The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism

As much an autobiography as a text on the sequel to the Cold War, Count de Marenches' The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism underscores the theory that efficacious intelligence addresses current problems of criminal insurgency including acts of terrorism, asymmetric warfare, and low intensity conflict and suggests possible solutions. It introduces the notion that the Cold War, an East-West conflict has been transformed into a South-North War fueled by the `pressures of population, hunger, disparate religious beliefs, historic prejudices, and hatreds' that results in criminal insurgency. Consequently, a new paradigm (Certain Destruction as opposed to Mutually Assured Destruction) may be developed that could assist practitioners and academics alike in analyzing, solving and managing the threat. By shifting the perspective for both military and civilian forces from their traditionally reactive stance, to a proactive posture, and merging national security with homeland defense on the most perplexing issues and threats facing U.S. security, this work may provide a base upon which new and actionable policies can be designed. As a career intelligence officer and former head of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Count de Marenches perceptively warns that public administrators take seriously the lessons from past failures. The single most important supposition being, sound policy is reliant upon good intelligence. "We have many weaknesses that terrorist organizations, through their flexibility, are repeatedly able to exploit. One key weakness is that we continue to think of defense fundamentally in national terms, whereas terrorism operates in an international or global context, moving at will across frontiers, choosing targets carefully where opportunity presents itself rather than for any specific nationalist end." P. 199.

Very interesting book years ahead in talking about the troubles we now face. I would assume this would be brought back out given the state of the war on terrorism. Ok so he does not have a boatload of facts, but that was in 1992 - look at what has happened over the past 10 years. He comments were right on. There are lost of interesting stories from Africa to Europe and central Asia. This book provides a look into the French intelligence agency that for me a new given that most books in the area deal with the CIA, MI5 or the KGB. If you read this book you will be talking about it to your friends for weeks after you have finished it. The book is written well and keeps moving, it does not get bogged down in "the French are the best" hyperbole.