C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

47NATO’s most important troop-contributing nations were prepared for the war in Bosnia, and whetherUNPROFOR was able to rely on intelligence support from NATO or from individual troopcontributingnations. Consideration will be given to the associated problems and the attempts made toovercome them. Section 5 presents the conclusions to this chapter.2. The Western intelligence mindsetPublications and interviews indicate that officials of Western intelligence services were confronted witha problem that was recurring and difficult to solve: the general attitude and state of mind with respectto intelligence after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The international intelligence community traditionallyhad an East-West mentality. The technical infrastructure was also mainly East-West oriented. Theintelligence image of the former enemy built up by NATO over these years was ‘relatively’ simple: thepolitical and military policy of the Soviet Union and its allies was reasonably stable, as was the militarydoctrine of the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact. For example, if Western intelligence services hadlocated a regiment of soldiers, it was generally not particularly difficult to trace the other regiments thattogether formed a larger unit. This was also true of the location of the Soviet missile forces and theSoviet air force and navy. This intelligence image had been built up since 1950 mainly by means oftechnical gathering methods, which led to the Human Intelligence (Humint) activities being neglected:after all, it was no easy matter to set up good penetration operations behind the ‘Iron Curtain’. Theresultant neglect of Humint in the Western intelligence services may have played an important role inYugoslavia.This tendency had been prevalent in the United States since the 1970s. This was to plague theAmerican intelligence services in Bosnia, because it proved to be a Low Intensity Conflict (LIC), inwhich technical resources often performed inadequately. In a low intensity conflict, Humint is one ofthe most important sources of intelligence. In 1976, only thirteen per cent of all American intelligencewas gathered from Humint, and only one seventh of the total Intelligence budget was devoted to it.During the period of Stansfield Turner (the director of the CIA between 1977 and 1981), even less wasinvested. In the 1980s, the US intelligence community realized that, in spite of their impressivetechnical capabilities, Humint could still play an important role in some areas. One such issue was thepolitical intentions and the attitudes of politicians and soldiers. 187William Casey (the director of the CIA under President Reagan) was a particularly greatsupporter of the expansion of Humint. This form of intelligence was relatively inexpensive, and moresuitable for gathering difficult-to-obtain political intelligence on the intentions and the attitude ofleading foreign officials. Furthermore, Humint operations made it possible to gather documents orinstall sensors. These factors among others led the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the CIAto devote more attention in the 1980s to Humint, which had until then been neglected.It would take until 1993 before the United States Assistant Secretary of Defense would resort tofounding the Defense Human Intelligence Service, which came to reside under the DIA. It was only on1 October 1995 that this Service was officially activated by the DIA and it was even later, on 12September 1996, that the Service was declared fully operational. 188 The Defense Human IntelligenceService would therefore play no significant role during Dutchbat’s stay in Srebrenica.The lack of effective Humint was not the only factor that hindered the services. The completemindset of Western military and intelligence personnel had often been influenced strongly by the yearsof threat from the East. The fact that the conflict in Yugoslavia was of a different nature did not stop189these officials from viewing the conflict in the ‘old’ way. Furthermore, certain developments were toocomplicated for them to understand. That was particularly true of the ever-changing alliances in187 Bobby R. Inman, ‘spying for a Long, Hot War’, The New York Times, 09/10/01.188 Becker, Cold war, pp. 12-19.189 For this topic see also: Roger Hilsman, ‘After the Cold War. The Need for Intelligence’, in: Eisendrath, National Insecurity,pp. 8-22.