Summer reading

I’ve been working through some journal articles that have been stacking up in my ‘to read’ bin.

Training and Educating U.S. Intelligence Analysts (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol22 no 1)  Stephen Marrin.

Interesting (although not particularly ground breaking) discussion of the challenges the community is facing circa 2008.  While the author confines his discussion to the federal IC, most of what he says applies to sub-national intelligence agencies as well.

He links a number of ideas that have been floated around for a few years.  I like his description of intelligence training being divided into two general camps (‘trainers vs. educators’) which roughly corresponds to the debate of intelligence as art versus science, craft versus profession, etc.  Ultimately settles on a none too surprising conclusion that a mix of both is what we need.  The devil, as they say, remains in the details of actually bringing such a system to fruition.

The best part of the paper is an unanswered question that everyone in charge of an analytical unit or designer of an analytical training program should ask themselves before they undertake any reform.

Do the training centers teach structured methods because they are the best way to do analysis, or do they teach structured methods because that’s what they can teach?…are the intelligence organizations emphasizing the value of structured methods because their application produces better analysis, or because the formal process of teaching these methods provides a way for the organizations to prove to external overseers that they are improving…?

The Intelligence Analyst as Epistemologist (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol19 no 4)  Mathew Herbert

Very interesting (if somewhat dense) article that argues that “[i]ntelligence analysis, unlike many mature professions, lacks an agreed, unified methodology and the experts necessary for regulating one.”  That lack of shared paradigm allows all sorts of snake oil salesmen to sell (often times literally) their wares and drown out more rigorously done analysis.

What is required, Herbert asserts, is

• an emphasis on difference between  what is known and what is believed
• an ability to understand and communicate the level of probability or uncertainty in both individual assumptions as well as how uncertainties within a chain of reasoning interact with each other
• an understanding of key information which is unknown but could alter a particular analytical judgment (those pesky Rumsfeldian ‘known unknowns’)

Definitely worth a second read.

Political Scrutiny and Control of Scandinavia’s Security and Intelligence Services (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol13 no 2) Geoffrey R. Weller

An overview of domestic intelligence scandals in Sweden, Norway and Denmark from post WWII to the mid-90s and the differing responses from the various governments.  It’s particularly interesting to read this article (written in 2000) from a post 9/11 viewpoint where intelligence services were given much wider latitude in their activities among domestic populations.

If you aren’t particularly interested in the region, here’s the relevant bit for wherever you are:

The Scandinavian experience of controversy in relation to the security and iintelligence serves indicates clearly that control that blends protection for citizens and a need for efficient iintelligence agencies is extremely difficult to achieve, even in nations with a strong democratic tradition and a strong tradition of parliamentary supremacy.

Or, may I add, with a popular leader promising change and a more open, transparent government. (H/T A. Sullivan)

Harsh Lessons:  Roman Intelligence in the Hannibalic War (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol17 no 3) Daniel A. Fournie

Caesar, Intelligence, and Ancient Britain ((International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol15 no 1) Rose Mary Sheldon

I mention these together not only because they cover similar subject matter (intelligence in ancient Rome) but because the Fournie piece was heavily influenced by the work of Sheldon.

If you have an interest in ancient Rome or military history I’d recommend both of these pieces.   They do an admirable job of taking sparse source material to talk about ideas and concepts which weren’t developed at the time.   Even though I was familiar with both military conflicts I have to admit I never thought of them from an intelligence perspective.  Good stuff.

Kabul = Khe Sahn???

In 2004 we used to joke (semi-seriously) that when we told people back home that we had just completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan, the most common response we would hear would be:

“What?  Afghanistan?  I didn’t know we still had troops there.  Who knew?”

So, I take it as good news that there’s a lot more attention now focused on the war in Afghanistan.  I mean, after all, it’s only been seven years and I understand that we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time so having to think about more than one tough problem at a time really strains our…thought thingys…you know in our…mouth holder.

I however take it as bad news that some of the attention is in the form of this sort of drivel from Newsweek.

Obama’s Vietnam

~cue the scary music~

So, keep your eye on the ball and watch this slight of hand…

The author’s set up the story with four paragraphs about how Afghanistan is different from Vietnam and how such analogies are generally superficial and don’t stand up to closer examination.

Once the obligatory disclaimer is dispensed with, the author’s rub their hands with glee and get right down into spending the next 4 pages on superficial, bogus comparisons with Vietnam.

Reviewing this whole article is really too tiresome to bear but some points are worthy of pointing out:

“…the 642 U.S. deaths sustained so far pale in comparison to the 58,000 lost in Vietnam. Still, consider this: that’s a higher death toll than after the first nine years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam”

Uh…yeah.  First, I’m not sure where they count the starting point for U.S. involvement.  We started sending troops in 1950.  The National Archieves say that from the years 1956-1964 there were 401 deaths in Vietnam but there were also only an average of 5,146 soldiers in the country during those years (according to the Heritage Foundation) and only three of those years saw more than 1,000 soldiers in the country.  In Afghanistan, by contrast, every year (including the three months of 2001 forces were deployed there) saw more than 1,000 soldiers deployed.  In fact, most of those years had more than 10,000 soldiers deployed (a force level only reached in 1963/64 in Vietnam).  So, the comparison is totally bogus.

“As in Diem’s Vietnam, government corruption is epic; even Karzai says so.”

Yes, why can’t we go to war or conduct nation building in well run, stable countries?

“What have the people of Afghanistan received from the Coalition?” asks Zamir Kabulov, the Russian ambassador to Afghanistan. “They lived very poorly before, and they still live poorly—but sometimes they also get bombed by mistake.”

Because the Russians can be expected to give unbiased, clear insight on this instance since they clearly wish both us and Afghanistan well.  And, after all, they did so well during their time in the country.

While I was trying to decide what book to read next I read the preface of Empires of Trust in which Thomas Madden writes:

[Many Americans] “consider the historical period from World War II until the present to be modern history.  Anything between the Declaration of Independence and Pearl Harbor is lumped into a foggy world of early history.  Before 1776 brings us to ancient history, which is, well, ancient history.  It doesn’t matter…But  because so many Americans consider modern (and therefore relevant) history to begin with World War II, we are drastically reducing the lessons and experiences that we can draw from when charting our future course…[E]very challenge will be forcibly jammed into the mold of the last century’s events.

For those on the political left, every war is another Vietnam…For conservatives, on the other hand, every conflict is WWII…If your historical horizon extends just sixty years, those are the sorts of lessons you are likely to draw.

Hmmm…seems like he had this article in mind when he wrote that.

Joyeux Noel

For some reason, this time of year gets me thinking about the First World War.  More specifically, the Christmas Truce of 1914.  It’s really an amazing story about the season and men who shared it after experiencing some of the worst horrors of war.

A movie was made of the experience called Joyeux Noel which was nice except for the awkward insertion of a  romantic sub-plot in the story which cheapened the authentic portions of the story.  Still, you’re unlikely to find much about the time period generally or this event specifically and it’s still pretty good.

So, check out the story, read the letters from some of the soldiers, maybe rent the movie and share it with your family this season.  It’s not what we now think of as a traditional holiday story but seems to convey the sentiments of ‘peace on earth and goodwill towards mankind’ better than most of what you may see.

If you want to know more, this group seems to be doing some nice work in collecting remembrances of the event.

Tuntematon sotilas

I watched the Finnish movie Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier) recently.  It’s based on a book that I have (but haven’t yet read) of the same name.

Set during the Continuation War the imdb synopsizes it thusly:

It is the summer of 1941. An eastern-Finnish machine gun company receives an order to turn in their surplus equipment. The company is transferred to the front lines. The next morning the soldiers wake to the sound of guns – the war has begun. The Finnish troops attack and quickly move across the border. The young, nervous rookies of the company get their baptism of fire, and the men become familiar with death and the hardships of war. Under strength and badly equipped they fight a superior enemy. The lists of heroes and of the dead seem endless. Edvin Laine’s epic interpretation of Väinö Linna’s war novel “Tuntematon Sotilas” is an entire chapter in the book of Finnish movie history.

At first this movie reminded me of the black and white WWII movies I grew up watching.  But it quickly becomes clear this ain’t no Longest Day or Sands of Iwo Jima.  There’s no real narrative or central character.  Instead, it follows the men of a machine gun company.  While the ‘effects’ aren’t particularly compelling and the acting leaves something to be desired the movie does have some remarkable things going for it.

It does portray pretty well how soldiers talk amongst each other and what they talk about.  The officers all suck, the food is bad, they have shoddy equipment and they all want to get laid.  I simply couldn’t imagine a film like this being made in America during that time (can you picture John Wayne talking about lice infestation or how the capitalists were starting this war?).  The insubordination demonstrated by the soldiers is pretty shocking especially since the author served during the war and is recognized as giving a fairly realistic portrayal.

Second, it certainly doesn’t pull any punches about the consequences of war.  When one of the primary ensemble gets shot by a Russian machine gunner, he reaches for his rifle and blows his brains out.  Other soldiers run away under fire.  There’s one scene where soldiers are executed by firing squad for insubordination.

The film takes the point of view of the regular soldiers and as a result you have little context of how the conflict is unfolding more broadly.  There’s no indication that any particular battle or firefight has any significance for anyone other than the men fighting it and I suspect that was intentional.

Given that, it’s pretty interesting that the film is regarded as a classic:

It remains one of the best-selling books of all time in Finland. It is claimed that the book is a tribute to the Finnish men in WWII: anti-war without being defeatist.

Of all the characters, Rokka is my favorite.  A corporal who is otherwise a farmer, he performs well as a soldier in battle but terrible between fights.  The command can’t get him to follow the basics of discipline and decide to court martial him until he defends the Finnish trenches from a Russian patrol single handedly and captures a Russian captain.  His officers decide to drop the charges and call the whole thing even but Rokka then immediately has the cojones to demand leave for capturing a prisoner.

Great stuff…much more nuanced than comparable American military films (at least the ones I remember) from the time and has themes that I think you’d be hard pressed to find discussed even today in American film regarding war and our military.  Go check it out.

Nordic War Museums

I’m really backed up in terms of things I need to post about.  Case in point, last summer I was on vacation in Sweden and took a quick side trip to Finland.  While there I got to check out two military museums:  the Swedish Army Museum and the Finnish Military Museum.  The websites aren’t particularly informative (at least the English versions) which is unfortunate because the museums themselves are worth the trip.

As a disclosure I should say that I’m not particularly fond of military museums.  I find them kind of stale and lacking in the quality that lets me share (even if in a very small way) the dramatic stories of the people who lived through past conflicts.  The National World War II Museum left me unimpressed (although I understand I’m definitely in the minority on that).

These two museums avoided that and were pretty compelling for different reasons.

The Finnish museum understandably focused on the nation-defining event that was the Winter War and the even less well known (to those of us in the U.S. at least) Continuation War.  The story is extremely compelling (little Finland held off the Soviet army for almost 4 months and opened up a big can of whoop ass in the process) and recent enough that many families have parents or grandparents with memories of the war.  It’s not a big museum (which is another plus, after all, how many rifles and artillery pieces can you stare at in a day?) but you can actually interact with many of the displays.  Unlike displays I’ve seen in other museums, everything isn’t hidden behind ropes, plexiglass and tons of signs warning against touching, filming or even thinking about anything on display.   You can actually get behind the sights and work the controls of some of the equipment.  The highlight of the displays, for me, was a recreation of a bunker from the Winter War.  Again, you were free to move about in the bunker, pick up the coffee pot, sit in the chairs, and actually get a feel for living in such a place.  I was lucky enough to be escorted through the museum by a relative of my wife who could give me a local perspective of the place.  By the way, if you think Americans are patriotic, you haven’t met a Finn.

Sweden hasn’t been in a war since 1814 so it’s a little harder to make a museum which will seem relevant to modern museum attendees.  In that regard, they don’t really try.  Rather, they attempt to describe the history of warfare going  back from pre-history to the modern era.  Sweden’s military history is used to highlight trends and themes about warfare and the lives of soldiers through the ages.  It’s bigger than the Finnish museum (but to be fair, Finland has only been an independent country since 1917) and spends a lot more time on Sweden’s imperial heyday but they do a decent job.  I particularly liked one display where they had rifles used by Swedish forces for (I think) a couple of centuries side by side.  You could pick them up, work the mechanisms (no ammo!) and compare them which was quite cool.

Also, since Sweden doesn’t have a recent history of combat, they focus instead on the conscript system in Sweden and how soldiers have served since 1814.  One part I thought was surprisingly good were recreations of various living quarters and NCO/Officer clubs throughout the 20th century.  Sweden is a pretty regular contributor to UN peacekeeping missions so that allows some discussion of the modern Swedish force as well.