Module Identifier IP33320  
Module Title INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY  
Academic Year 2002/2003  
Co-ordinator Dr Peter D Jackson  
Semester Intended for use in future years  
Next year offered N/A  
Next semester offered N/A  
Course delivery Lecture   15 Hours (15 x 1 hour)  
  Seminars / Tutorials   6 Hours (6 x 1 hour)  
Assessment Semester Exam   2 Hours   60%  
  Semester Assessment   One 2500 word essay   40%  
  Supplementary Exam   Students may, subject to Faculty approval, have the opportunity to resit this module, normally during the supplementary examination period. For further clarification please contact the Teaching Programme Administrator in the Department of International Politics.    

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module students should be able to:
- state what is meant by key terms in intelligence studies
- identify the factors influencing the development of modern intelligence communities
- analyse the differences and similarities in the way intelligence is used as a mechanism of regime control in democracies and authoritarian political systems.
- analyse the role of intelligence in international affairs through to 1945
- evaluate the methodological and historiographical problems inherent to the study of intelligence
- identify the problems that stand in the way of effective intelligence assessment in the twentieth century.

10 ECTS Credits

Brief description

This module explores concepts, themes and issues connected to the role of intelligence in international relations through to the end of the Second World War. It combines many of the conceptual or theoretical approaches adopted by political scientists with a survey of the historical evolution of professional intelligence communities in international society.

Aims

The aim of the module is to examine how increasingly professional intelligence communities evolved after 1870 and examines their changing relationship to political authority. It also addresses the role intelligence played at both the domestic and international levels. A final aim is to provide students with an introduction to the changes and continuities in the way intelligence was gathered, analysed and used in policy-making during the period in question.

Content

Intelligence has been described as the ‘missing dimension’ in the study of international affairs. Yet the period since 1870 has witnessed the development of permanent and professional intelligence agencies within the government bureaucracies of most states. In recent years, intelligence studies has emerged as a significant field of scholarship, casting new light on key events and issues related to decision making and political culture. Yet, at the same time, the study of intelligence faces considerable methodological challenges. An examination of the role of intelligence in national security policy making from the Napoleonic era to the end of the Second World War in 1945 will allow students to analyse the different ways in which intelligence has functioned as a ‘force multiplier’ both in peacetime and in wartime. The course will look at the way permanent intelligence services evolved in an age of mass armies and increasingly professional military establishments. It will also consider the role of security services in political oppression in both democratic and authoritarian regimes from Britain, France and the United States to Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Emphasis throughout will be placed on the political character of all intelligence work and the problems this presents for the effective management and analysis of both ‘open’ and ‘secret’ information. The overall effect will be to challenge students to think critically about the role intelligence plays in both domestic and international politics and to provide a new perspective on key events in the international history of this turbulent period.

Transferable skills

Students have the opportunity to develop, practice and test a wide range of transferable skills that help them to understand, conceptualise and evaluate examples and ideas. Throughout the module, students should practice and develop their reading, comprehension and thinking skills, as well as self-management. In lectures students develop listening and note taking skills, as well as analytical skills. In seminars students enhance their analytical skills and practice listening, explaining and debating skills. Students are expected to providean analysis of one reading over the course of the module. This exercise provides students with an opportunity to refine presentational skills and gain confidence in speaking in front of their peers. Essay writing encourages students to practice independent research, writing and IT skills, and the examination tests these under time constraint conditions.

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
Michael Herman. (1996) Intelligence, Power in Peace and War. Cambridge
Michael Handel. (1987) War, Strategy and Intelligence. London