Quiet Wars

The gathering of human intelligence (HUMINT) by the U.S. Navy has a rich history in conflicts with China and a profound relevance today. Between 1931 and 1965, naval services collected, analyzed, and applied intelligence in crises in the Asian Pacific as global politics changed rapidly and the United States sought to keep pace. The U.S. Navy, which had been one of the sole collectors of foreign intelligence prior to World War II, underwent a series of institutional transformations as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and, later, the CIA were established. Quiet Wars is the first book to document how and why the Navy developed its HUMINT capabilities during this key period of transition and turmoil.

This book presents four case studies of naval HUMINT during crises with China. Part I examines intelligence gathering by the Navy and Marine Corps in China beginning with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. The role of naval HUMINT in China changed after December 7, 1941, and again with the resumption of the Chinese Civil War; this is the focus of Part II. Part III is a study of the Taiwan crises in the 1950s, and Part IV explores intelligence activities against North Vietnam and China in the 1960s. Each period offers a unique and contrasting vision of the roles and possibilities for naval HUMINT, from strategic observation and damage control to active and clandestine containment.

Author Brian J. Ellison traces institutional changes for naval intelligence, their effects on how HUMINT was collected, organized, and prioritized, and how they resulted in America's intelligence apparatus as it exists today. He reveals the ways that naval HUMINT was sometimes essential to strategic decisions, though often hampered by institutional short-sightedness and marginalized by institutional biases. In doing so, Ellison illuminates a crucial, hidden piece of intelligence history and provides an informative lens for understanding the development, use, misuse, and value of intelligence to U.S. foreign policy decision making. Naval historians and enthusiasts, scholars of intelligence studies and U.S.-China relations, and intelligence practitioners will find Quiet Wars to be exciting, essential reading.