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30 September 2007
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:58:16 -0500
To: intelforum[at]lists101.his.com
From: IntelForum Mailing List <intelforum[at]lists101.his.com>
Subject: [Intelforum] IntelForum BookExchange (Ratcliff) - Complete
Dear members of IntelForum,
Below is the complete record of the IntelForum BookExchange with Dr. R.A.
Ratcliff, author of Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra and the End
of Secure Ciphers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Sincerely,
Mike Dravis
Moderator, IntelForum
# # #
Question #1 (M. Dravis): Dr. Ratcliff, thank you for participating in the
launch of our new I.F. feature, "IntelForum BookExchange." A good place
to begin understanding a book is with the title (we are taught not to judge
a book by its cover, so at least by implication the title is fair
game). What does your title mean? Specifically, what are the "delusions
of intelligence?"
Answer #1 (R. Ratcliff): Thank you for choosing Delusions of
Intelligence for IntelForum's first author discussion. This book
attempts to open a new chapter in an ongoing debate and I look forward to
your questions continuing the discussion.
The book's title refers to the Germans' delusions about both their own and
their enemy's intelligence. With the title's play on words, I'm also
poking a bit of fun at the German intelligence officers, many of whom really
could not imagine even decades later the breadth and brilliance of the Allied
success.
"Delusions" refers to several false beliefs that the Germans held.
These beliefs centered on their "intelligence" -- both the kind of secret
information gathered and produced by militaries, and their own general mental
ability.
The Germans deluded themselves that:
1. Their own secret information was secure and invulnerable, although they
clung to an outmoded encryption system (Enigma);
2. Their intelligence on the enemy was correct and extensive, although
they hardly even attempted to crack Allied high-grade ciphers;
3. Their intelligence reports remained secret and secure, although
this information traveled on a decade-old system (again, Enigma) and they
knew the enemy was using a more sophisticated system. Moreover, the
Germans found themselves more and more frequently surprised by the enemy
and they kept losing -- losing breaks into crypto-systems, losing information
sources and losing battles;
4. Their own mental abilities (or, as one of them put it, their
geistige Arbeit) surpassed that of their enemy, so that they could
assume the enemy incapable of anything they themselves did not accomplish.
These delusions allowed German intelligence officers to avoid facing the
problems in their cipher system and their intelligence organizations.
So, although the book offers the Allied perspective as a comparison, the
primary argument focuses on these Delusions of Intelligence.
= = =
Question #2 (M. Dravis): You have listed four major false beliefs -- or
"delusions" -- held by the Germans. What were the origins of these
delusions? Can they be attributed to a central tenet of the Nazi regime,
namely the inherent racial superiority of the Germanic peoples? Or
were German attitudes and actions of the World War II period governed by
pre-Nazi views of Germany's cultural, and therefore technical, superiority?
Contrariwise, was the most important factor prosaic: simple bureaucratic
inertia (the sentiment that what is being done is the best that
can be done)?
Answer #2 (R. Ratcliff): The answer actually is all of the above.
The views expressed by officers such as Captain Heinz Bonatz clearly stem
from pre-Nazi conditions. Many made a clear distinction between
intellectual and merely technical work, conceding to the enemy possible,
even probable superiority in the technical arena, but not the intellectual
one. Germany's intellectual achievements in the 19th century "from
Kant to Gauss" remain influential today, and I can only speculate that that
historical reputation fed wartime beliefs in German intellectual
superiority.
The emphasis of the Third Reich on the racial superiority of Germans
certainly exacerbated these tendencies. Because German military men
-- especially those in intelligence -- believed they and their staff were
superior to the enemy, they could convince themselves that whatever they
were doing was the best that could be done.
Bureaucratic inertia also contributed to the complacency in German
intelligence. By dividing responsibilities rigidly and hierarchically,
Germans allowed themselves to put aside whole areas of inquiry as "not my
responsibility" or even "that's what my subordinates are for, so I don't
need to know about it." Because few questions were asked at the top
-- and pressure under Total War conditions was acute -- change had no advocate
and came seldom.
= = =
Question #3 (M. Dravis): The success or failure of intelligence systems must
be judged on various levels such as the bureaucratic level (which
you have assessed in your previous response) and the leadership
level. In his landmark two-volume study Hitler (W. W. Norton,
1998 and 2000), Ian Kershaw describes a personalization of government functions
under which Nazi party and state officials were at all times "working towards
the Fuehrer." In other words, subordinates endeavored to follow the
stated or presumed aims of the dictator. In this regard, how active
was Hitler in setting German intelligence policies and practices? Does
Kershaw's model of "working towards the Fuehrer" accurately capture the
relationship between German intelligence and Hitler? Ultimately, was
Hitler more victim or instigator of Germany's "delusions of
intelligence?"
Answer #3 (R. Ratcliff): The intelligence agencies could be seen as "working
towards the Fuehrer" because their practices paralleled Hitler's views.
However, my research suggests the Fuehrer's interests served more as complement
than driving force. His demands reinforced the military's own long-standing
priorities. Thus, his contribution appears to have been more passive
that active. Hitler, himself, had little interest in the enemy's intentions
or strategy. Since he believed in his own military genius and intuition,
he requested primarily tactical intelligence, that is, information on the
enemy's position, Order of Battle, weaponry and the like. With this
information, he planned the grand strategy, largely ignoring the enemy's
own long term strategy.
Nonetheless, Hitler did influence German intelligence practices. Certainly
not a victim, he could be seen as a co-instigator of German intelligence
delusions. Intelligence officers certainly showed some ideological
tendencies. They all, for example, echoed Hitler's relatively positive
view of Britain, in comparison to, for example, Russia. Their belief
in the wiliness of the British secret service kept them looking for human
spies rather than tackling the weakness of their own crypto-systems.
The intelligence agencies also mirrored Hitler's disinterest in strategic
information and preference for field and tactical information. They
could have emphasized long-term goals. However, given their minimal
interest in long-term intelligence, they naturally focused their limited
resources on those areas they believed would bring them the most
success.
Generally the archives suggest intelligence officers spent less energy "working
towards the Fuehrer" than competing against their fellow services.
In short, the strongest shapers of military attitude and practices in
intelligence came from the military's past rather than from Hitler, but the
two often complemented each other.
= = =
Question #4 (M. Dravis): Professor F.H. Hinsley, lead author of the official
history of British intelligence during World War II, rejects the notion that
Allied intelligence -- specifically "Ultra" (intercepted radio messages)
-- by itself won the war. Nevertheless, Hinsley concludes that Ultra
intelligence made a vitally important contribution by shortening the
war. Hinsley argues that without Ultra and the victories it helped
bring about, the Allies would have had to postpone the invasion of Normandy
from June 1944 to sometime in 1946 (see Hinsley, "Introduction," in
Codebreakers, ed. F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp [New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993], pp. 11, 12). Based on your research, would you hazard
a similar counter-factual estimate, namely: Had they not suffered from "delusions
of intelligence," how much longer could the Germans have staved off defeat
in World War II? Without their delusions of intelligence, could the
Germans even have won the war?
Answer #4 (R. Ratcliff): Once they declared war against both the U.S.S.R.
and the U.S.A. within the space of six months, the Germans faced nearly certain
defeat -- eventually. The immense size and miserable climate Russia
offered might have sufficed to devastate the German army within a few
years. Once the U.S. production capability turned as with a single
mind to the machines of war, feeding not just the U.S. military, but Russia's,
Britain's and other Allied forces, the question became how long Germany could
hold out against increasingly powerful opponents.
I agree with F.H. Hinsley that Ultra shortened the fight, particularly by
giving Eisenhower the knowledge and the confidence to launch the Normandy
assault on June 6th. We know now that the subsequent new moons of that
summer had storms that would have made such a channel crossing virtually
impossible. Without their stubborn belief in Enigma's security, the
Germans would not have provided so much valuable information to the western
Allies and might have prevented the Normandy invasion.
However, Enigma played far less of a role on the Eastern Front. The
Russian war machine, finally well-supplied with materiél and tactical
intelligence, would have rolled into Berlin rather later than Spring 1945,
but probably no more than a year later.
Had the Germans NEVER trusted Enigma and instead followed best practices
in cryptology so that the Poles and then the British could never have broken
into the system, Britain might have been defeated -- or at least invaded
and occupied -- before the U.S. could come to her aid. Without Britain
as a staging area and launching pad, the U.S. would have not been able to
launch the large amphibious assaults necessary to open fronts in the
Mediterranean and Western Europe. Nonetheless, the U.S. could have
fought through the U.S.S.R. In short, Enigma opened a big chink in
Germany's suit of armor, but bringing two rising powers into the battle ripped
the armor open from end to end.
= = =
Question #5 (M. Dravis): Finally, your book is about World War II, a period
when intelligence played a vital role. Today, in an international
environment characterized by the "war on terror," intelligence is again at
the forefront. Does your study provide any "lessons" or insights that
can be applied to improving the quality of intelligence in the fight against
terrorism?
Answer #5 (R. Ratcliff): Although the fight against terrorism clearly differs
considerably from that in World War II, the Allies' success against a formidable
opponent offers some valuable lessons about shaping effective, nimble, and
responsive intelligence organizations.
Bletchley Park did an excellent job of balancing secrecy with judicious
dissemination of the big picture so that the staff could connect their work
with the agency's ultimate goals. Allied intelligence certainly did
not catch everything -- not particularly the surprise of the German 1944
attack in the Ardennes forest. However, by laying out the big picture
and framing questions broadly, Bletchley's leaders encouraged workers at
various levels to make connections and suggestions that led to more and more
Enigma nets being read. This penetration of networks left less and
less room for the Germans to launch surprises.
By comparing the German collapse in sigint with the Polish, British, and
American successes, we can see how environment shapes individuals: their
performance, individual initiative, curiosity, and creativity become stymied
when they are discouraged, penalized or highly regimented. The Germans
did not have inherently worse people than the Allies did in intelligence
operations. They did, however, have a less effective system, one that
eventually excluded many people who might have helped in cryptology and that
discouraged the very initiative and creativity that might have punctured
the illusion of Enigma's security.
The German case demonstrates how insular systems encourage "group think,"
that is, rewarding and reinforcing thinking that supports the status quo
while discouraging, isolating and discounting any ideas or questions that
challenge the group's assumptions. Thus German naval intelligence officers
could not even believe the word of a man working in the U.S. Navy office.
They convinced themselves that Enigma signals could not be the source of
their losses and this agent's statements about how the U.S. was reading U-boat
signals had to be incorrect.
We cannot allow similar rigid thinking to creep into our approach to
intelligence. Should allegations of U.S. groupthink be true, then our
intelligence would naturally have suffered greatly. In our current
struggle against terrorism, we need the creativity, adaptability and initiative
that come from a group diverse both in experience, perspective and
worldview. We must actively encourage such a group to search for inventive,
often unorthodox solutions to the emerging problems terrorists present.
Sticking to safe, familiar people, methods and ideas will not advance our
understanding of terrorist strategies or our ability to counter them.
I hope the exchange of ideas in places like this IntelForum helps spark the
insights and inventions that will improve the quality of U.S.
intelligence. Thank you for asking me to participate in the BookExchange
and may this be the beginning of a long and successful run for the project.
(M. Dravis): Dr. Ratcliff, thank you for participating in the inaugural
IntelForum BookExchange.
[End]
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