7 theory.11 He points to Russia as an example, saying while it may maintain a large intelligence service, it is not an affluent nation.12 Johnson’s conceptual framework seems to suggest an observable correlation exists between a nation’s wealth and the size of its intelligence community. If this is true, further research is necessary to test Johnson’s assertion that national wealth, GDP, determines the limits of intelligence activity.
While most authors tend to focus
intelligence issues such as oversight, democratic control, and the significance of 9/11, Johnson’s assertion is measurable in quantitative terms.
His assertion is not only
quantitative but free from cultural biases. The next section reviews existing comparative studies of intelligence, which are predominately qualitative in nature.
Comparative Studies in Intelligence There are several ways existing comparative studies describe different intelligence systems. The first section here describes intelligence in the context of the Cold War, the second section describes intelligence through the lens of the Civil-Military Relations (CMR) model, and the third section describes intelligence from the nonwestern perspective. Common themes exist throughout all three sections, for instance, all of the authors use a case-study format to compare intelligence systems. Each case-study uses narratives and qualitative information to describe intelligence communities – another theme in all three sections – and also tend to focus on research at the national level. There are several reasons to conduct comparative studies of intelligence communities. According to Peter Gill, conducting comparative studies allows one to “find out about 11
Loch Johnson, “Bricks and mortar for a Theory of Intelligence,” Comparative Strategy 22, no. 1 (2003): 15. 12 Ibid.