Intelligence and Military Operations

The late Michael Handel was an outstanding teacher of military art and military intelligence. "Intelligence and Military Operations" is a collection of excellent essays presented at a 1990 US Army War College symposium, as edited by Handel for publication. Handel's introductory essay sets an honest, no frills tone for the topics that follow. He sets military intelligence in its proper context in war and especially in relation to operations. Handel makes no pretense that intelligence by itself wins wars. His narrative convincingly demonstrates that the proper use of intelligence make superior armies more efficient and provides small but agile armies a potentially battle-winning edge. The book includes two essays on the use of military intelligence in the American Civil War, two more for the First World War, and a total of seven essays on the Second World War. The various authors are subject-matter experts and the quality of the essays is uniformly quite high. This reviewer especially enjoyed John Ferris' essay on the use of intelligence by the British Eighth Army in the Western Desert, 1940-1942. Ferris documents the struggle of British forces to effectively apply their undoubted advantage in strategic intelligence to campaign planning and tactical battle management, against a tactically proficient and audacious German Afrika Corps. Eighth Army had to grow both a tactical intelligence architecture and commanders who could integrate intelligence into their operations. "Intelligence and Military Operations" is very highly recommended as an outstanding introduction to the subject for students of intelligence and of military art. It is long overdue for reissue and well worth acquiring whether new or used.

The book is very well written and researched. It uses specific examples in history to support the authors view of how intelligence effects military operations. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in understanding how intelligence helps or hinders military operations.

This is a collection of case studies and essays on the use of intelligence by field commanders. It consists of papers from a series of international conferences held at Carlisle, Pa, from 1985 to 1988. Like all works monitored or written by this compiler, a professor at the Army War College, it is thoroughly researched and full of sound judgements prepared by many of the leading scholars of twentieth intelligence history. Frank Cass, the publisher is noted for quality studies produced for the specialist and scholar. The volume was originally a special issue of the journal Intelligence and National Security. It is intended as part of a series of thematic texts.Belongs on the shelf of every serious researcher of the uses of intelligence.