1-7 Star Rating – Page 75 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/01/102013/01/10

Review: Final Warning – A History of the New World Order

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Justice (Failure, Reform), Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

David Rivera

4.0 out of 5 stars A good starting point, not the total map, January 10, 2013

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it has some real gems that I have not seen elsewhere, and on the other it can be very tedious. It was not until I was halfway through the book that I realized it was originally written in 1984, and that explained to me why I was suffering from epoch-shift in reading the book.

Certainly I recommend the book for anyone trying to piece together a mosaic of history, or better said, alternative history as this book is very much in the vein of those books written by iconoclasts that dispute the version of history taught in the schools, i.e. the “approved” history as written by the powers that be happy to treat humans as commodities. Looking more closely at the bibliography I see that the references are mostly from the 1960-1970's, and the most recent are from the 1990's. The book is dated, plain and simple.

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2013/01/062013/01/06

Review: Intelligence in an Insecure World

4 Star, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Peter Gill and Mark Phythian

4.0 out of 5 stars Best in Class Strongly Recommended, January 6, 2013

I am a huge fan of Peter Gill's work, and if you are looking for the best possible to reflect on intelligence as it is generally defined today (the province of governments and to a lesser extent the corporate world), this is both the most recent and the best book to get. I also recommend Mark Lowenthal's Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 5th Edition.

Use Look Inside feature above to get a feel for the book. Of all the books I have reviewed, this is the one that comes closest to my own concept for a book I am working on now, and I very much like the manner in which the authors have organized the work, to include their section on “Why Does Intelligence Fail,” which happens to be what I have been focusing on since 1988.

Where the book fails, as do all books in this genre, is in not acknowledging that intelligence is decision support defined by its outputs, not its inputs. This is a book that is still state-centric, assumes secrecy is a dominant force, and that policy is the intended beneficiary. It does at least make a stab at acknowledging corporate intelligence, but see my list of recommended readings below. More properly understood, decision-support is a craft that can be applied by all eight “tribes” of intelligence (academic, civil society, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-governmental/non-profit), and our greatest challenge today is the need to move beyond the government-secret-policy view of intelligence, and instead advance toward M4IS2 (see the graphic above with the book cover), Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making.

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2013/01/062013/01/08

Review: Improving Intelligence Analysis: Bridging the Gap between Scholarship and Practice

4 Star, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public)

Stephen Marrin

4.0 out of 5 stars Analysis in Isolation from Reality, January 6, 2013

This book is insanely expensive. The author of the book has material published online that I recommend be accessed and considered before making any investment here. One starting point is my list to 2011 article and my lengthy comment, easily found by looking for

Stephen Marrin: Evaluating the Quality of Intelligence Analysis: By What (Mis) Measure? With Comment by Robert Steele

This is a book, that like economists trapped on a desert island with a can of food and no can-opener, begin their plan with “assume a can-opener.” Now having said that, I must also give the author credit: this is as good as it gets at the PhD level when writing in isolation from decades of experience. This is the “clean room” version of the craft of analysis.

Here is a short extract from my review of the article that was built into this book:

ROBERT STEELE: Interesting, certainly worth reading, but divorced from the fundamentals and out of touch with the real masters. Any publication that fails to cite Jack Davis, the dean of analytic tradecraft in the English language, is fatally flawed. Of course it would help if one were also in touch with the “new rules for the new craft of intelligence,” but that may be too much to expect from a junior academic with limited real-world analytic experience who seems intent on citing only “approved” sources-a lack of source integrity that is also fatal. The article assumes that the four preconditions for sound analytics exist, and since they do not, at least in the US and UK and most other government intelligence communities, it is necessary to spell them out. Analysts are toads absent the following:

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2013/01/022013/01/02

Review: Using Data Sharing to Improve Coordination in Peacebuilding: Report of a Workshop on Technology, Science, and Peacebuilding

4 Star, Civil Affairs, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Diplomacy, Information Operations, Intelligence (Public), Stabilization & Reconstruction, United Nations & NGOs

Andrew Robertson and Steve Olson (eds.)

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent First Step, Four Disappointments, January 2, 2013

This is one of the more useful reports to come out of the US Institute of Peace and its collaborative effort with the National Academy of Engineering and I highly recommend it for either free reading online at the National Academies Press (individual) or for library purchase for the information, intelligence, diplomacy, civil-military, stabilization & reconstruction, and decision-support sections.

The goals are worthy but overly scientific & technical (the cultural part always comes first): to apply science and technology to the process of peacebuilding and stabilization; to promote systematic communications among organizations across political and other boundaries; and to apply science and technology to pressing conflict issues. La di dah. I just want to know if there is a dead donkey at the bottom of this particular well.

Secondary and equally ambitious goals that their current staffing model cannot support:
1. Adopt the agricultural extension services model to peacebuilding
2. Use data sharing to improve coordination in peacebuilding
3. Sense emerging conflicts (at least they realize the secret intelligence world does NOT do this)
4. Harness systems methods for delivery of peacebuilding services.

FOUR STRONG THEMES MAKE THIS BOOK VALUABLE:
1. Data sharing requires working across a technology-culture divide
2. Information sharing requires building and maintaining trust
3. Information sharing requires linking civilian-military policy discussions to technology
4. Collaboration software needs to be aligned with user needs.

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2013/01/012013/01/01

Review: Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in Military Affairs and the Evidence of History

5 Star, Military & Pentagon Power, Strategy

Colin Gray

5.0 out of 5 stars Colin Gray is THE top strategist in the Enlgish language, January 1, 2013

I have been a huge fan of Colin Gray since reading and reviewing his Modern Strategy. My own particular interest is “intelligence with integrity” and my motto is “the truth at any cost reduces all other costs.” This is not a motto the current Secretary of Defense in the USA is familiar with. After reading Leon Panetta's recent speech on “strategy” to the National Press Club, I was moved to create a remedial reading list for any aspiring Secretary of Defense, and this book as well as Modern Strategy are on that list.

Colin's key points are points that many of us have made over time after first learning them from Colin, among others — the US Army Strategic Studies Institute is a node of excellence that has employed both Colin and myself, and all that they offer free online in the way of strategically-oriented monographs is priceless. They are working on beginning to offer their books on Amazon.

01) Spending is neither revolutionary nor a strategy.

02) Technology is neither revolutionary nor a strategy.

03) To devise a strategy (connecting ends, ways, and means) one must first get a grip on reality.

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2012/12/272012/12/27

Review: Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds – American Intelligence Agency Report on the Megatrends, Gamechangers, and Black Swans of the Future, the Rise of China, Alternative World Scenarios

3 Star, Future, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public)

CIA National Intelligence Council

3.0 out of 5 stars Report Lauds Fracking as Energy Solution, Disappoints on Multiple Fronts, December 27, 2012

Certainly worth reading, along with other and generally better reports linked below, but a huge disappointment. There is nothing here actually useful to a national or corporate leader, and generally nothing new. To take one small example upfront, the so-called “disruptive technologies” are pedestrian in the extreme. My disruptive technologies are Open Source Everything (OSE) starting with OpenBTS (Base Transceiver Station) — essentially a free cell phone for every person on the planet from birth — unlimited clean water from the ocean, and free energy. My most significant concern, apart from the fact that this report persists with all of the flaws I pointed out a year ago, is the continued lack of integrity — ethics — a deep commitment to telling the truth about the FACT that government corruption is half the problem, the FACT that half of every US tax dollar is demonstrably spent on fraud, waste, or abuse. Until the National Intelligence Council is capable of telling the truth about our own worst enemy — us — it will be nothing more than an over-paid over-hyped largely useless coffee klatch.

Thoughts in passing as I go through this final report:

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2012/12/232013/01/15

Review: Saucers, Swastikas and Psyops: A History of A Breakaway Civilization: Hidden Aerospace Technologies and Psychological Operations

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Information Operations, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Science & Politics of Science, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Jospeh P. Farrell

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an Information Operations / Counterintelligence Hidden Gem, December 23, 2012

The cover does this book a dis-service. This is a SERIOUS book that should be used in serious courses of instruction for both Information Operations (IO) and Counterintelligence (CI). The book lacks an index, a terrible mistake on the part of the publisher, but I have to say the notes are world-class and this book earns my intuitive respect quickly.

This book is a bit rough but I put it at a solid five stars and even considered six (my top ten percent across 1800+ books) because this book does something extraordinary:

01 It makes the case for UFOs being a terrestial Information Operations (IO) Psychological Operation (PSYOP — never plural).

02 It connects US underground tunnel civilization (a possible explanation for the Pentagon's missing 2.3 trillion) and advanced technologies including “Nazi physics” versus “Jewish physics”

03 It connects the Rockefeller-Morgan Nazi-philes, Latin America, Switzerland, the Bank of International Settlements, and the drug cartels — in other words, this is also an excellent reading for Counterintelligence (CI).

I draw two major insights from this book:

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