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February 22, 2004
REVIEWS: Know thy enemy!
It seems rare that a nonfiction book about intelligence would not refer to spy fiction. There is something about the nature of this profession that somehow keeps it incomplete without allusion to famous mystery writers and their works. This book is no exception. In fact, W. Somerset Maugham’s spy account, Ashendon was recommended reading for trainee British spies.
After giving an overview of a dozen fictional characters and plots, this is how the author defines the main argument of the book, “The history of how, what, where, when in military intelligence is therefore largely one of signal intelligence. Not exclusively; human intelligence has played its part and so, latterly, has photographic and surveillance intelligence. In principle, however, it is the unsuspected overhearing of the enemy’s own signals which have revealed his intentions and capabilities to his opponents and so allowed counter-measures to be taken in time... a wise opinion would be that intelligence, while generally necessary, is not a sufficient means to victory. Decision in war is always the result of a fight and in combat willpower always counts for more than foreknowledge.”
Half the book gives detailed accounts of various battles from Napoleonic wars through the second world war, to Falkland, Gulf War I and II. The details, more in the realm of tactics and battle strategy, describe the deployment of troops, precise number and type of weapons, personality profiles of the leaders and other key individuals, battle plans and terrain. These details become so microscopic that the reader has to pause to wonder where or when the ‘intelligence’ part of the book’s title, is going to come in.
After considerable wait the ‘intelligence’ component does appear but again one starts wondering about its relevance. It seems going too far off the track to describe; history of inventions like the Morse code, cypher machine Enigma’s complete description with its detailed mechanical parts and working, along with other technical details that sound more like a manufacturers manual. How this machine was technically compromised by the Poles also takes up too many pages. Then various codes and cypher are introduced, in fact ‘taught’ thoroughly to the reader. For the first time I clearly understood what the one time codebook exactly is.
It is in the last hundred pages that the text starts becoming pertinent to the title of the book, even if in a debatable tone.
Probably one of the most interesting sections — and in keeping with the theme of the book — is the account of the Falklands War of 1982, between Britain and Argentina. It showed how absurd the causes of starting a war and expending human life can be. In this case a dictator wanted to divert the attention of his public away from the internal troubles of the country. On the opposite side, it showed the complacency and lack of preparedness of a big power to handle a situation efficiently.
In a large country like Argentina, an even larger imperial power like Britain had only one intelligence operative, that too not available for this war due to being overworked. Even the headquarters at London did not have adequate up to date intelligence about the capabilities and deployment of Argentinean forces. Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister at the time and her decisiveness also shows during the crisis.
In the section referring to the modern war against terror and Al Qaeda, the author sees the challenge in the following way, “Muslim fundamentalism is profoundly unintellectual; it is, by that token, opposed to everything the West understands by the idea of ‘intelligence’. The challenge to the West’s intelligence services is to find a way into the fundamentalist mind and overcome it from within...
“The challenge will cast the agencies back on to methods which have come to appear outdated, even primitive, in the age of satellite surveillance and computer decryption. Kipling’s Kim, who has survived into modern times only as the delightful literary creation of a master novelist, may come to provide a model of the anti-fundamentalist agent, with his ability to shed his European identity and to pass convincingly as Muslim message-carrier, Hindu gallant and Buddhist holy man’s hanger-on, far superior to any holder of a PhD in higher mathematics. Buchan’s Scudder, sniffing from clue to clue along a trail leading from fur shop in Buda to the back streets of Paris, shedding and adopting new disguises on the way, seems better adapted to the future world of espionage than any graduate student in regional studies. It will be ironic if the literature of imagination supplies firmer suggestions as to how the war against terrorism should be fought than academic training courses in intelligence technique provide. Ironic but not unlikely.”
That apparent emphasis on ‘understanding the mind’ of potential adversaries somehow does not appear to be consistent with the concluding remarks of the book. The author John Keegan is a journalist who also remained a lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and has authored several books. It strikes odd to a reader that being an academic basically, his solution to ‘clash of civilizations’ is narrowly militaristic devoid of possible political, social or economic considerations, “Foreknowledge is no protection against disaster... only force finally counts” is how he chooses to end his book.
As a sellable product; from content and colours of the cover, paper, production quality, credentials of the author, illustrations and details of various historic battles, equipment, deployment etc. this is an impressive book. It raises would-be reader’s hopes to expect novelty and depth inside. It is a well-researched book full of facts and figures. However, as far as its adherence to its premise — Intelligence in War — or in terms of offering new ideas or uncommon point of view, it does not present much intellectual originality.
Intelligence in War — Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda
By John Keegan
Hutchinson. Available with Liberty Books (Pvt) Ltd, 3 Rafiq Plaza, M.R. Kayani Road, Saddar,
Karachi. Tel: 021-5683026
Email:
libooks@cyber.net.pk
Website:
www.libertybooks.com
ISBN 0-09-180229-6
443pp. Rs1,305
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