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During the summer of 2023, I conducted an interview with Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon, a veteran of over 30 years in key roles within the Israeli Defense Forces. As a leading authority on national security and intelligence, Ya’alon provided critical insights, particularly regarding the intelligence failures of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and how these failures inform present-day security dilemmas. Although this interview was conducted three months before the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Ya’alon stressed the significance of lessons from previous conflicts and significant geopolitical developments. He also underscored the importance of cultural and emotional factors in intelligence failures and the dynamics of Israel’s relations with the Five Eyes alliance, offering insights that illuminate some of the challenges Israel would encounter three months later. This interview is part of an ongoing oral history project designed to gather diverse perspectives on intelligence and national security leadership in Israel, enhancing our understanding of the security dilemmas of the Middle East and the world of espionage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foundation model has brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges to the military field due to its powerful capabilities in natural language understanding, logical reasoning, and text generation. This paper reviews related technologies of large language models, including architectural and modeling, adaption and fine-tuning, and prompting and learning, as well as the current status of the development of typical multimodal foundation models. It conducts a deep analysis of the characteristics of mainstream domestic and international military application platforms that utilize foundation models, and designs typical task scenarios and capability requirements for military applications of large models. Then, challenges of military foundation models are discussed. Finally, the key common technologies in military applications are summarized. Hopefully, our work can be beneficial for the design of significant military applications based on foundation model technologies and researches of actual combat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in military affairs is largely limited to logistics, transport, reconnaissance, and other support functions at present. Yet, the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are also making significant progress in developing autonomous combat vehicles and other offensive applications of AI. The ambiguous nature and multifaceted applications of AI in military affairs could be seen as either increasing or decreasing the relative cost of offensive military action. The critical question, therefore, is not a technical determination of whether the emerging uses of AI favor the offensive or defensive force, but rather an assessment of how AI is perceived by policymakers. Similar to the World War I era cult of the offensive, ambiguous emerging technology may drive leaders to focus on the offensive advantages of that technology when expectations of conflict are rising. This paper examines the policy elite discourse surrounding the military applications of AI in both the United States and the PRC between 2014 and 2022. It finds that over this period, elite discussion of the use of AI in military affairs has shifted in both states in ways that indicate more focus on the offensive rather than defensive applications of this emerging technology. While by no means determinative, it is an indicator that perceptions of the offense–defense balance may be moving in a destabilizing direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Military Internet of Things (MIoT) has emerged as a new research area in military intelligence. The MIoT frequently has to constitute a federation-capable IoT environment when the military needs to interact with other institutions and organizations or carry out joint missions as part of a coalition such as in NATO. One of the main challenges of deploying the MIoT in such an environment is to acquire, analyze, and merge vast amounts of data from many different IoT devices and disseminate them in a secure, reliable, and context-dependent manner. This challenge is one of the main challenges in a federated environment and forms the basis for establishing trusting relationships and secure communication between IoT devices belonging to different partners. In this work, we focus on the problem of fulfillment of the data-centric security paradigm, i.e., ensuring the secure management of data along the path from its origin to the recipients and implementing fine-grained access control mechanisms. This problem can be solved using innovative solutions such as applying attribute-based encryption (ABE). In this work, we present a comprehensive solution for secure data dissemination in a federated MIoT environment, enabling the use of distributed registry technology (Hyperledger Fabric), a message broker (Apache Kafka), and data processing microservices implemented using the Kafka Streams API library. We designed and implemented ABE cryptography data access control methods using a combination of pairings-based elliptic curve cryptography and lightweight cryptography and confirmed their suitability for the federations of military networks. Experimental studies indicate that the proposed cryptographic scheme is viable for the number of attributes typically assumed to be used in battlefield networks, offering a good trade-off between security and performance for modern cryptographic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indications and Warnings subfield of intelligence has traditionally divided warnings into a dichotomy of “ambiguous” and “unambiguous” that gives policymakers a false sense of security. This article examines how unambiguous warning has been conceptualized and why it has become an inadequate planning tool that can lead to dire consequences in the quest for certainty. Using the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Pearl Harbor attack as case studies, the article shows unambiguous warning is an inadequate planning tool that can lead to dire consequences in the quest for certainty. The article concludes with observations about the role of intelligence and the future of military planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to capture a facet of US – Baltic relations that for the most part has played out behind the public curtain. As such, the following chronicles key twists and turns, achievements and failures in American – Baltic intelligence relations. A substantial body of scholarship has already examined cultural, diplomatic, and security ties between these actors. The same cannot be said about intelligence bonds. This article attempts to redress this neglect in the literature. It argues that the Baltics, with their well-honed sense of Russian political affairs, have become valuable sources of intelligence for their key ally across the Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the morning of 7 October 2023, at 6:29 AM, Israel was surprised when forces of the Hamas organization attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip, along the border between Gaza and Israel, and caused enormous damage to human life and property. On that day, about 1,300 Israelis were killed, most of them civilians and the rest soldiers. About 240 Israelis were kidnapped and taken into Gaza as hostages. Israel had no concrete warning of the coming attack. It was a complete surprise to the Intelligence Community (IC) and security system. Following this attack, Israel went to war against Hamas, in Gaza, calling it the Iron Swords War, with the intent of collapsing its military power and governing rule. The lack of intelligence warning raises many questions about the capability of the Israeli IC, especially the Israel Military Intelligence Directorate (IMI) and the Israel Security Agency (ISA). Israel's intelligence had known of the strengthening of Hamas, but there was an assumption that Hamas had changed its objectives and aimed to establish its rule and statehood in Gaza. As a result, it was assumed that Hamas would refrain from offensive action that would, in turn, provoke counterattacks by Israel, which would not serve its interests. The Israeli IC assumed that if Hamas decided to attack, the ISA and the IMI would provide early warning. Only on 7 October did Israel learn that Hamas was secretly intensifying its efforts to prepare an attack on Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence has published several articles on military intelligence, including Jeffrey Rogg's "Military-Intelligence Relations: Explaining the Oxymoron." Rogg discusses the tensions between the military and intelligence professions, such as the management of violence and secrets, collectivism and individualism, and caution and risk-taking. However, the author offers an alternative perspective, viewing military intelligence as a dual professional identity with its own unique characteristics. They argue that military intelligence professionals navigate the overlap between the military and intelligence communities, adopting aspects of both professions to achieve their goals. The author suggests that military intelligence should be seen as a dual identity rather than an oxymoron, allowing for further research and understanding of this profession. [Extracted from the article]

The article reveals the importance of space for national security. The points of interaction between space activities and national security are identified, which reflect the growing importance of outer space for ensuring the security of States and emergency management, the growth of international cooperation in the field of space technologies. The newest possibilities of space to ensure national security (warning and military intelligence systems; communication systems and means of coordination; systems of space monitoring of the environment and resource management; systems of border and maritime surveillance; development of other technologies; development of global cooperation) are revealed. The problems of ensuring the priority of national security in the use of space resources have been formed, with the formation of a global strategy that geopolitical stability and prevention of the militarization of space should become key aspects for ensuring the national security of any State.

The expansion of intelligence studies into new areas shows that intelligence behaves differently in different environments. Taking Military Intelligence as a context, this article will frame and define Combat Intelligence as a distinct field of activity within that context, with a unique set of behaviours and characteristics. It will also demonstrate that examination of Combat Intelligence through perspectives used to look at state level intelligence – role, oversight, failure, politicisation, and processes – offers up new insights into the production and usePage 3 of 3 of intelligence in a military context that improve our understanding of it as a discrete sphere of activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the objective to predict and pre-empt the emergence of political violence, the US Department of Defence (DoD) has devoted increasing attention to the intersection between neurobiology and artificial intelligence. Concepts such as 'cognitive biotechnologies', 'digital biosecurity' and large-scale collection of 'neurodata' herald a future in which neurobiological intervention on a global scale is believed to come of age. This article analyses how the relationship between neurobiology and AI – between the human and the machine – is conceived, made possible, and acted upon within the SMA programme, an interdisciplinary research programme sponsored by the DoD. By showcasing the close intersection between the computer sciences and the neurosciences within the US military, the article questions descriptions of algorithmic governmentality as decentring the human, and as juxtaposed to biopolitical techniques to regulate processes of subjectivity. The article shows that within US military discourse, new biotechnologies are seen to engender algorithmic governmentality a biopolitical dimension, capable of monitoring and regulating emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and subjectivity on population level, particularly targeting the minds and brains of 'vulnerable' populations in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accountability is considered a cornerstone of public administration and good governance. This study characterizes the relationship between the Dutch Intelligence and Secret Service ("AIVD") and citizens (represented by parliament, courts, and oversight boards) as a complex actor-forum relationship. We utilize different accountability principles of public administration found in international and Dutch instruments and academic literature to propose workable principles of accountability for the AIVD. These proposed principles of accountability can be summarized as acting within duty, explainability, necessity, proportionality, reporting and record keeping, redress, and continuous independent oversight. Similarly, there are some conditions to support the workability of accountability principles. These conditions may be characterized as productive actor-forumrelationships, cooperation, flexibility, value alignment, and learning and improving opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the need for securitisation and counterterrorism cooperation among states is consistently re-echoed in the previous studies on security, the role (or complicity) of the neo-liberal state in distorting and undermining these arrangements has been neglected. The objective of this article is to examine how state actors are implicated in the weakening of counterterrorism engagements in the Lake Chad region. Based on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, the study identified three thresholds of state complicity undermining the fight against Boko Haram: (i) information compromise (ii) amnesty programme complicity (rehabilitation of Boko Haram members) and (iii) intelligence complicity. These are primarily underpinned by the rehabilitation of 'unrepentant' Boko Haram terrorists, fragmentation of military institutions, and complicity in cross-border arms movements. These acts do not only undermine internal peace and security but also perpetuate transnational terrorism in the Lake Chad region. The article, therefore, recommends a new peace agenda hinged on a hybrid of regional partnership on peace education and security cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion of strategic intelligence, namely with respect to leadership and business-oriented areas. Strategic intelligence is a researched concept that primarily concerns the collection and analysis of intelligence for policy and military planning, mainly at national and international levels, whereas this study of management and organizational decision-making application is an extension of that. This article's subject is the necessity for strategic intelligence, a crucial competence for leaders, managers, and companies striving to remain competitive, to be utilized and best leveraged in today's volatile and dynamic business contexts. This study follows a research design that includes a thorough literature review and bibliometric research, executed via VoSViewer, illustrating the concept of strategic intelligence from a leadership point of view as a driver of competitive advantage, enhanced by knowledge dynamics. Furthermore, this article points out that the limitations are acknowledged because the literature on the matter is limited, as strategic intelligence is relatively new to the business sector; moreover, more research is required to fully understand and use the potential of strategic intelligence in business growth. Overcoming these limitations and continuing to study the strategic intelligence concept could, on the one hand, use multiple platforms, such as scholarly articles or encyclopedias, and, on the other hand, support businesses in gaining a competitive edge and making informed decisions that can fuel their success in an ever-evolving market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a comparison between Romanian communist counterinsurgency (1944–1962) and similar campaigns fought by Western and Eastern governments in the early Cold War, in particular those waged by the British and French governments in their African, Asian and European colonies and those of the Soviet Union in its borderlands. The comparison focuses on three main components, population control, intelligence and military operations. Highlighting both similarities and differences across different cultural, economic, geographical, ethnic and political landscapes, the perspective laid out in this paper is an argument in favour of systematic and sustained comparative approaches to asymmetric warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The era of intelligent war is coming with the wide application of big data technology and artificial intelligence technology in military field. Based on the characteristics of intelligent war, this paper describes the challenges of traditional weapon equipment, and puts forward the development strategy of weapon equipment system under condition of intelligent war, it has certain practical significance to improve the system efficiency of weapon equipment and win the initiative of future wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Raven Sentry, a project that employed artificial intelligence to provide advance warning of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. During 2019 and 2020, the Resolute Support Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (J2) benefited from a command culture open to innovation, the urgency created by the US drawdown, and a uniquely talented group of personnel that, aided by commercial sector experts, built an AI system that helped predict attacks. The war's end cut Raven Sentry short, but the experience provides important lessons on AI and the conditions necessary for successful innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The A-Team: Why Heist-Comedies Are Unprofitable" is a 2010 action-adventure film directed by Joe Carnahan. The plot follows four American soldiers who are tasked with recovering stolen $100 bill-printing plates. After the plates are re-stolen and their commander is assassinated, the soldiers are put on trial and accused of collaborating with the thieves. They are later commissioned by a CIA agent to retrieve the plates and seek revenge. The film features A-list actors and includes explosive action scenes. The article also discusses the history of plate theft and counterfeiting, highlighting the unrealistic nature of the film's plot. Despite its absurdity, "The A-Team" stands out as a successful and funny heist film in a genre that often struggles to be profitable. [Extracted from the article]

Principle of distinction, one of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law dictates, that participants in hostilities at all times distinguish between civilian objects and military objectives, as well as between civilians and combatants. This article addresses the adequacy of the protection offered by the principle in the cyber domain. Great reliance of militaries on civilian cyberinfrastructure expands the range of military objectives to the systems which key civilian activities depend on. There are many unknowns in fulfilling even the simple conditions for the combatant status, as well as in regulation of civilian direct participation in hostilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic information operations (IO) have normally been viewed as an issue above the military level. Nevertheless, they are critical both in shaping the larger operational environment and in providing a strategic initiative short of war. As such, they are crucial for military strategists. Also, in most Western countries, the focus has been on defensive measures against opponents' IO efforts. Such a defensive mindset is unlikely to succeed. Some long-term patterns and lessons learned in IO provide a useful template for both defensive and offensive IO campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the preparation and conduct of reconnaissance operations in the area of the French commune of Aubérive using the example of two regiments of the 3rd Special Infantry Brigade of the Russian Expeditionary Forces in France. The common and unique features of the French front inherent in the activities of the Russian troops are highlighted. The basis of the research is a set of unpublished sources from the collections of the Russian State Military Historical Archive, the Bakhmetyev Archive of Columbia University (USA), the archive of the Russian Cultural Center (USA). The author notes that, despite the inconsistency of the actions of artillery and infantry, the raids were quite well thought out, this allowed not only to carry out a combat mission, but also to save personnel.

The success of deep-learning algorithms in analyzing complex structured and unstructured multidimensional data has caused an exponential increase in the amount of research devoted to the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine in the past decade. Public release of large language models like ChatGPT the past year has generated an unprecedented storm of excitement and rumors of machine intelligence finally reaching or even surpassing human capability in detecting meaningful signals in complex multivariate data. Such enthusiasm, however, is met with an equal degree of both skepticism and fear over the social, legal, and moral implications of such powerful technology with relatively little safeguards or regulations on its development. The question remains in medicine of how to harness the power of AI to improve patient outcomes by increasing the diagnostic accuracy and treatment precision provided by medical professionals. Military medicine, given its unique mission and resource constraints,can benefit immensely from such technology. However, reaping such benefits hinges on the ability of the rising generations of military medical professionals to understand AI algorithms and their applications. Additionally, they should strongly consider working with them as an adjunct decision-maker and view them as a colleague to access and harness relevant information as opposed to something to be feared. Ideas expressed in this commentary were formulated by a military medical student during a two-month research elective working on a multidisciplinary team of computer scientists and clinicians at the National Library of Medicine advancing the state of the art of AI in medicine. A motivation to incorporate AI in the Military Health System is provided, including examples of applications in military medicine. Rationale is then given for inclusion of AI in education starting in medical school as well as a prudent implementation of these algorithms in a clinical workflow during graduate medical education. Finally, barriers to implementation are addressed along with potential solutions. The end state is not that rising military physicians are technical experts in AI; but rather that they understand how they can leverage its rapidly evolving capabilities to prepare for a future where AI will have a significant role in clinical care. The overall goal is to develop trained clinicians that can leverage these technologies to improve the Military Health System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poland was the second-to-last country in the Soviet bloc to establish official relations with the PLO – only doing this in March 1976. However, mutual contacts date back to the late 1960s, when Polish military intelligence forged a top-secret relationship with the PLO based around the arms trade. Using a variety of archival sources, this paper seeks to re-assess the relationship between Warsaw and the PLO within the broader framework of Polish policy towards the Middle East from the time of the Six-Day War to the time of opening of the PLO Office in Warsaw in 1976. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AI-enabled systems are likely to inform future decisions to initiate war. They are well placed to manage data and deliver recommendations at speeds that far surpass human abilities. Yet, AI-enabled vision and knowledge, which inform military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance practices, curiously sustain both exposure and opacity. Machine learning algorithms are famously called black boxes even as they are in practice widening what we can see and know. While many call for greater algorithmic transparency to combat this technological opacity, I argue that this desire is misguided because it overlooks how algorithmic reason, which promises more precise knowledge and more efficient decision making, naturally conceals through political and socio-technical practices of in-visibility, anonymity, and fragmentation. Given how these practices will likely come to shape AI-enabled resort-to-force decision making, this article concludes with the suggestion that AI-enabled decisions are likely to undermine democratic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the sole plausible military threat facing Sweden, the Soviet Union and then Russia have consistently been at the top of Swedish intelligence collection priorities. In fact, understanding Russia and its military forces well is a source of pride and self-perceived comparative advantage of the Swedish intelligence community. This article contextualizes Swedish intelligence collection on Russia, including its Cold War antecedents and the persistent counterintelligence threat. It then describes Swedish intelligence reporting in anticipation of the war in Ukraine, including a reported misjudgement that Russia would ultimately not conduct a full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine in its entirety. This 'intelligence failure' was reportedly based on the assessment that Russia had assembled insufficient military capabilities to subjugate Ukraine, and that such an operation would be too risky and costly. Coming full circle in again beginning to focus mainly on great power competition and military capabilities in its near abroad, Swedish military intelligence has since reported valuable intelligence on Russian military capabilities, drawing on a combination of collection capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the complex international society, the economic development and defense construction of BRICS countries have attracted increasing attention. This article incorporates technological innovation, militarization, and environmental change into a unified analytical framework to assess the potential impact of technological progress and defense military expenditure on the environment in BRICS countries. Based on CSD tests, unit root tests, and cointegration tests, this study constructs a CS-ARDL model to examine the long-term and short-term relationships among various variables from 1990 to 2021. The results show that technological innovation, military expenditure, and economic growth can significantly increase ecological footprint in the long run, while in the short term, technological innovation and economic growth significantly increase ecological footprint, and the impact of military expenditure is not significant. It is suggested that BRICS countries should focus on supporting low-carbon technology policies and research and development investment, while also considering the use of cutting-edge technology to improve military intelligence capabilities in order to reduce the negative impact of technological innovation and military activities on the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Peking Gazette, as a widespread and effective medium for the dissemination of important information from the Qing government, played a significant role in the internal governance of the empire. In the 19th century, Western missionaries, diplomats, and businessmen in China respected the authenticity and authority of the content in the Gazette, and carried out large-scale translations of political, social, cultural, economic, and military-diplomatic information into English. Western transmission of the Peking Gazette to some extent promoted cultural exchanges between China and the West and also provided the Western powers, which were in a period of expansion, with a wealth of political and military intelligence. The internally focused Qing dynasty was initially unaware of the Western transmission of the Peking Gazette and later took a series of doomed measures, leading to severe damage to national information security and political safety. The historical lessons of the Qing empire are enlightening for countries worldwide today: there is a need not only for openness and transparency but also for balancing the relationship between information disclosure and national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies US-Italian 'stay-behind' cooperation between 1943 and 1976, when it was terminated, within the context of US covert anti-communist activities in Italy. The paper first provides an overview of the operational activities jointly conducted by the US and Italian intelligence between 1943 and 1947, while detailing the US penetrations of the Italian intelligence system and the early stages of development of a US covert network. Subsequently, it delineates the proliferation of US covert anti-communist networks in north-east Italy, the rise of S/B cooperation and its institutionalisation in the Gladio agreement, as well as the CIA pressures for 'offsets' in exchange for its financial support of the Italian S/B programme. In the third part, after analysing the temporary hiatus in US intelligence covert activities, the paper describes the decline and end of US-Italian S/B cooperation and the stepping up of covert operations by both the CIA and the US military intelligence. It demonstrates that Gladio did not occupy a central role in US covert operations against communism until 1976 and that CIA pressures on the Italian military intelligence represented an opportunistic attempt at maximising the 'return' on the financial investment in the Italian S/B programme. The article concludes by summarising the pattern of US intelligence activities in Italy in the period under scrutiny and the role of Gladio, and laying out implications for theory-development in the realm of intelligence cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship of analytic standards generally focuses on their application in strategic intelligence assessments. Yet analytic standards are underexplored in other environments, particularly tactical and operational military intelligence analyses. These environments challenge many assumptions that generally underpin the implementation of analytic standards, including multi-analyst quality control chains and a focus on rigor as the primary measure of quality. The US Air Force’s implementation of analytic standards offers an illustration of how such standards can be applied in military intelligence environments. To successfully employ analytic standards in tactical and operational intelligence environments, emphasis must be placed on accrediting analysts themselves as well as their output. The rigor-led model of analytic standards must also be broadened to give greater weight to other attributes of quality intelligence analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Application of AI and machine learning in different domains of defence system in increasing rapidly to bring automation and to facilitate all the benefits of modern technologies in military. This article conducts a scientometric analysis on articles that are on application of Ai and Ml in military equipment, military intelligence, cyber security, decision making, military operations, defence medical systems etc. This study has executed a search query on Web of Science for identifying peer reviewed current resources that are contributing to the application of modern technologies in military systems. With extensive query and filtering this study has identified 417 articles with in the period of 1991 to 2023. With analysing all the data, it determines that a lot of varied research is there on the defence system that promotes use of modern technologies in development of weapon, conducting strategic military operation, prioritising military society etc. Prioritising legal and ethical parameters. This study has also highlighted legal, and security concerns surrounding using autonomous systems in military applications. The authorship pattern, document types, country production over time, and most cited countries have also been studied. Bradford's scattering law was applied to identify the core journals, and Lotka's law to check authors' productivity patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]