Secret Warfare

Reinhard Heydrich's funeral was one of the most elaborate send-offs staged during the short tenure of the German Third Reich. It was attended by a collection of high-powered dignitaries and functionaries of state including Adolf Hitler himself. Heinrich Himmler, the SS Reichsfuhrer, gave a eulogy and Reichsmarschal Herman Goering, at the time Hitler's presumptive successor, was present. Held at the Mosaic Hall of the new Reich Chancellery on June 9th 1942, it had been preceded by ceremonies in Prague. That started three days earlier when a torchlight procession of SS officers and other personnel of the German military accompanied his coffin to Prague Castle. The following morning, the coffin was exhibited in the courtyard of Matthais Gate where crowds of German and Czech citizens streamed past until the late afternoon. After this, Heydrich's coffin, which was mounted on a gun carriage, made a final journey through the streets of Prague along which tens of thousands stood to salute. The cortege crossed the Charles Bridge and made its way to the Central Railway Station from where it was transported to Berlin.

Для своих почитателей Лаврентий Павлович Берия является венцом советской эпохи, для своих ненавистников – ее исчадием. Отношение к Берии определяется отношением к СССР. Для тех, кто обращаются к феномену Берии, огромному и многогранному в общественном сознании, в нем много личного, интимного, уникального, но все же, Берия – прежде всего, социально-политическое явление, символ советского социализма. Жизнь Берии проходила во взаимовлиянии с другими ключевыми персонами эпохи, но никто из них не действовала независимо от тех социальных сил, которые подлинно творили историю. Свой выбор сделали Ленин, Троцкий, Сталин, - главные творцы ранней советской истории, - а также Зиновьев, Каменев, Бухарин, Рыков, - ее «на языцех» гранды. Берия был среди тех политиков его поколения, кто сделал свой выбор в самом начале пути, осознанно и целеустремленно. В этом заключен потенциал его профессионального и политического успеха,  и это-же определило те его поступки, которые кажутся отталкивающими сегодня.
Волею Провидения и собственными усилиями Берия оказался в самом эпицентре советской истории 1920-х – 1930-х годов. Изучение его биографии позволяет увидеть ее совсем иначе, чем привычные сегодня стереотипы, которые навязывают читателю как популярная, так и академическая историография. Многочисленные биографии Берии пестрят термином «социализм», никак не определяя этот общественный строй. Между тем именно через жизнь Берии становится понятной его суть, обретают свое лицо и свое место как социалистические классы, так и их социальные противники, - «антисоветский класс», - стремившиеся к разрушению социализма. Биография Берии показывает принципы и механизм политики при социализме, которая не является ни партийно-фракционной, ни клановой, а классовой.

During the entire war, warring powers used the “secret war” to try to break the balance of the battlefield. Generally created in the previous few decades, intelligence and security services saw strong development during the war: the warring sides were committed to espionage behind enemy lines and in the neutral countries, but also performed other tasks such as tapping radio communication; sabotage; counterintelligence; and propaganda. The secret war was also fought in the mind, as all warring societies were consumed by spy mania, and began to recognize their own spies as true heroes and heroines.

f Greek warfare could once be considered as a set of well-organized and well-prepared battles of perfectly aligned hoplites, recent research has highlighted a more complex reality, but hasn’t always stressed the importance of secrecy and cunning in Greek warfare. Through Xenophon’s work, we would study here the different ways of hiding one's intentions towards one's enemies and manipulating one's soldiers. In the Anabasis army, the power relationships are partly determined by secrecy and trust: mercenaries' trust or mistrust of Cyrus; Cyrus’ trust or mistrust that those who know his true destination will not reveal his secret; and Cyrus' opponents immediate mistrust of him. Moreover, we can see how Artaxerxes, the Great King, uses deception as well as his brother Cyrus does, if not better. This tendency to hide one’s true intentions isn’t only characteristic of the “Persian barbarians” but is also found in the Greek armies. Agesilaus, the model general praised by Xenophon, is an expert in the art of deception. In this paper, we’ll focus in particular on the speeches in Xenophon’s works, because they illustrate the possibility of manipulating soldiers’ actions and beliefs. They might also seem to legitimize the use of secrecy even with regard to one’s relatives. Yet, the problem of deception and secrecy toward relatives is highly problematic in Xenophon’s work, not because it is morally reprehensible because at the end it is often counterproductive. This may be used to highlight the ambiguity of his presentation of military secrecy.

This article provides an analysis of the problematic of foresight in traditional Chinese thought, articulating it with current developments in the epistemology of futures studies, planning theory, and strategic management. It is argued that in Chinese thought the answer to the question " Can the future be predicted? " depends on the forecasting horizon: whereas the immediate future can be sensed and taken advantage of by immersing oneself in the evolving situation, the remote future is fundamentally unpredictable. These dual answers are entrenched in discussions of what constitutes wisdom, opening up productive spaces of encounter between the problematic of foresight and the problematic of wisdom. https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.2018.22(3).00A35

This intervention contributes to recent work in urban geography that integrates the conceptual frameworks of assemblages and actor-network theory by highlighting two additional directions that require a more rigorous and detailed theorization. The first direction concerns the relationship between contingency and necessity in urban assemblages and actor-networks and this paper delineates four specific propositions as a starting point for further reflection. The second direction suggests that urban assemblages and actor-networks require a more explicit vocabulary for thinking about competition and cooperation within and between cities. To this end, the paper introduces a new concept – delayed asymmetric counterforces – that can foster a better understanding of competition-induced urban change and destabilization. The novel concept is developed in conjunction with a typology of delays in competitive urban dynamics, which helps illuminate how delayed asymmetric counterforces are both a cause and an effect of the complexity inherent in the urban realm.

Few existing archival records or secondary sources appear to narrate or describe the circumstances, relationships, and activities of “spy wives” during the Second World War. Intelligence historians currently find themselves at a turning point, where new approaches to the writing of intelligence history have been called for that transcend the study of operations and policy, while drawing when necessary upon the methodologies of such adjacent disciplines as social history and historical geoinformatics. It is therefore surely appropriate to conduct an examination of the hitherto neglected social phenomenon of female agency in the “spyscape” of wartime British and German covert operations. Through an examination of case studies of individual wives of intelligence operatives, constructed on the basis of information gathered from scattered primary and secondary sources, it is possible to assemble and analyse a wide, highly differentiated range of gender relationships at the intersection o...

In today’s modern world the behavior and actions of man and states have much transformed from its traditional form as a result of technological advancement. Similarly, Clausewitz’s traditional norm of ‘decisive battle’ that entails the necessity of using overwhelming offensive force to ensure decisive victory through the massive physical destruction and subsequent submission of the adversary has lost its relevance in the modern concept of war. The logic behind such assertion is the introduction of modern warfare techniques through the use of technological innovations such as the cyber world, biological weapons, nuclear weapons and so forth; the use of economy and commerce such as a trade war; or the use of unconventional or non-direct (proxy) military confrontation such as the case of US-Russia confrontation in Syria. Such wars are not as complex, or as physically and morally demanding as Clausewitz’s version of the ‘decisive battle wars’. They rather demand advanced technology and sophisticated economic and foreign policy apparatus to efficiently incapacitate the adversary with or without the need for physical destruction or decisive victory

Using Hannah Arendt as our guide, we examine the imperfect and at times curious mechanisms through which state projects enact an aura of secrecy and deception. To date, International Political Sociology (IPS) has paid strikingly little attention to the workings of secrecy and deception in politics. Arendt's contributions to international political sociolo-gies of state secrecy are threefold. First, Arendt's reflections on lying and secrecy occur across a wide historico-philosophical field, generating insights that a focus on liberal democracy alone cannot. Second, Arendt draws our attention to important variations in the arts of secrecy and deception , and their ethico-political implications. Third, Arendt highlights the limits of traditional scholarly methods for research on lying and secrecy and offers an important tool that we conceptualize as a twist. We demonstrate these three contributions through a case study of a foggy Anglo-American intelligence project called Cobra Mist.

This essay will attempt to assess to what extent the term 'secret service' enlightens or obscures the interpretation of intelligence systems that existed in England between 1650-1909. Acknowledging that this is a broad period with many examples of intelligence systems this essay will focus on some unique case studies from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, such as the role of the post office in intercepting communications and the development of a professional intelligence system for domestic and foreign espionage – William Wickham's Foreign Secret Service in the 1790's. We must also briefly acknowledge that many factors will influence our interpretation of the phrase 'secret service' but this essay will emphasise each systems source of financing, how widespread they were used and how professionally they gathered and used intelligence.

Tesis Doctoral en Ciencias de la Información (Universidad de Málaga) de Vicente Almenara Martínez.
Resumen: Los servicios españoles de inteligencia OCN, SECED y CESID, en el periodo 1968-1981 tuvieron una decisiva importancia en la transición del franquismo a la democracia en España y en general, colaboraron en sortear los peligros de las fuerzas involucionistas y revolucionarias. Se advierte una progresiva profesionalización de estos servicios y una apertura al exterior de las fronteras españolas. Lo que se conoce delos servicios casi siempre ha sido a pesar de éstos, dado que no se dejan conocer y la información que guardan se encuentra clasificado o existen escasas pruebas de la misma. La Tesis registra actividades de estos servicios desde la OCN hasta la llegada de Emilio Alonso Manglano a la dirección general del CESID.

Abigail Watson

28 May 2018

Read the briefing

This briefing examines the 2013 parliamentary vote on whether to take military action in Syria. Several commentators have argued that the 2013 Syria vote was a marker of parliamentary pacifism and a symbol of the perils of democratising the decision to use force.  This briefing uses the transcript of the debate and recent interviews to assess the validity of these claims. The research suggests that, far from being a statement of parliamentary pacifism, the vote was a result of parliamentary pragmatism in the face of an unconvincing strategy for how British military strikes would build stability in Syria.

Recent media focus on the humanitarian crisis in the Syrian city of Aleppo has revealed the government promoted propagandistic methods of the Western mainstream media, which shorn of context and rich in bias uncritically accepts the narrative presented by politicians and attempts to shape public opinion to suit the needs of a war agenda. An opinion piece in the UK Daily Mail by the historian Dominic Sandbrook which accused the leader of the British opposition Labour Party of ideological Left-inspired anti-American sentiment and lack of patriotism is part and parcel of the attempt to pathologize and demonize those who are critical of the West's role in fomenting and sustaining the Syrian conflict. The disingenuous media blitzkrieg on Aleppo is designed to justify military intervention on the part of the United States starting with the declaration of a 'No Fly Zone', which as the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has plainly stated " will lead to war with Russia. " If such a catastrophic event were to ensue, it will not be the fault of the supposedly Putin-worshipping Left, but of the hubris of American post-Cold War foreign policy and the 'useful idiots' in the Western press who have promoted American militarism.

The book is about secret communist activities in Scandinavia in the Comintern period - concerning the work of the OMS connection points in Vardø and the capitals, Scandinavian couriers, Soviet Secret Service operations, and the Wollweber network.

Special Forces have long captured people’s imaginations. Books, films, video games and news outlets propagate an image of heroism and mysticism – only added to by governments’ reticence to discuss their operations. The impact of this is that, while almost everyone knows or thinks they know what Special Forces are, few really know what they do.

Abstract Intra-alliance intelligence is utilised to collect, process and evaluate information about allies. This task played a critical role when the Southern Flank of NATO, Greece and Turkey caused a severe dispute in Cyprus which has been Europe’s longest remaining cold conflict. The Turkish Secret Service’s operations in Cyprus during its origins in the Cold War and the intra-alliance intelligence task have been largely overlooked in the existing literature. The article aims to close this gap through a threefold analysis: support for resistance, operational assistance, and capabilities and war preparedness. The investigation of Turkey’s covert operations in Cyprus between 1953 and 1970 reveals the route of intra-alliance espionage in the Cyprus conflict and helps understanding how states act covertly against their allies. The article uses archival documents in the UK and Turkey that provide extensive declassified secret documents to assess the covert action of Turkish intelligence in the Cyprus conflict.

Intra-alliance intelligence is utilised to collect, process and evaluate information about allies. This task played a critical role when the Southern Flank of NATO, Greece and Turkey caused a severe dispute in Cyprus which has been Europe’s longest remaining cold conflict. The Turkish Secret Service’s operations in Cyprus during its origins in the Cold War and the intra-alliance intelligence task have been largely overlooked in the existing literature. The article aims to close this gap through a threefold analysis: support for resistance, operational assistance, and capabilities and war preparedness. The investigation of Turkey’s covert operations in Cyprus between 1953 and 1970 reveals the route of intra-alliance espionage in the Cyprus conflict and helps understanding how states act covertly against their allies. The article uses archival documents in the UK and Turkey that provide extensive declassified secret documents to assess the covert action of Turkish intelligence in the ...

Part 4 of a book written by George Nikoloudis on SOE in occupied Greece (1941-45) (now out of print). Part 4 examines the short history of the failed British attempt to organize a secret submarine base in Antiparos and is followed by a list of abbreviations and the book's bibliography.

Part 2 of a book written by George Nikoloudis on SOE in occupied Greece (1941-45) (now out of print). Part 2 explains the collapse of Greece in 1941 and analyzes the beginnings of resistance in Athens; furthermore, it explains the conflicting aims of the Foreign Office and SOE in Greece and presents the major acts of sabotage that took place with British assistance.

Available open access: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21624887.2016.1246305

Previous theories of state secrecy have presumed that its role in public discourse is shaped by the intent and practices of the state. This is reflected in scholarship on U.S. covert action representations, which theorises that secrecy is articulated by the state such that it rationalises covertness as an exceptionalist act, prompting assent towards U.S. violence. Through the example of a 2014 drone strike in Pakistan, the article argues that contemporary U.S. counterterrorism breaches this analytic: covertness is not articulated by the state but is inferred from state silence and rumours and debris in news representations. This suspected secrecy frames ambiguities in the reported public evidence, highlighting the uncertain scope and purpose of that secrecy and undermining any legitimisation of covert action. An ethical orientation focused on the enigmatic quality of covert operations comes closer to restless acquiescence than complicity with state discourse, re-framing the question of contesting state violence.