Andrew – Public Intelligence Blog

Badly marketed on Amazon by a publisher that evidently does not really care for the future of the book, we do what we can to highlight the availability of this new book by Christopher Andrew, In Defence of the Realm, an authorized but not controlled examination of the history of MI-5 (internal security) in the United Kingdom. A short article on the book:

Defence of the Realm: author marks 100 years of MI5 with official history

Within the USA there has never been a proper review that we know of with respect to internal security, although there have been a number of books on the failures of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a few of which we list below. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been an abysmal expensive failure in all respects, substituting money, technology, and butts in seats for thinking, education, and common sense.

Continue reading “Journal: MI-5 Book by Christopher Andrew”

2006/07/182009/07/18

Government Archive on Public Intelligence (1992-2006)

Government

2006	SA	Government	Yekelo	African Early Warning
2002	US	Government	FSMO	Foreign Military Studies Office
2000	US	Government	Steele	Spies and Secrecy in an Open World
1999	US	Government	Coile	Information Overlay for Preparing & Coping with Local Disasters
1999	CA	Government	George	OSINT: Islamic Unrest in China
1999	US	Government	Heidenrich	Genocide Web Sites (At the Time)
1999	US	Government	Heidenrich	Sample Daily Briefing on Genocide
1999	UN	Government	Marks	Proposal for Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
1999	US	Government	OSS	Proliferation Web Sites (At the Time)
1999	US	Government	OSS	Sample Daily Briefing on Proliferation
1999	NL	Government	Reserved	OSINT: Foundation for Co-Ordination and Information Sharing
1999	US	Government	Sanz	Nuclear Terrorism Literature Since 1992
1999	US	Government	Sovereign	Information Sharing for the Lower End of the Spectrum
1999	US	Government	Steele	Relevant Information: New Approach to Collection, Sharing, Analysis
1999	US	Government	Steele	Web-Based Concept for a Global Information Sharing Environment
1999	CA	Government	Stout & Quiggin	OSINT: High Resolution Imagery for Anyone
1999	AU	Government	Wing	Optimizing Open Source Information Sharing in Australia
1999	AU	Government	Wing	OSINT in Australia: The Report
1998	NL	Government	BVD	Annual Report of the National Security Service
1998	BE	Government	Cailloux	Belgian Observations on Intelligence Oversight
1998	BE	Government	Cailloux	Report of the Intelligence Oversight Committee
1998	FR	Government	Clerc	Economic Intelligence
1998	US	Government	Dearth	Government and the Information Marketplace
1998	US	Government	Hughes	FBIS 1995-1998: Transition and Transformation
1998	US	Government	Lee	Letter to HPSCI Urging Attention to Commercial Mapping Technology
1998	SE	Government	Leijonhelm	OSINT and Information Sharing Between Government & Industry
1998	S. Africa	Government	Mti	OSINT, the African Renaissance, and Sustainable Development
1998	GE	Government	Schlickman	Ensuring Trust and Security in Electronic Communications
1998	US	Government	Steele	INFORMATION PEACEKEEPING: The Purest Form of War
1998	US	Government	Steele	Strategic Issues in National and Regional Intelligence & Security
1998	US	Government	Steele	Clandestine Human Intelligence Successes, Failures, Possibilities
1998	US	Government	Steele (in French)	Strategic Intelligence in the USA: Myth or Reality?
1997	UK	Government	Andrew	Presidents, Secret Intelligence, and Open Sources
1997	US	Government	Carroll	CENDI Information Managers Group
1997	US	Government	Haakon	Commercial Imagery Options and Trade-Offs
1997	US	Government	Hodge	CENDI: Help! Impact of the Internet on the Consumer
1997	US	Government	Johnson	National Technical Information Center
1997	US/UK	Government	Kerr & Herman	Does the Intelligence Community Have a Future? (Two Items in One)
1997	US	Government	Robideau	Department of Energy Technical Information Program
1996	US	Government	Kalil (NEC)	Leveraging Cyberspace
1996	US	Government	Lucas (COSPO)	The Open Source Information System
1995	US	Government	Markowitz	Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO), Report on the Program
1995	US	Government	Peters	INADEQUATE ANSWERS: Bureaucracy, Wealth, & Mediocrity (US IC)
1994	US	Government	Carroll	Harsh Realities: S&T Acquisition Costs, Obstacles, and Results
1994	AU	Government	Chantler	Producing Intelligence in Australia: H National Open Source Foundation?
1994	US	Government	Devost	Digital Threat: United States National Security and Computers
1994	US	Government	Wiener	The Intelligence Community: An Outsider’s View
1993	SE	Government	Heden & Dedijer	The State of the National Intelligence and Security Community of Sweden
1992	US	Government	Cotter	NASA Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities (Slides)
1992	US	Government	Cotter	NASA Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities (Text)
1992	US	Government	Johnson	NTIS Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities
1992	US	Government	Keyworth	Government as a Customer in the Digital Age
1992	US	Government	McConnell	Planned Revisions to Circular No. A-130
1992	US	Government	Molholm	The CENDI Paradigm: How Some Federal Managers Have Organized
1992	US	Government	Mortimer	LC FRD Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities
1992	US	Government	Riddle	FBIS Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities
1992	US	Government	Steele	Information Concepts & Doctrine for the Future
1992	US	Government	Studeman	Teaching the Giant to Dance

2005/09/282009/12/04

Review: The World Was Going Our Way–The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (v. 2) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Extraordinary largely for showing contractors as the weak link ,

September 28, 2005

Christopher Andrew

This is, like the first book, an extraordinary piece of scholarship. While it can be tedious in both its detail and in the drollness of the “accomplishments” that enjoyed so much Politburo attention and funding, it joins books such as Derek Leebaert's The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World in documenting the insanity and waste that characterized much of the so-called “secret wars” between the US Intelligence Community (within which the CIA is a $3 billion a year runt against the larger defense budget approaching $50 billion a year) and the KGB and GRU.

For those who have the patience or speed to get through this entire book, the single most important revelation and documentation concerns the ease with which the Russians were able to recruit traitors within the US defense community contractors. Ralph Peters has written about this in New Glory : Expanding America's Global Supremacy but speaks mostly of legal treason–corruption and waste. This book carefully addresses the sad reality that DoD is totally penetrated by foreign spies (one would add, Third World and allied spies including France, Germany, and Israel, never mind China and Iran) via the contracting community.

One day someone will do a careful calibration of both the good and the bad of secret intelligence. When that day comes, this book will be as good a place as any with which to start.

Best General Couonterintelligence Books:
Traitors Among Us: Inside the Spy Catcher's World
Merchants of Treason America's Secrets for Sale from the Pueblo to the Present

2001/01/102009/12/04

Review: For the President’s Eyes Only–Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush

5 Star, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret)

For Presidents, Cabinet Members, Commanders, & Senior Staff,

January 10, 2001

Christopher Andrew

“Over the past two centuries only four American presidents-Washington, Eisenhower, Kennedy (briefly), and Bush-have shown a real flair for intelligence.” This 660-page book documents this assessment, and ends with the conclusion “The presidents in the twenty-first century, like their Cold War predecessors, will continue to find an enormously expensive global intelligence system both fallible and indispensable.” His general findings in the conclusion are instructive: presidents have tended to have exaggerated expectations of intelligence, and have frequently overestimated the secret power that covert action might put at their command. For all that failed, both in intelligence not getting it right and presidents not listening when it did, intelligence undeniably helped stabilize the Cold War and avoid many confrontations. This book is extremely relevant to the emerging discussion, in 2001, about the need to depoliticize the position of the Director of Central Intelligence, and perhaps to consider a new National Security Act of 2001.

2000/04/082009/10/24

Review: Comrade Kryuchkov’s Instructions–Top Secret Files on KGB Foreign Operations, 1975-1985

3 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Core Reference for the Professional Researcher,

April 8, 2000

Christopher Andrew

Imagine the CIA clandestine mentality and U.S. bureaucracy, as operated by a Soviet-style controlled regime. This is an eye-glazing but very professionally put together testimonial to the fact that much of what the KGB did was pedestrian, pointless, very expensive, and as weak on understanding foreign countries as the US.