Herman, M. (1996). Intelligence power in peace and war. Chapter: 1
Intelligence history
Intelligence has always been collected as part of warfare; in early human history, intelligence was seen as “news”
and information. Collecting and using 'intelligence' in this same sense has always been equally important in
peacetime. Rulers from the earliest times tapped the knowledge of merchants and other travellers, and specialist
collectors.
Secret intelligence
Intelligence has always contained sensitive information or 'secret (covert) intelligence'. Spies and informers were
part of the earliest kinds of government. Intercepting messages (nowadays part of Sigint) is as old as governments'
use of writing and their protection by 'secret writing' or cryptography. By 1600 most embassies used secret agents,
and in the century that followed, ambassadors were regarded as licensed spies.
Early intelligence organisations
Diplomacy evolved towards a government institution for gathering foreign intelligence. Diplomacy was
supplemented by governments' networks of overseas correspondents, with varying covert operational mandates.
However, this arrangement differed from modern intelligence in two crucial respects > First, though diplomacy
was well established, other information collection and handling was largely ad hoc, without permanent institutions;
and second, nowhere was the control of the collection and the evaluation of results a specialised activity, separated
from policy-making and action. For kings and ministers 'intelligence in all its aspects was part of statecraft,
inseparable from the exercise of power.
,Chapter: 2
Emerging intelligence organisations in the 19th /20th century
Military intelligence
The change in intelligence's status came from the new military technology in the 19th century. Armies acquired
improved weapons and the use of railways and telegraph communications; and later, the introduction of the radio.
Warfare involved bigger armies over bigger areas, with more opportunities for strategic surprise by rapid movement
and concentration.
Command had to adapt to this new scale and complexity. The response was to create permanent military staff, and
charged support to commanders' decision-making and control. Their raw material in peace and war was information
about their own and foreign forces and other factors relevant to battle. They depended on reports, organised
information and communications.
Internal security and secret police
Alongside this military study of foreign forces, a more inward-looking intelligence specialist also developed. Police
forces developed arrangements for surveillance, informers and mail interceptions. Western countries now have this
security intelligence as a complement to foreign intelligence.
Collection and assessment
Part of this twentieth-century collection development was the evolution of Western specialist 'national' collection
agencies, each concentrating on particular collection and meeting the needs of all parts of government.
In the years leading up to the Second World War, the British increasingly realised they needed integrated intelligence
inputs. From this emerged the wartime idea of machinery through which military, naval, air, political and economic
analysis could be integrated into what can now be called 'national assessment', or seeing the enemy as a whole.
After 1945 the Cold War gave special relevance to this lesson in both Britain and the United States. The communist
threat seemed to span political, military, economic and subversive attacks, and needed equally comprehensive
intelligence assessment. The intentions and capabilities of the intensely secretive Soviet and Chinese regimes had to
be studied by putting together evidence from all sources and all sectors.
The rise of the intelligence community
The introduction of national collection and national assessment both implied that intelligence was more than a set
of independent organisations. The phrase “intelligence community’ was introduced. It sums up a gradual and often
partial Western recognition that intelligence forms a national system^ in some degree a national entity to be
managed as a national resource.
Structure of early Anglo-Saxon intelligence community
The agencies within the community have their own character. In particular, security intelligence with its focus on
internal threats is significantly different from the rest. The permanent intelligence organisations are supplemented
by part-time or temporary elements and those with only one foot in the intelligence camp. Thus, operational naval
vessels and aircraft can be deployed as temporary intelligence collectors, and sometimes combine intelligence with
non-intelligence missions.
Next, there are also intelligence activities that take place below the level of central departments and national
agencies just described, and are not usually included in thinking about the central community. In this sense there is
an additional military intelligence 'community' stretching down from the top service level to the operational and
tactical levels of command.
An example, the British Security Service has its own network of liaison with the Metropolitan Police Special Branch
and the regional police Special Branches. They are part of national security intelligence resources. The significance of
these 'downward' extensions of central intelligence, creates fuzzy boundaries. Intelligence has to be defined in
terms of its organisations; but the blurring between some intelligence and non-intelligence bodies has to be
recognized.
,Chapter: 3
Intelligence resources
Distinctions are made between so-called 'strategic resources' - institutionally the national and central departments
and agencies described in the last chapter - and the so-called 'tactical' resources under the control of military
commands. Intelligence is cheap compared with armed force or policing; governments can afford to buy a lot of it
for the cost of a frigate, or for the police manpower deployed on anti-terrorist protection.
Stages and process in intelligence
Single source and all source analysis
Intelligence is a sequential, inter-agency process. The first stage is collection, with 'single source' output, usually in
the form of written reports, from each of the collection sources. The second stage is 'all-source analysis', which
draws on all available information to produce 'finished intelligence'. Following these first two stages is the
distribution ('dissemination') of intelligence's reports to the non-intelligence world of decision and policy. The largest
portion of the budget goes to intelligence collection.
All-source analysis and finished intelligence > modern collection merges intellectually into the all-source stage;
analysis and interpretation permeate both. Intelligence is evidence driven, but most of the evidence emerges from
processing of some kind; it does not have separable elements of 'facts' and 'interpretation'. A give-and-take between
the two takes place at all stages.
It is important to have an institutional separation between single source and all source employees as they have
different responsibilities. Those engaged in collection are experts on intelligence techniques but their all-source
colleagues are the experts on intelligence subjects. They have the final responsibility for evaluating all evidence on
them. The essence of their work is therefore that they not only weigh different intelligence sources against each
other but also draw on any available non-intelligence sources; they must not give special weight to secret evidence
simply because it is secret. Policy-makers get some single-source intelligence reports directly, but if the subjects call
for authoritative intelligence judgments, they should call on the all-source experts.
All Community Assessment
The additional all-source process - national assessment, provides a meeting of minds through interdepartmental
machinery. But this is an expensive process that can only be a selective service to top leaders on important issues;
departmental representatives cannot be gathered together for everything. Most finished intelligence is produced by
the individual all-source agencies and does not go through this interdepartmental stage.
Dissemination and user liaison
Disseminating intelligence products makes up another stage, although closely related to intelligence production. Its
aim is the delivery of useful, user-friendly product at the right
time, especially when timeliness is of the essence for decision-taking. Effective intelligence depends on having
adequate communications with the recipients.
But the service also entails an awareness of user needs through contact with them. Most liaison takes place
between single-source collectors and their all-source consumers, but ultimately the key contacts are with the
non-intelligence users (policy makers). Intelligence's value depends entirely on them; it is only useful if they take it
seriously. Close relationships between intelligence and users play a major part in determining intelligence's
credibility and educating them on how to use it properly.
Categories of intelligence services
Foreign and security intelligence
Most intelligence is foreign intelligence on overseas entities. Security intelligence's rather different nature is that the
focus is on domestic issues. In practice foreign and security intelligence targets overlap. External threats have
internal components and vice versa; espionage is foreign but is an internal threat, while few terrorist organizations
are without overseas connections.
Counter-terrorism also extends security intelligence to the protection of armed forces, ships, aircraft and nationals
abroad. Internal threats are not necessarily from the state's own citizens. Much terrorism is avowedly international;
and large-scale international migration now merges the home and overseas components of 'security' even more
than before.
Intelligence subjects
In categorization by subjects intelligence has normally appeared with 'political', 'military' and 'economic' labels. This
categorization by subject outputs has its own weaknesses. Some collection systems cover multiple targets; satellites
are tasked with multiple targets at any one time and can be shifted on to others.
, The subject terminology is vague. The 'political intelligence' label covers both the internal politics of foreign states
and their international relationships. Economic intelligence likewise covers both foreign economies and international
trade and finance. Defence intelligence, in the broad sense of everything pertaining to foreign military power and
activities. Defence intelligence also extends to foreign military activities and foreign wars.
There is also counterintelligence, targeted on foreign espionage organisations. Counterintelligence relates to a wider
meaning of 'intelligence on foreign intelligence': getting information on all foreign intelligence threats - not just
espionage ones - by any means (Sigint and other sources, as well as agents and defectors).
Intelligence history
Intelligence has always been collected as part of warfare; in early human history, intelligence was seen as “news”
and information. Collecting and using 'intelligence' in this same sense has always been equally important in
peacetime. Rulers from the earliest times tapped the knowledge of merchants and other travellers, and specialist
collectors.
Secret intelligence
Intelligence has always contained sensitive information or 'secret (covert) intelligence'. Spies and informers were
part of the earliest kinds of government. Intercepting messages (nowadays part of Sigint) is as old as governments'
use of writing and their protection by 'secret writing' or cryptography. By 1600 most embassies used secret agents,
and in the century that followed, ambassadors were regarded as licensed spies.
Early intelligence organisations
Diplomacy evolved towards a government institution for gathering foreign intelligence. Diplomacy was
supplemented by governments' networks of overseas correspondents, with varying covert operational mandates.
However, this arrangement differed from modern intelligence in two crucial respects > First, though diplomacy
was well established, other information collection and handling was largely ad hoc, without permanent institutions;
and second, nowhere was the control of the collection and the evaluation of results a specialised activity, separated
from policy-making and action. For kings and ministers 'intelligence in all its aspects was part of statecraft,
inseparable from the exercise of power.
,Chapter: 2
Emerging intelligence organisations in the 19th /20th century
Military intelligence
The change in intelligence's status came from the new military technology in the 19th century. Armies acquired
improved weapons and the use of railways and telegraph communications; and later, the introduction of the radio.
Warfare involved bigger armies over bigger areas, with more opportunities for strategic surprise by rapid movement
and concentration.
Command had to adapt to this new scale and complexity. The response was to create permanent military staff, and
charged support to commanders' decision-making and control. Their raw material in peace and war was information
about their own and foreign forces and other factors relevant to battle. They depended on reports, organised
information and communications.
Internal security and secret police
Alongside this military study of foreign forces, a more inward-looking intelligence specialist also developed. Police
forces developed arrangements for surveillance, informers and mail interceptions. Western countries now have this
security intelligence as a complement to foreign intelligence.
Collection and assessment
Part of this twentieth-century collection development was the evolution of Western specialist 'national' collection
agencies, each concentrating on particular collection and meeting the needs of all parts of government.
In the years leading up to the Second World War, the British increasingly realised they needed integrated intelligence
inputs. From this emerged the wartime idea of machinery through which military, naval, air, political and economic
analysis could be integrated into what can now be called 'national assessment', or seeing the enemy as a whole.
After 1945 the Cold War gave special relevance to this lesson in both Britain and the United States. The communist
threat seemed to span political, military, economic and subversive attacks, and needed equally comprehensive
intelligence assessment. The intentions and capabilities of the intensely secretive Soviet and Chinese regimes had to
be studied by putting together evidence from all sources and all sectors.
The rise of the intelligence community
The introduction of national collection and national assessment both implied that intelligence was more than a set
of independent organisations. The phrase “intelligence community’ was introduced. It sums up a gradual and often
partial Western recognition that intelligence forms a national system^ in some degree a national entity to be
managed as a national resource.
Structure of early Anglo-Saxon intelligence community
The agencies within the community have their own character. In particular, security intelligence with its focus on
internal threats is significantly different from the rest. The permanent intelligence organisations are supplemented
by part-time or temporary elements and those with only one foot in the intelligence camp. Thus, operational naval
vessels and aircraft can be deployed as temporary intelligence collectors, and sometimes combine intelligence with
non-intelligence missions.
Next, there are also intelligence activities that take place below the level of central departments and national
agencies just described, and are not usually included in thinking about the central community. In this sense there is
an additional military intelligence 'community' stretching down from the top service level to the operational and
tactical levels of command.
An example, the British Security Service has its own network of liaison with the Metropolitan Police Special Branch
and the regional police Special Branches. They are part of national security intelligence resources. The significance of
these 'downward' extensions of central intelligence, creates fuzzy boundaries. Intelligence has to be defined in
terms of its organisations; but the blurring between some intelligence and non-intelligence bodies has to be
recognized.
,Chapter: 3
Intelligence resources
Distinctions are made between so-called 'strategic resources' - institutionally the national and central departments
and agencies described in the last chapter - and the so-called 'tactical' resources under the control of military
commands. Intelligence is cheap compared with armed force or policing; governments can afford to buy a lot of it
for the cost of a frigate, or for the police manpower deployed on anti-terrorist protection.
Stages and process in intelligence
Single source and all source analysis
Intelligence is a sequential, inter-agency process. The first stage is collection, with 'single source' output, usually in
the form of written reports, from each of the collection sources. The second stage is 'all-source analysis', which
draws on all available information to produce 'finished intelligence'. Following these first two stages is the
distribution ('dissemination') of intelligence's reports to the non-intelligence world of decision and policy. The largest
portion of the budget goes to intelligence collection.
All-source analysis and finished intelligence > modern collection merges intellectually into the all-source stage;
analysis and interpretation permeate both. Intelligence is evidence driven, but most of the evidence emerges from
processing of some kind; it does not have separable elements of 'facts' and 'interpretation'. A give-and-take between
the two takes place at all stages.
It is important to have an institutional separation between single source and all source employees as they have
different responsibilities. Those engaged in collection are experts on intelligence techniques but their all-source
colleagues are the experts on intelligence subjects. They have the final responsibility for evaluating all evidence on
them. The essence of their work is therefore that they not only weigh different intelligence sources against each
other but also draw on any available non-intelligence sources; they must not give special weight to secret evidence
simply because it is secret. Policy-makers get some single-source intelligence reports directly, but if the subjects call
for authoritative intelligence judgments, they should call on the all-source experts.
All Community Assessment
The additional all-source process - national assessment, provides a meeting of minds through interdepartmental
machinery. But this is an expensive process that can only be a selective service to top leaders on important issues;
departmental representatives cannot be gathered together for everything. Most finished intelligence is produced by
the individual all-source agencies and does not go through this interdepartmental stage.
Dissemination and user liaison
Disseminating intelligence products makes up another stage, although closely related to intelligence production. Its
aim is the delivery of useful, user-friendly product at the right
time, especially when timeliness is of the essence for decision-taking. Effective intelligence depends on having
adequate communications with the recipients.
But the service also entails an awareness of user needs through contact with them. Most liaison takes place
between single-source collectors and their all-source consumers, but ultimately the key contacts are with the
non-intelligence users (policy makers). Intelligence's value depends entirely on them; it is only useful if they take it
seriously. Close relationships between intelligence and users play a major part in determining intelligence's
credibility and educating them on how to use it properly.
Categories of intelligence services
Foreign and security intelligence
Most intelligence is foreign intelligence on overseas entities. Security intelligence's rather different nature is that the
focus is on domestic issues. In practice foreign and security intelligence targets overlap. External threats have
internal components and vice versa; espionage is foreign but is an internal threat, while few terrorist organizations
are without overseas connections.
Counter-terrorism also extends security intelligence to the protection of armed forces, ships, aircraft and nationals
abroad. Internal threats are not necessarily from the state's own citizens. Much terrorism is avowedly international;
and large-scale international migration now merges the home and overseas components of 'security' even more
than before.
Intelligence subjects
In categorization by subjects intelligence has normally appeared with 'political', 'military' and 'economic' labels. This
categorization by subject outputs has its own weaknesses. Some collection systems cover multiple targets; satellites
are tasked with multiple targets at any one time and can be shifted on to others.
, The subject terminology is vague. The 'political intelligence' label covers both the internal politics of foreign states
and their international relationships. Economic intelligence likewise covers both foreign economies and international
trade and finance. Defence intelligence, in the broad sense of everything pertaining to foreign military power and
activities. Defence intelligence also extends to foreign military activities and foreign wars.
There is also counterintelligence, targeted on foreign espionage organisations. Counterintelligence relates to a wider
meaning of 'intelligence on foreign intelligence': getting information on all foreign intelligence threats - not just
espionage ones - by any means (Sigint and other sources, as well as agents and defectors).
