The Art of Intelligence - Crumpton

With a title as bold as “The Art of Intelligence” Henry Crumpton is trifling with the orthodoxy of warfare by riffing on Sun Tzu’s  timeless classic, “The Art of War”.   To say he is the best theorist to describe the art of intelligence to an intelligence expert, let alone a student of intelligence, or even a lay person, would be to cast shade on the heretofore already deeply understood notion in statecraft, that in war, beyond the Clausewitzian doctrine that demands logistics as the foundation for all we do,  he has given us an understanding that both the fog of war (also Clausewitz), as well as what Sun Tzu has told us, “to know our enemy” brings intelligence to the fore of everything that happens in warfare.  The best news about this book is that Crumpton isn’t just theorizing about intelligence.  He was an operator with a full career doing the things that intelligence persons do.  He is an authority on what he writes.  As always, however, speaking about actual intelligence, and intelligence operations, collection, and reporting, remains a sticky subject because of the need to protect everything about it.  The art itself, often described as tradecraft, is a closely guarded secret.  The sources and methods required to obtain intelligence, as well as the intelligence itself, often called by various names based on how it was collected, IMINT, SIGINT, HUMINT, MASINT etc. is highly classified.  Most of the time declassification cannot occur until 75 years into the future.  That perhaps is an arbitrary number of years, nevertheless, that is the length of time our Country has deemed the sensitivity of classified information must remain in the dark.  That means, for those able to quickly do math in their head, things classified in 1948 should soon be reaching the light of day.  Things have changed significantly in the past 75 years, so those hoping to learn about modern day intelligence, should not be looking for secrets in this book.  Rather, they should read this book with an eye towards what intelligence means in the general sense.  Basically, stealing secrets from our adversaries.  Wishing to reveal that which our adversaries do not wish to reveal about their preparations for war, and more importantly, revealing to us their intentions, specifically the intentions, as George Orwell has been attributed as saying, of those who wish to do us harm.

With that said up front, Crumpton has succeeded in giving us a pertinent view into the machine that produces intelligence.  Some may disagree.  Others will bemoan the very notion that spying is somehow a noble endeavor, believing that no one should keep secrets from anyone.  We should live in an open society and all activities related to intelligence are so nefarious as to strike at the core of what should not be allowed to exist in a free world.  That naivete will not be addressed today.  A free country will not remain free if it doesn't prepare for, and seek out, the information about threats, both foreign and domestic, that strive to remove that freedom from us. Topically, we failed to heed the known threats coming from Vladimr Putin, and the hard fought freedoms of the people of Ukraine and now in a battle for their lives.  It has been the nature of war since the inception of human society that aggressors exist.  We must always prepare.

Intelligence is hard work.  It doesn’t come for free.  It can’t be passive.  It must be active.  Always looking and always listening.  Attempting to figure out in the complex machine of human endeavor what is happening and why.  It starts with the human eyeball and is as simple as the effective sound bite attempting to combat terrorism, “if you see something, say something”.  That is, in the simplest of terms, what intelligence is all about.  Discovering something and reporting on it. It’s not glamorous. It requires both vigilance and endurance.  We’ve tried to automate the tedium of discovery with technology.   Crumpton reminds us that the best intelligence comes from human’s in the know that reveal what is really going on.  And that requires human to human relations. Our intelligence operatives are not the spies as we might believe. The spies are the human’s in other countries who must be recruited by our operatives and turned into willing sources of information about their people, their organizations, and their countries.  The art of intelligence is, at its core, the way in which we must turn those in other countries against themselves, in essence to become traitors to their own flag.  It is not an easy business.  That is what Crumpton has made his career and for which every American should be grateful.  That is what Crumpton has written down for us…as much as he could…and he succeeds in giving us a recipe for what it takes.

In the first half of his book he describes this art from the training of operatives, the recruiting of spies, how collecting is done and then reported.  In the second half of his book he demonstrates in the real world, though the scenario we are well too familiar with, the intelligence failing to detect the threat from Al Qaeda and the subsequent attacks on 9/11.  He follows through with the intelligence necessary to conduct the war in Afghanistan, the pursuit of Al Qaeda and in the epilogue, the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his subsequent death.

He also devotes a chapter to the art of diplomacy with other countries requiring the participation and close alliance with the State Department.  In a particularly insightful chapter he takes on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and explains the difference between the two organizations.  He explains how they are similar and should cooperate more openly, but more importantly he describes how they are dissimilar, and must be for a reason, but that which has led continuously to a misunderstanding of how the two organizations can work in concert can be at odds with one another.  Nevertheless both organizations are maligned for the work they do in favor of freedom by Bozos  who can’t fathom how  critical both organizations are to the existence of the freedoms they enjoy. Those Bozo’s should read this book.

I am going to give Crumpton Four-Stars for this book.  Yes he is bold with the title yet a book of this sort simply doesn’t exist.  With a little back-ground on the subject it is easier for many to fill in the holes where we have knowledge.  It helps to know a few things and therefore acknowledge that Crumpton is right on the money.  For those who do not, whereas I don’t agree with their criticisms, I hope they find other ways to build their knowledge to understand that Crumpton has deep experience in the things for which he speaks.  And it is an art, not a science.  We are better for these practitioners of this crucial art and can hinge our way of life on the existence of these fine Americans.