2009 IAFIE essay contest

We have long had mixed opinions regarding the International Association of Intelligence Education. While we are exceptionally glad an organization of this nature exists, and feel that it plays a valuable role in networking and ongoing conversation in the field, we have been quite discouraged regarding attempts to interpose the association as an arbiter of professional standards. The professional standards of the intelligence community cannot be governed by academics and outsiders – particularly when the organization itself has show that it has a long way to go towards understanding the full scope of the community’s tradecraft and many of its sub-disciplines.

However, we continue to believe that IAFIE can play a valuable role in spreading best practices identified by currently serving professionals throughout academia. We also see it as one of the organizations which could be fundamental in advancing the literature of intelligence, if it ever lives up to its true potential. There is much work to be done here, but expansion of the association out of Erie to a wider range of venues and institutions is an excellent start.

To this end, we are pleased to see the announcement of an essay competition for its 2009 conference. The full text is reproduced below:

The International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE) is pleased to announce its Essay Competition for 2009. This competition promotes IAFIE’s goal of providing a forum for the communication and exchange of ideas and information for those interested in and concerned with intelligence education.
Competition is open to everyone having an interest in furthering intelligence education. (IAFIE officers and staff are not eligible to compete.)

Awards
First place finishers in each category will receive a $1,000 cash award and be invited to speak at the Annual IAFIE Conference, May 27-28, 2009 at the University of Maryland. IAFIE will pay for travel, accommodations and conference registration costs.
Second place finishers in each category will each receive $500 in cash. First and second place finishers will have the opportunity to publish their essays on the IAFIE website.
First and second place finishers will also receive a one year free membership in IAFIE.

Categories
Professional – An individual who is working or who has worked as an intelligence analyst, or an individual who is or has been involved in teaching intelligence studies or providing intelligence training (teacher, trainer, consultant, private citizen).
Graduate Student – A full-time or part-time graduate student currently enrolled with a college or university.
Undergraduate Student - A full-time or part-time undergraduate student currently enrolled with a college or university.

Essay Questions
Please answer one of the following questions in your essay. Essays may be written from the perspective of national security, law enforcement, academia, business or private citizen.

1. What impact have major events of this decade had on the role of the intelligence professional in national security, law enforcement or competitive intelligence? (Select major events based upon your choice of field.)

2. Intelligence-led policing is in practice in several countries on several continents. Using real-world examples, what, in your opinion, are the strengths and weaknesses of intelligence-led policing?

3. What do you think are the most important challenges facing the intelligence community over the next 10 years?

4. What advantages do strategic analysis and futures thinking hold for the future of the intelligence professional and how can they be incorporated into the intelligence professional’s skill sets?

Submission Guidelines
Submissions must include a cover sheet with the author’s name, contact information, category (Professional, Graduate Student or Undergraduate Student), essay title and, for graduate or undergraduate students, the name of the college or university they are attending. Those submitting in the Professional category must submit a biography of 50 words or less. Do not include your name on the essay.
Essays must be no longer than 2,500 words, excluding endnotes and bibliography, double spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point font.
Essays must be submitted in English using Word or PDF format.
Essays must be original and not previously published. Submission constitutes permission to publish.

Deadline for Submission: January 9, 2009, midnight, EST. Email your submission to: submissions[at]iafie[dot]org

Notification: Award winners will be notified no later than April 2, 2009

Evaluation Criteria: A panel of intelligence professionals will judge all entries and select the winners for each category. Essays will be evaluated on their relevance to the question, creativity, strength of argument, and writing quality.

To those that will participate, bonne chance. We hope to see a robust response, and (hopefully) an edited collection can be circulated that will include both the winners and substantive runner-up entries.

A new IC CAE and a new intelligence ethics conference

While the inimitable Dr. Jan Goldman will no doubt still retain his pre-eminence in the sub-discipline of intelligence ethics, we are pleased to see the discussion expanding outward throughout the academy. We note an upcoming conference at the newest of the IC CAE programs, University of Texas Pan American. The focus on border issues – no doubt a result of the proximity of the institution to the mission - we hope shall help to avoid some of the usual distractions of the endlessly rehashed arguments over interrogation methods that has significantly derailed much of the intellectual energies afforded the topic as of late.

If nothing else, we see with some amusement that this program takes the award for innovation in naming, being the first non-DOD program we are aware of to incorporate a superscript character in their acronym. (We look forward to future algorithmic naming permutations as time passes). More significantly however, the school’s program offers language instruction in Arabic, Chinese, and Portuguese – language families not always easily found in other institutions. We should have liked to see a greater emphasis on analytic tradecraft and intelligence professionalization in their program – a complaint we have regarding many of the IC CAE structures - but nonetheless we wish them well in their endeavors.

We repost below the call for papers issued by the conference organizers, for those that might be interested in the venue and feel unable to wait for the annual association’s event in February. (And while the timing of the events is nicely spaced, we do hope that the identical paper deadlines will not result in cannibalization of a limited scholarly output, but rather a greater flourishing of the area of inquiry. We hope next year that any similar efforts are better coordinated, as the intelligence studies discipline is frankly too small to long endure competing stovepipes.)

"Call for papers: “Ethics in Intelligence, Security, and Immigration: The Moral and Social Significance of Gathering and Managing Information and Borders in the Global Community”

The University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas will be hosting a conference on “Ethics in Intelligence and Immigration” November 20-22, 2008. We invite submission of papers on any subject related to ethical issues in the fields of intelligence gathering, global security and immigration. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words. Send electronic submissions to: pace [at] utpa.edu

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Ethical issues in global intelligence
• Ethical issues in competitive intelligence
• Ethical issues in immigration
• Ethical issues related to the collection, storage, and retrieval of intelligence
• Ethical issues in privacy and global and national security
• Codes of ethics in private and public intelligence
• Open vs. closed borders
• Ethical implications of a border wall

---Submission deadline: 1 October 2008---

Conference dates: 20-22 November 2008

There is a strong possibility that some or all conference papers will be published in a volume of conference proceedings.Sponsored by the Integrated Global Knowledge and Understanding Collaboration (IGkNU), the Pan American Collaboration for Ethics in the Professions (PACE), and the Office of International Programs at UTPA"

We look forward to the published volume, as well as the future scholarship of the IC CAE.

Winter is the paper season

For those locked indoors in the cold (such as it may have been, or soon return, despite a brief and enjoyable moment of unseasonable warmth), winter is an excellent opportunity for research, reflection, and writing. It is especially appropriate at the start of a new year for all those professionals who have vowed that 2008 will be the year that they at last contribute the literature in their own right.

Thus, we note in passing a few of the more recent calls for papers that have been circulating in recent weeks. For further details beyond these brief summaries, please see the original announcement sources.

• 2008 International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War, to take place at the University of California at Santa Barbara on 4-5 April 2008. Submissions by graduate students working on any aspect of the Cold War, broadly defined. Of particular interest are papers that make use of newly available primary sources. A two-page proposal and a brief academic C.V. (in Word or PDF format), should be submitted to jchapman@history.ucsb.edu by 15 January 2008 to be considered. Notification of acceptance will be made by 5 February. Successful applicants will be expected to email their papers (no longer than 25 pages) by 21 March.

• Doreen and Jim McElvany 2008 Nonproliferation Challenge Essay Contest: In an effort to spur new scholarship and policy initiatives to address today's vexing proliferation problems, CNS and its journal, The Nonproliferation Review, are launching an essay contest. The contest is designed to find and publish the most outstanding new papers in the nonproliferation field. Although we will not exclude essays with a historical orientation (if they provide guidance for current or future policy), our priority is to generate new insights and recommendations for resolving contemporary nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons challenges, including those involving both state and non-state actors. Entries should not exceed 10,000 words (including endnotes), or approximately 40 double-spaced pages. All entries must be the original, unpublished work of the author(s) and must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Deadline for submission is 31 March 2008. Grand Prize: $10,000* and Outstanding Student Essay Prize: $1,000

• Computer Applications in Knowledge-Based Systems: A special issue of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology: Knowledge-based systems provide intelligent assistance in solving any problem. They can be used not only as systems within engineering, but also within management, marketing, internet, communication, networking, psychology, education, etc. The research and development of these systems which exploit knowledge in the target domain is at the forefront of modern research. This special issue is intended to present applications of knowledge-based systems. Submitted papers are expected to postulate diverse problems, models and solutions for these applications. This special issue welcomes both academic and practical contributions in all aspects of knowledge-based systems. Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to, the following: Knowledge-based systems / Knowledge-based engineering / Knowledge discovery and data mining / Intelligent agents and multi-agent systems / Machine learning / Text mining and applications / Speech processing and synthesis / Signal processing / Business intelligence systems / Intelligence systems for e-business / Information agents on the internet / Genetic algorithms / Evolutionary computing / Hybrid intelligent systems / Knowledge acquisition / Communication assistance with knowledge / Natural language processing / Information retrieval / NLP application / Cross-language information retrieval. Important Dates: Submission of full paper before: 15 April 2008 / Notification of acceptance before: 15 June 2008 / Submission of final and revised manuscripts: 15 August 2008
  

• POLICING FOR HOMELAND SECURITY, Criminal Justice Policy Review – Special Issue. Guest Editor: Willard M. Oliver, Ph.D., Sam Houston State University: Criminal Justice Policy Review is currently soliciting manuscripts for a special issue on policing for homeland security. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in the United States have taken on new responsibilities, and the role of policing continues to evolve as a viable component of the overall national strategy for homeland security. Little research, however, identifies emerging policing strategies, their relationship and/or application to the national strategy for homeland security, and corresponding policy implications. Manuscripts considered for publication in this special issue could focus on a variety of topics, including (but not limited to): (1) adaptation of community policing and/or problem-oriented policing to homeland security; (2) law enforcement organizational transformation consistent with the overall national strategy for homeland security; (3) interagency cooperation for homeland security; (4) innovations in policing delivery of service models and policy consistent with the overall national strategy for homeland security; and, (5) policing for homeland security program evaluations. For style and submission guidelines for Criminal Justice Policy Review, please go to http://www.hhs.iup.edu/cr/CJPR. For additional information, contact Phil Stinson, Managing Editor, Criminal Justice Policy Review, at p.m.stinson@iup.edu or (724) 357-1247. Submission Deadline: May 1, 2008
  

And of course, interested parties are always welcome to submit papers or short pieces for publication in these pages, either for attribution or on anonymous / pseudonym basis. We remind our readers that we only accept unclassified material suitable for wide public distribution, which carries no potentially negative implications for operational security. For those individuals whose employment requires publication review, our policy remains the same as that of the Association for Intelligence Officers – it is entirely the responsibility of the prospective author to ensure compliance with all controlling policies and other security guidance; and we reserve the right to reject any material not meeting common community standards. Violations of law or policy will be reported to the appropriate agency authorities. However, with those limitations in mind, we have a broad range of eclectic interests in furtherance of our objective of advancing the literature and the profession, and contributions or notes are always welcome.

This is not to say our contemplated journal is yet dead, but much yet remains to be done in coordinating that project. There are also those who would be more comfortable seeing their work in the medium of the blog, which we would encourage – or simply have material which they do not feel would be appropriate for the peer reviewed journals, which we also understand. Students are particularly encouraged to contribute if they are not seeking publication elsewhere. Of course, there is also the wide range of other fine publications in the field, to which submissions may also be made to good effect.

We are greatly looking forward to what contributions to the literature that may be brewing on these long winter nights. After all, we do require a constant supply of good reading materials…