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Historical Reflections on the Uses and Limits of Intelligence
Abstract
Intelligence has never been a more important factor in international affairs than it is today. Since the end of the Second World War, vast intelligence bureaucracies have emerged to play an increasingly important role in the making of national policy within all major states. One of the biggest problems within the contemporary thinking about intelligence and international relations is a lack of historical context. Observers routinely comment on the challenges facing intelligence communities without reflecting on the historical forces that have shaped these communities over the past two centuries. As presented in this volume, new perspectives on the evolution of intelligence services and intelligence practice over the past 200 years can only enrich ongoing debates over how best to reform national intelligence structures.
... Deconstructing the role of the Cheka and later the KGB in Soviet statebuilding is an extensive task. For the purpose of this chapter I will summarize with the analysis provided by Peter Jackson (2005). Jackson argues that intelligence played a central role in the functioning of the Soviet state from its very inception. ...
This master's thesis contributes to the theoretical development of the role of intelligence services in state-building. To that end it establishes a theoretical framework consisting of current research in the field of intelligence and state-building. The role of the Kenyan intelligence services in the Kenyan state-building endeavor is then thoroughly analyzed using a range of primary and secondary materials, as well as a number of interviews with individuals central to Kenyan intelligence reforms. This thesis then merges the Kenyan case study with the established theoretical framework to develop a number of theoretical reductions on intelligence and state-building. This thesis offers a number of insights into the role of intelligence and state-building, providing a theoretical lens through which some of these processes can be understood. In doing so it identifies interesting and important fields where further research is needed. It also underscores the general need to further study the role of intelligence services, especially in new democracies, to advance the understanding of contemporary state-building.
... The primary conclusion reached by these studies is that by belonging to a government ministrysuch as the Defense Department in the United States or the Foreign Office in the United Kingdom-an intelligence organization automatically increases its influence on the decisionmaking process. 8 Other studies focus on the cultural difference between the decisionmakers and the Intelligence Community (IC). 9 According to these researches, the tension between the decisionmakers and the intelligence makers is the result of the decisionmaker's expectations to receive direct and clear answers to policy choices and the intelligence maker's frustration from the IC's limited role in the decisionmaking process. ...
... Deconstructing the role of the Cheka and later the KGB in Soviet statebuilding is an extensive task. For the purpose of this chapter I will summarize with the analysis provided by Peter Jackson (2005). Jackson argues that intelligence played a central role in the functioning of the Soviet state from its very inception. ...
This master's thesis contributes to the theoretical development of the role of intelligence services in state-building. To that end it establishes a theoretical framework consisting of current research in the field of intelligence and state-building. The role of the Kenyan intelligence services in the Kenyan state-building endeavor is then thoroughly analyzed using a range of primary and secondary materials, as well as a number of interviews with individuals central to Kenyan intelligence reforms. This thesis then merges the Kenyan case study with the established theoretical framework to develop a number of theoretical reductions on intelligence and state-building. This thesis offers a number of insights into the role of intelligence and state-building, providing a theoretical lens through which some of these processes can be understood. In doing so it identifies interesting and important fields where further research is needed. It also underscores the general need to further study the role of intelligence services, especially in new democracies, to advance the understanding of contemporary state-building.
Will the post-9/11 environment revive Canada–US intelligence cooperation and catalyze a security community? A comparative study based on intelligence principles, ideas, norms, orientations, and institutions drawn from the literature predicts cooperation but not necessarily a security community, owing to different (a) histories, (b) security interpretations/agenda placements, (c) political and legislative cultures, (d) degrees of public acceptance, and (e) domestic–international inclinations. Waning British influences, evaporating Anglo-Saxon identities, and changing strategic interests compel Canada to play Thomas Hughes's butcher role, and the US the more encompassing intelligence-policy maker role.
An overemphasis on the tensions between the United States and Britain in the Middle East in the 1950s tends to obscure the fact that there also existed a close collaboration between them on the intelligence level. The aim of this dissertation, therefore, is to analyse this co-operation and judge its significance for Anglo-American relations. It will be argued that the intelligence co-operation indicates that Suez was neither a breaking point for relations between Washington and London nor a watershed for Britain‟s power in the Middle East. The analysis of the joint covert action in Syria before and after Suez will support this argument. Intelligence co-operation, however, had further implications: It served as effective means to forestall Soviet penetration of the Middle East and to deal with anti-Western Arab nationalism. Furthermore, it actually allowed the United States to nurture its special relationship with Britain and to benefit from the latter‟s influence in the region without being associated with the latter‟s reputation as colonialist power. Britain and the United States had predominantly converging objectives with regard to the Middle East. Tensions, however, arose more over a disagreement over which methods should be used to achieve those objectives.
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