OPSEC Manual

One of the misconceptions about national-security intelligence is that the more highly classified the information, the greater its value. If information wasn't collected clandestinely at great risk to agents and case officers, well, it just can't be particularly valuable. At least, that's what the espionage writers would have us believe. Reality is considerably different.

What the United States finally came to realize in Viet Nam was that observables, things anyone could see without resorting to espionage, could often reveal military strategies and tactics as effectively but at much less risk than an agent-in-place.

For a fascinating insight into the not-so-shadowy world of operations security (OPSEC), defending observables from an adversary's observational acquisition of them, see Intelligence Threat Handbook published by the Interagency OPSEC Support Staff.

Chapter headings include:

Title, Overview, the changing nature of the intelligence environment

Foreign Espionage, the "classical" method of targeting the United States: Russian intelligence organizations; A different approach to targeting the United States, Chinese intelligence collection

Economic Intelligence

Computers and the Internet

Intelligence Collection Disciplines

Selected Supplemental Intelligence Service Information including Russian Federation, People's Republic of China, Cuba, North Korea

The Economic Intelligence Act of 1996

Finding Information and Assistance

Selected Readings

Footnotes