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12 February 2023 (Monday)
The Handbook of Asian Intelligence Cultures
Book Review
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - Though the book was published in 2022, I felt The Handbook of Asian Intelligence Cultures (Rowman & Littlefield) needed a belated introduction to my readership.
Part of the Scarecrow Professional Intelligence Education Series, the 380-page book is a bit steep as a hardback (US $140), but the paperback/eBook editions are reasonable at roughly US $40.
The book covers every nation from Central Asia to East Asia with a mix of truly amazing scholars with both boots-on-the-ground experience and academic acumen. However, there are some misfits in the list of contributors who had no business writing about the countries they were assigned.
Many of the authors have intelligence backgrounds in the military or civilian government sectors and it is those that make this an extraordinary volume.
However, caveat emptor, a few of the chapters, including the one on Taiwan by Hon-min Yau, have material that appears identical from government websites despite the impressive scholarly endnotes.
Yet even in these few cases, this does not mean the data is not correct.
The chapter on Singapore by intelligence historian Alexander Nicholas Shaw left me wanting. You learn nothing about Singapore’s intelligence operational activities/operations in Asia or the Orwellian internal surveillance state’s mechanics. I am still waiting for someone with real balls to write the ultimate volume that X-rays Singapore’s intelligence apparatus. It probably will never happen. The only man to come close was Tim Huxley’s Defending the Lion City: The Armed Forces of Singapore (2008), but even Huxley bit his tongue (he lived in Singapore as the Asia director of the UK’s International Institute of Strategic Studies that throws the biggest military conference in Asia: the Shangri-la Dialogue).
The chapter on North Korea seemed poorly researched, and I half hoped the author, Joseph Fitsanakis, was actually a nom de guerre of the legendary Joseph Bermudez, now at CSIS in Washington (Bermudez wrote numerous books on North Korea, including one on their special operations units). But no, no luck there, instead we get stuck with a former comic book writer. I had half hoped, in my greedy, vain, and egotistical way, that Fitsanakis had footnoted my book on North Korea, but nope. Fitz should go back to graphic novels.
Hans Lipp did a piss poor job on his chapter on Laos. Lipp, in the About the Contributors section, is a travel writer who focuses on tourism geography. In the footnotes, he goes so far as quoting from the long-discredited 1991 edition of the 634-page mush of Alfred McCoy’s Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (which was the second reissue since 1972 at 464 pages; reissued again in 2003 to include the Taliban at an outrageous 709 pages of non-sense). While writing my book Spies and Provocateurs: A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Persons Conducting Espionage and Covert Action (1992), I forced myself to read the 1991 edition and then I did what I swore I would never do - burn a book.
“Pakistan: The Multidimensional Culture of the Inter-Services Intelligence” by Nasir Mehmood is basically a good chapter on the ISI. Yet it would been interesting to know what Mehmood knew about ISI’s complicity, if any, in Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. Mehmood used numerous anonymous sources, which is something over the decades I have done to safeguard my sources identities, so no ill will on my part.
Scott Edwards’ chapter on Malaysia could have been better. I recommend the publisher contact Dzirhan Mahadzir, who previously worked for Jane’s in Malaysia, for a better researcher/writer in the next book series planned. Edwards’ chapter is too like other “death by footnotes” authors in this book, even though he did footnote Mahadzir only once.
I must salute Mark Briskey on his chapter on Indonesia. His boots on the ground experience can only be compared to Ken Conboy’s series of amazing books on Indonesian intelligence and military. Briskey has my respect.
My highest recommendations and salutes go to Matt Brazil (China), Sameer Patil and Arun Vishwanathan (India), extra kudos to Hai Thanh Luong (Vietnam), Abdulla Phairoosch (Maldives), and great elucidation by Jargalsaikhan Mendee and Adiya Tuvshintugs (Mongolia).
And because I am fascinated by the -stans, check out Michael Yerushalmi (Tajikistan), Evrim Gormus (Uzbekistan),and Réjeanne Lacroix (Kyrgyzstan/Turkmenistan).
There is one mystery about one co-author of “Thailand: From Cold War Intelligence to Cyber Surveillance” by Michael Landon-Murray and Dao Henry. The only thing we know for certain is Dao Henry had worked as a “criminal investigator for the U.S. Federal government” in the past and “she” was either a current or former student of Landon-Murray. Transparency, in my opinion, is necessary, unless Dao Henry is working in U.S. intelligence as a clandestine intelligence operator/officer (thus protected by U.S. Public 97-200), or Dao Henry has no credentials worth mentioning (which I doubt). There should be more than just a small paragraph about her in the About the Contributors. There could be a third option, if anyone has one, please let me know.
I could find nothing about Charlie Lizza who wrote “South Korea: The Outsize Influence of the National Intelligence Service” beyond his King’s College London alma mater. The chapter is a good review, but no depth. I could have recommended a few other books for his footnotes, which were absent, but my highest advice is Robert Boettcher’s Gift of Deceits: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park and the Korean Scandal (1980). And having lived in South Korea in the late 1990s, I doubt the Korean intelligence service’s bureaucratic culture has changed despite renaming the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) every time there is a scandal.
I am also confused why Agnes Venema was chosen to write “Timor-Leste: An Intelligence Culture Developing and Overcoming Politicization”, even if it was solid research, there was no evidence she was an expert on the topic beyond her overall human rights research. Venema’s actual specialty is far more interesting. She focuses on the intersection of security, technology, and law via the use of emerging disruptive technologies (EDTs). I highly recommend reading her article “Deepfakes as a Security Issue: Why Gender Matters” in Women in International Security (2020).
EDTs are about the only thing that truly scares the hell out of me.
For your elucidation, this is the list of countries profiled with additional hyperlinks added:
Afghanistan: The Graveyard of Intelligence Empires by Owen Sirrs
Bangladesh: Intelligence Culture and Reform Priorities by ASM Ali Ashraf
Bhutan: An Intelligence Culture amid Regional Geopolitics by Praveen Kumar
Brunei: A Royal Intelligence Culture by Ryan Shaffer
Cambodia: Intelligence Mission—Regime Security by Paul Chambers
China: The Fearful Intelligence Culture by Matthew Brazil
India: Managing Challenges in an Evolving Security Environment by Sameer Patil and Arun Vishwanathan
Indonesia: Intelligence Culture in Turbulent Times by Mark Briskey
Japan: The Rise, Fall, and Reinvention of the Intelligence Community by Richard J. Samuels
Kazakhstan: A Circular Revolution in Intelligence Culture by Elizabeth Van Wie Davis
Kyrgyzstan: Seeking Stability in a Complex Region by Réjeanne Lacroix
Laos: Intelligence Culture with Internal Threats and External Actors by Hans Lipp
Malaysia: Between Untenable Intelligence Tradition and Unrealized Reform by Scott Edwards
Maldives: Connections between Intelligence Culture and Oversight by Abdulla Phairoosch
Mongolia: Democratization and Intelligence by Jargalsaikhan Mendee, Adiya Tuvshintugs, and Julian Dierkes
Myanmar: Security through Surveillance by Prem Mahadevan
Nepal: A Developing Intelligence Culture by Bishnu Raj Upreti
North Korea: An Agile and Adaptable National Intelligence System by Joseph Fitsanakis
Pakistan: The Multidimensional Culture of the Inter-Services Intelligence by Nasir Mehmood
The Philippines: Knowing, Hurting, and Intelligence Culture by Amador IV Peleo
Singapore: Developing Intelligence Power from Third World to First by Alexander Nicholas Shaw
South Korea: The Outsize Influence of the National Intelligence Service by Charlie Lizza
Sri Lanka: The Evolution of an Offensive Intelligence Culture by Rohan Gunaratna and Bodhana Perera
Taiwan: An Intelligence Community in Constant Transformation by Hon-min YAU
Tajikistan: Post-Soviet Intelligence Culture in a Fractured State by Michael Yerushalmi
Thailand: From Cold War Intelligence to Cyber Surveillance by Michael Landon-Murray and Dao Henry
Timor-Leste: An Intelligence Culture Developing and Overcoming Politicization by Agnes E. Venema
Turkmenistan: Analysis of an Enigmatic Intelligence Culture by Réjeanne Lacroix
Uzbekistan: Political Economy of the Intelligence Services by Evrim Gormus
Vietnam: Intelligence-Led Policing Culture at the Borderland by Hai Thanh Luong