Job anyone

[Fiona]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/st...590688,00.html


I find the scale of the increase in personnel quite disturbing. Especially in view of the apparent incompetence of these services. The UK seems to be drowning in paranoia at present, with the new anti-terror legislation proposals and now this.

[Chimaera182]

Hrm. You know, when Bush announced the Department of Homeland Security, I imagined something like the Nigh****ch from Babylon 5. I'm still waiting for the armbands and the mass-recruitment.

[Lestat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fiona I find the scale of the increase in personnel quite disturbing. Especially in view of the apparent incompetence of these services. The UK seems to be drowning in paranoia at present, with the new anti-terror legislation proposals and now this.

Well, I agree partially, where the MI5 is concerned (counter-intelligence in UK). But this article concerns mainly the MI6 (intelligence gathering abroad + analysis of that info) and has as such less to do with the internal situation in the UK and more with the severe lack of reliable intelligence in current hot spots as shown by the Iraq fiasco. I find it very reasonable that the MI6 (and the CIA, its American equivalent) are trying to fill the gaps in their intelligence gathering. It might avoid a repeat of things like the invasion of Iraq, since the justification for this was based on very sloppy intelligence gathering.
More spooks, less dead?

[Fiona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lestat Well, I agree partially, where the MI5 is concerned (counter-intelligence in UK). But this article concerns mainly the MI6 (intelligence gathering abroad + analysis of that info) and has as such less to do with the internal situation in the UK and more with the severe lack of reliable intelligence in current hot spots as shown by the Iraq fiasco. I find it very reasonable that the MI6 (and the CIA, its American equivalent) are trying to fill the gaps in their intelligence gathering. It might avoid a repeat of things like the invasion of Iraq, since the justification for this was based on very sloppy intelligence gathering. More spooks, less dead?

This is a quote from the article "MI5 is increasing its officers to 3,000 by 2008, a rise of 50% in three years. MI6 has a total staff of more than 2,000 and an annual budget of more than £200m. The individual budgets of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ are official secrets. Only a single official combined budget of the three agencies is published. It now stands at £1.3bn, due to rise to £1.6bn by 2007-08.

MI6 is not expanding as rapidly as MI5."

So I can't quite agree with your first point.

As to the need for better foreign intelligence avoiding a repeat of the invasion of Iraq, for example. I find it hard to believe. There seems to be some evidence that Tony Blair was aware that the justification he put forward was at best misleading. I find it hard to believe the decision to invade was based on that intelligence; rather it was presented to support a decision which was made for other, to me mysterious, reasons

[Lestat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fiona This is a quote from the article "MI5 is increasing its officers to 3,000 by 2008, a rise of 50% in three years. MI6 has a total staff of more than 2,000 and an annual budget of more than £200m. The individual budgets of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ are official secrets. Only a single official combined budget of the three agencies is published. It now stands at £1.3bn, due to rise to £1.6bn by 2007-08. MI6 is not expanding as rapidly as MI5." So I can't quite agree with your first point. As to the need for better foreign intelligence avoiding a repeat of the invasion of Iraq, for example. I find it hard to believe. There seems to be some evidence that Tony Blair was aware that the justification he put forward was at best misleading. I find it hard to believe the decision to invade was based on that intelligence; rather it was presented to support a decision which was made for other, to me mysterious, reasons

Let me rephrase: I agree with you were the MI5 is concerned.

But I think that the intelligence services have badly adapted to world after the demise of the Soviet Union with clear gaps in their intelligence gathering.

The Iraq question is a point in case. The intelligence community, which was none too keen on the way it was being used to justify the war (I agree with you that the reasons for going to war were other than the justification presented to parliament & public), would have had a better chance of resisting their governments' misuse of their reports if they had had access to better intelligence. Now they had only assumptions, presented as facts by governments who removed al the "caveats" from their reports.

The fight against terrorism is also a domain where better intelligence gathering could help. Mind, I'm not arguing for a further expansion of their powers, but I do understand the need to recruit operatives to plug the gaps that exist as shown by events in recent years.

[Fiona]

Lestat, did you read a book called Spycatcher many years ago? It was controversial at the time, but I was clearly left with the impression that people who work in intelligence are all very strange. (Mind you it was a long time ago and my memory is hazy) It is perhaps inevitable, if you spend all your time looking for plots, that paranoia becomes a professional deformity. Especially in a secret world which cannot be tested against reality. I suspect it is very similar to the mind set which produces fear of black helicopters. I am not reassured to think there are many such people; that they have access to such huge amounts of unaccountable money; and that they are by definition unfettered by the rule of law (that's a bit strong but you may know what I mean)

[Lestat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fiona Lestat, did you read a book called Spycatcher many years ago? It was controversial at the time, but I was clearly left with the impression that people who work in intelligence are all very strange. (Mind you it was a long time ago and my memory is hazy) It is perhaps inevitable, if you spend all your time looking for plots, that paranoia becomes a professional deformity. Especially in a secret world which cannot be tested against reality. I suspect it is very similar to the mind set which produces fear of black helicopters. I am not reassured to think there are many such people; that they have access to such huge amounts of unaccountable money; and that they are by definition unfettered by the rule of law (that's a bit strong but you may know what I mean)

No on the Spy catcher.
I think paranoia is not exclusive for spies, but for anyone who works/lives in a security-sensitive environment and/or highly authoritarian countries (I have had my bouts a.o. in Rwanda).
But it's my opinion that spies are a necessary evil in the world as it exists. And the question over oversight & control of those services is important. IIRC in Belgium there is a permanent parliamentary commission that is charged with this (comité I, with I for 'inlichtingendiensten'= Intelligence Services). They are meant to keep mum, but at least they are elected officials.

[Fiona]

We do have some oversight, but as you can see from this link it is fairly toothless.
http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page93.html

There are some arguments for increased openess at the moment, especially after Iraq. But secrecey is endemic in the UK and not much progress is being made, I think

[Xandax]

I don't see what MI6 launching a public website for "recruitment" (it is more of a teaser to attract possible interested people) has to do with paranoia against terrorisme and what not.

Seeing as such organisations have always been somewhat secret and closed, it is hard to form much opinion about the casue of this, but something similar is happening in Denmark, with the danish intelligence services (yes we have some small branches) - I think it was the police branch which did the same.
But increased openness seems to be a demand in Denmark as well, and I do think the war in Iraq and Afganistan is what have spaked the request - so the common people knows what goes on.
This I view as a good thing.

As for the need for such branchs to expand, well - when looking at the current world development, then it is hardly a surprise, and it has nothing to do with being paranoid in my book.
The world as we know it is changing - it is more and more unlikely that regular wars will break out amongst and including more and more countries, and the future of warfare will consist as much of having more intelligence then the opponent - which is especially important when terroristic warfare is a very plausible scenario.
So to me it is just evolution - the military branches are becomming smaller and more in the way of elite forces and intelligence agencies compared to large standing armies.

Naturally - there are horror scenarios as well if some agencies grow "to large" and out of control etc, however - as the link stands, then I see nothing to indicate paranoia with the MI6 recruiting a number of people, and creating a public website.
Why shouldn't they have a website - every other modern organisation has one?

[Fiona]

I don't have the level of knowledge of a lot of people here, so please don't jump down my throat for what I am about to say. I am not convinced that the world has changed in the ways Xandax and Lestat seem to be implying. I am British. For many years there terrorist incidents here involving loss of life through bombings etc because of the conflict in Ireland. In Spain there have been terrorist incidents for many years in the same sort of way, because of Basque separatists. I think that there were terrorists in Germany (Baader-Meinhoff) and in Italy (Red Brigades)in the 1970's. I do not really know how successful they were or what they wanted, as it was a long time ago. More recently there have been terrorist attacks in Japan, when poisoned gas was released on a subway; and in the United States (blew up major public buildings) and both of those were home grown,I believe. In short I do not see any increase in terrorist activity which justifies the statements which are being made about a new and unique threat which justifies the erosion of our civil liberties and the expansion of secret intelligence services either within or outwith the society. I do recognise the shockng impact of 9/11 but without in any way wishing to devalue that, some of the impact came from the fact that it was spectacularly successful and it was on television. The people who did that intended to kill a lot of people very publicly. So did all the earlier groups, and as an IRA operative once said "they have to be lucky all the time; we just have to be lucky once". I say again I am not condoning this. I just don't see there is the kind of change we are told is happening. I have been encouraged to be scared of Al Quaeda, a ruthless and well organise group intent on carrying on terror in a new way. I am asking myself what these people have actually done. Now any time there is an outrage I seem to read that the perpetrators are "linked" to al Quaeda. I don't see any proof of this, however. The most recent bombs in London were planted by very young men who were British. I am told that at least some of them went abroad and that some were trained in Afghanistan camps established for the purpose of training terrorists. Again where is the evidence. During the cold war some people in Britain were said to go to Albania to be trained in spying and terrorism but I never saw any evidence of that either.
In the end governments have an interest in persuading the people that there is an external threat, since that enhances their control. I think that is the significance of the end of the "soviet threat" (another thing I never saw any evidence for). I accept I may be naive, but I am presently more scared of the government than I am of the terrorists.
I am very willing to be shown where I am wrong, however

[Obsidian]

A fair comment, terrorism has resulted in the loss of life of far fewer people than the war on terror has cost. I was at an interesting speaker who was saying that the war on terror has a lot more to do with forming alliances to ring China in than it has to do on fighting terrorists.

As for the increase in MI5, don't be surprised, even the Canadian Forces are expanding. We (the recruiters) are expected to raise 5000 people for the regular forces, and 3000 for the reserves.

[Xandax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fiona I don't have the level of knowledge of a lot of people here, so please don't jump down my throat for what I am about to say. I am not convinced that the world has changed in the ways Xandax and Lestat seem to be implying. I am British. For many years there terrorist incidents here involving loss of life through bombings etc because of the conflict in Ireland. In Spain there have been terrorist incidents for many years in the same sort of way, because of Basque separatists. I think that there were terrorists in Germany (Baader-Meinhoff) and in Italy (Red Brigades)in the 1970's. I do not really know how successful they were or what they wanted, as it was a long time ago. More recently there have been terrorist attacks in Japan, when poisoned gas was released on a subway; and in the United States (blew up major public buildings) and both of those were home grown,I believe. In short I do not see any increase in terrorist activity which justifies the statements which are being made about a new and unique threat which justifies the erosion of our civil liberties and the expansion of secret intelligence services either within or outwith the society. I do recognise the shockng impact of 9/11 but without in any way wishing to devalue that, some of the impact came from the fact that it was spectacularly successful and it was on television. The people who did that intended to kill a lot of people very publicly. So did all the earlier groups, and as an IRA operative once said "they have to be lucky all the time; we just have to be lucky once". I say again I am not condoning this. I just don't see there is the kind of change we are told is happening. I have been encouraged to be scared of Al Quaeda, a ruthless and well organise group intent on carrying on terror in a new way. I am asking myself what these people have actually done. Now any time there is an outrage I seem to read that the perpetrators are "linked" to al Quaeda. I don't see any proof of this, however. The most recent bombs in London were planted by very young men who were British. I am told that at least some of them went abroad and that some were trained in Afghanistan camps established for the purpose of training terrorists. Again where is the evidence. During the cold war some people in Britain were said to go to Albania to be trained in spying and terrorism but I never saw any evidence of that either. In the end governments have an interest in persuading the people that there is an external threat, since that enhances their control. I think that is the significance of the end of the "soviet threat" (another thing I never saw any evidence for). I accept I may be naive, but I am presently more scared of the government than I am of the terrorists. I am very willing to be shown where I am wrong, however

Sure - terrorisme has existed for a long time, there were even such elements in ancient warfare. It is nothing new. But when looking at the way modern warfare develops, it isn't a far fetched notion to think that future warfare will consits more of small forces - such as "terror cells" - will use annonymity to strike both at the general population, but also at infrastructure or military targets.

The face of combat is, as I see it, indeed changing, and in my view it started around the time of Vietnam when a small "peasent army" could impose massive hits on a more covnetional and modern army. Furthermore looking at the USSR incursion into Afganistan, the same picture was seen again. The current "occupation/liberation" of Iraq is very similar, but now it is smaller paramilitary independant groups forming the brunt of the "resitance". Much in the same manner resistance movements in occupied countries of WW2 except these usually didn't target the civilian population - at least in the same scope.
Also - some of the parties locked in conflict will not have the military power to wage conventional warfare, so they have to look at other strategies, and to defend against such strategies - you have to develop counterstrategies.

I doubt very much we'll ever see the battles of for instance the tank battles of World War 2 or battles like Korea, but more will see the incursion of more elite forces, or even terrorisme, and then conventional forces used mainly for occupation/holding the ground. Even the US is starting to (if they haven't already) move away from the principle of 2-front war which was something alone the line that they should have enough military power to fight two conventional wars at any given time. This speaks to me that they to see warfare change.
Also techonolgical advances in weaponry means you don't need 10.000 tanks, masses of troops and planes to invade a country anymore or to fight off an agressor.
And thus while you decrease redundant forces, then an increasing of more specialized branches, for instance intelligence agencies and special forces is occuring.

Thus - I don't think it is a far fetched notion at all that the world is changing and have done since the dawn of time, to focus more and more on small unit combat and infact terrorisme as a weapon. Especially if you compare terrorist acts in for instance Iraq at the moment with previous terror acts.

I'm not saying to fear terrorisme or painting a gloom picture of terrorbombings all around the world, also note that I did not once mention Al-Quada or other such pictures. Thoese associations stands for peoples own account that terorisme is equal Al-Quada or even the current "War on Terrorisme(tm)"
It is simply the evolution of military warfare we are seeing around us to go into smaller unit combat and thereamongst terror cells and terrorisme.

[Obsidian]

Good post Xandex, and very much on the ball.

The ability of small, independent units to hurt large organized groups has increased 10 fold in the last 30 years as weapons increase in power and decrease in weight. The predominant factor now isn't the firepower you can wield, but how long you can weild it for. Ammunition, food and water are still heavy. This becomes much less of an issue when operating out of urban environments, especially if there are cells of local population that support you. Someday I'll link an essay I wrote.

[Fiona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xandax Sure - terrorisme has existed for a long time, there were even such elements in ancient warfare. It is nothing new. But when looking at the way modern warfare develops, it isn't a far fetched notion to think that future warfare will consits more of small forces - such as "terror cells" - will use annonymity to strike both at the general population, but also at infrastructure or military targets. The face of combat is, as I see it, indeed changing, and in my view it started around the time of Vietnam when a small "peasent army" could impose massive hits on a more covnetional and modern army. Furthermore looking at the USSR incursion into Afganistan, the same picture was seen again. The current "occupation/liberation" of Iraq is very similar, but now it is smaller paramilitary independant groups forming the brunt of the "resitance".

It seems to me that guerilla type war is often waged by a weak group against one which is much larger and better equipped. For example the Scots against the romans; the american war of independence; the mau mau. Future warfare will only be of this type so long as a bigger power wants what a smaller one has got. If you pick on anyone your own size you'll get conventional war again, if this is correct.

Quote:

Much in the same manner resistance movements in occupied countries of WW2 except these usually didn't target the civilian population - at least in the same scope. Also - some of the parties locked in conflict will not have the military power to wage conventional warfare, so they have to look at other strategies, and to defend against such strategies - you have to develop counterstrategies.

I think the difference depended on whose country you were fighting in. So does any justification for developing counterstrategies

Quote:

I doubt very much we'll ever see the battles of for instance the tank battles of World War 2 or battles like Korea, but more will see the incursion of more elite forces, or even terrorisme, and then conventional forces used mainly for occupation/holding the ground.

.

This sounds very like conventional war to me. Could it be that the mass conscription of the first and second world wars were the exception rather than the model. Again I don't know a lot about that but wasn't the BEF just such a force. The professional army all over Europe seemed to be much the same way. As did the romans

Quote:

Even the US is starting to (if they haven't already) move away from the principle of 2-front war which was something alone the line that they should have enough military power to fight two conventional wars at any given time. This speaks to me that they to see warfare change.

Perhaps. But it is harder to get people to fund large scale military forces if you have focussed their minds on tax cuts. There is enormous profit to be made in other fields, now. And at present all the countries which have what we want are smaller and weaker than the US and the west in general, in terms of armaments; technology and economic muscle.

Quote:

Also techonolgical advances in weaponry means you don't need 10.000 tanks, masses of troops and planes to invade a country anymore or to fight off an agressor.

I repeat, you never did so long as you picked on a weaker enemy. The military have always claimed that technological advance will make victory quicker, easier and more painless. I think the crossbow; the pike and the musket were sold in the same way. Whatever you get the other side eventually get too. I still don't see any evidence of change. Sorry if that seems mule-headed to you but I am honestly not persuaded by your argument.

[Lestat]

The demise of the Soviet Union brought about and /or coincided with a number of changes in the global political landscape.
- Rise of failed and/or criminal states & statelets: Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, DRC, Chechnya, Transdniestria.
- Rise of extremist groups with no tangible interests that can be harmed by unpopular actions such as Al-Qaeda & related groups.
- Rise of armed groups with no motives + the related phenomena of child soldiers & warlords.
- Nuclear proliferation: loss/dispersal of control over the Soviet nuclear arsenal & brains + extra countries with nuclear weapons (Pakistan, India, N.-Korea) or possibly dabbling (Iran).
- Rise of deliberate targeting of civilians (including ethnic cleansing & genocide): nearly any conflict in the last 15 years or so, and most terrorist attacks in the same period. Even the extreme left-wing terrorgroups in Europe (RAF, Red Brigades,...) usually refrained from the targeting of ordinary civilians (their targets were mainly political in nature).
- Increasing globalisation of relations and communications between different armed groups (even of different motives & objectives), including criminal groups: IRA “consultant” in FARC, veterans of the Afghan wars spread out over the world, exchange of information between cells & groups on the finer arts of bombmaking through the internet, Al-Qaeda links to West-African illicit diamond trade, small arms trade.

So from a landscape dominated by two superpowers, with armed conflicts mainly involving states & rebel groups with political goals you go to a world with one hyperpower, a bevvy of regional powers and a multitude of small not always easily identified players of various degrees of nastiness linked through an informal network. The old type of conflicts and players still exist, but others joined.

Moreover the last point mentioned (globalisation) makes that one cannot safely ignore some conflict in a far corner of the world as it might have repercussions in your own country.