This is a summary of all lectures of the course 'introduction to secret affairs'
It is based on the lectures in 2024. I hope this is helpful for the preparation for your test!
- Information/ product
- Made by humans
- documents
- Secrecy
- secret institutions collecting people’s secret information to make secret products
- Process
- information becomes intelligence
- professional process to inform customers or users of information, to help them with
the decision process
- understanding intentions and capabilities
- Protect citizens / state / party / regime / leader
- Tactical vs strategic
- where are the troops vs. what are the plans of the enemy
- Organizations/ bureaucracy
- Surveillance
- observe groups
- Secret intelligence = Source of power (Michael Herman)
- decisions advantage
- project influence abroad
- increase relative state power
- Support politics / security
- business intelligence? Commercial entities. (not focus of course)
Intelligence studies
- British school
- diplomatic history
- filling the missing dimension
, - American school
- tends towards social sciences
-models and methodologies
- Related disciplines
- international history/ international relations/ security studies / sociology of
knowledge
- Anglo-dominance decreasing, more diversity
Paradox of studying secrecy
- Why do states wish to keep intelligence secret/ why do they not declassify information
- to protect secrets from adversaries
- to protect sources of information and methods, loss of access to it
- to avoid international embarrassment / diplomatic escalation
- to enable negotiations, moderate, pragmatic and adopt unpopular positions
- avoid causing tension
- lean towards caution
Cultures of secrets; how can we know
- What sources can we use to research intelligence, what challenges do they pose
Why do governments disclose intelligence
- Transparency laws
- National reconciliation post-political change
- Influence of 3rd party
- Influence for the agencies
- building government support
- criminalizing
,Significant variation in source access between countries; nature of their policies
- Also between systems; Mi5 vs MI6, MIVD vs AIVD
- Few systems have organized official histories
- Wide variation in traditions of writing memoirs and granting interviews
- Laws on civil investigations/ media freedom is also not the same. Internet has an
important role.
- Wide variation in independent oversight by judges and transparency laws
- Whistleblowing laws, leaks and defectors
- Imperfect and biased knowledge and understanding; ethical dilemma’s of how we
access and sources
lecture 2
Defining intelligence
Sun tzu: “what enables general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of
ordinary men.”
Von Clausewitz: “every sort of information about the enemy and his country – the basis, in
short, of our own plans and operations” (does not recognize that intelligence is specific. Also
does not rely on trans-national organizations)
Lowenthal: “intelligence refers to information that meets the stated or understood needs of
policy makers and has been collected, processed, and narrowed to meet those needs”
- The decision-making process is a two way street
- You focus on providing the information to the policy makers in a brief way
Difference information and intelligence
Information
- Unprocessed
- Raw
- Perishable
- Incomplete
, - Unspecific
Intelligence
- Actionable (can make a decision on information)
- Also perishable
- (generally) reliable and verified. (unless time sensitive)
Scenario
Weapon smuggling
Raw information
- Intercepted comms
- Local sources
- Historical data
- Satellites?
How to turn this into actionable intel
- Check/verify information (triangulate)
- Estimated probability (fair chance, good chance, very unlikely)
- Decode comms
- Combine sources
Actionable intelligence is specific and credible
“a significant illegal arms shipment is expected to cross the border within a 48-hour window
at a specific location)
Intelligence cycle
Historical background
Uncertainty in war
- Britain and France wanted to defeat each other AND internal threats
- Relied on networks of spies and covers operations
- Increased complexity of war
- Decision-making had to speed up and be based on the most current information
Voordelen van het kopen van samenvattingen bij Stuvia op een rij:
Verzekerd van kwaliteit door reviews
Stuvia-klanten hebben meer dan 700.000 samenvattingen beoordeeld. Zo weet je zeker dat je de beste documenten koopt!
Snel en makkelijk kopen
Je betaalt supersnel en eenmalig met iDeal, creditcard of Stuvia-tegoed voor de samenvatting. Zonder lidmaatschap.
Focus op de essentie
Samenvattingen worden geschreven voor en door anderen. Daarom zijn de samenvattingen altijd betrouwbaar en actueel. Zo kom je snel tot de kern!
Veelgestelde vragen
Wat krijg ik als ik dit document koop?
Je krijgt een PDF, die direct beschikbaar is na je aankoop. Het gekochte document is altijd, overal en oneindig toegankelijk via je profiel.
Tevredenheidsgarantie: hoe werkt dat?
Onze tevredenheidsgarantie zorgt ervoor dat je altijd een studiedocument vindt dat goed bij je past. Je vult een formulier in en onze klantenservice regelt de rest.
Van wie koop ik deze samenvatting?
Stuvia is een marktplaats, je koop dit document dus niet van ons, maar van verkoper tijmenoudejans. Stuvia faciliteert de betaling aan de verkoper.
Zit ik meteen vast aan een abonnement?
Nee, je koopt alleen deze samenvatting voor €5,86. Je zit daarna nergens aan vast.