This is the first book to offer the best essays, articles, and speeches on ethics and intelligence that demonstrate the complex moral dilemmas in intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. Some are recently declassified and never before published, and all are written by authors whose backgrounds are as varied as their insights, including Robert M. Gates, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John P. Langan, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown (...) University; and Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and recipient of the Owens Award for contributions to the understanding of U.S. intelligence activities. Creating the foundation for the study of ethics and intelligence by filling in the gap between warfare and philosophy, this is a valuable collection of literature for building an ethical code that is not dependent on any specific agency, department, or country. (shrink)

An introduction to ethical reasoning -- Comparative religious perspectives on war -- Just and unjust war in Shakespeare's Henry V -- Anticipating and preventing atrocities in war -- The CIA's original "social contract" -- The KGB: CIA's traditional adversary -- Espionage -- Covert action -- Interrogation -- Concluding reflections.

Abstract This paper explores brutality and torture in the history of British counter-insurgency campaigns. Taking as a pretext the British government's announcement in January 2012 to scrap a judicial review into the rendition and torture of UK citizens at Guantanamo Bay by American intelligence operatives with the complicity of British intelligence agencies, the paper posits that the actions this review was supposed to evaluate are not restricted to counter-terrorism. By examining the historical usage of interrogation methods by the British in (...) counter-insurgency campaigns against suspected IRA members in the first decade of the ?Troubles? in Northern Ireland, this article builds a wider frame of reference for the recent controversies surrounding the treatment of detainees during the British occupation of southern Iraq. Although the detention and interrogation of suspects in counter-insurgency campaigns is a necessary security measure, the oft-heralded British adherence to ?minimum force? is heavily mythologised given the prevalence of the brutal treatment of detainees. Considering the detrimental impact (in an ethical, legal and security context) that the existence of torture during detention and interrogation had in these cases, the article upholds an absolutist position on the prohibition of torture. (shrink)