Intelligence History

In Counterstrike, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker of the New York Times tell the story of how a group of analysts within the military, at spy agencies, and in law enforcement has fashioned an innovative and effective new strategy to fight terrorism, unbeknownst to most Americans and in sharp contrast to the cowboy slogans that characterized the U.S. government's public posture.

In Artificial Unintelligence, Meredith Broussard argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. We are so eager to do everything digitally - hiring, driving, paying bills, even choosing romantic partners - that we have stopped demanding that our technology actually work. Broussard, a software developer and journalist, reminds us that there are fundamental limits to what we can (and should) do with technology.

In a thrilling dramatic narrative, awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents.

John A. Gentry and Joseph S. Gordon update our understanding of strategic warning intelligence analysis for the 21st century. Strategic warning - the process of long-range analysis to alert senior leaders to trending threats and opportunities that require action - is a critical intelligence function. It also is frequently misunderstood and underappreciated. The authors examine historical case studies, including postmortems of warning failures, to provide examples of the analytic points they make.

This is not a novel. This is not a historical account. This is, in fact, the training manual of the S.O.E in World War 2... and not little excerpts (like some authors offer...) this is the whole manual; over 500 pages! This document was the official training manual for every allied spy and counter-espionage agent in World War 2. Written by the S.O.E. (M.I.6), it was soon picked up and used by the American OSS (the originators of the CIA). In great detail, it describes such subjects as Explosives, Fieldcraft, Cyphers, and Propoganda. Great care has been taken to deliver the manual in its ...

The highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is at it again. A quarter century ago, in his international bestseller Red Horizons, Pacepa exposed the massive crimes and corruption of his former boss, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, giving the dictator a nervous breakdown and inspiring him to send assassination squads to the U.S. to find his former spy chief and kill him. They failed.

It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.”

Drones are transforming warfare through the use of artificial intelligence, drone swarms, and surveillance - leading to competition between the US, China, Israel, and Iran. Who will be the next drone superpower?

In the early hours of February 25, 1968, a Russian submarine armed with three nuclear ballistic missiles set sail from its base in Siberia on a routine combat patrol to Hawaii. Then it vanished. As the Soviet navy searched in vain for the lost vessel, a small, highly classified American operation using sophisticated deep-sea spy equipment found it - wrecked on the sea floor at a depth of 16,800 feet, far beyond the capabilities of any salvage that existed.

The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice - a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.

As the digital era becomes increasingly pervasive, the intertwining forces of computers and espionage are reshaping the entire world; what was once the preserve of a few intelligence agencies now affects us all. Corera's compelling narrative takes us from the Second World War through the Cold War and the birth of the Internet to the present era of hackers and surveillance. The book is rich with historical detail and characters as well as astonishing revelations about espionage carried out in recent times by the United Kingdom, the United States, and China.

Under the aegis of machine learning in our data-driven machine age, computers are programming themselves and learning about - and solving - an extraordinary range of problems, from the mundane to the most daunting. Today it is machine learning programs that enable Amazon and Netflix to predict what users will like, Apple to power Siri's ability to understand voices, and Google to pilot cars.

As robots are increasingly integrated into modern society - on the battlefield and the road, in business, education, and health - Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times science writer John Markoff searches for an answer to one of the most important questions of our age: Will these machines help us, or will they replace us?

Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the "smart" in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence. In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail - human-level intelligence.

Brandon Webb has run life-threatening missions in the world's worst trouble spots, whether that meant jumping out of airplanes, taking down hostile ships on the open sea, or rolling prisoners in the dead of night in the mountains of Afghanistan. As a Navy SEAL, he learned how to manage the natural impulse to panic in the face of terrifying situations. As media CEO and national television commentator, he has learned how to apply those same skills in civilian life.

Antonio Mendez and his future wife, Jonna, were CIA operatives working to spy on Moscow in the late 1970s, at one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War. Soviets kept files on all foreigners, studied their patterns, tapped their phones, and even planted listening devices within the US embassy. In short, intelligence work was effectively impossible. The Soviet threat loomed larger than ever. The Moscow Rules tells the story of the intelligence breakthroughs that turned the odds in America's favor.

Despite incredible political, military, and intelligence risks, and after six years of secret preparations, the CIA attempted to salvage the sunken Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 from the depths of the North Pacific Ocean in early August 1974. This audacious effort was carried out under the cover of an undersea mining operation sponsored by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

In Spymaster's Prism, the legendary former spymaster Jack Devine details the unending struggle with Russia and its intelligence agencies as it works against our national security. Devine tells this story through the unique perspective of a seasoned CIA professional who served more than three decades, some at the highest levels of the agency.

From Tim Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, an urgent and gripping account of the 75-year battle between the US and Russia that led to the election and impeachment of an American president.

In the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist - those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy? Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know.