Pub Date : 2023-03-12DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2181905
T. Juneau, Stephanie Carvin
ABSTRACT Academic debate on the interplay between politics and intelligence is dominated by the U.S. experience. Our research, based on interviews with over sixty individuals in the Canadian intelligence and national security community and including political staffers, provides a new case study: that of Canada, a middle power with considerable access to intelligence through the Five Eyes partnership. We found that cases of hard politicization of intelligence analysis are virtually non-existent in Canada. The most important factor explaining this finding is Canada’s structural position in the world, or how its geography shapes the broader context of interactions between intelligence and politics. Beyond this, six more specific factors at the domestic level also matter: the relative unimportance of foreign and security policy as political issues, few opportunities, a lack of political benefits, low intelligence literacy generally among policy makers, poor transparency in national security decision making, and a tradition of non-partisanship in the civil service. The paper concludes by reflecting on this assessment: while hard politicization remains a rarity in Canada, the shields that have prevented the emergence of politicization will likely be increasingly tested in the future.
{"title":"Politics and intelligence analysis: the Canadian experience","authors":"T. Juneau, Stephanie Carvin","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2181905","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2181905","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Academic debate on the interplay between politics and intelligence is dominated by the U.S. experience. Our research, based on interviews with over sixty individuals in the Canadian intelligence and national security community and including political staffers, provides a new case study: that of Canada, a middle power with considerable access to intelligence through the Five Eyes partnership. We found that cases of hard politicization of intelligence analysis are virtually non-existent in Canada. The most important factor explaining this finding is Canada’s structural position in the world, or how its geography shapes the broader context of interactions between intelligence and politics. Beyond this, six more specific factors at the domestic level also matter: the relative unimportance of foreign and security policy as political issues, few opportunities, a lack of political benefits, low intelligence literacy generally among policy makers, poor transparency in national security decision making, and a tradition of non-partisanship in the civil service. The paper concludes by reflecting on this assessment: while hard politicization remains a rarity in Canada, the shields that have prevented the emergence of politicization will likely be increasingly tested in the future.","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47341568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-07DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2181923
Dov H. Levin
ABSTRACT In runup to 2020 U.S. elections U.S. intelligence agencies tried to prevent Russian covert operations from affecting the results. Various methods were used including the exposure of detected covert Russian activities. The question of the actual effects of this counterintelligence operation however remains open. This study examines the effects of the exposure strategy on target public using a novel method. I find strong evidence that U.S. intelligence agencies efforts to expose the Russian hand succeeded in blunting the effects of the targeted covert activities. This indicates that the exposure counterintelligence strategy is a potent tool for defanging covert foreign election interference/partisan electoral interventions.
{"title":"Is sunlight the best counterintelligence technique? the effectiveness of covert operation exposure in blunting the Russian intervention in the 2020 U.S. election","authors":"Dov H. Levin","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2181923","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2181923","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In runup to 2020 U.S. elections U.S. intelligence agencies tried to prevent Russian covert operations from affecting the results. Various methods were used including the exposure of detected covert Russian activities. The question of the actual effects of this counterintelligence operation however remains open. This study examines the effects of the exposure strategy on target public using a novel method. I find strong evidence that U.S. intelligence agencies efforts to expose the Russian hand succeeded in blunting the effects of the targeted covert activities. This indicates that the exposure counterintelligence strategy is a potent tool for defanging covert foreign election interference/partisan electoral interventions.","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41965424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-02DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2178748
David A. Langbart
ABSTRACT The United States found itself relatively unprepared to participate in the World War I peace conference that convened in Paris in January 1919. President Woodrow Wilson began American preparations for the peace conference in mid-1917, when he established ‘The Inquiry’ to provide background and policy papers for use at the negotiating table. Once the conference began, however, the American peace commissioners realized they required more current information to support their work. To supplement the information provided by the Department of State, the American Commission to Negotiate Peace established its own sources. In addition to participating in a number of inter-allied investigatory missions established by the conferees, the Americans sent twelve field missions of their own to various places in Europe and Asia Minor to collect information. Three of those field missions targeted Russia. The results of those missions were mixed. This article discusses the origins of the Commission’s little-known field mission program and describes the work and activities of the three missions into Russian territory. In doing so, it shows some of the earliest steps in the evolution of a more modern approach to the gathering of foreign intelligence consonant with the more prominent of the United States role in international affairs as a result of the war.
{"title":"'We should have our own observers of information': the American Commission to negotiate peace looks at Russia, 1919","authors":"David A. Langbart","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2178748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2178748","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The United States found itself relatively unprepared to participate in the World War I peace conference that convened in Paris in January 1919. President Woodrow Wilson began American preparations for the peace conference in mid-1917, when he established ‘The Inquiry’ to provide background and policy papers for use at the negotiating table. Once the conference began, however, the American peace commissioners realized they required more current information to support their work. To supplement the information provided by the Department of State, the American Commission to Negotiate Peace established its own sources. In addition to participating in a number of inter-allied investigatory missions established by the conferees, the Americans sent twelve field missions of their own to various places in Europe and Asia Minor to collect information. Three of those field missions targeted Russia. The results of those missions were mixed. This article discusses the origins of the Commission’s little-known field mission program and describes the work and activities of the three missions into Russian territory. In doing so, it shows some of the earliest steps in the evolution of a more modern approach to the gathering of foreign intelligence consonant with the more prominent of the United States role in international affairs as a result of the war.","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46002854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-26DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2171535
Ryan Shaffer
{"title":"India’s foreign intelligence history and future challenges","authors":"Ryan Shaffer","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2171535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2171535","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41761300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-26DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2180757
Paul Rimmer
{"title":"Michael Herman with David Schaefer","authors":"Paul Rimmer","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2180757","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2180757","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49468032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-26DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2178606
Peter Gill
ABSTRACT The central objective of democratic governance of intelligence is, through debate and law, to establish public confidence that the agencies work efficiently, effectively and properly. Oversight of intelligence can be seen as a contest between agencies, government and overseers for the control of information. The four interacting dimensions of information control are secrecy, gathering, evaluation and persuasion. This article assesses the oversight performance of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) through the prism of information control in investigating the allegations of UK involvement in torture since 2001. Operating within an overall context of executive dominance, these dimensions constitute a series of filters including what officers tell their managers, what the agencies record, what they tell ministers, what they tell oversight bodies and, finally, what the ISC reports to the public.
{"title":"Twenty years on: Intelligence and Security Committee and investigating torture in the 'war on terror'","authors":"Peter Gill","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2178606","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2178606","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The central objective of democratic governance of intelligence is, through debate and law, to establish public confidence that the agencies work efficiently, effectively and properly. Oversight of intelligence can be seen as a contest between agencies, government and overseers for the control of information. The four interacting dimensions of information control are secrecy, gathering, evaluation and persuasion. This article assesses the oversight performance of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) through the prism of information control in investigating the allegations of UK involvement in torture since 2001. Operating within an overall context of executive dominance, these dimensions constitute a series of filters including what officers tell their managers, what the agencies record, what they tell ministers, what they tell oversight bodies and, finally, what the ISC reports to the public.","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48082646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-21DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2175490
Owen Bennett-Jones
Bertelsen, O. “Ukrainian and Jewish Émigrés as Targets of KGB Active Measures in the 1970s.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 34, no. 2 (2021): 267–292. doi:10.1080/08850607.2020.1750093. Douglas, L. The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. Garton Ash, T. “Orwell’s List.” The New York Review of Books 50, September 25, (2003): 14. Gentry, J. A. “Belated Success: Soviet Active Measures Against the United States.” American Intelligence Journal 39, no. 2 (2022). Hanusiak, M. Lest We Forget. Toronto: Progress, 1976. Plokhy, S. The Man with the Poison Gun: A Cold War Spy Story. New York: Basic Books, 2016. Rid, T. Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. Romerstein, H. “Divide and Conquer: The Soviet Information Campaign Against Ukrainians and Jews.” November 1, 2004 accessed January 4, 2023. https://www.lucorg.com/2020/12/divide-and-conquer-the-kgb-disinformation-campaign -against-ukrainians-and-jews/ . Romerstein, H., and S. Levchenko. The KGB Against the “Main Enemy:” How the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates Against the United States. Lexington MA: Lexington, 1989. Shanes, J., and Y. Petrovsky-Schtern. “An Unlikely Alliance: The 1907 Ukrainian-Jewish Electoral Alliance.” Nations and Nationalism 15, no. 3 (2009): 483–505. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8129.2009.00381.x. Soldatov, A., and I. Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. New York: PublicAffairs, 2010. Zuroff, E., and P. A. Rudling. “Response to Olga Bertelsen’s Article.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 34, no. 2 (2021): 293–297. doi:10.1080/08850607.2021.1875181.
{"title":"The handbook of Asian intelligence cultures","authors":"Owen Bennett-Jones","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2175490","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2175490","url":null,"abstract":"Bertelsen, O. “Ukrainian and Jewish Émigrés as Targets of KGB Active Measures in the 1970s.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 34, no. 2 (2021): 267–292. doi:10.1080/08850607.2020.1750093. Douglas, L. The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. Garton Ash, T. “Orwell’s List.” The New York Review of Books 50, September 25, (2003): 14. Gentry, J. A. “Belated Success: Soviet Active Measures Against the United States.” American Intelligence Journal 39, no. 2 (2022). Hanusiak, M. Lest We Forget. Toronto: Progress, 1976. Plokhy, S. The Man with the Poison Gun: A Cold War Spy Story. New York: Basic Books, 2016. Rid, T. Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. Romerstein, H. “Divide and Conquer: The Soviet Information Campaign Against Ukrainians and Jews.” November 1, 2004 accessed January 4, 2023. https://www.lucorg.com/2020/12/divide-and-conquer-the-kgb-disinformation-campaign -against-ukrainians-and-jews/ . Romerstein, H., and S. Levchenko. The KGB Against the “Main Enemy:” How the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates Against the United States. Lexington MA: Lexington, 1989. Shanes, J., and Y. Petrovsky-Schtern. “An Unlikely Alliance: The 1907 Ukrainian-Jewish Electoral Alliance.” Nations and Nationalism 15, no. 3 (2009): 483–505. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8129.2009.00381.x. Soldatov, A., and I. Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. New York: PublicAffairs, 2010. Zuroff, E., and P. A. Rudling. “Response to Olga Bertelsen’s Article.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 34, no. 2 (2021): 293–297. doi:10.1080/08850607.2021.1875181.","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46495658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-21DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2178163
S. Newbery, C. Kaunert
ABSTRACT As the purpose of the study of intelligence is, in part, to aid the practice of intelligence, scholarship must reflect that practice. This article sets out a theoretical framework for Critical Intelligence Studies that will increase the real-world applicability of the study of intelligence as currently represented by Intelligence Studies. Critical Security Studies’ recognition of the broadening and widening of the concept of security, and the ensuing recognition that intelligence work is not only done by state intelligence agencies or for the security of states, provides an opportunity to push forward the study of intelligence into a position where a well-developed, and theoretically sound, Critical Intelligence Studies can be meaningfully said to exist.
{"title":"Critical Intelligence Studies: a new framework for analysis","authors":"S. Newbery, C. Kaunert","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2178163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2178163","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As the purpose of the study of intelligence is, in part, to aid the practice of intelligence, scholarship must reflect that practice. This article sets out a theoretical framework for Critical Intelligence Studies that will increase the real-world applicability of the study of intelligence as currently represented by Intelligence Studies. Critical Security Studies’ recognition of the broadening and widening of the concept of security, and the ensuing recognition that intelligence work is not only done by state intelligence agencies or for the security of states, provides an opportunity to push forward the study of intelligence into a position where a well-developed, and theoretically sound, Critical Intelligence Studies can be meaningfully said to exist.","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48544879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-16DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2174641
John A. Gentry
{"title":"Operation Payback: Soviet disinformation and alleged Nazi war criminals in North America","authors":"John A. Gentry","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2174641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2174641","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46222624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-13DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2170744
Ryan Shaffer, B. Shearn
ABSTRACT This article demonstrates how natural language processing (NLP) can be used by intelligence practitioners and scholars to analyse text. Using decades of unredacted East Pakistani intelligence reports declassified and released by the Government of Bangladesh, the article shows how machine learning can provide insight into intelligence documents. In particular, it provides a case study for how NLP can provide quantitative analysis that complements the work of qualitative analysis. Simultaneously, this article also demonstrates how NLP can provide historians with a quantitative methodology to better understand historical government records.
{"title":"Advancing intelligence analysis: using natural language processing on East Pakistani intelligence documents","authors":"Ryan Shaffer, B. Shearn","doi":"10.1080/02684527.2023.2170744","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2023.2170744","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article demonstrates how natural language processing (NLP) can be used by intelligence practitioners and scholars to analyse text. Using decades of unredacted East Pakistani intelligence reports declassified and released by the Government of Bangladesh, the article shows how machine learning can provide insight into intelligence documents. In particular, it provides a case study for how NLP can provide quantitative analysis that complements the work of qualitative analysis. Simultaneously, this article also demonstrates how NLP can provide historians with a quantitative methodology to better understand historical government records.","PeriodicalId":47048,"journal":{"name":"Intelligence and National Security","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49331403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}