Intelligence Agencies
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Intelligence Agencies
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources. The assembly and propagation of this information is known as intelligence analysis or intelligence assessment. Objectives Intelligence agencies can provide the following services for their national governments. * Give early warning of impending crisis; * Serve national and international crisis management by helping to discern the intentions of current or potential opponents; * Inform national defense planning and military operations, known as military intelligence; * Protect sensitive information secrets, both of their own sources and activities, an ...
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SIS Building (26327425611)
The SIS Building, also called the MI6 Building, at Vauxhall Cross houses the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6), the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence agency. It is located at 85 Albert Embankment in Vauxhall, London, on the bank of the River Thames beside Vauxhall Bridge. The building has been the headquarters of the SIS since 1994. History Background Previously based at 54 Broadway, the SIS relocated to Century House, London, Century House, a 22-storey office block on Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, near Lambeth North tube station, Lambeth North and London Waterloo railway station, Waterloo stations, in 1964. Its location at Century House was classified information, though ''The Daily Telegraph'' reported that it was "London's worst-kept secret, known only to every taxi driver, tourist guide and KGB agent". Century House was described as "irredeemably insecure" in a 1985 National Audit Office (Uni ...
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Intelligence Analysis
Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of deliberately deceptive information; the :wikt:analyst, analyst must correlate the similarities among deceptions and extract a common truth. Although its practice is found in its purest form inside national intelligence agency, intelligence agencies, its methods are also applicable in fields such as business intelligence or competitive intelligence. Overview Intelligence analysis is a way of reducing the ambiguity of highly ambiguous situations. Many analysts prefer the middle-of-the-road explanation, rejecting high or low probability explanations. Analysts may use their own standard of proportionality as to the risk acceptance of the opponent, rejecting that the opponent may take an extreme risk to achieve what the analyst regards as a minor gai ...
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Covert Operation
A covert operation or undercover operation is a military or police operation involving a covert agent or troops acting under an assumed cover to conceal the identity of the party responsible. US law Under US law, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must lead covert operations unless the president finds that another agency should do so and informs Congress. The CIA's authority to conduct covert action comes from the National Security Act of 1947. President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12333 titled ''United States Intelligence Activities'' in 1984. This order defined covert action as "special activities", both political and military, that the US Government could legally deny. The CIA was also designated as the sole authority under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act and in Title 50 of the United States Code Section 413(e). The CIA must have a "Presidential Finding" issued by the President in order to conduct these activities under the Hughes-Ryan amendment ...
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Propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts. Beginning in the twentieth century, the English term ''propaganda'' became associated with a Psychological manipulation, manipulative approach, but historically, propaganda had been a neutral descriptive term of any material that promotes certain opinions or ideology, ideologies. A wide range of materials and media are used for conveying propaganda messages, which changed as new technologies were invented, including paintings, cartoons, posters, pamphlets, films, radio shows, TV shows, and websites. More recently, the digital age has given rise to new ways of dissemina ...
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Coup D'état
A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means. By one estimate, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, half of which were successful. Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. Coups occurring in the post-Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems than Cold War coups, though coups still mostly perpetuate authoritarianism. Many factors may lead to the occurrence of a coup, as well as determine the success or failure of a coup. Once a coup is underway, coup success is driven by coup-makers' ability to get others to believe that the coup attempt will be successful. The number of successful cou ...
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Arms Trafficking
Arms trafficking or gunrunning is the illicit trade of contraband small arms, explosives, and ammunition, which constitutes part of a broad range of illegal activities often associated with transnational criminal organizations. The illegal trade of small arms, unlike other organized crime commodities, is more closely associated with exercising power in communities instead of achieving economic gain. Scholars estimate illegal arms transactions amount to over US$1 billion annually. To keep track of imports and exports of several of the most dangerous armament categories, the United Nations, in 1991, created a Register for Conventional Arms. Participation, however, is not compulsory, and lacks comprehensive data in regions outside of Europe. Africa, due to a prevalence of corrupt officials and loosely enforced trade regulations, is a region with extensive illicit arms activity. In a resolution to complement the Register with legally binding obligations, a Firearms Protocol was in ...
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Assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are ordered by both individuals and organizations, and are carried out by their accomplices. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin. Etymology ''Assassin'' comes from the Italian and French Assissini, believed to derive from the word '' hashshashin'' (), and shares its etymological roots with '' hashish'' ( or ; from ').''The Assassins: a radical sect in Islam'' – Bernard Lewis, pp. 11–12 It referred to a group of Nizari Ismailis known as the Order of Assassins who worked against various political targets. Founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, the Assassins were active in the Near East from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The group killed members of the Ab ...
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Terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims. Modern terrorism, evolving from earlier iterations, employs various tactics to pursue political goals, often leveraging fear as a strategic tool to influence decision makers. By targeting densely populated public areas such as transportation hubs, airports, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and nightlife venues, terrorists aim to instill widespread insecurity, prompting Public policy, policy changes through Manipulation (psychology), psychological manipulation and undermining confidence ...
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Counterintelligence
Counterintelligence (counter-intelligence) or counterespionage (counter-espionage) is any activity aimed at protecting an agency's Intelligence agency, intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or other Intelligence field, intelligence activities conducted by, for, or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons. Many countries will have multiple organizations focusing on a different aspect of counterintelligence, such as domestic, international, and counter-terrorism. Some states will formalize it as part of the police structure, such as the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Others will establish independent bodies, such as the United Kingdom's MI5, others have both intelligence and counterintelligence grouped under the same agency, like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). History Modern tactics of espiona ...
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International Security
''International Security'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of international and national security. It was founded in 1976 and is edited by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and published four times a year by MIT Press, both of Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, .... The current editor-in-chief is Steven E. Miller (Harvard). ''International Security'' is among the leading journals in the field of international relations. According to '' Journal Citation Reports'', it has a 2017 impact factor of 4.135, ranking it 2nd out of 85 journals in the category "International Relations". Along with '' Security Studies'', it is among the most prominent journals dedicated to security studies. Ar ...
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National Interest
The national interest is a sovereign state's goals and ambitions – be they economic, military, cultural, or otherwise – taken to be the aim of its government. Etymology The Italian phrase ''ragione degli stati'' was first used by Giovanni della Casa around the year 1547. The expression "reason of state" (Ragion di Stato) was formulated in 1580, found in the works of Giovanni Botero, who was influenced by, and wrote criticisms of the Italian diplomat and political thinker Niccolò Machiavelli, popularly known as the author of The Prince and The Discourses on Livy. Prominently, Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu justified France's intervention on the Protestant side, despite its own Catholicism, in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) as being in the national interest in order to block the increasing power of the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor. At Richelieu's prompting, Jean de Silhon defended the concept of ''raison d'État'' as "a mean between what conscience permits and affairs re ...
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Military Intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis List of intelligence gathering disciplines, approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist Commanding officer, commanders in decision making process, their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an intelligence analysis, assessment of data from a range of sources, directed towards the commanders' mission requirements or responding to questions as part of operational or campaign planning. To provide an analysis, the commander's information requirements are first identified, which are then incorporated into intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination. Areas of study may include the operational environment, hostile, friendly and neutral forces, the civilian population in an area of combat operations, and other broader areas of interest. Intelligence activities are conducted at all levels, from tactical to strategic, in peacetime, the period of transition to war, and d ...
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