Henry A. Crumpton
Autore di The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service
Opere di Henry A. Crumpton
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Crumpton, Henry A.
- Nome legale
- Crumpton, Henry A.
- Altri nomi
- Crumpton, Hank
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Nazione (per mappa)
- USA
- Organizzazioni
- Central Intelligence Agency
Utenti
Recensioni
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 2
- Utenti
- 364
- Popolarità
- #66,014
- Voto
- 3.4
- Recensioni
- 7
- ISBN
- 6
Al Qaeda’s leaders, Crumpton replies, hate globalization. They hate the Westernization of their society. They hate the weak position they are in vis-a-vis American hegemony, and they particularly hate Muslim rulers who allow western culture to creep into and destroy the Muslim world.
It retrospect, and in the context of what we see in America today, aren’t we almost listening to verbatim what Americans hate about globalization? These are the same arguments we get from the rust-belt unemployed, from the religious right, and from the rural minority.
There is resentment and to some degree envy of those whom they perceive have taken away their money, their jobs, and their security. There is little analysis though as to why Americans gave their jobs away, or who was ultimately behind the success of China and the other tigers of Asia. And this isn’t a critique of Crumpton’s book. It is a critique of America today.
I almost feel as though the poison Osama bin Ladan spread in the Muslim world has now poisoned the American electorate to its core.
Was 9/11 a threat to American hegemony to the same degree as, say, globalization, or climate change?
By numbers of Americans directly affected you’d have to say no. You’d have to admit that America over-reacted to the external terrorist threat, or at least they over-reacted if indeed Al Qaeda was as easy to defeat as they seemed to be.
Had Al Qaeda or even ISIL been as successful at recruiting as, say, the US Marines, it would have been a whole different story.
The meat of this story is Crumpton’s assignment as leader of the counter-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan in the runup to the full invasion of Afghanistan by the American-led coalition. It is a compelling and an instructive story.
Crumpton feels he owes the success of the mission to America’s Afghan allies, to the extraordinary dedication and skill of America’s CIA operatives he sent into Afghanistan, and to no small degree their ability to apply evolving technologies to a new type of warfare.
This is a book about the critical role intelligence will play in wars to come, and I can’t fault Crumpton for his assessment, even if his cheerleading gets a little under my skin.
Crompton also makes a fair point in the change of threats between state and non-state actors. At the time of his writing — and today for that matter — there are no state actors who pose an existential threat to the US. Not China. Not Russia. Not N. Korea.
In the case of 9/11 the passengers of United Flight 93 saved people who were the target of that flight whereas the US government didn’t save anybody that day.
Non-state actors are not only threats, they are the source of resilience in the attacked party.
The role of private actors in counterintelligence was growing back then. Today, with the rise of Google, facebook, and Twitter it is a major preoccupation.
And as we have learned with the Snowden revelations, people are volunteering their intelligence as a group and as individuals to the state actors all the time.
… (altro)