National Security and Economic Intelligence

Economics is a very important part of national security.  So it is reasonable to use economic intelligence for both strategic and tactical purposes.  You can see an example of economic intelligence in the paper "Economic Intelligence" by Paul W. Howerton.  Here is a link to a PDF file Economic_Intelligence_by_Paul_Howerton.pdf. It is an old file that has been declassified.  Economic Intelligence is vital for our nation in many aspects.  One example is that Germany lost World War I and the German people were shocked.  They felt betrayed because they had not lost a battle, so how could they lose the war? They lost because of economics.  Some Germans believed they were betrayed and blamed the Jewish people.  These examples establish the importance of economic intelligence.

An example of tactical economic intelligence from page 10 in the PDF file of "Economic Intelligence" is "markings analysis." To assess German tank production during WWII, a technique called markings analysis was used.  When industrial products are manufactured, they are marked with serial numbers or lot numbers.  Paul Howerton discusses this technique was used and compares marking analysis to other approaches.  If you want to prepare to work in the National Security Council, you should understand economic intelligence.

Robert

PS:  "Economic Intelligence" by Paul W. Howerton is a gem.  You should read it.  It is only 18 pages long.

This blog post is part of a series on National Security.  The rest of the articles in this series are listed in  National Security Council Part 1,  June 11, 2018