Talk:Intelligence (disambiguation)

History of Contemporary Intelligence: A line of a research proposal.

Human acts may ultimately be an act of information (INFO[1]), sabotage (DISINFO)[2]) [3], or an act of protection, of counter-intelligence (CONTRINFO)[4].

It may be a line of research to elaborate that there exists an order of factors [5] that alters the product:

One needs 1. to have the will, 2. to know, what having one 3. power (be enabled, empowered), may result in his 4. act - The contention is that one needs, first, to desire to know, then he must also be able - be empowered... to end up that he will do something.

I'd be cautious in calling all of these acts "intelligence". We might agree on something along the lines of "secret operations", or clandestine operation or covert action. I've explored certain issues in Clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action, and Operational Preparation of the Environment and their subarticles. Subversion, sabotage, etc., certainly share techniques of clandestinity with intelligence, but they are not themselves intelligence.Howard C. Berkowitz 16:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Intelligence in the sense of the ability to understand complex ideas[6]: You are absolutely right in the context of "active intelligence" and its collection [7]. The first being "the gender", the latter just one of the "species": Am I wrong in this assumption? Let me have the benefit of your guidance.RICARDO Gomes de Paiva DE FARIA 04:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Austro-Hungarian Empire

By late 19th Century, the Habsburg Dinasty Intelligence Service had a gigantic Intelligence Archive located in Vienna controlled by Count Kalnoky - his successors still reachable in today's Rumania [8]. Count Kalnoky was the Foreign Affairs Minister of Austro-Hungarian Empire [9] (Its operations were worldwide, and same were instrumental in South American politics (citation needed), see Count Welsersheimb dialogues with Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II [10].

Greece

In Greece: One surely must expand a research on Konstantinos Kanaris (a.k.a. Constantine Kanaris) who gained his fame during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829)[11].

One also cannot ignore the later Cypriot activities, and, primarily in guerilla warfare, George Grivas.Howard C. Berkowitz 16:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Germany

The speculation, raisen by German Emperor Wilhelm II [12] himself, that Wilhelm Canaris was a descendant of Konstantinos Kanaris was never proven [13] he may have been uncle to Wilhelm Canaris [14], the German admiral, head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944 and member of the German Resistance that ended up hanged [15] by Hitler [16].

Canaris is an immensely complex subject. Simply his own early life is interesting, but one absolutely cannot ignore his love-hate relationship with Reinhard Heydrich, and, especially after Heydrich was asssassinated, how Canaris fought for bureaucratic control, increasingly involved in the July 20 plot.

We do now have confirmation, from R.V. Jones, that he was not the source of the Oslo Report. There are still speculations that he might have leaked material to the Red Orchestra and other espionage rings, or if those rings were simply cover for a way to get ULTRA materials to the Soviets. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Summary

If such a "History of Contemporary Intelligence" line of a research is deemed fit and proper then it goes without saying that it needs to be expanded into the United Kingdom, France Spain, Portugal and earlier, Venice and so on: One may have a gist of how wide is this realm as one may note the size of the British Empire, the Roman Empire and - it has no end - for the oldest profession in the world Intelligence is.

"Domingo 4 de marzo de 2001 A FONDO: VERNON WALTERS, EX SUBDIRECTOR DE LA CIA [17](N.B.: In 7 July 2009 this link is already broken.) [...] En cuanto al espionaje, hubo inteligencia antes y habrá inteligencia después. Es imposible prescindir de lo que algunos llaman 'la más vieja de las profesiones'. [...] ¿No es la prostitución la más antigua profesión en el credo común? —Eso es lo que se dice en general. Pero para acceder a los servicios de la prostitución hay que saber, antes, dónde está y cuánto cuesta al menos. Y esto es inteligencia y es anterior... aun al sexo por dinero. [...]" RICARDO Gomes de Paiva DE FARIA 10:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, could you translate this as more than a comment from Vernon Walters, a far better linguist than I? Howard C. Berkowitz 16:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I had the same feeling, yet, Vernon Walters said this in Spanish, this is verbatim what he said! I will dare to translate trying not to a traduttore traditore... In captioned interview, Vernon Walters also pointed out that in Cuba, and at that date, 2001, Russia had more than 2,000 analysts for U.S. signals: "¿Usted sabe que en Cuba hay hoy un puesto de escucha ruso con más de dos mil personas? Todavía." RICARDO Gomes de Paiva DE FARIA 03:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The question is whether the analysts — I assume at the Lourdes intercept facility — were merely collecting, or actually producing intelligence? Certainly, in the United States intelligence community, there is a long history of careers moving quickly in collection and slowly in analysis, creating absurdities such as Vietnam-era analysts having an average 400 cubic foot backlog of paper to read.

As to whether intelligence is the oldest or second oldest profession, it involves both: Clandestine human-source intelligence recruiting#Sex, honeypots and recruitment Howard C. Berkowitz 03:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I shall not develop a chat here about Lourdes intercept facility - yet, for the sake of the figures involved in it, allow me this quote below - and for me to express this guess - Are they "trying a little bit harder" than the publicly stated (inflated?) figures below?

"$3 billion to build it and the Russians themselves admit that each year they pay their Cuban landlords"[...]

"$200 million [...] worth of fuel, timber and spare parts for various equipment, including military equipment."[...]

"Tens of millions of dollars the Russians spend operating the facility ..."

"10 years after the end of the Cold War, U.S. analysts say new money is being spent to upgrade the operation"[...][18]RICARDO Gomes de Paiva DE FARIA 08:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)