Jedburgh
07-17-2008, 12:00 AM
I recently finished reading Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder After 1914, by Martin Thomas, professor of Colonial History at the University of Exeter.
The book is a history of British and French colonial rule in the Middle East and North Africa (with bits of sub-Saharan Africa discussed in context) interwoven with the history of the the evolution and development of the colonial security services.
The book starts off as if its going to be very dry and pedantic, but the narrative shakes itself off and loosens up a bit as it goes along. Overall, it makes for a very Interesting read - description of leveraging support of experts in the social sciences at the turn of the century to focus and drive intelligence collection at the time makes for a good comparison to how we are currently using such support (and for those who pay attention to such things, you can also compare the both to Vietnam-era social science efforts at SORO etc.).
The time period focused on by the author also traces the development of SIGINT and IMINT as companion disciplines to the traditional spectrum of HUMINT collection - the book describes challenges as the countries shift employment of the emerging intelligence fields from conventional high-intensity warfare of WWI to supporting suppression of dissent and counterinsurgency in colonial territories. The struggle in attempting to maintain population control in tribal socities with extremely small force numbers as well as operational conflicts between the use kinetic and non-kinetic means of control reflect - in a very different context - some of the same problems we in today's operations.
The solid narrative is also supported by extensive source notes and a good bibiliography. This has already given me a very good leads on several relatively obscure but potentially useful articles, papers and books related to intelligence in support of counterinsurgency and the suppression of dissent in tribal societies. This, by itself, gives the book value in my eyes.
Highly recommended.
The book is a history of British and French colonial rule in the Middle East and North Africa (with bits of sub-Saharan Africa discussed in context) interwoven with the history of the the evolution and development of the colonial security services.
The book starts off as if its going to be very dry and pedantic, but the narrative shakes itself off and loosens up a bit as it goes along. Overall, it makes for a very Interesting read - description of leveraging support of experts in the social sciences at the turn of the century to focus and drive intelligence collection at the time makes for a good comparison to how we are currently using such support (and for those who pay attention to such things, you can also compare the both to Vietnam-era social science efforts at SORO etc.).
The time period focused on by the author also traces the development of SIGINT and IMINT as companion disciplines to the traditional spectrum of HUMINT collection - the book describes challenges as the countries shift employment of the emerging intelligence fields from conventional high-intensity warfare of WWI to supporting suppression of dissent and counterinsurgency in colonial territories. The struggle in attempting to maintain population control in tribal socities with extremely small force numbers as well as operational conflicts between the use kinetic and non-kinetic means of control reflect - in a very different context - some of the same problems we in today's operations.
The solid narrative is also supported by extensive source notes and a good bibiliography. This has already given me a very good leads on several relatively obscure but potentially useful articles, papers and books related to intelligence in support of counterinsurgency and the suppression of dissent in tribal societies. This, by itself, gives the book value in my eyes.
Highly recommended.