Technical intelligence
Technical intelligence is intelligence about weapons and equipment used by the armed forces of foreign nations. The related term, scientific and technical intelligence, addresses information collected or analyzed about the broad range of foreign science, technology, and weapon systems.
Technical intelligence
Technical intelligence is intended primarily to counter technological surprise. Knowledge of the characteristics and capabilities of enemy weapons allows nations to develop effective countermeasures for them. Occasionally, armed forces adopt technology developed by foreign nations. The jerrycan of World War II is an example of foreign equipment adopted by the US Army. Technical intelligence should not be confused with intelligence obtained "by technical means". That is a term of art used in discussion of disarmament to mean information gathered by various sorts of cameras, sensors, or other devices. Technical intelligence is the product: "technical intelligence—Intelligence derived from the collection, processing, analysis, and exploitation of data and information pertaining to foreign equipment and materiel for the purposes of preventing technological surprise, assessing foreign scientific and technical capabilities, and developing countermeasures designed to neutralize an adversary's technological advantages."Scientific and technical intelligence
Scientific and technical intelligence is "the analysis and production resulting from the collection, evaluation, analysis, and interpretation of foreign scientific and technical information that covers:- Foreign developments in basic and applied research and in applied engineering techniques;
- Scientific and technical characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of foreign military systems, weapons, weapon systems, and materiel; the research and development related thereto; and the production methods employed for their manufacture."
Technical intelligence process
The production of technical intelligence is a specialized intelligence art used to meet the needs of the armed forces and national intelligence consumers. A multiservice manual describes U.S. military doctrine for TECHINT. The technical intelligence process is divided into three areas—collection, exploitation and production.Collection of materiel and related documents
Chance plays an important part in the collection of foreign weapons and equipment. The collection phase typically begins when a soldier finds something interesting on a battlefield or a defecting pilot flies an aircraft to a friendly country. In a famous case, Viktor Ivanovich Belenko flew a Soviet Mig 25 "Foxbat" to Hakodate, Japan on 6 September 1976. The United States granted Belenko asylum and assisted in the dismantling of the aircraft so that it could be crated for return to the Soviet Union.Procedures have been established for development of scientific and technical intelligence requirements, i.e. wish lists, to guide systematic collection efforts. Materiel required may be obtained through any number of channels. For example, materiel may be obtained through commercial channels.
An attache might ask a foreign official for information about a piece of foreign equipment. Clandestine operations have been mounted to obtain critical enemy materiel. Probably the most expensive and most ambitious was the construction of Hughes Glomar Explorer by the Central Intelligence Agency to obtain the wreckage of Soviet submarine that sunk in the Pacific.
Exploitation (testing and analysis)
The exploitation phase includes various types of technical and operational tests. The services have well-developed procedures for testing various types of materiel. Testing often includes operating the item and non-destructive testing. The Air Force Historical Studies Office Webcontains an excellent account of the exploitation of Axis aircraft during World War II.
Production of finished intelligence
The production of technical intelligence includes preparation of a variety of reports and documents. TECHINT documents include a wide range of materials from brief messages and reports prepared in the field to extensive formal studies prepared by teams of researchers. During World War II the Army prepared technical manuals on certain items of enemy equipment; included information about enemy equipment in catalogs of enemy equipment and in handbooks about foreign forces; and published technical intelligence in various reports.Historical examples of field technical intelligence
A well studied failure of technical intelligence occurred during the Battle of Osan, the first major engagement of the Korean War, when the American led Task Force Smith was deployed from Japan to confront the Korean People's Army's southward advance, their anti-tank capabilities were six obsolescent M9A1 Bazooka rocket launchers, two M20 recoilless rifles, two 4.2 inch mortars, four 60 mm mortars, and six 105 mm howitzers armed with 1,200 high explosive rounds. All of the weaponry was insufficient to penetrate the armor of the Soviet built T-34 tanks. This failure is directly attributed to the first U.S. casualty of the Korean war.See Operation Biting for information on a British raid to capture German radar for technical evaluation. R.V. Jones was the leading World War II British expert on electronic warfare. He was one of the primary analysts of the Oslo Report.
US programs at the end of World War Two included Historical technical intelligence programs include Operation Paperclip, the general program directed at German scientists and engineers at the end of World War II. It is most often associated with rocket science.
Other contemporary efforts included Operation Alsos, focusing on nuclear science and engineering and Operation Lusty, devoted to aerodynamics.
Use of enemy material in the field
Troops involved in technical intelligence operations have used knowledge of foreign material to put enemy equipment to use. For example, Army troops used German military telephone wire and medical supplies to aid civilians in France during World War II.Similarly, Joseph E. Smith, who edited Small Arms of the World in the 1960s, reported that the U.S. Army captured a large supply of German mortar ammunition in France during World War II. It was discovered that the German ammunition could be fired from US mortars. Troops in the field prepared a firing table for the American mortar firing German ammunition by test firing the German ammunition.
Collection techniques at the national level
In contrast with tactical technical intelligence, national level science and technology information tends to come less from capture of foreign equipment, and more from HUMINT or creative business relationships. There are some national-level attempts to salvage foreign equipment, such as Project Azorian, a complex and clandestine attempt to recover a sunken Soviet submarine.Scientific and technical espionage
The US Economic Espionage Act of 1996 criminalizes two kinds of activity, which may be done either by foreign powers for makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. To some extent, the act addresses an international problem, but not all countries regard unauthorized technology transfer as illegal, when done for commercial purposes. Technology transfer that involves militarily critical technologies are more commonly a matterThis law contains two provisions criminalizing two sorts of activity:
- Theft of trade secrets to benefit foreign powers
- Theft of trade secrets for commercial purposes
Violation of export controls may overlap with information acquisition, or the exported equipment or materials may themselves be things difficult for the offending country to produce.
According to the US National Counterintelligence Executive, 108 countries tried to obtain US technology in fiscal year 2005. Most of the effort, however, centered around a small number of countries. NCIX named China and Russia among this small number, "just as they have since the CI Community first began systematically tracking foreign technology collection efforts in 1997." By no means, however, is the US the only target, nor are China and Russia the only countries trying to obtain such information. In 2003, Sweden expelled two Russian diplomats over accusations of spying at Ericsson, a major electronics manufacturer whose products include avionics for Swedish Gripen fighter aircraft. Even more sensitive, however, is scientific and technical information-gathering by allies, such as Japan, France, and Israel.
Efficiency of espionage activities
Porteous raises a question of the efficiency of commercially oriented, economic, scientific and technical espionage. He observes that some claim intelligence obtained through economic espionage would be "tactically useless" for a number of reasons. Typically, the barriers to potential efficiency are related to an intelligence agency's lack of knowledge of the subject area and to problems associated with the dissemination of intelligence once acquired. These arguments tend to come from individuals who at the same time argue for or accept the need for government to defend against economic espionage engaged in by other governments. It is difficult to support these points simultaneously: if economic espionage is "tactically useless", it is similarly useless to foreign governments that practice it, and thus need not be defended against.He counters the argument that "lack of direct knowledge of a certain business or its technology has been cited as a significant obstacle to intelligence services engaging in economic espionage. Yet during the Cold War, intelligence services spent significant amounts of time and energy, with some success, trying to obtain intelligence on various complex military technologies of which the case officers would not have had a profound knowledge. If intelligence services were trusted to obtain such information, a shift of focus to complex commercial technologies and intelligence would not be unthinkable. The same techniques used to obtain military secrets could be turned to complex commercial technologies or strategies without too much difficulty."
Another efficiency argument deals with the security of dissemination to industry. National characteristics will be different here; industry-government partnerships, for example, are far more routine in Japan than in the United States. US consortia have been open to foreign firms, and many have shut down, such as the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation and the Corporation for Open Systems networking. Some, such as the Open Software Foundation merged with other groups and wound up being international.
Porteous observed "the existence of means to reduce dissemination difficulties will not erase them. Problems will inevitably arise. Those countries considering engaging in or expanding their practice of economic espionage would be well-advised to consider the alleged experience of France in this area. It has recently been suggested that the embarrassing release of information indicating French intelligence service targeting of American companies, which triggered an American boycott of the Paris Airshow, was the work of disgruntled French firms. The companies responsible for releasing the material to the press apparently were unhappy with what they saw as the tendency of the French intelligence service, Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, to favour some French firms over others in distributing material obtained through economic espionage. The incident reportedly cooled relations between the DGSE and certain elements of French industry.