President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
Faulty assumptions about the ideological realities on the ground, at both the popular- and elite-level, are not unique to the Russian case, but can be widely applied to current geopolitical concerns that attract the attention of U.S. policymakers, especially those which are hypothesized to potentially require future American military operations.
The conflict in Ukraine offers unexpected insight into a military construct that had previously been mostly theoretical. Ukrainian ground forces, fighting beneath an information domain dominated almost exclusively by American intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, while no U.S. forces fight in the conflict, is what military theorists and strategists in the 1990s described as a vertical coalition. They conceived it as the future of American warfare, during a brief period in which violent ground-based conflict among powerful states was believed, by some, to be vanishing from the world.
For a relatively short volume, Intelligence and the State manages to fill a range of gaps in the existing literature on the intelligence community. First and foremost, it provides a timely look at the issues confronting both policy makers and intelligence analysts that will only grow more relevant as technological advances increase the volume of raw information available to the intelligence community. Second, it offers the reader a condensed history of the European and American experiences with developing intelligence communities that would otherwise require combing through a range of academic literature. Finally, author Jonathan House leverages his decades of experience as a U.S. Army intelligence officer with valuable advice that can alleviate some of the pressures on the intelligence community and help the national security establishment avoid missing warning signs in the current environment.
In The Arab Bulletin, the origins of many of the region’s current instabilities can be found in the reports about restive tribes, dynasties, and leaders. Even today, the content, methodology, analysis, and writing style of the Arab Bulletin are relevant. In essence the Bulletin is a fourteen volume master class in the use of intelligence and hybrid warfare in immediate and long term strategy. T.E. Lawrence was the only officer who wrote comprehensively about his work with the Arab Bureau, and some of his work is suspect.
Written in the style of an engaging spy thriller, the story takes the reader through a series of events involving real individuals with capabilities and intentions to harm others. The plot in a nutshell: a handful of individuals inspired–and in some cases trained–by al-Qaeda attempted to smuggle liquid explosives on board U.S.-bound transatlantic flights. If successful, they would have destroyed multiple aircraft, murdered thousands of people, and increased public fear worldwide about aviation travel. The economic toll could have been comparable to that of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the end, the most impactful thing these plotters did was provoke a change in aviation security wherein passengers can no longer bring over three ounces of liquids through the airport security checkpoints. This is a story, certainly a compelling one, about the failure of a terrorist plot.
This book has many strengths. The style is concise, and the main concepts are understandable, focusing on important state and non-state actor related issues. Each chapter ends with a summary, critical thinking questions for students and readers, as well as a detailed bibliography and notes section. Possible weaknesses derive, on the other hand, from a low level of granularity offered in the text when it comes to the illustration of some specific techniques such as structured analysis technique that could help intelligence professionals to refine their level of analysis.
Corera posits a thesis midway through the book, that Russian hybrid warfare, in all its forms, does not constitute military hard power, but it also does not conform to the traditional definitions of soft power—deferring to Joseph Nye’s description of soft power as attractive instead of coercive. Instead, Corera defines the Russian influence effort as “dark power,” playing on “greed and ambition.” The combination of this dark power with the hybrid warfare model creates a stark picture Corera argues is virtually impossible to combat.
With meticulous source citations and an impressive bibliography, Morton has produced a succinct, yet informative examination of the evolution of manned aerial reconnaissance from its earliest beginnings to the conclusion of the Vietnam War. In his introduction, the author expresses his intention to not only offer an historical analysis of manned aerial reconnaissance but to fill a “considerable historiographical gap.” In this, he may well have succeeded.
What is the goal of intelligence? There are two possible schools of thought in response to this question. The one familiar to every military or government analyst is that intelligence should tell truth to power regardless of consequences. This aloof philosophy regards the objectivity of intelligence as paramount given the professional duty to the national security of the nation it serves. In business, though, a different school of thought is much more pervasive.
This detailed study of the intelligence function will prove especially useful to those studying the conduct of intelligence operations throughout the era, whether on the Iberian Peninsula or elsewhere. Davies has also added to the body of knowledge about the Duke of Wellington himself. We get a better appreciation for how Wellington balanced the collected intelligence with his own senses to reach the decisions that propelled him to defeat the French forces in Iberia, and then again with Prussian assistance at Waterloo. Overall, Huw Davies has made an important contribution to the historiography of the Napoleonic field.
The intelligence community’s analytic product dissemination needs to move to a more transactional framework. Accumulated consumer feedback delivered back to the producer would result in more rapid changes from the community, improve the client’s decision-making, and elevate the national security impact of both producers and consumers.
Oakley presents a detailed critical assessment of an understudied area of intelligence policy. It is a deep dive into the politics of intelligence reorganization that assumes knowledge of the subject and not one for beginners. Reaching a full judgement of the merits of Oakley’s argument requires delving into topics which provide the political context within which the subordination of intelligence took place but which he does not provide a framing conceptual contest. Among these are the broader debate on the purposes of American foreign policy: the key threats it confronts and the strategies used to meet them; the constantly changing dynamics of the trilateral relationship of Congress, the President, and the intelligence community; and bureaucratic politics. Looking to the future one could add to this list the increased level of political activism being exhibited of intelligence officers following the 2016 presidential election and the growth of populism in the United States.
Intelligence at all levels is an art form. Sources, corroborating or contradicting information, unknowns, and delays in time all result in varied levels of analytical confidence. Information coming from different means, methods, and areas requires a functioning structure to ensure senior national leaders have the best information to make the decisions. While strategic intelligence drives operations and national goals, military decision-makers—especially in combat zones—rely on tactical intelligence to help win battles. For the Department of the Navy, “tactical intelligence support is the primary focus of naval intelligence.”[1] Marine Corps intelligence also focuses almost exclusively on the tactical level to support Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) maneuvers since tactical intelligence is, “the level of intelligence Marines need, generate, and use most often.” When strategic missteps occur, tactical intelligence can provide a needed capability to keep front-line forces winning, creating breathing room for new strategic plans. A functioning intelligence structure encompassing all levels of intelligence is needed to enact this goal.
As the U.S. and China compete to innovate in this domain, the relative trajectories of U.S. and Chinese advances in artificial intelligence will impact the future military and strategic balance. China’s ability to leverage these national strategies, extensive funding, massive amounts of data, and ample human resources could result in rapid future progress. In some cases, these advances will be enabled by technology transfer, overseas investments, and acquisitions focused on cutting-edge strategic technologies.
If you are invested in defending torture on the basis of its potential utility, it would be prudent to frame the issue by claiming that the torture of captured extremists has led to useful intelligence. That way, your detractors will respond either by arguing that torture did not lead to useful actionable intelligence, or that torture is ethically unjustifiable even if it is a useful method of information gathering. Either way, the pro-torture argument comes out ahead — because given this way of framing the issue, the worst-case scenario is that torture is ineffective and unethical. But, in fact, that is not the worst-case scenario. There is a scenario far worse even from the most utilitarian point-of-view — a scenario involving bad intelligence.
