Source: ThreatsWatch

In a recent survey among 122 homeland security professionals (36% of whom has over 10 years experience and 32% had more than 5 years in the field), the top four priorities for the next administration are border security, emergency response, development of medical counter-measures to weapons of mass destruction, and port security.

· More than 83% expected a major disaster in the U.S.
· About 58% said the most probable scenario for a major disaster was a natural disaster, with 22% saying that the cause would be a terrorist attack with a WMD
· 72% expect change if Obama wins; 80% expect no change if McCain wins
· 54% said DHS should be maintained but reorganized; 30% percent said the agency should be unchanged; nearly 15% answered that the DHS should be broken up

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Kristan J. Wheaton and Jim Breckenridge are spending the summer thinking and writing about intelligence, mainly posing the question: What is it? The authors lay out the answer to this question in a multi-part series found below.

Enjoy!

• There is no standard definition of “intelligence”. Popular thinking and the best efforts of legislatures, agencies and academics to the contrary, no generally agreed upon definition of intelligence exists. This problem is exacerbated when the newly formed intelligence communities in law enforcement and the private sector are included.
• Developing such a definition is important in order to create realistic expectations in the minds of the decisionmakers intelligence is designed to support. This is particularly true in a democracy where the electorate views the notions of secrecy and unaccountable power often linked with intelligence activities with hesitation.
• Two activities, secrecy and covert operations, typically associated with intelligence are not, in fact, necessary to define intelligence. Secrecy, or more accurately, confidentiality, is only necessary to preserve options for the decisionmaker that the intelligence activity supports. Covert operations, on the other hand, are better viewed as an act of policy than as an intelligence activity.
• Common threads run through many of the earlier attempts to define intelligence, however. These threads, pulled together, result in a good working definition of intelligence.
• Intelligence is a process, using primarily unstructured information from all sources and focused externally, that is designed to reduce the level of uncertainty for a decisionmaker.

Part 1 — The Problem Of “Intelligence“
Part 2 — The Importance Of A Clear Definition Of Intelligence
Part 3 — The Reasons For A Lack Of A Definition
Part 4 — What Would A Good Definition Look Like?
Part 5 — Previous Attempts To Define Intelligence/Legislative Attempts
Part 6 — Previous Attempts To Define Intelligence/Agency Attempts
Part 7 — Previous Attempts To Define Intelligence/Expert Attempts
Part 8 — Previous Attempts To Define Intelligence/Law Enforcement And Private Sector Attempts
Part 9 — Defining Intelligence

The Dark Knight

There are more than a thousand members of the U.S. military who are qualified Chinese linguists, a Defense Department official told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year. “I have been told that information regarding the number of DOD intelligence analysts who speak Mandarin and/or Cantonese is classified,” said James J. Shinn, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, who was confirmed in December 2007.

“At the unclassified level, I can tell you that there are over 5,800 military personnel (officers and enlisted) with at least a basic capability in Mandarin and/or Cantonese. Of those, over 1,000 are considered proficient in Mandarin. I would like to see these numbers grow by increasing our investment in Chinese language skills for both civilians and military personnel,” Dr. Shinn said.

“The U.S. Department of Defense has a fairly sophisticated understanding of China’s growing military capabilities, but we lack insight into China’s intent because China’s military buildup is occurring in the absence of transparency,” he said. “Without greater transparency, the United States and other Asian nations cannot fully determine the degree and type of risk that China’s buildup poses.”

Produced by: Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

This report contains detailed information on child soldier recruitment and use in 197 countries. It also, where relevant, provides information regarding disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes as well as justice and accountability measures to address the problem.

Despite the reported successes of the continuous demobilization of child soldiers, this meticulously documented report shows that, in fact, tens of thousands more child soldiers have remained in or been newly recruited and used in armed conflicts - primarily by non-state armed groups, but also by some national armies.

According to the report governments have failed to prevent the use of children by proxy forces and child soldiers who have escaped or been captured have been used as spies or sources of intelligence rather than provided with rehabilitation and reintegration support. The report further states that numerous governments persist in recruiting under-18 year olds into national armies, exposing them to military discipline, hazardous activity, bullying, abuse and possible deployment to war zones.

The report calls for immediate action and reminds the international community to increase all efforts to prevent and eradicate the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. It underlines that what is ultimately needed is a well-coordinated and multi-faceted action by a wide range of actors, the exertion of pressure where it is needed, and sustained funding for programs to assist returning child soldiers and other war-affected children. Finally, the report states success will depend on addressing root causes and building societies where the rights and dignity of all children are upheld.

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=37285&em=120708&sub=conf

In the 6  1/2 years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States.
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The records suggest that potential enemies abroad know a great deal about the United States because many of them have lived here, officials said. The matches also reflect the power of sharing data across agencies and even countries, data that links an identity to a distinguishing human characteristic such as a fingerprint.
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Steve Nixon, director of science and technology at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the effort is essential to national security. “When we look at the road and the challenges, globalization and the spread of technology has empowered small groups of individuals, bad guys, to be more powerful than at any other time in history,” he said. “We have to know who these people are when we encounter them.”

The US and leaders of the Czech Republic agreed July 8 to place a radar system in this former Soviet satellite that would warn of long-range missiles coming to Europe from the Middle East. The proposed U.S. missile defense system calls for a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland. Moscow has threatened to aim its own missiles at any eventual base in Poland or the Czech Republic. Shortly after the treaty was signed, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow would be forced to initiate a military response if the deal goes ahead. (AP)