What do you think?
Rate this book
Confronting The Colonies: British Intelligence And Counterinsurgency
Moving the debate beyond the place of tactical intelligence in counterinsurgency warfare, Confronting the Colonies considers the view from Whitehall, where the biggest decisions were made. It reveals the evolving impact of strategic intelligence upon government understandings of, and policy responses to, insurgent threats.
Confronting the Colonies demonstrates for the first time how, in the decades after World War Two, the intelligence agenda expanded to include non-state actors, insurgencies, and irregular warfare. It explores the challenges these emerging threats posed to intelligence assessment and how they were met with varying degrees of success. Such issues remain of vital importance today. By examining the relationship between intelligence and policy, Cormac provides original and revealing insights into government thinking in the era of decolonisation, from the origins of nationalist unrest to the projection of dwindling British power. He demonstrates how intelligence (mis-)understood the complex relationship between the Cold War, nationalism, and decolonisation; how it fuelled fierce Whitehall feuding; and how it shaped policymakers' attempts to integrate counterinsurgency into broader strategic policy.
Confronting the Colonies demonstrates for the first time how, in the decades after World War Two, the intelligence agenda expanded to include non-state actors, insurgencies, and irregular warfare. It explores the challenges these emerging threats posed to intelligence assessment and how they were met with varying degrees of success. Such issues remain of vital importance today. By examining the relationship between intelligence and policy, Cormac provides original and revealing insights into government thinking in the era of decolonisation, from the origins of nationalist unrest to the projection of dwindling British power. He demonstrates how intelligence (mis-)understood the complex relationship between the Cold War, nationalism, and decolonisation; how it fuelled fierce Whitehall feuding; and how it shaped policymakers' attempts to integrate counterinsurgency into broader strategic policy.
- GenresHistory
295 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
3 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Rory Cormac
12 books10 followersRory Cormac is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Nottingham. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a leading expert among a new generation of intelligence historians, he specialises in British covert operations and the secret pursuit of foreign policy.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 22, 2014
This book is an excellent piece of scholarship, but perhaps not one for the general reader. Cormac goes into some detail about the bureaucratic arrangements, and infighting, around the apex of the British intelligence machine that is the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Using a case study approach, Cormac evaluates the intelligence assessments the Committee made at the time. What I found very interesting was the way he suggested, that, where the analysts did not have intelligence on some areas, for the sake of coherence they simply used existing prejudices to fill the gap. So on Malaya the JIC initially perceived the uprising by Chin Peng as part of the great global communist conspiracy directed by Mao/Stalin, and denied local agency. It rather reminded me of Iraq - where of course British intelligence - as Butler shows - had very few sources - and just relied on existing prejudice.
Using a case study approach, Cormac evaluates the intelligence assessments the Committee made at the time. What I found very interesting was the way he suggested, that, where the analysts did not have intelligence on some areas, for the sake of coherence they simply used existing prejudices to fill the gap. So on Malaya the JIC initially perceived the uprising by Chin Peng as part of the great global communist conspiracy directed by Mao/Stalin, and denied local agency. It rather reminded me of Iraq - where of course British intelligence - as Butler shows - had very few sources - and just relied on existing prejudice.
Displaying 1 of 1 review