War - Intelligence

[BLUEHAWK]

"Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda", by: John Keegan, Knopf publisher.

(excerpts from review, THE WEEK magazine, Dec 5, 2003))

"How much does intelligence matter in war? Not as much as spy novelists and the CIA would have you think, says British Historian, John Keegan. Providing case studies from Admiral Nelson's mad pursuit of Napoleon across the Mediterranean to the Battle of Midway, Keegan concludes that while intelligence is useful in combat, 'it is force, not fraud or forethought, that counts.'...

Keegan believes the war on terror 'will require the services of tidbit gatherers more in the mold of Kipling's Kim than Fleming's Bond.' It may take decades, he writes, before Western spooks learn to infiltrate al Qaida-like organizations, 'and even longer to marginalize and neutralize them.' "