Intelligence

Good book review - Intel in war

JOHN CROSSLAND



INTELLIGENCE IN WAR: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda
by John Keegan
Hutchinson £25 pp443
John Keegan admits in his foreword that he has tried to steer clear of the intelligence world all his working life, having concluded that anyone “who mingled with it in the belief that he could make use of contacts, would probably be made use of, to his disadvantage”. He could not have wished for a more timely confirmation of his prejudices than the Hutton Inquiry as this book critically assesses the intelligence community’s record in delivering victory in British wars over the past one and a half centuries. The author reminds us that intelligence, however good, is not necessarily the means to victory.

He cites six campaigns to make his point; from Nelson at the Nile — a classic example of the application of “humint” (human intelligence) — to the second Gulf war, where “in absolutely optimum conditions intelligence failed”. He believes that the secret services should not look to the intellectuals of Bletchley Park, who broke vital German codes, as a model in the international war against terror. The challenge, he claims, will force the intelligence agencies to resort to “primitive” methods in this age of satellite surveillance. Indeed, Kipling’s Kim “may come to provide a model of the anti-fundamentalist agent, with his ability to shed his European identity and to pass convincingly as a Muslim message-carrier . . . far superior to any holder of a PhD in higher mathematics”.

The latter prove the whipping boys for the fall of Crete, an unnecessary disaster in Keegan’s view. Bletchley Park, having discovered an almost comprehensive guide to the German airborne assault (“one of the most complete pieces of timely intelligence ever to fall into the hands of an enemy”) failed to pass on to Freyberg, the C-in-C, the information on which formations were attacking where because they thought he wouldn’t understand the raw decrypts.

On the other side of the balance sheet is US Navy Commander Joseph Rochefort’s ruse to counter the planned Japanese knock-out blow for the Pacific Fleet by tapping out a spoof request for water from Midway Island, eliciting a response from an enemy invasion armada (sailing in strict radio silence) that betrayed their position and likely target. It was, says Keegan, “the most stunning intelligence coup in all naval history”. The nail-biting outcome (the turning point in the Pacific war) was not preordained, however. “Contingencies and chance were critical determinants of victory.” It depended on a lucky sighting by a patrol aircraft at the limit of its range of a Japanese destroyer that led the Americans to the Japanese carriers. The Japanese, having slaughtered the earlier waves of torpedo bombers, were refuelling when caught by the Americans’ last bomber reserve. In five critical minutes, three of their carriers were blazing pyres. The fourth was sunk within 24 hours.

The often critical part played by chance is vividly illustrated in the two Falkland Islands conflicts, fought 68 years apart. In December 1914, Admiral von Spee, having masterminded a brilliant corsair campaign in the Pacific, and sunk a British squadron, was stymied in his plan to seize the islands by his own diplomatic service, which failed to pass on to him the news that two British battle cruisers were racing south to intercept him. His squadron was sunk , almost with all hands. In 1982, a “mutiny” by two SAS non-commissioned officers ended a plan to infiltrate raiders on to the airstrip flying off the air strikes against our taskforce. But in any case, papers recovered from the body of a shot-down Sea Harrier pilot had given the Argentines a fix on the position of the ships the same day that HMS Sheffield was sunk. I, for one, am glad that Keegan has overcome his prejudice to give us a thought- provoking and timely work on a widely misunderstood and overhyped subject.

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October 26, 2003 at 01:33 PM in | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home