The U.S.-Pakistani relationship in the 1950s and 60s suggests that judging the other state’s dependence and alternatives may be particularly difficult under conditions of secrecy. American and Pakistani leaders negotiated the terms allowing the United States to collect intelligence on Soviet and Chinese weapons programs from Pakistan, but with limited outside input, each side overestimated […]
The US intelligence community has put China at the top of its annual report of national security threats, warning of Beijing’s struggle to realise “an epochal geopolitical shift”, including increased air and naval operations in Asia intended to assert its control in contested areas. Read Here | South China Morning Post Read the intelligence report […]
The information revolution has seeded a growing ecosystem of open-source intelligence services. Firms such as Recorded Future, DigitalGlobe, and McKinsey offer not only intelligence-like products, such as news aggregation and data analytics, but also such services as on-demand overhead satellite imagery and long-term strategic forecasting that were previously the purview of governments alone. Read Here […]
President Joe Biden’s administration appears determined to separate America’s relationship with the Kingdom from the relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But this separation will likely prove impossible to sustain. Read Here | Project Syndicate Read Here | The Intelligence Report
Conventional wisdom holds that intelligence data is collected and safeguarded to gain an advantage on the battlefield if and when war breaks out. In recent years, however, Israel has come to increasingly rely on deliberate public disclosure of intelligence data as an instrument of influence and coercion. Read Here – WarOnTheRocks
Collecting intelligence for someone who doesn’t want it is at best a waste of money, and at worst a prescription for disaster. Again, the Soviet example is a good one. In the lead-up to the second World War, and repeatedly during the war years, the Soviet Union squandered intelligence from the best spy network ever. […]
Of course there’s a Deep State. Why wouldn’t there be? Even a cursory understanding of human nature tells us that power corrupts, as Lord Acton put it; that, when power is concentrated and entrenched, it will be abused; that, when it is concentrated and entrenched in secrecy, it will be abused in secret. That’s the […]
It may not be about security. Three of the airlines that have been targeted for these measures — Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways — have long been accused by their U.S. competitors of receiving massive effective subsidies from their governments. These airlines have been quietly worried for months that President Trump was going to […]
Despite its lack of name recognition, the NGA’s (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) headquarters is the third-largest building in the Washington metropolitan area, bigger than the CIA headquarters and the U.S. Capitol. Completed in 2011 at a cost of $1.4 billion, the main building measures four football fields long and covers as much ground as two aircraft […]
In January 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise […]
looking beyond borders 