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

51Another problem was that good (not to mention military) maps were hard to come by. It wassometimes necessary to work with Michelin, ADAC or Hallwag maps, which were available from travelagents or motoring organizations. Standard maps with a scale of 1:50,000 were not available in theshort term. What is more, the maps produced by the Vojska Jugoslavija (VJ, the Army of the FederalRepublic of Yugoslavia) sometimes led to great confusion. The VJ had actually used a ‘different datumpoint than any other military in Europe’. As a result, grid references used by military and intelligenceunits on a Yugoslav map were different from those on a comparable European map. ‘An eight figuregrid reference, plotted on a Yugoslav map would be about 600 to 700 metres away from the exact gridreference plotted on a European or American produced map of the same area’, according to a Westernintelligence official who worked at UNPROFOR headquarters in Zagreb and elsewhere in the region. 207The Western intelligence community therefore came up-to-speed ‘slowly’ and had variousteething problems in the area of Sigint, Humint and Imint. One might have expected that collaborationwithin NATO, as well as bilateral agreements, would have been able to compensate for thisshortcoming in the first instance. It would also have been a reasonable assumption that the exchange ofintelligence would have been intensified. The reality, however, was different.3. The problems surrounding intelligence liaison in Western intelligence servicesAs Michael Herman states in his study: the international intelligence liaison is often ‘a patchwork ofbilateral and multilateral arrangements of all kinds and all degrees of intimacy’. 208 One might add that itmay also even hinge on the personalities involved. The responsibility for the coordination of thegathering and exchange of intelligence in the matter of Yugoslavia was not precisely defined in theWestern intelligence and security services. Something was done in a NATO context, but, as mentionedin the previous chapter, contrary to what is commonly believed, NATO has no independentintelligence capacity. The treaty organization does not itself indulge in ‘intelligence tasking andcollection’. 209 The only system for this purpose belonging to NATO is the AWACS reconnaissanceaircraft. The NATO intelligence section is completely dependent on the input from the member states,and more closely resembles a unit for intelligence sharing. Internally it consisted of various smallerareas, such as the sharing in the areas of anti-submarine warfare, Sigint, Imint and Elint. A furthercomment in this context is that the main focus of attention was the Eastern bloc: almost everythingwas taken as read about the Orders of Battle and the military doctrines. In this respect it was difficult tospring any surprises on NATO. 210Intelligence liaison between friendly states, even within a treaty organization that has existed forfifty years, cannot therefore be taken for granted. The extent to which services recognize shared riskapparently influences intelligence liaison. Liaison is not something that automatically arises fromalliances of many years’ standing. Even in an ideal coalition, during the Gulf War, there was a deluge ofcomplaints in this respect. It was not just the European allies of the United States that complainedabout the uncooperative American attitude to sharing intelligence. Even American and British troopsfrequently complained about the slow dissemination and poor quality of the intelligence that actuallycame from their own national intelligence services and was intended for them. 211 One should add thatthis was frequently a technical issue, hinging on available systems for dissemination. The systems forrapid dissemination was usually very complex, very expensive, and prone to difficulties of various sorts,especially in a deployed field environment. These systems included effective inputs, fluid analysis anddissemination and maintenance of a robust, reliable communications system. Not just a collection ofradios: such systems hinged on people, satellites, ground systems and national policies. Many national207 Confidential collection (3).208 Herman, Intelligence, p. 203.209 See also: NMFA, PVNAVO, Deputy HPMV to A, 21/10/96.210 J.R. Kassing, ‘De NAVO en inlichtingen’ (‘NATO and intelligence’), Militaire Spectator, Vol. 170 (2001) 11, pp. 604-612.211 Andrew Rathmell. ‘Privatising intelligence’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. XI (1998) 2, p. 208.