Learning from the Secret Past

Cases in British Intelligence History

By: Robert Dover (Editor, Contribution by), Michael S. Goodman (Editor, Contribution by)

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Paperback | 4 December 2011

At a Glance

Paperback
336 Pages

Age
22+

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 2.54

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Identifying "lessons learned" is not new--the military has been doing it for decades. However, members of the worldwide intelligence community have been slow to extract wider lessons gathered from the past and apply them to contemporary challenges. Learning from the Secret Past is a collection of ten carefully selected cases from post-World War II British intelligence history. Some of the cases include the Malayan Emergency, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Northern Ireland, and the lead up to the Iraq War. Each case, accompanied by authentic documents, illuminates important lessons that today's intelligence officers and policymakers--in Britain and elsewhere--should heed.

Written by former and current intelligence officers, high-ranking government officials, and scholars, the case studies in this book detail intelligence successes and failures, discuss effective structuring of the intelligence community, examine the effective use of intelligence in counterinsurgency, explore the ethical dilemmas and practical gains of interrogation, and highlight the value of human intelligence and the dangers of the politicization of intelligence. The lessons learned from this book stress the value of past experience and point the way toward running effective intelligence agencies in a democratic society.

Scholars and professionals worldwide who specialize in intelligence, defense and security studies, and international relations will find this book to be extremely valuable.

Industry Reviews

The range of documents throughout the volume is impressive, including a parliamentary debate, Joint Intelligence Committee reports, a transcription of a secret meeting between agents and a military directive. By integrating these fascinating sources with perceptive historical analysis, this book makes a strong case for the desirability of studying the past. International Affairs This is a book that any serious student of British intelligence activity will want to read and read again. British Politics Group Newsletter Dover and Goodman have made a substantial and timely contribution to the American and British intelligence communities on aspects of the importance of creating a process to identify lessons learned, similar to the process used by the military, in spite of the difficulty of drawing lessons from intelligence because most successes go unreported due to the nature of the trade, and failures are analyzed by outsiders who must judge what they are not allowed to observe. International Journal of Intelligence Ethics

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