Intelligence, Statecraft and International Power


Book Description

Addresses questions arising from the development and use by rulers and states of military, diplomatic, economic and political intelligence from ancient times. This book takes a view of intelligence as an element in state and international affairs




Military Statecraft and the Rise of Shaping in World Politics


Book Description

Winner of the Andrew F. Krepinevich Writing Award A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title Selected for the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s Inaugural Reading List (2022) In today’s complex international environment, how do the United States, China, and Russia manage the return of great power competition as well as the persistent threat of violent non-state actors? This book explores "shaping": the use of military power to construct a more favorable environment by influencing the characteristics of other militaries, altering the relationships between them, or managing the behavior of allies. As opposed to traditional strategies of warfighting or coercion, shaping relies less on threats, demonstrations, and uses of violence and more on attraction, persuasion, and legitimacy. Because shaping relies more on soft power than on hard power, this approach contradicts the conventional wisdom of the purpose militaries serve. Kyle J. Wolfley explores the emergence of shaping in classical strategy and its increased frequency following the end of the Cold War when threats and allies became more ambiguous. He illustrates the four logics of shaping—attraction, socialization, delegation, and assurance—through five case studies of recent major military exercise programs led by the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom, and Russia. Moreover, the author reveals through sentiment analysis and statistics of over one thousand multinational exercises from 1980 to 2016 how major powers reacted to a complex international environment by expanding the number and scope of shaping exercises. Illuminating an understudied but surprisingly common tool of military statecraft, this book offers a fresh understanding of military power in today's competitive international system.




Intelligence as Democratic Statecraft


Book Description

This book features a comparative study in intelligence accountability and governance across the Five Eyes: the imperative for member countries of the world's most powerful intelligence alliance to reconcile democracy and security through transparent standards, guidelines, legal frameworks, executive directives, and international law. It argues that intelligence accountability is best understood not as an end in itself but as a means that is integral democratic governance. On the one hand, to assure the executive of government and the public that the activities of intelligence agencies are lawful and, if not, to identify breaches in compliance. On the other hand, to raise awareness of and appreciation for the intelligence function, and whether it is being carried out in the most effective, efficient, and innovative way possible to achieve its objective. The analysis shows how the addition of legislative and judicial components to executive and administrative accountability has been shaping evolving institutions, composition, practices, characteristics, and cultures of intelligence oversight and review in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand using a most-similar systems design. Democracies are engaged in an asymmetric struggle against unprincipled adversaries. Technological change is enabling unprecedented social and political disruption. These threat vectors have significantly affected, altered, and expanded the role, powers and capabilities of intelligence organizations. Accountability aims to reassure sceptics that intelligence and security practices are indeed aligned with the rules and values that democracies claim to defend.




Informing Statecraft


Book Description

Analyzing the American intelligence network, senior research fellow at Hoover Institution Angelo Codevilla concludes that American intelligence efforts are desperately outdated in this “masterful exploration of the field” (Publishers Weekly). Based on years of research and experience working within the American intelligence network, Angelo Codevilla argues that the intelligence efforts of the nation’s government are outgrown and inconclusive. Suggesting that the evolution of American intelligence since the Vietnam War and World War II has been erratic and unplanned, Codevilla presents new efforts to be made within the intelligence network that would lead to strategized and effective methods of information gathering. Connecting the lines between a need for successful intelligence efforts and a strong government, Informing Statecraft warns of how intelligence failures of the past will eventually pale in comparison to the malaise that plagued American intelligence in the twentieth century.




Foreign Affairs Strategy


Book Description

This book enables readers to think strategically about American foreign policy.




Statecraft by Stealth


Book Description

Britain relied upon secret intelligence operations to rule Mandatory Palestine. Statecraft by Stealth sheds light on a time in history when the murky triad of intelligence, policy, and security supported colonial governance. It emphasizes the role of the Anglo-Zionist partnership, which began during World War I and ended in 1939, when Britain imposed severe limits on Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine. Steven Wagner argues that although the British devoted considerable attention to intelligence gathering and analysis, they never managed to solve the basic contradiction of their rule: a dual commitment to democratic self-government and to the Jewish national home through immigration and settlement. As he deftly shows, Britain's experiment in Palestine shed all pretense of civic order during the Palestinian revolt of 1936–41, when the police authority collapsed and was replaced by a security state, created by army staff intelligence. That shift, Wagner concludes, was rooted in Britain's desire to foster closer ties with Saudi Arabia just before the start of World War II, and thus ended its support of Zionist policy. Statecraft by Stealth takes us behind the scenes of British rule, illuminating the success of the Zionist movement and the failure of the Palestinians to achieve independence. Wagner focuses on four key issues to stake his claim: an examination of the "intelligence state" (per Martin Thomas's classic, Empires of Intelligence), the Arab revolt, the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem, and the origins and consequences of Britain's decision to end its support of Zionism. Wagner crafts a superb story of espionage and clandestine policy-making, showing how the British pitted individual communities against each other at particular times, and why.




Intelligence Power in Peace and War


Book Description

Intelligence services form an important but controversial part of the modern state. Drawing mainly on British and American examples, this book provides an analytic framework for understanding the 'intelligence community' and assessing its value. The author, a former senior British intelligence officer, describes intelligence activities, the purposes which the system serves, and the causes and effects of its secrecy. He considers 'intelligence failure' and how organisation and management can improve the chances of success. Using parallels with the information society and the current search for efficiency in public administration as a whole, the book explores the issues involved in deciding how much intelligence is needed and discusses the kinds of management necessary. In his conclusions Michael Herman discusses intelligence's national value in the post-Cold War world. He also argues that it has important contributions to make to international security, but that its threat-inducing activities should be kept in check.




Economic Statecraft


Book Description

Introduction -- Techniques of statecraft -- What is economic statecraft? -- Thinking about economic statecraft -- Economic statecraft in international thought -- Bargaining with economic statecraft -- National power and economic statecraft -- "Classic cases" reconsidered -- Foreign trade -- Foreign aid -- The legality and morality of economic statecraft -- Conclusion -- Afterword : economic statecraft : continuity and change / Ethan B. Kapstein.




War by Other Means


Book Description

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2016 Today, nations increasingly carry out geopolitical combat through economic means. Policies governing everything from trade and investment to energy and exchange rates are wielded as tools to win diplomatic allies, punish adversaries, and coerce those in between. Not so in the United States, however. America still too often reaches for the gun over the purse to advance its interests abroad. The result is a playing field sharply tilting against the United States. “Geoeconomics, the use of economic instruments to advance foreign policy goals, has long been a staple of great-power politics. In this impressive policy manifesto, Blackwill and Harris argue that in recent decades, the United States has tended to neglect this form of statecraft, while China, Russia, and other illiberal states have increasingly employed it to Washington’s disadvantage.” —G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs “A readable and lucid primer...The book defines the extensive topic and opens readers’ eyes to its prevalence throughout history...[Presidential] candidates who care more about protecting American interests would be wise to heed the advice of War by Other Means and take our geoeconomic toolkit more seriously. —Jordan Schneider, Weekly Standard




The Power of the Past


Book Description

Leading scholars and policymakers explore how history influences foreign policy and offer insights on how the study of the past can more usefully serve the present. History, with its insights, analogies, and narratives, is central to the ways that the United States interacts with the world. Historians and policymakers, however, rarely engage one another as effectively or fruitfully as they might. This book bridges that divide, bringing together leading scholars and policymakers to address the essential questions surrounding the history-policy relationship including Mark Lawrence on the numerous, and often contradictory, historical lessons that American observers have drawn from the Vietnam War; H. W. Brands on the role of analogies in U.S. policy during the Persian Gulf crisis and war of 1990–91; and Jeremi Suri on Henry Kissinger's powerful use of history.