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The Army's Need: A Relevant LIC Environment

01 January 1991

The Army's Need: A Relevant LIC Environment
artdoc August=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.

Statewatch no 3 July/August 1991