Human Intelligence
Supporting Composite Warfare Operations in Africa
By Eeben Barlow
ISBN 9781928359890
Blue Weaver 2023
Soft cover / 444 pages, Colour and black & white photos and illustrations
Faced with numerous challenges resultant from intelligence inertia, information overload, agenda-driven intelligence, and so forth, African military intelligence organisations must revisit the art of HUMINT. It remains a vital prerequisite to know and understand a challenger, an enemy, or a threat. Without intelligence, adjustments and corrections to strategies and operational designs cannot be made. Without it, the armed forces will be unable to discover the strategic or operational intent of the hostile forces.
African military intelligence organisations currently face a deficit when it comes to the approaches to and collection of intelligence-information by human sources. These organisations must reassess how they are posited and become more forward-looking, pre-emptive, and action orientated and with a deeper operational reach. For defensive, offensive and containment reasons, the role of humans as collectors of intelligence-information must be more aggressively pursued.
Covering topics such as understanding the role of military intelligence, HUMINT operations in Africa, intelligence tradecraft, and combat intelligence in support of Composite Warfare operations, this book is both a valuable contribution and guide to African military intelligence organisations and their trainers. It ought to be on every intelligence officer’s bookshelf.