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The Army's Need..

01 July 1991

Motley International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, vol. 4, No. 3, (Fall 1990). An interesting discussion of changes taking place in American intelligence. With the growing importance of Third World countries as the battlefields of the future in which the US army may find itself, the intelligence community has to reorganize its priorities and way of thinking. The US increasingly relies on high-tech electronic intelligence gathering facilities, whereas the real need is more down-to-earth human intelligence. Greater efforts are needed in recruiting and organizing agent networks in the Third World, working both on the local governments and on guerilla or dissident forces. With illicit narcotics trafficking identified as a major threat to US national security by former president Reagan and several African intelligence services reportedly cooperating with the KGB in their countries in attempts to steal US secrets abroad, the need for more intensive (counter)intelligence operations in both Latin America and the African continent has been given a greater priority. Over the last three years, several authors and military operators have advocated the advancement of US interests abroad through intensified covert action programs.