les carnets de clarisse

Eeben Barlow, le fondateur de la défunte SMP Executive Outcomes, a lancé son blog le 14 novembre 2008: Eeben Barlow’s Military and Security Blog.

« I never thought I would find myself having a blog but since the publication of my book Executive Outcomes –Against all Odds, the feedback I got from across the world made me realise that a blog might be a good way to give some insights into the current situation. [...] I shall rather focus on defence and security issues at hand and particularly in Africa and the Middle East and give my opinion and thoughts on what is happening.» 

Les articles sont précis et enrichis par de nombreux commentaires. Les sujets principaux portent sur ses domaines de compétence (renseignement militaire, concept stratégique et tactique, planification, Afrique, SMP, contre-insurrection).

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Renseignement militaire

Importance du renseignement en opération

Feeding intelligence process
Understanding intelligence

Extraits :

« Intelligence failures are not necessarily only due to the poor identification and exploitation of sources but also due to a lack of knowledge on the target area and the peoples who reside there.
Intelligence failures can also be the result of arrogance and a belief that the opposing forces are unsophisticated, untrained and therefore unable to wage war effectively.» 

« As far as I am concerned, a successful operation is one that achieves the mission and satisfies both the strategic and the tactical concepts. Developing the strategic concept is one thing but trying to develop the tactical concept with little or no intelligence is a folly many commanders have succumbed to.
But having information/intelligence is also not enough to achieve the mission. The neglect of real-time intelligence bmo reconnaissance teams is all too often shrugged off in favour of some unworkable, failure-prone, quick-fix approach. This act of silliness can be traced back to a poor doctrine – or gross arrogance.» 

« Intelligence ought to be one of the prime sub-actions a PMC carries out once it enters a hostile or conflict area. Without intelligence, it will not know what to expect in the area, which locals are hostile, what the language/religious distribution of the population is and so forth. Nor will it know the local customs and traditions of the peoples in the area – something that can cost it dearly.» 

Une histoire non-officielle du BFSS-BOSS (South African Bureau of State Security):

Demise of intelligence service

Eeben Barlow a déniché un livre écrit par Pieter Swanepoel, un ancien du BOSS et du National Intelligence (NI), Africa’s late Intelligence Service (And something about the CIA). Le livre est disponible uniquement auprès de l’auteur: pietswanepoel@gmail.com

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Afrique

« I believe that only Africans (Black and White) can truly solve Africa’s problems.» 

The coming battle for Africa

« Living in South Africa, I watch with morbid fascination at how the US and China are racing to recapture Africa – the US with AFRICOM and China with business development and investment. Africa, despite its many problems, is increasingly becoming of more strategic interest and importance to both the US and China.» 

Has the war on drugs been lost?

« Latin America, Africa and the Far East are becoming increasingly active in the drug trade, these “products” making their way to the US and Europe. Just how much of the proceeds from this crime are being invested into terrorism is not officially known. But, it is known that the illegal weapons trade makes use of the same routes, possibly indicating a larger involvement of terrorist organisations.

South Africa and West Africa in particular are becoming progressively more open to the illegal drugs trade and currently act as major transit routes. Senegal in particular has been targeted by Columbian drug lords due to its well-developed transport and telecommunications networks. Ironically, we know it, speak about it and yet do nothing.»