|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.166n-166o; Richelson 1990, p.186).Photographic intelligence provides high-resolution images of Earth's surface but is impeded byclouds, sandstorms, and vegetation.The passive form is therefore complemented by the use of radar-imaging satellites, such as the American Lacrosse, which produce lower-resolution images but areunaffected by night and fog and can penetrate trees and even buildings.Orbital lasers open yet otherpossibilities (AWST 1997b).Besides cameras and radar, modern intelligence employs a broad range of sensors for measurementand signatures intelligence (MASINT), which seeks to characterize objects or events by their observablecharacteristics and to detect or analyze them by combining information from various sensors.In thelate 1940s, the United States began collecting atmospheric samples and testing them for radioactiveisotopes in an attempt to discover nuclear tests.It was this technique that made the US aware of theSoviet Union's successful test of a nuclear weapon before it was announced.At about the same timean Air Force activity named Project Mogul sought to listen for the sounds of nuclear explosionspropagating along the boundaries between layers of the atmosphere.7For decades, the Sound Surveillance Underwater System (SOSUS) has tracked the movements ofsubmarines and other ships by means of arrays of microphones lying on the ocean floor.In the 1960s, afamily of satellites called Vela-Hotel were put in orbit to watch the earth for nuclear explosions.These satellites exemplify the "signatures" aspect of intelligence, distinguishing nuclear events from otherphenomena such as lightning flashes or meteor impacts by characteristics more subtle than thebrightness of the flash.8 More recent satellites called simply Defense Support Program (DSP) satellitesalso watch for the infrared signatures that characterize the exhaust plumes of rising ballistic missiles.Satellites were only one part of the wider Vela program for detecting nuclear explosions.Anotherimportant element was seismographic.An array of seismometers called NORway Seismic ARray(NORSAR) was placed at a location geologically coupled to the area in which the Soviets conductedtheir nuclear tests.Seismic measurements served to verify compliance with a treaty limiting the yieldsof underground nuclear explosions.Measurement and signatures intelligence can be viewed as a refined form of operations intelligence.It seeks out one or more subtle but unavoidable consequences of an event and infers the occurrenceand character of that event from the observed phenomena.Its efficacy depends not only on thesensors but on the computing required to draw useful inferences from the data they produce.Another aspect of modern intelligence that leans heavily on inference may be called technicalintelligence.As the term suggests, this is the study of an opponent's technology, but the emphasis inthis case is on inferences drawn by simulating or duplicating technologies whose existence has beeninferred from observations or from information provided by human sources.The British Office ofScientific intelligence made extensive use of such methods during World War II to improve itsunderstanding of developing German weaponry.Accounts of its work convey a novel perspective inwhich the reports of human agents were essentially regarded as rumors to be confirmed or refuted bytechnical means (Jones 1978; Johnson 1978).The various means of gathering intelligence are far from independent.This is true both in the sense thatthe boundaries are not sharp (it is sometimes difficult to pigeonhole something as photographicintelligence rather than imaging intelligence) and in the sense that frequently information obtained byone technique may be useful or even indispensable in acquiring information by another technique or ininterpreting the information acquired by another technique.9Signals Intelligence and Communications IntelligenceWe have surveyed a variety of forms of intelligence in an attempt to convey the breadth of modernintelligence work.No one intelligence method exists in a vacuum, and the intelligence analyst drawson information from a wide variety of sources.It is within this context that we now turn to the formof intelligence with which we are most concerned [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
Archiwum
|