The Quiet Americans? CIA, NSA, and Counterinsurgency

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin Long
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The U.S

The contribution of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) to counterinsurgency operations past and present has gone largely underappreciated, in part because of the pervasive secrecy surrounding most of the IC's activities. A review of two recently declassified histories of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s provides insight into the historical contributions of these agencies to counterinsurgency efforts. This analysis provides a context for understanding available evidence relating to the two agencies' contributions to current counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The review concludes with intelligence policy recommendations.

The Troubled Inheritance: The National Security Agency and the Obama Administration

2010 ◽  
pp. 241-256
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Aid
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
National Security ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Coordinator ◽  
Signals Intelligence

This article discusses the National Security Agency under the Obama Administration. Upon his inauguration on January 20, 2009, Obama inherited from the Bush administration an intelligence community embroiled in political controversies. Of the sixteen agencies of the intelligence community, the National Security Agency (NSA) faced the greatest scrutiny from the new Obama administration and the Congress. NSA was the largest and the most powerful member of the U.S. intelligence community. Since its formation in 1952, NSA has managed and directed all U.S. government signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection. It is the collector and processor of communications intelligence (COMINT) and the primary processor of foreign instrumentation signals intelligence (FISINT). And since 1958, NSA has been the coordinator of the U.S. government's national electronics intelligence (ELINT) program. It has also the task of overseeing the security of the U.S. government's communications and data processing systems, and since the 1980s, NSA has managed the U.S. government's national operation security (OPSEC) program. In this article, the focus is on the challenges faced by the NSA during the Bush administration; the role played by the NSA during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the challenges faced by the Obama administration in confronting a series of thorny legal and policy issues relating to NSA's eavesdropping program.

scholarly journals Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan in the Documents of J. Carter Administration

2020 ◽  
pp. 88-100
Author(s):  
Olexandr Koval ́kov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Carter Administration ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The U.S

The article examines the documents of Jimmy Carter Administration (1977-1981) published in «Foreign Relations of the United States» series that represent the U.S. position on the Soviet intervention in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in December 1979. The author argues that the growing Soviet presence and finally a military intervention in Afghanistan was taken seriously in the United States and made Washington watch the developments in this country closely. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan became one of the major themes in the U.S. foreign policy. It was presented in a large array of documents of various origins, such as the Department of State correspondence with the U.S. Embassies in Afghanistan and the Soviet Union; analytical reports of the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Bureau of Intelligence and Research; exchanges of memorandums between National Security Council officers and other officials; memos from National Security Adviser Z. Brzezinski to J. Carter, and others. They represented the preconditions, preparations and implementation of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The authors of the documents discussed in details the possible motives of the Soviet leaders, and predicted the short-term consequences of the USSR’s intervention for the region and the whole world. Due to the clear understanding of the developments in Afghanistan in December 1979 by the J. Carter administration, it completely rejected the Soviet official version of them that adversely affected the bilateral Soviet-U.S. relations and international relations in general. Due to the lack of accessible Soviet sources on the USSR’s intervention in Afghanistan, the documents of Jimmy Carter’s administration fill this gap and constitute a valuable source for a researcher.

Intelligence for an American Century: Creating the CIA

2020 ◽  
pp. 8-41
Author(s):  
Huw Dylan ◽  
David V. Gioe ◽  
Michael S. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Community Analysis ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Office Of Strategic Services ◽  
Historic Record ◽  
First World

This chapter is an introduction to US intelligence mechanisms before the CIA was created. The focus is on Civil War and codebreaking mechanisms in the First World War. Most of the chapter focuses on changes to the US intelligence community. Analysis of the historic record shows that change began in July 1941 with the creation of the office for the Coordinator of Information soon evolving into the Office of Strategic Services. Key figures in the evolutionary process such as William J. Donovan, Roosevelt and Truman are studies within. It also includes discussion of changes between cessation of hostilities and passing of the National Security Act, 1947, which created both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. Document: Dulles-Jackson-Correra Report.

scholarly journals Surveillance Hegemony

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Keiber
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Public Programs ◽  
Information Ecology ◽  
Public Surveillance ◽  
Surveillance Programs ◽  
The U.S

The National Security Agency activity disclosed by Edward Snowden plugs into a larger information ecology made possible by U.S. surveillance hegemony. While the revelations of the NSA’s international spying ambitions have astonished, there is more to U.S. surveillance than secretive programs carried out by its intelligence community. The U.S. also assiduously conducts surveillance on individuals abroad through public programs negotiated with other states. These more public efforts are made possible by institutions and hortatory norms that support international surveillance. This triad of capabilities, norms, and institutions reflect U.S. surveillance hegemony. Hegemony greases the wheels of U.S.-led international surveillance and fosters an information ecology that feeds, and is fed by, secretive programs like those of the NSA and more public surveillance alike. This article unpacks elements of U.S. surveillance hegemony and, using two other public surveillance programs, situates the NSA activity within the resulting information ecology.

scholarly journals Human Experiments and National Security: The Need to Clarify Policy

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-195
Author(s):  
JONATHAN D. MORENO
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Clear Vision ◽  
Human Experiments ◽  
Defensive Measures ◽  
The U.S

On September 4, 2001, press reports indicated that the Defense Intelligence Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) planned to reproduce a strain of anthrax virus suspected of being held in Russian laboratories. According to the same reports, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), under the auspices of Project Clear Vision, is engaged in building replicas of bomblets believed to have been developed by the former Soviet Union. These small bombs were designed to disperse biological agents, including anthrax. Government attorneys were said to be confident that, because these projects were designed to develop defensive measures, they were not in violation of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.

The CIA and the Polish Crisis of 1980–1981

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 120-123
Author(s):  
Richard T. Davies
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Senior Officer ◽  
Polish Crisis ◽  
The One ◽  
The U.S

The crisis in Poland in 1980–1981 imposed great demands on the U.S. intelligence community. On the one hand, U.S. intelligence analysts sought to determine whether the Soviet Union might send troops into Poland to crush the Solidarity movement. On the other hand, a small group of senior intelligence and national security officials who were privy to reports from Colonel Ryszard Kukliński, a senior officer on the Polish General Staff who was secretly working for the United States, had to decide how best to use the enormously valuable information the colonel was providing. These issues and others pertaining to the activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Polish crisis are examined in a new book by Douglas J. MacEachin, a former CIA deputy director who oversaw the agency's efforts vis-à-vis Poland and the Soviet Union. MacEachin's book, as this essay shows, provides an astute and refreshingly candid evaluation of the CIA's performance.

The Dilemma of Defense Intelligence

2010 ◽  
pp. 421-435
Author(s):  
Richard A. Best
Keyword(s):  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Community Agencies ◽  
Future Space ◽  
Defense Intelligence ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Coordination And Collaboration ◽  
The Impact

This article discusses the dilemma of the defense intelligence. It discusses the interweaving yet complicated relationship of the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Immersed in a divided and a “stovepiped” culture, the member agencies of the intelligence community lacked coordination and collaboration. In this article, the nature of the three agencies of the DOD: the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) are discussed. The evolution of coordination among the intelligence community agencies and the impact of 9/11 on the cooperation and collaboration between the agencies are also discussed including the era of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the challenges posed by the future space surveillance.

An unfinished battle: George C. Marshall and intelligence in the early Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 096834452110179
Author(s):  
Raphaël Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Truman Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

The Clinton Administration and Africa: White House Involvement and the Foreign Affairs Bureaucracies

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-13
Author(s):  
John F. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
White House ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

Both continuity and change capture the evolving role of the Clinton White House in the formulation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy toward Africa. Elements of continuity are reflected in a familiar pattern of relationships between the White House and the principal foreign policy bureaucracies, most notably the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and more recently the U.S. Department of Commerce. As cogently argued in Peter J. Schraeder’s analysis of U.S. foreign policy toward Africa during the Cold War era, the White House has tended to take charge of U.S. African policies only in those relatively rare situations perceived as crises by the president and his closest advisors. In other, more routine situations—the hallmark of the myriad of U.S. African relations—the main foreign policy bureaucracies have been at the forefront of policy formulation, and “bureaucratic dominance” of the policymaking process has prevailed. Much the same pattern is visible in the Clinton administration, with the exception of President Clinton’s trip to Africa in 1998. Until that time, events in Somalia in 1993 served as the only true African crisis of the administration that was capable of focusing the ongoing attention of President Clinton and his closest advisors. Given that the United States is now disengaged from most African crises, Africa has remained a “backwater” for the White House and the wider foreign policymaking establishment.

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