Does Covert Action Belong in the Intelligence Community?
Since I have been attending the National Intelligence University here at Defense Intelligence Agency, my definition of what intelligence is has changed several times in the course of 6 weeks. I came in thinking and believing that everything and anything that had intelligence involved in it was secretive stuff. In fact, that the entire intelligence community was on big community of James Bonds 007. After a couple of weeks passed, I learned that not everyone within the IC were secret agents, but analyst who are intelligence collectors in plethora of diverse areas such as counterintelligence, WMD, HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT and so much more. Even after learning about these entities within …show more content…
Propaganda is handled by indigenous agents who work in foreign countries but secretly for the CIA. These agents would align themselves up with any occupation that would or could give them a line of communication with the masses. Some of these occupation included television commentators for television and radio, authors and journalists. This particular CA, to me, is the least dangerous of the four CA forms because it mostly involves the strong power of persuasion with words and although no CA is exempt from danger, I feel that this one doesn’t pose an immediate threat. However, it did receive widespread criticism for the Chilean presidential election of 1964 for the amount of money the CIA spent to mar the reputation of Salvador Allende, the Socialist Party candidate with suspected ties to Moscow. For the most part, besides propaganda CA serving its purpose, it really just uses up a lot a media export avenue such as leaflets, direct mailing, films and painting to name a few, making this one part of CA that I would say should be allow within the Intelligence …show more content…
Advocates, however, prefer a more sanguine interpretation: not bribery, but rather stipends for the advancement of global democracy… It is funny to me how we, the US, are in a deficient, but we have money to spend on persuasion; I guess on the political side it makes sense. I think that out of all four of the CAs, Economic Covert Action could do the most damage. The reason that I boldly present this theory is because there are so many facets of economics that a well calculated attack on any portion of it can and will cripple a country’s economics. Economic power is very precious to any country and it’s what makes the world go round. Johnson and Wirtz say, “Today, a prime target of economic dislocation is an adversary’s computer systems.” If we disrupt their computer systems, we’re disrupting their lines of
Since I have been attending the National Intelligence University here at Defense Intelligence Agency, my definition of what intelligence is has changed several times in the course of 6 weeks. I came in thinking and believing that everything and anything that had intelligence involved in it was secretive stuff. In fact, that the entire intelligence community was on big community of James Bonds 007. After a couple of weeks passed, I learned that not everyone within the IC were secret agents, but analyst who are intelligence collectors in plethora of diverse areas such as counterintelligence, WMD, HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT and so much more. Even after learning about these entities within …show more content…
Propaganda is handled by indigenous agents who work in foreign countries but secretly for the CIA. These agents would align themselves up with any occupation that would or could give them a line of communication with the masses. Some of these occupation included television commentators for television and radio, authors and journalists. This particular CA, to me, is the least dangerous of the four CA forms because it mostly involves the strong power of persuasion with words and although no CA is exempt from danger, I feel that this one doesn’t pose an immediate threat. However, it did receive widespread criticism for the Chilean presidential election of 1964 for the amount of money the CIA spent to mar the reputation of Salvador Allende, the Socialist Party candidate with suspected ties to Moscow. For the most part, besides propaganda CA serving its purpose, it really just uses up a lot a media export avenue such as leaflets, direct mailing, films and painting to name a few, making this one part of CA that I would say should be allow within the Intelligence …show more content…
Advocates, however, prefer a more sanguine interpretation: not bribery, but rather stipends for the advancement of global democracy… It is funny to me how we, the US, are in a deficient, but we have money to spend on persuasion; I guess on the political side it makes sense. I think that out of all four of the CAs, Economic Covert Action could do the most damage. The reason that I boldly present this theory is because there are so many facets of economics that a well calculated attack on any portion of it can and will cripple a country’s economics. Economic power is very precious to any country and it’s what makes the world go round. Johnson and Wirtz say, “Today, a prime target of economic dislocation is an adversary’s computer systems.” If we disrupt their computer systems, we’re disrupting their lines of