The Military Thread

No.

As we never had a foreign intelligence agency, Finnish military intelligence used to recruit Soviet citizens and send them back as spies. The best spies are just regular people.

edited 18th Feb '17 11:07:03 PM by TerminusEst

AP: Trump's plan for spike in defense spending faces big hurdles

edited 18th Feb '17 11:43:13 PM by FluffyMcChicken

You don't actually hire spies, you hire intelegence officers and they recruit assets and sources. The other guys are spies.

Also keep in mind that the CIA is heavily militarised and operates almost like the old special operates groups from World War Two. Most intelegence agencies don't kill people or anything fancy like that, they just gather information by making contacts and getting them to have over information that they already have access to.

Military intelegence is however an entirely separate thing from intelegence services, military intelegence is more tactical and strategic, while actual intelegence agencies focus largely on the political and economic nowadays.

All of this varies heavily from country to country.

Anyway all of this reminds me of Sidney Reilly:

Isn't the Special Activities Division (combat field operations) its own fiefdom within the CIA itself?

edited 19th Feb '17 1:03:00 AM by FluffyMcChicken

That would be the Directorate of Operations.

The SAD is split into Special Operations Group (paramilitary operations) and Political Action Group (psyops, cyber etc.).

edited 19th Feb '17 1:08:45 AM by TerminusEst

SAD and other HUMINT parts of the CIA are nowhere near as powerful as the media loves to make them out to be.

For all of you who went to BASIC RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP in US Army basic:

Do they Recruit Teenagers with Attitude?

NATO Funding Target: U.S. Pressures Germany to Increase Defense Spending

They should just take a leaf out of the Pentagon's playbook and waste 25 billion a year through inefficient administration.

And then waste even more money maintaining useless military bases.

Well the problem is that they're incapable of wasting it.

This is true.

They should give us the leftover money. We'll waste it for them.

@ Silasw

And I'd take you don't use the intelligence officers themselves to infiltrate an enemy country's military?

Then how come the Israeli Mossad were the ones to assassinate Herbert Cukurs?

Then what about if the intelligence gathering is done by one agency under the military, like the Republic of Ireland's Directorate of Military Intelligence?

Normally you use disgruntled/blackmailed/compromised members of the target's military to do the actual infiltration and spying.

Spying is the best reason not to treat people like crap.

Then there's the whole "being gay" feedback loop.

Randomly, how often does this scenario happen: "sir, I did [awful thing X], for which Y are blackmailing me. I have come to face the consequences of my actions rather than further betray my organization. Would you like me to tell them I accept, and then feed them bad intel?"

edited 20th Feb '17 6:16:29 AM by TheHandle

x3

Intelligence officers enter a country and attempt to persuade people to give them information, recruiting them as assets. They're not infiltrators, unless you count living under a cover.

Regarding assassinations and sabotage, paramilitary divisions are explicitly that: paramilitary. This is not a typical function of an intelligence agency. Mossad, CIA, FSB/SVR, DGSE and others have divisions that explicitly have SOF training, and are better considered as such. Due to having foreign contacts and other shady connections, an intelligence agency can quite well facilitate an assassination, but it is carried out by specially trained people. You will notice that the countries that do such activities have commonalities in their history.

In the end, every country works differently regarding its intelligence duties. The KGB was a single agency, but was massive and some departments were more independent than others. Sometimes it's resources, sometimes simply tradition.

edited 20th Feb '17 6:42:38 AM by TerminusEst

Thanks

New question, though I may have asked before, for which I apologize: For a country with multiple tanks of the same type, when do you use Tank A, and when do you use Tank B? For China, while they have their Type 69/79s for training nowadays, what about their Type-59s, Type-96s, and Type-99s?

Generally the other tanks exist only as long as it takes to replace them. Once that's done they get relegated to target practice or sold off to smaller nations.

But what about in combat?

Depends on what the situation is, what your resources are and what you intend to do.

The Soviet T-54/55, T-62, T-64, T-72 and T-80 mess might give you an idea.

In combat you use the best you've got first wherever possible.

Those T-72s and T-80s, up armored and heavily modified though they may be, are only getting used if the Russians can't field T-90s for whatever reason.

In time, they will be retired and replaced by T-90s outright. The only reason they're used at all is because they haven't finished replacing them. There's no higher strategic purpose to it.

edited 20th Feb '17 8:12:05 AM by LeGarcon

So, there has been some grumbling regarding the Canadian Forces unionizing (this is currently illegal). One op-ed highlights issues like pension/benefits screw ups, a sexual harassment epidemic, and a lack of mental health services (and a spat of suicides). There's also the issue that most of Canada's security apparatus (first responders, Border Services, Coast Guard, police) are unionized or have the option to unionize. And finally, unions tend to brings benefits that are needed to attract recruits, which considering that the military no longer needs high school grads (they need people with degrees that can go further in the private sector) and we have something of a recruitment shortage......

http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/unionize-caf-1.3988971

How have unionized troops performed historically anyway? Still, I think this would result in a lot of backlash, and probably a messy fight. I can't see DND ever raising the issue.

Since the FDF (including conscripts) are employees they have their own unions. There's really nothing special about it, they simply act as guarantees.

edited 20th Feb '17 9:25:07 AM by TerminusEst

How are FDF unions organized?
And on the note of heterodox practices, what did militaries that elected their officers experience?
I assume those practices stopped for a reason, but the only ones I know of are the US Army of the Civil War and the Red Army during their civil war. I can't find writing criticizing or praising on either.