Glimpses into agent psychology

We have long held the opinion that the British writers of the intelligence novel have offered the best examplars to be found of the psychological experiences of agents recruited for espionage. (That is, the classic intelligence definition of the term, and not the disastrous usurpation of the designation for the law enforcement community). Among the unique insights have been the often striking similarities between the subjects and those officers responsible for handling them, something particularly more visible in certain accounts and historical case studies than others.

We speak of course of Len Deighton, whose works remain classics, and of John le Carre, whose early pieces well captured the tenor of his time (despite the increasing gap between his later fiction and the realities they allegedly represent). A more recent entrant is Charles Cumming, whose depiction of the post-Cold War British intelligence establishment from the perspective of a partially witting asset is striking in its tone, not least of which is the result of the author’s semi-biographical approach. (This has been true of most of the better intelligence fiction writers).

It takes a certain personality to write fiction of this sort. Some insights are only the result of lived experiences. We are unsurprised, then, to hear recently of Le Carre’s early intent to defect to the Soviet Union. One can easily see the life-long hints of such intentions throughout much of his work, and most notably in the characters which in fiction carried out that which the man himself never did. It also provides an underlying cause to explain the often excessive intricacies found in the novels’ plot lines, which a number of years ago caused a former Russian intelligence officer to remark in despair regarding the negative impact that such fictionalization had upon younger professionals in his service attempting their own approaches along such models, without regard for the inevitable imposition of Mr. Murphy’s Russian equivalent in the real world. After all, after spending so long considering what one does not act upon, it is only expected that the resulting planning takes a tangled and impractical shape.

For students of intelligence as an activity and a profession, it is a subject perhaps best handled through fictional characterization. In this form, certain features may be exaggerated for the purposes of the narrative – and over time, a composite constructed to reveal the whole. Consider this sort of fiction perhaps the intelligence community’s version of the morality play.

We do wonder where the next century shall find the literature to play the same role. In this, we are reminded of the most insightful essay by Charles Stross, The Golden Age of Spying, in which he quite neatly characterized the unique cultural pressures which brought such works to the published market. We do not see a modernized parallel anywhere on the horizon, and we think the profession poorer for it.

The Jesters tackle counterproliferation

We have several enduring interests that our longtime readers will have noted us discuss before. The first - consumption of interesting audio media - is based on the inevitable realities of the Beltway commute, frequent extended travel time, and long periods of enforced downtime at various airstrips, motor pools, and other transient spaces around the globe. The second is the conviction that better insight can often be generated by the jesters at the futurists' court than the professional prognosticators – or at the very least, the clowns utilized for illustration and the divergence analytic methodology.

It is not often these interests converge. However, there is apparently a growing and vibrant podcasting scene occupied by speculative fiction writers of all sorts, and it is from that space that we were given (by a more science fiction oriented colleague) a story which illustrates – as only a fictional vignette can – the potential difficulties of future counterproliferation activities in the expeditionary and post-conflict environment. Thus we also recommend highly to our readers the short piece “Clockwork Atom Bomb” produced over at the Escape Pod “podcast magazine” (an entity which we had not previously been familiar with, and do not otherwise attempt evaluate). We think the piece will also be of particular interest to those which routinely must argue the effects of perverse economic incentives in transnational issues, and those that handle accounts related to sub-Saharan Africa.

The piece is not recommended for those that take their analytic tasks too literately, or their futures intelligence within too narrowly constrained boundaries of simple linear projection. But it is perfect for a short diversion to recapture otherwise lost time.

The literature of cryptologic intelligence, declassified

Whole volumes of the intelligence literature produced within one of the oldest of the nation’s organizations are too often ignored by academics and other practitioners outside of the narrow field of signals intelligence. The literature of the technical side of the house tends to be exceptionally arcane – even by the eccentric standards of the rest of the IC – littered with mathematics, circuit diagrams, and radio propagation sketches. Its historical materials assume a familiarity that many outsiders cannot broach. And above all, this literature remains exceptionally protected, often for decades longer than counterpart publications in other agencies.
But the reader would be remiss to ignore the recently declassified series of articles taken from the various in-house journals and historical studies of our friends at Fort Meade. While still a small collection, it is a remarkable aggregation of materials of great potential value for those engaged in the hard task of teaching intelligence to the next generation of budding young professionals.

We are particularly hopeful that this round of declassifications will also spark a new interest in the history and theory of this venerable discipline. The second wave of publications that result from such interest are often invaluable companions to the primary works authored by practitioners, as academics attempt to interpret and re-contextualize material which has often long ago passed into the domain of the unexamined assumptions of common knowledge.

So hie thee hence, dear readers, and we hope to see new life emerge in the commentary and discussion of these thoughts of those that came before, and who laid the foundation for the practice of the art and science as we now know it.

Evidence inferred

In the rush to focus on new analytical techniques and methodologies, particularly the more complex and arbitrarily numeric variants, we think that the fundamental aspects of inferential reasoning are too often overlooked. This is by no means the stuff of such modern vogue as complicated algorithms or cutting edge research into cognitive developments. Nor is it the drumbeat of “critical thinking” applied absent real problems or even properly constructed examples.

Rather, this is the meat of what separates the analytic mind from that of the mere reporter. The problem occurs not only when building new analysts, who are too frequently shorted on the fundamentals which are vital in cultivating this distinction, but also when developing analysts’ tradecraft at the journeyman level.

Part of the reason why inference is so often given such a short shrift is that there is rarely new material of interest in circulation on the topic, when one can easily find a few hundred other resources for just about any new “hot” topic. But then again, one supposes it is hard to muster funding for a proposal described as an attempt to revisit and extent the work of a lawyer from the late 19th century.

It is for this reason we were delighted that the folks at University College London have put together an excellent cadre of interdisciplinary researchers to tackle the problems of evidence and inference, including the esteemed Professor David Schum (who first brought the phrase into common usage within the intelligence profession). The Evidence Science group is clearly seeking to forge new ground from what others have long ignored as well trod paths. Their publication set is indeed well worth reviewing, as it covers a wide range of topics central to the profession of intelligence: the persistence of discredited evidence, exploration of belief formation, and the use of rhetoric and argumentation, among many others. While only a few of the pieces focus explicitly on the intelligence domain, these exist within a selection of interdisciplinary material which also can provide its own value to the judicious reader. (It is for this reason that we can recommend the site despite the number of lawyering and quantitative analysis publications).

We think this might be just the thing for some of those in the Beltway contemplating a long weekend away from it all and looking for some not-so light reading in the wider literature.

123 Meme, with variation

Thanks to Mountainrunner, we have been tagged with one of these random interweb memes that seem to us to be a deliberate attempt to spark a convulsive degree of self-consciousness within the restless stirring of electrons that is the Parallel Universe. (And given the gentleman’s interest in all things UxV, one cannot discount his role as agent provocateur in welcoming the new robot overlords – after all, he is the individual that inserted reference to Cylons into a serious DOD briefing.)

For those that may have been thus far spared exposure to this particular viral idea

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages)
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people

Given that our group format by its very structure creates a different response to this question for each participant, we found ourselves internally cross-tagged. After some discussion, we also decided to introduce an additional element of randomness in the passages selected – within a moderate degree of ambiguity near to the canonical 123 meme segment – just to stir the echoes a bit more (and no doubt as further evidence of our contrarian nature). After all, intelligence professionals should not become accustomed to too high an artificial measure of certainty in anything.

Thus we offer a few of the more notable passages from the various and sundry texts offered by our contributors:

Ransom, Harry Rowe. Central Intelligence and National Security. Harvard University Press. 1958.

“’New concepts’ earlier mentioned in State’s intelligence organization are partly the result of the influx of Foreign Service officers into intelligence – ‘Wristonization’ – and partly the result of a redefinition of intelligence requirements of the Department. Effort is being made to assure that the intelligence produced is attuned to the real needs of State’s policy makers and operators. Through various administrative devices closer daily operational contact exists between officials responsible for making and implanting policy and those supplying intelligence.”

Earley, Pete. Comrade J. GP Putnam’s Sons. 2007.

“Having tasted the reforms sparked by perestroika and glasnost, Soviet legislators were not willing to turn back the clock. This left the KGB chairman and his cronies with only one option. If they wanted to stop the Union Treaty, they had to remove Gorbachev with military force before the August treaty was signed.”

Sageman, Marc. Leaderless Jihad. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2008.

“Unlike traditional terrorist organizations that have physical sites and more territorial ambitions, there is no incentive for a leaderless virtual social movement to moderate or evolve beyond terrorism. Because there is no formal organization, with assets, sunk costs, physical commitments, or other stabilizing elements, participants who become more moderate in their views simply leave the forum and move on, or are banished from the forum by the webmaster. But their legacy lives on; their previous commitments and activities (writings, videos, and terrorist operations) are still archived in the forums and could continue to inspire new generations of dreamers to capture the glory that had inspired the old stalwarts in the first place.”

Anderson, Terence; Schum, David, and Twining, William. Analysis of Evidence, 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press. 2005.

“The logic is simple; the complexity lies in the materials to be analyzed and in identifying the relationships between the propositions in an extensive argument based on a mass of conflicting evidence. The logic is binary: every relevant proposition either tends to support or tends to negate a single hypothesis or conclusion (the ultimate probandum). The technique is dialectical: the aim of the chart-maker should be to construct the most cogent possible argument for and against the ultimate conclusion and to relate the opposing arguments within a single coherent structure.


But we do also wish to tag a few others, for we are far more interested in thoughts which originate outside of our little skunkworks. Thus:

• Deborah Osbourne, of Analyst’s Corner
• Jesser Wilson, should he resurface
• August Jackson, of SCIP
• Jeff Dexter, at the Ghost of Patrick Henry
• and Dr. Waller at Political Warfare

Virtualizing those critical language resources

In our previous travels abroad, in places far off the beaten track, we have often had occasion to require the kinds of vocabulary not commonly included in typical dictionaries or phrase books. Often, the approximations one must resort to when discussing narrowly specific professional subjects can be quite humorous – especially given our typical none too literate grasp of the local lingua franca in those hotspots where we never personally had expected to find ourselves. (For as much as we encourage those entering the profession to pursue language skills on their target account to the best possible proficiency, we are acutely aware from our own experiences – and those of many of our contemporaries – that with the pace one’s accounts tend to change these days, it is all too often more likely that a mid-career professional will find themselves with a slice of too many tongues at far too shallow a level of proficiency for anything but the more rudimentary of street level conversations. But then again – with only a few exceptions – the members of our skunkworks freely admit to not having much of a head for any language, English included.)

But along the way we have acquired quite a range of more useful texts to help with the problems of finding the right word to express those more obscure professional concepts. These resources usually of military origin, and usually among the older and forgotten sections of the stacks. One of our most useful finds, a number of years ago, turned out to have far greater utility than we ever anticipated as the Long War emerged. Thus we carried for a number of years in our kit an increasingly dog eared copy of a French- Arabic lexicon of military terminology originally authored in the 1920’s – yet surprisingly useful even today.

The long disused texts within the virtual stacks of the major digitization projects (including the Million Books project and Google’s own book effort) have once again provided us with an example which may perhaps be more generally useful for those that do not wish the burden of having to relay their speech through multiple imperfect lenses.

The volume is “English-Arabic vocabulary, for the use of officials in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan”, and was the product of the intelligence department of the Egyptian Army (and its British advisors) in 1905. It is both a “survival” level language resource as well as a compilation of military terminology translation.

Interested readers may also find an English-Arabic dictionary “For the Use of Both Travellers and Students” for from 1882 of some value, although it is far more general in nature.

These are the kinds of things that ought to have been made available through more concerted efforts at the very start of the Long War, as more modern resources were rapidly being created. (Though we do note that Anglo-Egyptian intelligence only came to compile its volume long after the British intervention against the Madhi’s forces in the Sudan…) Nonetheless, in both cases better late than never, and hopefully these kind of resources found in the back archives will prove of some use to those who still find themselves in the far flung locales of the world. We are certain it will prove far less heavy an item on those long treks when one must carry one’s own ruck.

Other intelligence histories

The history of intelligence, for as much attention as it receives within the comparative confines of the intelligence studies field (especially in comparison to the hard business of actually doing intelligence through analysis or operations), still is practically unexplored territory in so many respects. Likewise, what has been explored has been so poorly communicated back to the mainstream of academia. We recall a conversation, not too long ago, with a respected doctor-professor of diplomatic history at a major institution (name omitted to protect the guilty), in which this supposed subject matter expert admitted he had never once heard of the use of cryptanalysis in decoding intercepted diplomatic and personal letters throughout Europe from the 1500’s onward through the Peninsular War (the rough span of his supposed preferred period of study.)

Real intelligence history requires primary sources, and that requires work beyond the typical rehashing of tired tropes that characterizes so much of the cottage industry of intelligence reform. But if the intelligence studies discipline does not involve its counterparts in other departments, particularly amongst the historians, there is little hope of surfacing further source material from the deep archives and scattered collections of surviving material. This especially challenging given that the field has never been itself a primary subject of index, and that those unacquainted with the practice of the tradecraft are often hard pressed to recognize the materials which reference activity (versus organization or declared intent).

We, as a field and as scholars, must also give credit where it is due, and diligently reference the works of those historians which have pursued the hard work of uncovering and interpreting real primary sources. There is much that has been overlooked in the stacks, and the cross-pollination of these ideas from other areas would do much to enlighten our chosen paths of study.

For this reason we would like to bring particular attention to the often overlooked work of Dr. Karl De Leeuw of the University of Amsterdam, who has done much to shed light on unique aspects of intelligence history from a Dutch perspective. In particular, several of his more interesting pieces (from our humble vantage point, anyhow) have focused on cryptographic history to a quite surprising depth.

Among these publications are several articles in the journal Cryptologia (itself too frequently forgotten amongst the more qualitative practitioners of intelligence studies due to its high levels mathematical content), including “Johann Friedrich Euler (1741-1800): Mathematician and cryptologist at the court of the Dutch Stadholder William V” and “The Dutch invention of the rotor machine, 1915-1923”. Equally interesting is a piece in the Historical Journal, which examines “The Black Chamber in the Dutch Republic during the War of the Spanish Succession and its Aftermath, 1707–1715”.

Students and other self-reflective practitioners would be well advised to acquaint themselves further with the overlooked segments of research applicable to the field that circulates in areas outside of the well-trod paths of their contemporaries.

Filling those iPods, intelligence edition (part II)

It’s time again to revisit the playlists as we head into the holidays, spending longer and longer in traffic – or taking those long trips to family and friends in the flyover country or other unknown places outside of the Beltway. We received such strong positive feedback on our first set of resource pointers that we believe our readers might enjoy another set of a few of our favourites. And after all, we all do have to do our bit to contribute to the exaflood's use of bandwidth.

Not all of the links we point out are easily captured in podcast form. Some require a bit of digital witchery to transform into something useable on the road. However, given the dearth of material of interest to the intelligence professional, we think that it is often worth the effort to get some of this material into portable form. And of course, for those unwilling or unable to spend the time (even if it becomes an automated background processing task with only a little experience), there is always the holiday need for some background listening that isn’t the same inevitable themed music that has been playing since Thanksgiving when assembling decorations, toys, and other tasks which engage the hands but not the mind.

• Federal Law Enforcement Training Center podcasts – For those working homeland security or law enforcement intelligence accounts, the Legal Division at FLETC has prepared an excellent series of podcasts of their lectures on a diverse set of issues including search and seizure, FISA, GPS tracking, covert entry warrants, military cases, and the use of force continuum. (Helpfully pointed out by the conspirators at Volokh).

• Center for Strategic and International Studies events – The well known think tank offers audio and video from a number of its recent forums, including presentations by some very interesting foreign speakers as well as round table discussions across the spectrum of global issues.

• Centre for Counterintelligence & Security Studies – These podcasts run the full gamut from short promotional pieces pitching this organization’s classes to longer interviews of notable names, along with some whimsy in the discussion of fiction. We highly recommend the speech given by the Soviet-era defector Yuri Nosenko – it is a quite fascinating look into the thinking of the KGB’s 2nd Chief Directorate, along with the troubled history of a few famous cases, including the speakers’ own treatment by James Jesus Angelton.

• Singularity Summit 2007 – For those interested in the concept of singularity, we highly recommend the audio tracks from this conference that grapples with the potential implications of rapid technology acceleration. For those unfamiliar with the background, the original thinker behind the idea helpfully provides insight here, and you may also listen to an earlier presentation of his from the Ted conference (which just so happens to offer another set of quite enjoyable audio presentations, though on a bit broader range of topics.)

• National Institutes of Health videocasts – The NIH is one of those frequently overlooked repositories of exceptionally valuable expertise and learning that intelligence professionals would be well advised to tap into. They offer a number of medically related lectures and courses which have great utility to those serving homeland security, counterproliferation, or counterterrorism accounts (in addition to items of interest to the medical intelligence professionals out there.)

We have also been remiss in not previously mentioning the rather quite recent entry to the blogging scene of one of Mercyhurst College’s intelligence studies professors at the Sources and Methods blog. Among other posts, the gentleman mentions a list of useful Library of Congress webcasts that may be of interest, covering a good range of topics.

We do hope these help our readers to more enjoyably pass the time spent in holiday gridlock or escaping the Beltway, since we doubt that we shall be offering any podcasts of our own any time in the foreseeable future.

Filling those iPods, intelligence edition

The quest for a continual supply of good podcasts on topics relevant to the intelligence studies field is one of the markers of a truly engaged Beltway professional – and particularly notable in those who must spend a good deal of their lives trapped in traffic. (We can’t all be lucky enough to be handed our lectures in neat, pre-packaged form – but luckily enough, we don’t have to be.)

We have been fortunate enough to enjoy a recent flood of some of the more interesting sources of community relevant material. Many of the think tanks and academic environments are realizing the benefits to their reputation (and increased audience) by making available the archived recordings of their events – particularly involving prominent speakers. The podcast form, long believed to be re-inventing the otherwise dying art of the radio broadcast, is also starting to drive the revival of managed productions for specific commercial purposes. Many of these happen to cover items of interest to us as well.

Among the better sources of good podcasts for the busy young IC professional:

• Office of Force Transformation / Johns Hopkins University Seminar Series – This is an innovative speaker series involving both DOD and the academic side of the house that has been running for a number of years now, in which serious SME’s discuss the future of warfare and the soft instruments of national power. The 2007 series just wrapped up, but archives are available of the many hours of previous years’ lectures, and funding for 2008 has been confirmed.

• Council on Foreign Relations podcasts – The well known think tank not only offers recordings of its well respected events, but features in particular a series of short interviews and discussions with some very notable figures within the community: including DNI McConnell and DCI Hayden. Topics for other speakers range from diplomatic history to a wide range of current social, political, and strategic issues.

• Stratfor – We have long held mixed opinions regarding the first firm to brand itself a “private CIA”. It is however one of the few shops willing to broadcast its analysis briefings in the form of podcasts open to all, and sometimes they are worth listening to. If nothing else, they are also an excellent case study in alternative dissemination for intelligence products – not to mention a fascinating example of the ongoing response by the market to the privatization of intelligence itself. Depending on how and when one accesses the site, registration may be required - but this seems to change quite frequently, especially for those using popular RSS readers and third party content aggregation services.

• Pritzker Military Library podcasts – An excellent audio series which features presentations by prominent authors and historians, as well as oral histories recounted by Medal of Honor recipients. For those too busy to read as much as one might otherwise prefer, it is also an excellent way of keep abreast of the growing literature through the author’s own gisting and summaries, which can serve as an excellent filtering mechanism by which one can identify the truly interesting and high value works for the “must read” list.

• Competitive Intelligence Podcast – A very much amateur production aimed at those in the commercial and business worlds, but nonetheless of potential interest to a broader audience of intelligence professionals. We have noted its evolving sophistication over recent episodes and hope to see it flourish in the future.

These should help keep the inevitable frustrations of traffic in the greater DC metro area at bay for quite a few hours. Now, if only more academic intelligence studies institutions would start their own podcast series….

Undiscovered countries

It is telling, we think, that one of the premier authors of speculative fiction has chosen to abandon the search for futures in favour of works chasing, in various ways, the mysteries of the intelligence world. It is perhaps the defining element of our time, the ways in which the hitherto invisible world continues to intersect the common planes of existence – usually with dramatic and difficult consequences.

William Gibson conceived of cyberspace simply by looking at one of the first Apple advertising posters, and wrote of the virtual world on an old typewriter. His most recent work, Spook Country, is not so much a matter of de novo creation but rather the innovative weaving of threads of stories which touch upon the very root of the world in which we work. In a way, should he continue to explore these themes in his work, and eschew the easy answers of existing monologues in favour of his own unique voice, he might just become the voice of a new generation of intelligence literature in fiction – in much the same way that early Le Carré became quietly internalized in the narratives of an earlier generation. (In fact, a former SVR officer we once knew had an entire monologue regarding the works of David Cornwell, but that’s another story…)

We have never cared much for spy novels, nor other elements of such popular fiction. (Our interest in science fiction as the jester at the futurists’ table is a different matter…) But there is something in the better iterations of these works which has long served as a kind of metastructure and mythology for the shared endeavor – something one is full free to never take seriously as a real professional, but is acknowledged as a sort of gateway to attract and captivate young minds on the way to their own understanding of the real profession. For years, the literature of intelligence fiction even provided case studies for use when real cases were not available, allowing the very carefully selected expression of maxims and lessons within an unclassified context. Now, the collected volume of recent history is on the side of those who teach intelligence, with quite a bit of authentic declassified material to support a wide range of instructional cases. And for a long time, the literature of intelligence fiction has trended more and more towards the spectacular, and entirely entertainment focused – perhaps good yarns, but nothing that could be an assigned reading section. We think the profession is long overdue for a change – and very much needs the kind of fiction that can articulate the underpinnings of the intelligence instrument of national power.


We do not yet think Gibson gets there quite yet, but he is well on his way should he desire to pursue such a path. We think what small success he has had in setting forth fictional keystones of the intelligence profession’s ongoing narrative is entirely coincidental and unintentional, but there is great promise in what he might accomplish. After all, it is in the unanticipated interaction of things that the most interesting stories of the Long War are emerging, and he has a knack for capturing the essence of such intersections well. Whether in the systema inherited from the failing days of the DGI, reinterpreted through the lens of an entirely new kind of service, to the expression of rumours of a new kind of surrogate proxy in the far waters of Asia – the author has a distinct knack for envisioning higher order effects.

And it is this kind of speculative imagination that needs to be nurtured, not as the reality of the profession’s days, but in the campfire tales of evening and the dreams of its long if unquiet nights. For far stranger things will emerge to challenge the next generation of intelligence professionals, and it is in the quality of their imagination that they will first stand or fail when facing these new challenges. It is difficult to cultivate the sparks of vision, and far harder to sustain. them If a few pieces of fiction can help along the way, we would be glad to see it.

The intelligence officer’s virtual bookshelf

With the academic year fast approaching, and many students deployed in the far flung reaches of the globe where the mails are not always the fastest, we thought we might highlight a few electronic resources which might ease the burden of weight for those forced to carry around their research on their backs. (We suppose there are also more than a few more conventional students who might appreciate the ability to keep their critical references handy on portable media.)

Among the most useful of the unclassified resources in the intelligence studies field has been the DTIC public STINET (scientific and technical information network) – not least of which as it offers much of the military academia’s voluminous output of papers and studies, particularly those of the War Colleges, which have been released for unlimited distribution. The scope of the body of work available through these releases is so significant that when we are engaged in the difficult task of teaching intelligence, we would nearly always strike marks against students who offered their own research without reference to sources derived from this remarkable collection of prior thought on almost every subject of interest to the field. (There is simply too much material, easily accessible, and of significant interest, to be overlooked so casually. It was typically one of the first signs of insufficient rigor.)

We also have been recently acquainted with the ever growing collection of out of copyright works assembled by the Open Content Alliance and distributed through the Internet Archive. Many of these works were previously overlooked in the field in all but the best equipped of libraries. And while there is a modern conceit that all of the literature of intelligence began in the post WWII era, there is a surprising body of work that emerged post Civil War (although only Pinkerton’s boasting tends to enjoy any mention), and in the aftermath of the Great War. For those looking into the early origins of intelligence as an organized activity, these are excellent original texts made widely available.

We are gratified to see a number of publishers beginning to open up electronic archives of their production output. There will always be far too many volumes for any individual to peruse manually, and to acquire in hardcopy. However, the application of the search engine to these works can open up specific authors to much wider appreciation, and can surface material with interesting relationships to ongoing areas of academic interest that may have previously gone unnoticed. One of the more recent of these is the Praeger Security International database (subscription access, but in our humble opinion worth the fee, certainly from an institutional perspective.) Unlike the current focus of say a Jane’s (resource valuable in its own right, but one that all are no doubt familiar with), the PSI database offers the full text of a number of books frequently assigned as standard texts within the intelligence studies field. It is an excellent place to start if one wishes to assign additional readings to newer analysts and other students, without imposing on them the cost of the entire volume for one or two chapters. (Although most good analysts will want the full text, but that is entirely typical of those enthralled in service to a frequently shared obsession.)

We would also be remiss if we failed to note the increasing number of titles publicly released from the National Defense Intelligence College (formerly JMIC). A number of their more recent works are now a core part of the canon of intelligence literature that every new analyst and student should be acquainted with.

We are most pleased to see the growing accessibility of the literature of intelligence, and hope this next academic year’s papers, and thesis/capstone projects, will benefit as a result. For too long, material has been locked up in limited circulation and often hard to acquire hardcopy, distributed hand to hand as grey literature or even samizdat. That was not the way to build an intelligence profession, and we have suffered for it.

We are also interested to see the longer term and higher order effects of the virtuous cycle we believe is created by increased access to the literature – especially for those institutions which value and foster such accesses (vice those that would continue business as usual.) We expect a certain normative effect, where the previous excesses of false prophets may be muted by a wider exposure to that which may show them in true light. We also hope to see an end, or at least a reduction, in the endless and fruitless attempts to reinvent the wheel, and to recast analytical tradecraft in an individual’s image. There will also remain a place for the methodologist, and the innovator, in adding to the body of best practices and enriching the community of interest; but we hope that knowledge of the wider scope of the profession will help place those contributions in context.

The pleasure and the burden of the reading stack

A holiday weekend (for some few lucky souls at least) and a bit of travel has scattered our small skunkworks even further to the wind, and has meant coordinating an answer to our colleagues’ requests for a glimpse at our reading list has taken longer than anticipated.

However, we can report a few titles that have been stacked on various nightstands and desks. As always, there is never enough time for the reading we wish to be doing versus the reading we find ourselves needing to get through. Thus will ever be the lot of the intelligence professional, we fear.

In fact, we feel there is little else so fundamental to the practice of the art and science than one’s choices in accumulating new information, the vast majority of which remains written (and likely will for some time to come, even if supplemented by graphical elements, simply due to the levels of information density in text versus other mediums.) But that is a debate for another day.

We are also not sure what value our current reading list has for our fellows – versus what we might choose to recommend or assign to a new analyst or student - but for what it’s worth….

Hizbullah: The Story from Within by Naim Qassem

Hezbollah: A Short History by Augustus Richard Norton

The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War by Thaddeus Holt

The Tao of Deception: Unorthodox Warfare in Historic and Modern China by Ralph D. Sawyer

The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future by Vali Nasr

The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World by General Sir Rupert Smith

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth

Terrorism Law: Cases, and Materials, Fourth Edition by Jeffrey F. Addicott

SOE: The Scientific Secrets by Fredric Boyce

Cyber Adversary Characterization: Auditing the Hacker Mind by Tom Parker, Marcus Sachs, Eric Shaw, Ed Stroz, Matthew G. Devost

Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization by John Robb

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A Short Course in the Secret War, 4th Edition by Christopher Felix


Plus the usual stack of periodicals that are routinely delivered, or that we haven’t quite gotten to – Economist, Defense Intelligence Journal, Intelligencer, Journal of International Affairs, Small Arms Review, and as always the latest issue of Studies…

Perhaps we can tag a few others with the meme, including Messrs. Tanji, Martin, and Former Spook. These gentlemen should likewise make for an interesting list to add to the extant offerings at Coming Anarchy (who it looks like started the viral idea for these posts), Soob, Hidden Unities, and Simulated Laughter.

Non-western intelligence traditions

Our earlier post regarding ongoing (and thankfully, in this case disrupted) PRC HUMINT activities reminded us of how poorly the intelligence studies academia has historically served its students when examining non-western intelligence traditions. It has ignored the robust body of primary source materials, and largely discarded the concepts of comparative intelligence studies which saw some interesting research during the latter years of the Cold War.

Now, one can understand this to a degree, given the emphasis not merely on theoretical understanding but practical and interdisciplinary application which by necessity dominates a field in wartime. And it is clear that the American way of intelligence, just as in the American way of war, is not embraced by much of the world due to its superiority of concept and implementation,

This does not mean there are not still lessons to be drawn from other sources. In fact, in our careers we have found some of our best approaches to difficult problems were borrowed from Russian doctrine and case studies. Without having had exposure to that line of thinking, it would have been impossible to craft a creative new application for the techniques.

To this end, we recommend the excellent series by the old China hand Ralph Sawyer, who spends his days translating ancient Chinese military classics with contemporary commentary. He is frankly a one man Foreign Military Studies Office... and although the work can be at times dry, it is certainly well worth the effort. Of particular interest to the well read intelligence professional are his two works, the Tao of Spycraft and the Tao of Deception.

We would also recommend the slightly older editions of Soviet Military Intelligence in War, as well as the recent series of memoirs from former Soviet and Eastern Bloc case officers such as Oleg Gordievsky, Victor Cherkashin, and Markus Wolf. In addition, a few years back a unique collaboration between the former KGB/SVR rezident Oleg Tsarev and the famous former Western intelligence officer who writes pseudonymously under the moniker Nigel West was published as “The Crown Jewels” – also well worth the time and effort. Indeed, all of the Mitrokin and VENONA work is also quite applicable to such study.

In short, there are plenty of excellent texts which could easily be used in a classroom – and a wealth of case studies and historical materials in other contexts that could also be adapted to lecture. (Should any academic institution wish to establish a class on the subject to fill the gap in their offerings, feel free to reach out to us - we know of just the right individual.)

We would also be greatly pleased to see such a class established if only to harness the minds of its students towards directed research in the modern comparisons that have yet to be effectively studied to such depth. Inherent in the non-western intelligence tradition are the philosophies and conceptual basis from which many of the current non-state and asymmetric adversaries are derived. We have seen some attempts to categorize and study their methods of warfare (see Tactics of the Crescent Moon, or the Other Side of the Mountain for excellent examples of such efforts), but we have yet to see a similar focus on the intelligence side the equation. There is plenty of room for aspiring young students to make substantial contributions to the literature in this area.

Revisionist politicization

We are most disturbed by some of the passages cited by advance reviewers of former DCI Tenent’s new book. The prospect of a senior official of that level authoring such a controversial piece so quickly after his tenure is a difficult enough thing to stomach, but it is frankly just another indicator of the unpleasant nature of senior level politics in this town these days – and an indicator of how far from the apolitical ideal the position itself has fallen.

Tenent is by no means the first former DCI to write an autobiography. Indeed, former DCI Gate’s older work has enjoyed re-issue after his appointment to SecDef. The existence of the book is not entirely the core of our objection, however much we might otherwise wish to see those who served in silence remain so upon their retirement, at least until the matters of controversy had been relegated to the status of history.

Our primary objection comes from the characterization of discussions of intelligence briefings and key judgments during Operation Iraqi Freedom pre-planning. There is much room for the interpretations of history, and the inevitable second guessing by the principals involved in those debates. This is also regrettably politics as usual in this town, for what is perceived a defeat (even in the narrow temporal sense of the media’s momentum) will always be an orphan.

The statements personally attacking specific DIA analysts, especially given the issues surrounding the factual accuracy of the criticism, is another matter entirely. While it is now a given in some circles that the creation of new functional and organizational structures for mission specific analytical efforts was somehow at the root of all problems with pre-war intelligence, this still remains in an unproven assertion whose core allegations of “cherry-picked” conclusions have never been validated – and which hopefully will be the subject of proper and rigorous academic study in coming years. No matter what the outcome of that study might be, it would be a far better treatment of a difficult historical discussion than the current media and political scrimmage that has so badly tainted the matter with controversy.

One can argue the motivations and effectiveness of specific units such as Undersecretary Feith’s shop (and many no doubt will for years to come), but the creation of dedicated mission centers, functional groups, or task forces is hardly a new phenomena driven by any specific agency management. In fact, one noted commentator (speaking under the Chatham House Rule in an unclassified public forum) recently focused attention on the issues surrounding the growing number of account-specific centers, not due to fears of politicization, but out of the very real concerns that the effective conduct of intelligence on a wide range of targets is now apparently best accomplished through exception (in the form of these small units) than through the normal but increasingly ineffective bureaucracies of the community - with damning implications for the larger entities.

Attacking individual analysts assigned to serve in any of these shops is beyond the pale. Analysts given the privilege and responsibility of briefing at the DCI’s level are not speaking from individual opinion but rather coordinated agency (if not community) assessments. One can question the accuracy of those assessments, or the analytic rigor of the process by which they were produced, but somehow alleging that the briefing lacked validity due to the (inaccurately alleged) reserve employment status of the individual analyst is the worst form of libel - and ill-befits a former senior. And at the end of the day, what a DCI chooses to convey to a sitting President is the responsibility of that DCI, who must judge his advisors and their statements from his own experience, analytical tradecraft, and substantive target knowledge. Once he has spoken, he must own his statements – for history will always attribute them first and foremost to him.

It is further appalling to note the attempted attribution of new statements, which failed to fully characterize the nature of the underlying information regarding Iraqi WMD programs upon which the assessments were based, to specific analysts but described in language which would be exceptionally unusual, to say the least. Any analyst’s tendency to caveat even to excess is well known within the community, especially given the widespread recognition of hard target challenges and the impact of adversary denial and deception efforts. Analysts are drilled in the precision of well-parsed language, and the calibration of judgment usually conveyed using some variant on words of estimative probability. One can argue whether specific caveats were well crafted, or given conclusions communicated effectively, but it is nearly unthinkable that statements claiming almost bravado levels of confidence would have propagated through multiple layers of analysis, coordination, and presentation. Nothing so offends the well-tuned ear of those in the analytical communities – and this would have certainly provoked reactions.

We are also frankly amazed that a former DCI should express outrage at being judged based on his own statements, or that such judgments might have career impact – even if they were simply others’ words repeated. Intelligence officers and analysts live and die based on the accuracy of their assessments, whether errors were based in their own mistakes or inherited from others in the community involved in the product’s lifecycle. They are even judged, rightly or wrongly, based on policymaker interpretation and use of that intelligence – as any warning analyst or watchstander knows all too well. This accountability, even if applied wrongly in specific cases – is a critical and needed weight upon every individual in the national security community to get it right above all other considerations. Because when intelligence is wrong, consequences follow far beyond individual careers.

The focus of estimative efforts has to be on the substance and the tradecraft, not on personal advancement or any other careerist interests – and that focus has to start and end with the very pinnacle of the organization, and the intelligence community as a whole.

h/t Captains Quarters, Haft of the Spear