The Art of War: Military Intelligence
it's the side of warfare that never really gets talked about and that's for a reason in peacetime intelligence work is vital to any national security apparatus looking at any escalating tension or frozen conflicts any resistance movements or non-state act to trying to further their goals but in war time the value of good intelligence goes through the roof a few Choice words from cultivated Source can save a thousand lives further a field a stolen scroll or flash drive can reveal enemy best kept secrets and if an agents can get
advanced notice of what an enemy plans to do next they could do a lot more than Simply Save the Day they can win the war Military Intelligence is the war all around the war an urgent effort that goes Behind Enemy Lines far away from the battlefield and at the highest levels of tactical and strategic leadership it's a study not just of the enemy but of allies neutral players and even one's own troops it's quiet crucial work the kind of work that decides whether a battle has been won or lost before it's even been fought in today's
installment of our Art of War series we're going to be peering behind the veil of military intelligence what it is how it happens and some of the real life ways that intelligence work has decided the course of history in the modern day military intelligence work is AB broken down into two distinct but rather intertwined levels strategic intelligence and tactical intelligence strategic intelligence that's all the big stuff the state secrets of an adversary nation that would dictate for example what kind
of force they could use to launch an attack or how their chain of command will function under the duress of a major war it's big picture often assessing broad topics like how ready a forces is to do battle what sorts of Technology they believe to have on their side or how much punishment their military their political system and their economy can take before they're pushed to think about surrender it's strategic military intelligence that decides when Wars are fought or avoided how those Wars are going to look and how
a mil or its branches will learn on a grand scale about the changing conditions of battle and pivot to respond tactical Military Intelligence is a bit different it's the small scale stuff the sort of thing that will dictate what a leader in the field will do with their unit guide the course of individual battles and skirmishes and help low-level planners dictate how different components of a military force could work together in real time tactical intelligence isn't surveying satellite imagery to try and figure out
whether a hostile nation has a secret submarine Fleet at its disposal it's about finding satellite image that shows one such submarine sneaking up behind one of your Navy's ships and getting on the phone with that ship asap it's Scouts on Horseback mapping difficult terrain and setting up ambushes or a lone traveler in the night wandering into town and asking the tavern keeper just so many guards hang out in a nearby Fort it's the basic spy work that will happen thousands upon thousands of times
during the course of a war saving a few lives here or turning the tide of a skirmish there often without any hope of setting off a broader Cascade to end conflict in either case the primary goal of military intelligence is to ensure that whoever's calling the shots has as much information as possible to inform the decisions they make that rule holds true whether the decision maker is a King a president a general an admiral or just Sergeant Joe leading a group of eight guys through the jungle regardless of rank regardless of historical period
regardless of ideology or the conflict in question the general set of decision-making criteria is going to typically be the same and that's to achieve whatever strategic or tactical objective has been established while minimizing the loss of troops equipment and resources it's a series of very difficult decisions where even the best military intelligence can't eliminate risk but the more information a decision maker has and the more reliable that information is the better they can make those critical decisions when it's time
and if a military can establish not just a solid piece of intelligence but a solid intelligence apparatus then they'll of to make the difference between total Victory and catastrophic defeat as for where that intelligence comes from many aspects of that answer have changed with time but one arguably the most important of all has stayed the same human intelligence it's provided by spies covert agents non-military sources corrupt officials captured or turned enemies and an incredibly diverse cast of assorted others human intelligence is
all about people finding people in the know figuring out what they know and using that knowledge to Aid in the war effort no matter how good a military is at intercepting letters tapping phone calls or taking photos from orbit there is nothing better than a reliable human source that Source might not be able to relay the level of contextual detail that an image could or recount the exact transcript of a phone call from memory but they can do things that are far more valuable they can place data in context they can ask the right questions or be
present in the right places they can infiltrate to places that cameras or listening devices can't reach and they can respond to information by thinking critically in real time a satellite might tell you the location of a warehouse that you think is an arms depo and intercepted signals might tell you what the enemy says they have inside but a human agent can sneak in and confirm that weapons are present observe how it's guarded in real time and extract secrets from the Commander in charge who thinks your spy is just a nice guy that
he met over a couple of drinks no matter how good technology might be there are some forms of intelligence that only human sources can collect and every person no matter their rank their allegiance or the strength of their resolve can become a source if Military Intelligence work is done just right Beyond intelligence or hum it's signals intelligence or signant that makes up the bulk of the information that intelligence organizations past and present will spend their time collecting signals intelligence can be anything
from Communications intercepts by letter telephone digital sources or anything else to electronics intelligence to Telemetry intelligence analysts can pour over data on electromagnetic emissions picked up from a hostile Nation to identify a weapon system or an electronic device or they can use sensors to identify missile tests bomb detonations or other real world disruptions taking place far away in ancient times a signals intelligence operative might have spent their time unsealing Scrolls reading their contents
and resealing them to make them seem as if they were never opened today an operative in a similar situation might spend their days worming around inside a foreign dictators personal email inbox or reading enemy communic that are supposed to be kept classified modern Military Intelligence can come from a range of other vectors depending on what a given agency has at its disposal acoustic intelligence uses sound waves to track the movement of ships through the sea and much more importantly to track the locations of submarines across
the oceans of the world image-based intelligence involves the analysis of photos and videos taken from satellites high or low altitude aircraft spy balloons or photographers on the ground all of whom could provide critical information on everything from military operations to defensive fortifications to new Weaponry or a nation's military-industrial complex radiation-based intelligence can capture unintentional energy signatures to give away the presence or nature of electronic systems even simple theft can
be tremendously valuable after all there's perhaps no better way to understand a given weapon vehicle or war plane than to take one and reverse engineer it as for how individual Nations structure their Military Intelligence agencies that's an answer that has changed significantly throughout history in times long gone many kingdoms or Empires would run Military Intelligence through formal but largely ad hoc spiderwebs of informants and agents relying on Word of Mouth ships horses and other means to relay
intelligence despite delays of days weeks or even months others might be more more centralized or more regimented especially in larger nation states often spy work would overlap with sabotage assassination and other covert operations a rule that still holds true in Many Nations today in modern Nations Military Intelligence agencies are typically more centralized with clear chains of command an abundance of desk analysts and reliable mechanisms to interface with military and civilian leaders at all levels today Military
Intelligence involves close attention to detail while sifting through data at high volume the kind of work that will keep a 100 death joies content for years but as monotonous and even boring as Military Intelligence can be from some perspectives one small discovery made behind a desk can save the lives of hundreds of troops out in the fields and in a thriving Military Intelligence outfit those sorts of discoveries happen every [Music] day now before we launch into our standard sections in this series exploring the past and present of a
modality of warfare we've got to include caveat today we're talking about intelligence work and whenever we're talking about intelligence work we got to understand that a large portion of the things we'd like to know will just forever be kept a secret some of it the more modern stuff is sealed behind top secret designations and digital vaults that are encrypted so thoroughly that a lifetime attempting to break through would not be even close to enough in historical cases countless Secrets died
with the spies and rulers who knew them While others were never written down or were lost throughout the course of history but what we do know is still pretty darn cool now we'll begin in ancient Greece a fractur collection of city states that the philosopher Plato considered to be in a permanent state of war with each other be it declared or Undeclared the earliest discussions of wartime intelligence come from the writing of anus tacitus who expressed a detailed understanding of what military intelligence would have been in his time
a combination of reconnaissance done by Scouts on foot or horseback and Espionage where disguised or hidden spies collected information on their enemies and found ways to get that information back to their own city state by accounts of the period Greek spies were everywhere in each other city states comprising each other's officials and playing protracted games of Cat and Mouse in other territories Greek intelligence extended far and wide just as the intelligence networks of other nations extended into Greece itself then
as now agents would have been smart to lay low living in ways that seemed insignificant or forgettable to a casual observer in those times slaves would have been among the more valuable assets to cultivate they were little known could enter and exit sensitive areas while hardly being noticed and often had a deep and Lasting animosity toward their captors that a foreign spy could gladly exploit the Roman Empire too had an extensive intelligence Network at its disposal one that waxed waned and grew more efficient or corrupt based on the
political leadership at the time although Roman authors often told of their Empire's disdain for sub diffusion their strong preference for disciplined military units and strategic Brilliance the truth of the empire was far less clearcut the use of agents to infiltrate hostile Clans make Partnerships with non-roman Warlords and rely on Scouts and advanced intelligence to guide the work of their Legions was a major element in Rome's ability to spread itself across so much of the Mediterranean during its conflicts with
Carthage the carthaginian general Hannibal proved Adept at spy work with his agents able to infiltrate not just Roman camps but the capital city itself Hannibal was personally known for his skill in Disguise and his agents were experts in forgery secret communication and feeding false on misle information to Rome in order to orchestrate traps and ambushes so too did spies under Hannibal faced dire consequences for failure one such SP who mistakenly LED Hannibal's forces into a trap was crucified as a penalty across the
Mediterranean at this time rulers in the modern-day Middle East North Africa were known for having formalized intelligence services at their disposal whereas romes were far more ad hoc often to the extent that Rome's own enemies believed that such a powerful Empire would have had a far more entrenched Network in their territory than Rome actually did far across Eurasia the ancient empires of China had their own extensive history in military spycraft from as early as the 4th Century BC intelligence work was
critical in guiding Empires and Warlords of the time into favorable military engagements preempting attacks and rooting out complex plans to bring about their downfall in The Art of War sunu emphasized the key role of intelligence work in differentiating effective commanders from ineffective ones the means by which enlightened rulers and scious Generals moved and conquered others that their achievements surpassed the masses was Advanced knowledge in another volume written by suu's Disciple Han fzee a spy Master of the time could
study a full 47 signs of a failing State illustrating pressure points and weaknesses from impetuous rulers to indecisive Royal advisers to a neglected defense apparatus later volumes from military methods to sefar to the woi and the six secret teachings all expounded on the nature of military intelligence and the many many tactical and strategic errors that the commanders of the time were making leaving themselves vulnerable for a Savvy intelligence operative to exploit Military Intelligence was just as critical in the
medieval period in Europe where Spies of that era had their own collections of tombs and philosophical volumes on Espionage that they could rely on if they knew to look knowing the location of an enemy force and knowing its strength were particularly critical bits of knowledge and eras characterized by roving war parties and raid units rather than massive armies in situations where a force that was 10 men larger could easily overwhelm its enemy the unit that had better Scouts could arrange ambushers or could mislead their
adversary could make up for a disadvantage or deliver a crushing defeat as kingdoms gathered their strength established bureaucracies and amassed larger and better equipped armies so too did their intelligence Network stay stabilize and then centralize in feudal Japan there was perhaps no better expression of military intelligence than the Shinobi better known today as the ninja although spies or assassins oh would have been nothing new by the time the Shinobi appeared they were a much needed institution in their era the dark side of a system in
which Samurai codes dictated how and when military engagements took place left to Exist by itself a strict following of Samurai Doctrine would often lead to military ruin and then societal Devastation but with the Hidden Hand of intellig assassination Guerilla Warfare and sabotage at work behind the scenes a cunning leader could better lay the groundwork for their Warriors success in open combat beginning in the 12th century Shinobi were recruited as lowborn farmers and villagers and trained in combat and Espionage in
secretive strongholds both men and women were welcome among their ranks so long as they were willing to go to lengths that the feudal Lords the Dao could not ask their own soldiers to do Dao who relies on the shenobi and paid well were far more likely to find success in combat making them a critical if unsavory influence in the centuries of war that preceded the peaceful Edo period in Europe perhaps the most pivotal Renaissance era figure of military intelligence was Sir Francis wallingham spy Master General for Queen
Elizabeth the Walsingham served his Queen at a time of intense International Intrigue including several major Wars and an overall environments where the outbreak of hostilities was always just a few short missteps away Walsingham built a spy Network for the queen basically from the ground up during his time as Secretary of State discovering a plot by cathic Nobles to overthrow Elizabeth first and an unrelated plot to assassinate her with threats only Rising against the throne wallingham stepped fully into the role of spy Master
foiling a wide range of plots during his tenure and even discovering plans for a joint French and Spanish invasion of England finally his intelligence work near the end of his life was critical in the defeat of an attacking Spanish arader in 1588 bingham's Legacy could trace directly to Britain's modern Military Intelligence organizations MI5 and MI6 in the United States the Civil War of 1861 to 186 65 saw both the Union and Confederate militaries rely heavily on their intelligence branches including
spies on the ground Army and Cavalry Scouts and newer advances like spy balloons and Telegraph Transmissions both sides of the conflict were heavily incentivized to rely on said Telegraph technology creating epicenters of intelligence where information could be processed analyzed and responded to in real time across multiple battlefronts at once in Europe the Telegraph and other methods of fast communication over long distances would lead to a similar rethinking of milit intelligence and around the world these new technologies
would prompt a turn towards centralization not long after they arrived with that changing landscape came a greater emphasis on Counter Intelligence finding and eliminating enemy spies had always been important but now those enemy spies could create catastrophe in a matter of minutes in the right circumstances instead of having their messages delayed by days or even weeks before they could be delivered with that speed came an exponential increase to the damage they could do taking advantage of openings or s sensitive moments that would a few
decades earlier have been over far too quickly for an enemy to take advantage across the world in Central Asia Britain and Imperial Russia fought their own war of intelligence in the great game a decades long strategic rivalry in which both Nations struggled to gain influence in Persia Afghanistan Tibet and elsewhere overall the whole thing looked like a 19th century version of the cold war with military proxy conflicts territorial grabs and most of all Spy work dictating which side was being forced backward or being allowed to gain
ground both sides started the conflict with their intelligence apparatus thrown together only haphazardly for example it wasn't uncommon to see British intelligence agents trying to pretend that they were archaeologists without having any knowledge or equipment that one might expect to see from an actual archaeologist but by the end of the conflict both Britain and Russia had well-established modernized intelligence networks with separate bureaus for foreign and Internal Affairs plus surveillance cryptographic and Military
reconnaissance capabilities during World War I intelligence Services found themselves in the same predicaments that just about every other element of every global Military did that is to say they were woefully unprepared for the adversity they would face or the intensity of the conflict even leading up to the war itself the decision of each individual Nation to participate was born out of intelligence estimates that suggested they and their respective alliances could quite thoroughly outmatch the other than assumption that
was quickly proven wrong on all sides to the extent that Military Intelligence EX existed at the start of the conflict much of the Thinking by high level decision makers was outdated at best and quite naive compared to Modern Military Intelligence the war witnessed the rise of large-scale C action with each side of the conflict trying to sabotage each other inflame internal tensions and still valuable Secrets cryptography and aerial reconnaissance both evolved at stunning rates while on the ground the work of individual Scouts became all the
more important in trying to break a vast Continental stalemate but if World War I was a war of Rapid advancements in Military Intelligence then World War II would be the testing ground for every nation involved in the conflict to elevate their understanding to the next level on the intelligence side of World War II cerein was key most prominently in regard to the Enigma codes of Nazi Germany but in reality the battle to crack each nation's wide range of codes and ciphers was one of the most critical elements of the entire War overall it
was the Allies who came away with the victory having cracked some of the most top secret German Japanese and Italian codes over the course of the conflict and it was the intelligence cleaned from these intercepts that allowed the Allies to turn the tide of the war also worthy of mention was the misdirection that took place in The Counter Intelligence sphere most prominently in the British double cross system now we've actually covered the double cross system at length on our sister channel into the Shadows but to summarize the operation
was a protracted effort by the British to identify and turn German agents over the course of the war the operation was so comprehensive and so resoundingly successful that by the latter years of World War II Britain controlled the entire German spy Network inside the UK that control was then used to conduct immensely successful misdirections Around The d-j Landings and the subsequent Allied push towards Berlin from World War II The Globe shifted focus into the Cold War which by all accounts was a military intelligence
that's Paradise over Decades of tensions between the Soviet Union and its allies on one side and the global West on the other Espionage became not just the Cornerstone of each side's long-term strategy but a functional substitute for war itself self each side picked up major victories and defeats during that time for example the Soviets were able to cultivate a high-ranking British MI6 agent named Kim philby for years turning him into an incredibly successful double agent who exposed countless details
about the inner workings of MI6 and the CIA on the Allied side the CIA had more than its fair share of involvement in Acts of global subt toppling governments here setting up intelligence networks there and enjoying new tools like the You2 the SR71 and eventually even military satellites together massive amounts of image and signals intelligence the Cold War saw military Espionage go through another network of modernization as advanced technology from telephones to radar to miniaturized radios and cameras significantly
broadens the scope of what a spy could do in today's world the utility of military intelligence is as great as ever from American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to Chinese influence operations around the world to Russian intelligence efforts in advance of invasions of Georgia and Ukraine Military Intelligence is indispensable to the practice of Modern Warfare as many countries around the world see their citizenry become less tolerant of military casualties and less open to the idea of Wars abroad Military Intelligence has become essential IND
dictating when and where the practice of open Warfare is necessary and streamlining it in order to maximize efficiency and minimize involvement overall modern Military Intelligence is a Hallmark of Any Nation that wishes to extend its influence Beyond its own borders from Global superpowers like America and China to Rising International Players like India Israel Brazil and more now as ever that intelligence work is shrouded in secrecy although since we now live in the same moment in history as the organizations
were talking about we hear stories of successful military intelligence work far less frequently and as far as the intelligence Affairs of today are concerned it's safe to assume that if an operation does go well we're not going to hear about it for a very long time as intelligence work continues to evolve signals intelligence and other digital measures of data Gathering have begun playing a larger and larger role relative to the human intelligence that the nations of the world have relied on for so long between drone technology
advanced satellites cyber warfare capabilities and other emerging methods of intelligence gathering the grand scope of military intelligence looks very different than it used to artificial intelligence tools are becoming all the more powerful in the world's Mightiest nations are not only establishing their own space forces but realizing that those military branches have quite a bit of intelligence work to do yet under the surface in every modern conflict every new or developing Cold War every geopolitical push and bull
around the world the battles waged in the intelligence worlds are the ones that precede or prevent the conflicts that are settled with bullets and [Music] blood