Intelligence Studies

"Images of ancient Sparta are irrepressible in Western thought. A powerful model of excellence in the middle ages and Renaissance, in the Enlightenment and French Revolution Sparta was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of an ideal republic. Since the 19th century Sparta has been viewed as the opposite of liberal and industrial democracies: shunned – or hailed – as the model for 20th century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich. Intelligence analysts in the United States used Sparta as an analogy to predict the performance of the Cold War Soviet Union. But positive views of the Spartans flourish in contemporary democratic culture and digital media, most strikingly in popular fiction, graphic novels and film.

This book is the first to focus exclusively on Sparta’s impact in modern times. Eleven international experts take readers across ten centuries from the 12th century Renaissance to 21st century digital culture. Exploiting hitherto untapped sources, from medieval political tracts to declassified CIA documents and YouTube video clips, they reveal many previously unknown aspects of Sparta’s impact on modern politics and culture."

W Europie mamy trzy rodzaje państw: państwa członkowskie Unii Europejskiej, państwa aspirujące do członkowstwa  w Unii Europejskiej oraz… Bośnię i Hercegowinę (BiH). Casus BiH jest na tyle specyficzny, że „zwykła” analiza przebiegu procesu akcesyjnego i problemów z nim związanych pokazywać będzie tylko część rzeczywistego porządku rzeczy w tej byłej jugosłowiańskiej republice. Proces akcesyjny bowiem przeplatany jest problemami natury fundamentalnej – postępującej erozji instytucji państwa, ale przede wszystkim, braku konsensusu Serbów, Chorwatów i muzułmanów bośniackich – Boszniaków,  w sprawie samego istnienia państwa. Celem pracy będzie zatem próba pokazania szeregu czynników stanowiących o specyfice państwa BiH - czynników wpływających na  jej obecny instytucjonalny iegzystencjalny kryzys, ipso facto, na przebieg procesu integracji z Unią Europejską.

Valorization and protection of cultural patrimony as a tool for socio-economic development. Community awareness: a way to protect the cultural heritage to be considered as shared patrimony. International stakeholders active in risk analysis and emergency initiatives: the experience of UNISDR, Blue Shield, ICRC, ICCROM and UNESCO. Risks factor to cultural heritage protection in emergency and conflict times: vandalism, illicit diggings, looting and illicit trafficking. Cultural relics inventory as a tool for fighting illicit trafficking: the experience of Carabinieri and INTERPOL. The activity of the Italian Civil Defense as a model to respond to emergencies that affect the cultural heritage.

"The concept of intelligence and security adopted in post-1989 Poland has been characterized by redundant content, wide scope and a catch-all approach to state security. Similarly, Poland’s intelligence community has been dispersed, loosely coordinated, heavily burdened with political tasks and hardly efficient. At the outset, it was made up of four specialized services: The Internal Security Agency (ABW), the Foreign Intelligence Agency (AW), the Military Intelligence Service (SWW) and the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW). However, as time went by, intelligence functions were granted to other institutions and
bodies in charge of internal and territorial security - like the police, border guards, financial intelligence units and anti-corruption offices. Furthermore, the absence of a clearinghouse meant that lots of information acquired from different sources was locked in separate institutions and left practically useless.
Explaining this state of affairs is not simple. In general, its causes and conditions can be found in two different bundles of variables, dealing with geostrategic determinants (cooperation with the US, membership in the NATO and the UE, Russian penetration) on the one hand, and several significant weaknesses
of the political system on the other, the latter manifesting themselves in politicisation, “party politics” and interpersonal animosities. While the burden of the Communist past was hard to throw off immediately and plans for building up a completely new intelligence community gave way to a cautious restructuring of
the security sector, the verification of secret services was selective and generally friendly for the “old guard”. These processes have resulted in overlapping competences,
institutional frictions and legislative incoherence.
In consideration of this overall context, the purpose of this study is threefold: First, to describe the evolution of the Polish intelligence community, starting from the assumption that since the fall of the Communist regime the secret services in Poland have suffered the chronic ailment of politicisation and instrumental treatment by subsequent governing coalitions. Second, to give a picture of the relevant organisations and structures which form the Polish intelligence community. Finally, to point out the relations to, and the activities of, the two most influential external powers on Polish security, Russia and the
United States."

This paper examines the challenges that the Intelligence Community is facing in the post Cold War era. The argument for an intelligence reform has always been popular, but gained greater momentum after 9/11. In order to define the argument for a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs, the paper examines several aspects that relate to intelligence reform, like the impact of information technology on the culture of intelligence, the open source solution, the problems regarding information overload and the politicization of the intelligence product. The purpose is to identify the dilemmas that reformers face and conclude on whether a new paradigm in intelligence affairs is about to emerge.

Colonel Edward M. House, the close personal confidant of American President Woodrow Wilson, disembarked in Great Britain in January 1916 on a mission to bring the First World War to a close under the auspices of American mediation. Although his mission, which culminated in a secret pact between the United States and Great Britain known as the House-Grey Memorandum, has been studied by several scholars, the involvement of British intelligence with respect to that mission has never received more than cursory attention. Through a careful analysis of the surviving documents, this article reconstructs British intelligence's activities with respect to House's mission, examines the countermeasures that House employed as he attempted to protect the secrecy of his negotiations, delineates the role played by different British intelligence agencies and assesses their response to their findings.

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) intelligence system is focused on technology acquisition, political and military intelligence, and counter-subversion, using some techniques familiar in the West but others that are less so.  Chinese historical models, Soviet techniques, Western practices, and the recent evolution of work under the CCP have all shaped today’s intelligence and counterintelligence (CI) community, including the Ministry of State Security (MSS, Guojia Anquanbu), the smaller CI effort under the Ministry of Public Security (MPS, Gonganbu), and the specialized collection efforts of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and other government bodies.  A striking characteristic of the Chinese system since 1979 is the broad “actuarial” tasking employed for technology acquisition.