Intelligence (Government/Secret) – Page 17

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:

Continue reading “Review: Improving Intelligence Analysis: Bridging the Gap between Scholarship and Practice”

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:

Continue reading “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”

2012/12/262013/03/13

Worth a Look: Books on Improving Intelligence Analysis

Intelligence (Government/Secret), Worth A Look

This book on intelligence analysis written by intelligence expert Dr. Stephen Marrin argues that scholarship can play a valuable role in improving intelligence analysis.

Improving intelligence analysis requires bridging the gap between scholarship and practice. Compared to the more established academic disciplines of political science and international relations, intelligence studies scholarship is generally quite relevant to practice. Yet a substantial gap exists nonetheless. Even though there are many intelligence analysts, very few of them are aware of the various writings on intelligence analysis which could help them improve their own processes and products. If the gap between scholarship and practice were to be bridged, practitioners would be able to access and exploit the literature in order to acquire new ways to think about, frame, conceptualize, and improve the analytic process and the resulting product. This volume contributes to the broader discussion regarding mechanisms and methods for improving intelligence analysis processes and products. It synthesizes these articles into a coherent whole, linking them together through common themes, and emphasizes the broader vision of intelligence analysis in the introduction and conclusion chapters.

The book will be of great interest to students of intelligence studies, strategic studies, US national security, US foreign policy, security studies and political science in general,as well as professional intelligence analysts and managers.

Comment and Nine Other Linked Books Below the Line

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2012/12/252012/12/26

Worth a Look: Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies

Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Worth A Look

The Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies provides a broad of the growing field of intelligence studies, acting as a relection of the state of the art of the subdiscipline.

Focusing on the origins, practice and nature of intelligence studies, this Companion features essays by an array of international experts. It first explains the generic lessons of intelligence – what it is, how it is collected, and how it is processed. It then dedicates sections to the evolution of intelligence; to key episodes in modern history; and to contemporary and future threats. The importance of these three sections is to highlight how our understanding of ‘intelligence' has been shaped by the nature of the ‘threat'. A final section offers a comparison of national intelligence systems from around the world, grounding the book in an international context and opening up Western readers to accounts of hitherto fairly unexplored countries such as China, South Africa and Japan.

This Companion will be essential reading for students of intelligence studies and strategic studies, and highly recommended for students of defense studies, foreign policy, cold war studies, diplomacy, and International Relations in general.

Rob Dover is senior lecturer in International Relations and Director of Taught Postgraduate Programmes at Loughborough University. He is author of The Europeanization of British Defence Policy 1997-2005 (2007) and co-author, with Goodman, of Spinning Intelligence (2009).

Michael Goodman is a senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. He is author of Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (2008), and co-author of Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (2009).

Claudia Hillebrand is a lecturer in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University.

Contents:

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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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2012/12/222012/12/22

Review: The Volunteer The Incredible True Story of an Israeli Spy on the Trail of International Terrorists

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Michael Ross and Jonathan Kay

4.0 out of 5 stars 50% Authentic, 25% Disinformation, 25% Unwitting, December 22, 2012

For those that do not know my background, I am a former clandestine case officer (spy) who has published widely on the craft of intelligence.

I received this book as a gift from the author, whom I have met, and whose talents in creating non-official cover and in teaching naive Americans how to create unofficial cover (something CIA cannot do), I believe in.

The book is 50% authentic and for that reason alone I recommend it be required reading for those being trained in the clandestine service. Although sometimes tedious, the level of detail that is provided is for me fully satisfactory and useful as a “drill” for appreciating the nature of a life under cover.

The emphasis on creating cover and sticking to cover even if you are certain you are going to die or be sent to a secret jail to rot for all eternity, is the key take-away from this book — with happy endings for those that stick to their cover.

Mossad is different from the clumsier Western services that live immunity rather than cover. Mossad is much more about direct action, from street-level surveillance and orientation photographs of specific human and organizational and potential sabotage targets, to placing beacons on ships smuggling arms so they can be sunk by unmarked aircraft or an Israeli submarine, or explosives on a car known to be enroute to a terrorist leader.

The observations on how the CIA and FBI cannot work together, even in counter-terrorism, are useful confirmation that little has changed since 9/11. The book first published in 2007, was updated in 2011.

From a counterintelligence perspective, the book provides a wonderfully clear picture of how long and how hard it would be to penetrate the Mossad with a false flag volunteer under control from the age of 18.

Continue reading “Review: The Volunteer The Incredible True Story of an Israeli Spy on the Trail of International Terrorists”

2012/12/212015/10/12

Review: Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Thomas Fingar

5.0 out of 5 stars World Class on Iran — And Sad Summary of Shallowness Everywhere Else, December 21, 2012

UPDATED 12 OCT 2015 to elevate to five stars in recognition of the author's extraordinary professionalism and honesty in assuring that the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) for Iran done in 2007 documented its destruction of its nuclear weapons program and resisted all political pressures — both domestic and international — to lie (which is what George Tenet did to enable the elective war on Iraq).

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The book is a fast read with a poor index, and the best thing I can say about it is that the author is as good as it gets inside the secret analytic world, and his account is therefore the best available encapsulation of the US analyst in the secret world as virtual eunuch. Normally I do not review books that annoy me, but I make two exceptions, and this book qualifies on both counts: they are in the field to which I have dedicated my life; and there are ten other books that I feel merit being read with or instead of this book.

The substance first. I was a member of the national-level Foreign Intelligence Requirements and Capabilities (FIRCAP) committee for several years,and I truly appreciated the following quote at multiple levels:

QUOTE (51): Requests and requirements have to be prioritized, and the IC has a rather elaborate process to review and rank order the approximately 9,100 cells in the matrix created by arraying roughly 280 international actors against thirty-two intelligence topics that have been grouped into three categories by the National Security Council.

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