Intelligence and Strategic Studies

This paper’s main objective is to analyze the importance of strategic intelligence as a tool for decision making, applied to the operation of the State. In this sense, we highlight some elements related to the conceptual understanding of strategic intelligence, the problems that arise in the process of decision making, as well as the context in which this activity is presented as necessary to reduce uncertainty in the modern state, in an environment linked to the agency-structure dichotomy. Also, the distortion of the role of state intelligence stands out, especially considering the context
of Latin American countries, and the need to link this task to the modernization of the State, as an essential part in the decision making process. We conclude that despite diagnosing some of the problems of decision-making in intelligence, and product demands through state actors in that task, there are a number
of problems to ponder, among which stand out as a priority the legitimization of Intelligence as an integral and necessary part of the State, and the actions to improve the development of society as a whole.

The Python module Strategy Analyzer is a decision support tool for analyzing complex dy-namical webs of events and actions in strategic planning, intelligence and risk analysis. The module has a built-in percolation-based artificial intelligence (A.I.) system that learns the paths in such webs and ranks the actions and events in terms of order of importance with regards to the strategic objectives, tactical openings and events openings. The Python module is introduced and an application is exemplified for a cyber-threats to global governance example. The A.I. system is reviewed and connected to major concepts from Strategic Studies.

Stratejik istihbarat, oldukça önemli bir araç olmasına rağmen, taktik / operasyonel istihbarat kadar kullanılmamaktadır. Bunun nedenleri arasında, stratejik istihbaratın tam anlamıyla bilinememesi ve anlaşılamaması gelmektedir. Ayrıca politikacılar, üst düzey karar vericiler ve yöneticiler daha çok günlük olaylara ve hemen yanıt gelebilecek kısa vadeli (getirileri olan) bilgilere ilgi duyduklarından, stratejik bilgi ve istihbarat ihmal edilmiştir. Önemi anlaşılmış ve kabullenilmiş olsa dahi sonuçlarının kısa sürede alınamaması nedeniyle çok tercih edilmemektedir. Dolayısıyla, stratejik düşünmenin yerini taktik/operasyonel düşünmeler ve istihbaratlar almış, bu da stratejik yaklaşım gerektiren sorunların çözülememesine neden olmuştur. Stratejik istihbarat, karar verme makamını beslemeyi ve desteklemeyi, bir konu ile ilgili büyük resmi görebilmeyi ve gelecekle ilgili tahminler sağlayarak planlar yapabilmeyi sağlamaktadır. Stratejik istihbarat, dış istihbaratta kullanılabildiği gibi iç istihbaratta da etkili bir şekilde kullanılabilmektedir. Bu bağlamda stratejik istihbarat, kolluk kuvvetlerinin kullanabileceği etkili ve önemli bir araçtır. Bu çalışmada stratejik istihbaratın ne olduğu ve ne tür bilgiler içerdiği ve diğer istihbarat çeşitleriyle arasındaki farkların neler olduğundan bahsedilmekte, örneklemeler yapılarak konuya açıklık getirilmektedir. Stratejik istihbarat çarkı ve analiz teknikleri de kısaca sunulduktan sonra, genel bir değerlendirme yapılarak çalışma sonlandırılmıştır. Mevcut çalışmada, stratejik istihbarat ile ilgili operatif ve uygulama yerine, genel ve teorik (kavramsal ve kuramsal) bilgiler verilmiştir.

ALINTILAMA ÖNERİSİ
Gül, Z. (2014), İstihbarat Çeşitleri ve Stratejik İstihbarat, Harmancı, F. M; Gözübenli, M. ve Zengin, C. (Ed.),"Güvenlik Sektöründe Temel Stratejiler" içinde (s.83-98). Nobel Yayınevi, ISBN:978-605-133-960-3


BİR BÖLÜMÜ BURADA YER ALAN KİTABIN TAMAMINA AŞAĞIDAKİ LİNKLERDEN ULAŞABİLİRSİNİZ
https://www.academia.edu/43834170/G%C3%BCvenlik_Sekt%C3%B6r%C3%BCnde_Temel_Stratejiler
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294836329_Guvenlik_Sektorunde_Temel_Stratejiler

In this PHD thesis, Intelligence practices in South Africa as a hybrid political regime – a meta-theoretical and theoretical analysis, (commended in examiners reports as a de facto seminal work with the potential for publication as a theoretical text book), the focus was on the construction of meta-conceptual and conceptual frameworks for the robust analysis of the intelligence sector and the nature of the state and political regimes in context of intelligence praxis. The major achievements of this thesis are: 1. The construct of a meta-scientific conceptual framework for the understanding of intelligence studies as a sub-discipline within the broader science field; 2. The deeper understanding of intelligence and its practices through a meta-theoretical review and reconstructing of existing intelligence theories as to construct a new theory of intelligence within a trichotomous political regime typology; 3. The classification and characteristics of intelligence practices within different political regime types as to evaluate, interpret and analyses the South African context both historically and current; and finally 4. The operationalisation and application of theoretical constructs provide for future perspectives for South Africa.

“Academization of intelligence” is defined as the academic research, conceptualization, and teaching about the world of intelligence. Its goal is to study the field of intelligence’s essence, activities, and influence on the national security of the state and its decision-making processes. Policymakers and political leaders have recognized the increasingly significant role of intelligence in shaping policy and decision-making processes. These developments and concerns accelerated the academization of intelligence and gave the field its due attention and prominence. As the demand for intelligence practitioners increased, American and Western universities responded to the growing need for formulating academic programs and courses devoted to intelligence, which significantly accelerated the academization of intelligence. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are at the forefront of efforts to academize intelligence. In other Western countries, such as Spain, France, and Germany, the process of academicization has been slower and burdened by the darker roles played by the intelligence services at certain points in history.

Security Intelligence cooperation and the coordinated war on terror  among Nigeria’s security operatives is lauded to be a major panacea to stable national security and timely approach to conflict management, considering the barrage of violent conflicts and level of insecurity in Nigeria. Taking into cognisance the unstable security situation in Nigeria, one would expect absence of rivalry or clashes and at the same time existence of maximum cooperation among all the security agencies saddled with the responsibility of maintaining stable security in the state. It is observed that unhealthy rivalry and clashes have taken several dimensions and crippled their effective security containment. This study seeks to find out the causes of these rivalries and clashes; efforts geared towards addressing it and remedies to the problem. The study made use of secondary data from books, bulletins, newspapers, internet sources, among others. At the end of the analysis, it was discovered that many factors such as duplicating of functions without clear delimitations among the security agencies, unhealthy comparisons, the feeling of superiority complex among the operatives, lack of effective anchor to coordinate them, among others, account for these rivalries. The study recommends measures of promoting healthy cooperation among the security agencies as a panacea to maintaining stable national security in Nigeria.

Two technological races, drivers of disruptive change and geostrategic (re)positioning of the great powers, are currently taking place: the quantum technological race and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) race. The present article develops a strategic and technological reflection on the meeting point between these two races, this reflection leads us to the Quantum Artificial Intelligence of Things linked to a Quantum Internet of Things, we discuss these two concepts and provide an experimental example of a utility maximizing quantum robot endowed with a Quantum Recurrent Neural Network works on a decision problem, implemented on IBM's quantum computers, this example is used for a reflection on the strategic challenges coming from the QIoT and the QAIoT, ranging from geopolitical challenges to the issue of the technological singularity.

This paper identifies best practices for the selection and delivery of historical cases for use in intelligence studies education. These pedagogical imperatives (and avoidable pitfalls) apply to different levels of instruction and are relevant both for public and classified instruction. Drawing upon relevant social science scholarship on the use of historical case studies, the authors propose methods to select appropriate cases tailoured to achieve desired learning outcomes, to promote active learning and to avoid common problems such as hindsight bias, oversimplified single-narrative interpretations and prepackaged ‘lessons learned’ devoid of historical context.

An apparent lack of interest by Russia in Sub-Saharan Africa over recent years masks persistent key strategic drivers for Moscow to reestablish lost influence in the region. A preoccupation with more immediate foreign policy concerns has temporarily interrupted a process of Russia’s reclaiming relationships, well-developed in the Soviet period, to secure access to mineral and energy resources that are crucial both to Russia’s economic and industrial interests and to its existing and new markets for military arms contracts.


Russian policy priorities in Africa provide both challenges and opportunities for the U.S. in fields such as nuclear non-proliferation, as well as energy security for the United States and its European allies. These priorities indicate that Russian development of key resources in southern Africa should be observed closely. Russian trade with the region is significantly underdeveloped, with the exception of the arms trade, which Russia can be expected to defend vigorously if its markets are challenged, including by the prospect of regime change or international sanctions.

At the same time, Russia and the United States have a shared interest in restricting the freedom of movement of terrorist organizations in ungoverned or lightly governed spaces in Africa, which opens potential for cooperation between U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) initiatives and Russian presence in the region.

Overall, Russian diplomatic and economic activity in southern Africa should receive continuing attention from U.S. policymakers due to its direct relevance to a number of U.S. strategic concerns.

As the world continues on a path of increased connectivity, control over the cyber domain has become a matter of state security. The sustained loss of wealth in the form of intellectual property theft and financial shenanigans has reached critical mass. As a warning to America, General Keith Alexander, while serving as the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), stated: “What we need to worry about is when these
transition from disruptive to destructive attacks...” He goes on to say: “The conflict is growing, the probability for crisis is mounting.” (Rogin, 2012). In this context, the main danger the “special operations teams” of cyberspace in America is called the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT).

This article explores whether qualitative research methodologies can
help improve strategic analytical processes and products. Currently, in
many intelligence agencies, cultural and organizational barriers restrain
the development of better strategic intelligence. An emphasis on current
intelligence is rewarded over longer-term strategic assessments. However, the demands of an increasingly number of complex emerging threats can only be partially met by current intelligence. Decision-makers also need a revitalized strategic analytical capability to help with policy planning. This article investigates whether further consideration should be given to improving strategic analytical skill sets by a greater adoption of qualitative social research methodologies by the intelligence enterprise.

The United States' over-reliance on technical collection systems and reduced focus on human intelligence reduces our capability to target adversaries that operate minimally in a technological world.  This paper covers the history of US HUMINT depreciation and discusses some intelligence failures from a pro-HUMINT stance.

Dābiq is an electronic magazine (e-zine) utilising strategic utopianism and savagery messages supported by exemplary leadership, eschatology, and current events reports. This project analyses narrative themes present within Dābiq and how relevant and prevalent these themes are across issues. The project applies Thematic Network Analysis of the first six issues of Dābiq, laying foundations for understanding ISIL’s culture and counter-narrative development. It argues present terminology and first generation research constrain understanding of ISIL’s cultural specifics. This project establishes that rhetoric within Dābiq contains both political and religious narratives. Finally, this project establishes that ‘Exemplary Leadership’ theme dominates ISIL’s Dābiq rhetoric.

Information and communication technologies have a broad impact on every aspect of social life. Cyberspace is an expanding digital network that connects social, business and military networks around the world. The advent of social media has had a fundamental effect on how people communicate and act. In recent years, social media has emphasized the potential for citizens to engage in the public sphere, inform, communicate, affect governance within and across national borders and at the same time empower governments to reach out in new ways and to broader audiences than before. In an interdependent world where communication is transmitted at the speed of light, social media can serve as a tool to understand, but also control societies. The social revolutions that took place in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and other countries revealed that social media and social networks can function as a force multiplier for political action. These developments have not escaped the attention of the intelligence community. The transition from the traditional means of communication (press, radio and television) to the social media, affects many aspects of the intelligence business. The emergence of social media intelligence poses technical, conceptual and operational challenges for the intelligence agencies.

General Yakubu Gowon became Nigeria’s military ruler at a very critical period in the young country’s history in 1966. Due to the various tensions orchestrated by the different ethnic groups in the multi-ethnic state, Nigeria tethered on the verge of collapse by the mid-1960s and eventually lurched into a Civil War in 1966. By the time the war came to an end in 1970, Gowon was confronted with various nation-building challenges such as that of governance, federalism, ethnicity and democracy. To tackle these various nation-building challenges, Gowon introduced targeted programmes and policies designed to turn Nigeria into a cohesive and functional polity. This work is the analysis of the various initiatives used by General Yakubu Gowon between 1966 and 1970. The work discovers that Gowon made use of Praetorian, Conceptual and Institutional mechanisms to tackle the country’s nation-building challenges.

expone los escenarios que enfrenta el analista de inteligencia y el agente operativo, a la vez que describe los elementos necesarios que deben ser incluidos en un juego de simulación, con el fin de comprobar las capacidades de los profesionales.

The “holy grail of the nation’s secrets” is an imperfect yet highly idolized product within and throughout the intelligence community (Johnson 2008).  With minimal declassified information available, the President’s Daily Brief continues to elude intelligence scholars, professionals, and even policy makers who are not part of the readership list.  Throughout the history of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) however, there have been numerous changes to the product in an effort to perfect it.  Additionally, there continues to be on-going efforts of requests for more declassifications of PDBs for various purposes.  As with all intelligence and security policies, the biggest reforms are only considered and implemented after some catalyst.

Les services de renseignement qui agissent dans un cadre par nature secret peuvent induire  une certaine méfiance chez le citoyen.
Dans cette période troublée que nous traversons, le grand public se doit d’être informé  sur le fonctionnement des services de renseignement belges et le contrôle de ces derniers.
Pierre angulaire du système de contrôle, cet ouvrage cherche à apporter une analyse objective du travail réalisé par Comité R dans sa relation avec les acteurs politiques avant la sixième réforme de l’Etat.
Ce livre cherche ainsi, sans prétention et avant la sixième réforme de l’Etat, à contribuer au développement de la culture du renseignement en Belgique ou, dans une certaine mesure, à lever le voile sur certains préjugés.

http://www.maklu.be/makluengarant/BookDetails.aspx?ID=9789046608111

Da più di qualche anno ormai esperti, addetti ai lavori e semplici osservatori vanno interrogandosi su quale sarà il futuro dei nostri servizi di informazione e sicurezza e su come la comunità dell'intelligence vivrà tutte quelle trasformazioni che si renderanno necessarie per far fronte alle "nuove" minacce...

Stratejik istihbarat, oldukça önemli bir araç olmasına rağmen, taktik / operasyonel istihbarat kadar kullanılmamaktadır. Bunun nedenleri arasında, stratejik istihbaratın tam anlamıyla bilinememesi ve anlaşılamaması gelmektedir. Ayrıca politikacılar, üst düzey karar vericiler ve yöneticiler daha çok günlük olaylara ve hemen yanıt gelebilecek kısa vadeli (getirileri olan) bilgilere ilgi duyduklarından, stratejik bilgi ve istihbarat ihmal edilmiştir. Önemi anlaşılmış ve kabullenilmiş olsa dahi sonuçlarının kısa sürede alınamaması nedeniyle çok tercih edilmemektedir. Dolayısıyla, stratejik düşünmenin yerini taktik/operasyonel düşünmeler ve istihbaratlar almış, bu da stratejik yaklaşım gerektiren sorunların çözülememesine neden olmuştur. Stratejik istihbarat, karar verme makamını
beslemeyi ve desteklemeyi, bir konu ile ilgili büyük resmi görebilmeyi ve gelecekle ilgili tahminler sağlayarak planlar yapabilmeyi sağlamaktadır. Stratejik istihbarat, dış istihbaratta kullanılabildiği gibi iç istihbaratta da etkili bir şekilde kullanılabilmektedir. Bu bağlamda stratejik istihbarat, kolluk kuvvetlerinin kullanabileceği etkili ve önemli bir araçtır. Bu çalışmada stratejik istihbaratın ne olduğu ve ne tür bilgiler içerdiği ve diğer istihbarat çeşitleriyle arasındaki farkların neler olduğundan bahsedilmekte, örneklemeler yapılarak konuya açıklık getirilmektedir. Stratejik istihbarat çarkı ve analiz teknikleri de kısaca sunulduktan sonra, genel bir değerlendirme yapılarak çalışma sonlandırılmıştır. Mevcut çalışmada, stratejik istihbarat ile ilgili operatif ve uygulama yerine, genel ve teorik (kavramsal ve kuramsal) bilgiler verilmiştir.

Intelligence analysts are regarded as some of the most authoritative experts in government and international affairs politically, economically, socially, technologically, environmentally and legally (PESTEL), more importantly, in crime and violent extremism. They are responsible for producing intelligence reports and analytical judgements that can affect the micro-environment of the individual to the macro-environment of state security. However, they are no different to any human where cognitive biases promote personal preferences in decision making. Regardless of the type of issue, problem or threat, analysis strives towards objectivity, regardless of what is to be analyzed. Poor analytical judgement derived from biases strangling critical thinking and analytical tradecraft account for catastrophic failures as well as many other documented events. Medical and Social Sciences have found correlations between pre-frontal cortical planning and the cognitive deficits that influence judg...

The purpose of this article is to identify the challenges that the Greek National Intelligence Service (NIS) is facing and to stress the need for a genuine reform of the Greek Intelligence Community. Over the past years NIS has experienced several failures and so far the efforts to reform the Service have been insufficient. The reason is that past reforms of NIS were basically a spasmodic reaction to intelligence failures and political pressure, and not a result of a holistic and detailed analysis of the challenges that the Greek Intelligence Community has to meet in a complex international security environment. The present article makes a number of recommendations regarding a fundamental reform of the Greek Intelligence Community. Reallocating NIS to the Prime Minister, staffing the Service with the proper personnel and reassessing its priorities, creating new institutions like the National Intelligence Council and placing an Inspector General within the intelligence apparatus, are...

The Caspian Project is a weekly digital magazine organized by the online analytical resource, Modern Diplomacy. Dr. Matthew Crosston is the Senior Editor of the project, which aims to acquaint people with this critically undervalued region of the world. The analyses go far beyond the standard issue of energy and encapsulates economics, politics, culture, religion, global affairs, conflict and peace.

In this issue the Russian Debate is engaged in an enthralling point/counterpoint battle, depicting Russia as either victim or nemesis; the geopolitics of the Tengiz oil fields is considered; and the uniqueness behind the Winter Olympic bid of Almaty in Kazakhstan, as well as multicultural exchange in Azerbaijan

Despite the disparity of the intelligence services’ historical development during the 20th century,  a  comparative  approach  reveals  that  most  of  today’s  democratic  political  regimes’  intelligence communities maintain apparent similarities in their structure and operation, a product of the Weberian-type bureaucratic organization model’s institutionalization. This article seeks to understand the intelligence services’ organizational aspects from bureaucratic rationality to explore the criticisms of this model and evaluate its relationship with dysfunctions in the specific field of intelligence services. The results show that these distortions affect both the functionality and the legitimacy of these organizations, revealing the need to seek structural changes beyond the current model.

By Rubén Arcos and William J. Lahneman (eds.), Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019, 208 p.

The following is an account of the different approaches and issues contained in the  book:
• open source intelligence (chapter 2);
• collaborative discovery (chapter 3);
• foresight analysis (chapter 4);
• strategic game on intelligence sovereignty (chapter 5);
• scenarios of democratization of intelligence and crisis relate to it (chapter 6);
• forms of power in a selected world region (chapter 7);
• critical discourse analysis applied to foreign policy field (chapter 8);
• competitive analysis techniques (chapter 9);
• collection management role (chapter 10);
• mythical character Pulcinella as adversary - criminals, terrorists, foreign states- (chapter 11);
• development of a strategic vision through an abbreviated visioning process (chapter 12);
• real-time alert system and a process for monitoring and analyzing changes in a business environment and ecosystem (chapter 13);
• competitive simulation in a commercial setting (chapter 14).

This is part one of a mini-series attempting to grapple with US grand strategy and the potential need for its re-assessment. The goal of this series is to introduce readers to grand strategy, ideally prompting more to grapple with US grand strategy and grand strategy more broadly. The author is fleshing out their own ideas, so don’t take the work as gospel, but rather as a starting point for your own journey.
In part one, an overview of the current state of US grand strategy is given. In part two, grand strategy is defined as a concept, a more detailed argument for the need of reassessment is put forth, and resources on grand strategy are listed for interested readers. In part three, four typologies of US grand strategic thought are summarized and contrasted with what US grand strategy has arguably been since the end of WWII. In part four, some general thoughts on the means and ends of reassessing US grand strategy will be described. Additional articles on grand strategy may appear over time.

https://plotpolitics.com/2021/08/11/reassessing-us-grand-strategy-part-1-the-current-state-of-us-grand-strategy/

Desde el despliegue de la primera misión en mayo de 1948 (ONUVT-UNTSO), las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz de las Naciones Unidas (OMPs) han ido adquiriendo un rol cada vez más destacado en la prevención y gestión de crisis internacionales, así como en las labores de reconstrucción e institucionalización en los contextos post-conflicto.

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die substanzielle Rolle westlicher und östlicher Geheimdienste, vor allem des DDR-Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit (MfS), in Südtirol. Aufgrund der geopolitischen Bedeutung der Region zwischen den Machtblöcken des Kalten Krieges und des zeitlichen Zusammenhangs mit der Entkolonialisierungsphase der 1950er und 1960er Jahre war die Situation in Südtirol von Interesse für das MfS. Einerseits hatte der jahrzehntelange Konfliktherd das Potential, einen Keil zwischen die NATO-Mitgliedsländer Italien/BRD zu treiben, andererseits ließen sich gesammelte Informationen über die Rolle von rechtsextremistischen Organisationen und Individuen zur „nazistischen“ Diffamierung der Bonner Republik instrumentalisieren. In diesem Zusammenhang ergeben sich Parallelen zur Vorgangsweise der italienischen Geheimdienste, insbesondere was deren „pangermanistische“ Charakterisierung der Südtiroler Sezessionsbestrebungen angeht.