This week's forum is designed to facilitate discussion and understanding about the intelligence failures the United States has experienced in the past 20 or so years. Most of these failures were caused by one of the many foreign intelligence agencies we have been discussing. Or have they? Perhaps they were just caused by inept Intelligence analysis, or just plain bad luck... You decide.

Pick one of the many failures and discuss why/what you think were the causes of this failure. Believe me there have been many so enjoy the project. Perhaps by discussing this you may be able to think of alternatives on how they could have been avoided. This will likely give you an alternative way of considering foreign intelligence directorates. Have they been more successful than the United States? Or they also experiencing many of the same failures that we have experienced.

Again, choose an intelligence failure the United States has experience in the past 20 or so years, and tell us why you feel it was a failure...

What about Iraq, AFG, Benghazi, missed terrorists, Curveball, etc...you have plenty to choose from...

Remember, keep it at least 250 words, at least five different sources from your own research, and at least two responses to fellow students.

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Since this week's assignment requires students to apply the key facts and concepts of either the North Korean or Cuban intelligence organs, this week's lecture is going to provide some " pointers" (in the form of questions) to ensure you're paper has addressed all of the required areas.  Where are the key facilities located within your regional area that could be surveilled?  -Air, land, and ground military installations to include headquarters, main garrisons, or remote outposts.  -Political centers such as legislative bodies where politicians meet.  How can military and political facilities be monitored? -Direct observation (HUMINT)? -Signals Interception (SIGINT)? -Aerial observation (GEOINT)?  What Open Sources can be monitored and what information can they reveal?  -Radio stations -Television stations -Print Media What type of cyber collection can be leveraged to collect intelligence?  -Internet resources -What networks could theoretically be targeted?  Could individuals be targeted to provide information? If so, how could they be recruited? -Military personnel -Political officials -Sympathizers -Aerial observation (GEOINT)?  Do you have " sleeper cells" capable of being activated to support your collection requirements?  Can you infiltrate additional assets in order to support your increased collection requirements?  What specific intelligence organizations would you target to complete the above taskings? If you have questions about the various Intelligence Collection techniques take a look at the videos below describing both OSINT and HUMINT. These are the two techniques that students tend to not understand. If you have difficulty understanding the rest I suggest you do some research on the subjects. OSINT - Open Source. HUMINT- Human collection techniques such with the CIA's specialty. SIGINT- Signals collection techniques such as with the NSA's specialty. GEOINT- Aerial observation. IMINT- Imagery and Photograph observation.