Poddnamn: Axess TV
publicerad: 2024-02-14 16:49
Intelligence, Communication and Contemporary Conflict – Matthew Hefler
Secret Intelligence is ’the missing dimension of diplomatic history’. This was the judgement of British diplomat Sir Alexander Cadogan. During the Sec- ond World War, Cadogan served as the key link between the Foreign Office and Britain’s intelligence services. Few people had better knowledge of the critical role that intelligence and secret services plays in war, diplomacy, and statecraft.
Cadogan’s words have since been evoked in countless studies of intelligence history – yet their significance has not been reduced by repetition. Indeed, they are a reminder of the perennial importance of intelligence and clandestine activities to both peace and conflict.
This lesson was driven home on a global scale by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As the conflict approached, allied intelligence services stepped to the fore in a dramatic fashion, wielding declassifications of top secret material to check Russian intentions, virtually in real-time. The war has continued to highlight the centrality of intelligence and communication to all aspects of contemporary conflict, from public diplomacy to intelligence sharing to the maintenance of allied coalitions.
More recently the world was shocked by the sudden invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists. The brutal attack – occurring almost to the day 50 years after the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was surprised by attacks on two fronts – caught Israeli defence and security forces completely off guard. Claims of a colossal ‘intelligence failure’ spread fast in the wake of the conflict – drawing comparisons to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.
Never before has the critical role of intelligence and secret services so dominated the global agenda. To explore these issues, the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation presents the Intelligence and Security Seminar. Organised in collaboration with the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy (AJI), the semi- nar is centred on the theme of ‘Intelligence, Communication and Contemporary Conflict’. It brings together world-leading intelligence scholars and practitioners to examine the role of secret and open information in starting or stopping conflict and in waging war from the past to the present.
Cadogan’s words have since been evoked in countless studies of intelligence history – yet their significance has not been reduced by repetition. Indeed, they are a reminder of the perennial importance of intelligence and clandestine activities to both peace and conflict.
This lesson was driven home on a global scale by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As the conflict approached, allied intelligence services stepped to the fore in a dramatic fashion, wielding declassifications of top secret material to check Russian intentions, virtually in real-time. The war has continued to highlight the centrality of intelligence and communication to all aspects of contemporary conflict, from public diplomacy to intelligence sharing to the maintenance of allied coalitions.
More recently the world was shocked by the sudden invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists. The brutal attack – occurring almost to the day 50 years after the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was surprised by attacks on two fronts – caught Israeli defence and security forces completely off guard. Claims of a colossal ‘intelligence failure’ spread fast in the wake of the conflict – drawing comparisons to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.
Never before has the critical role of intelligence and secret services so dominated the global agenda. To explore these issues, the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation presents the Intelligence and Security Seminar. Organised in collaboration with the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy (AJI), the semi- nar is centred on the theme of ‘Intelligence, Communication and Contemporary Conflict’. It brings together world-leading intelligence scholars and practitioners to examine the role of secret and open information in starting or stopping conflict and in waging war from the past to the present.
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