency and why the US is so poor at using what the military calls "HUMINT." O'Hern also cites internal structural problems that work against effective intelligence operations. The "intelligence community" is actually a collection of organizations usually more interested in protecting turf than sharing information. The author gives examples of missed opportunities that resulted from information being caught in "stovepipes" and red tape. He shows how front-line units and intelligence officers developed ways to work around the intelligence bureaucracy in order to succeed. Due to these problems and others, O'Hern notes that US intelligence has failed to spot emerging threats, such as Iran's involvement in Iraq. In conclusion, he cautions that these unresolved problems will continue to affect the United States in any future conflict against an insurgency.

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Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust (Modern War Studies) Review

Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust (Modern War Studies)
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Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust (Modern War Studies) ReviewProfessor Alvarez has done his homework, although I do believe his presentation on how the Vatican has conducted its intelligence does not actually reflect the sometime morbid tone Vatican efforts sometimes undertook. I believe Profesor Alvarez could have been more helpful with the issue of the Croatians and the Vatican as to the terrible treatment of members of the Jewish faith there is concerned in WW II, and the terrible conduct that some clergy exhibited in Croatia. The Professor would have been well advised to look more into the role of members of the Sovereign Military Order of St. John Hospitaller, as some of its membership in WWII was of deep significance and use to the Vatican's overall intelligence attempts to understand and combat Facism and Nazism.
Alvarez has done yeoman work in sifting through mountains of material, and I congratulate his effort. For all interested in understanding how wrong Stalin was when he asked "How many legions has the Pope?", read Spies in the Vaticam. One may be surprised.Spies in the Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue from Napoleon to the Holocaust (Modern War Studies) Overview

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