Pakistan's inter-services intelligence directorate: covert action and internal operations

摘要

There is a lack of scholarly research about South Asian intelligence compared to the vast literature about American and European intelligence agencies. The reasons for such a limited body of scholarship include legal mechanisms in India and Pakistan that limit discussion of intelligence due to national security concerns and because neither country has a process to declassify their secrets. Despite these clear obstacles, Owen L. Sirrs' book explores Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, tracing its history from a small counter-intelligence organization to the most powerful Pakistani government agency with policy and security roles. As the first academic monograph about the ISI, Sirrs writes 'an in-depth study of ISI is essential to understanding Pakistan itself, especially its national security policy and historical attempts at sustained democratization' (p. 3). More than just a foreign intelligence and covert actor, ISI has immense domestic influence. He finds that ISI's 'vast powers pose a formable obstacle to the long-term viability of Pakistani democracy,' but any attempts at reform would be met with resistance from the military (p. 7). Sirrs challenges the myth that ISI is a 'rogue' agency and he offers preliminary ideas for reforming the ISI and curtailing its significant domestic power to encourage a stable democracy.