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Book review: Bob de Graaff ed., Intelligence Communities and Cultures in Asia and the Middle East: A Comprehensive Reference

Document Cited in Related
AuthorAidan Parkes
Published date01 August 2022
Date01 August 2022
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221098510
358 Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 9(2)
their economic objectives well above sectarian divisions that generally characterise
their broader regional policies (p. 341). This reviewer, however, believes that it is
an aberration rather than a norm in a region as volatile as the Middle East and
North Africa. Although being home to almost as many people like the European
Union, it is still the world’s least economically connected region, according to the
World Bank.
That being said, Cold War in the Islamic World serves as an excellent primer
on Iran–Saudi rivalry for diplomats, policymakers, students and researchers
interested in learning more about the issues that are seldom discussed in the
mainstream media. With its focus on Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic, the
book’s major highlight is its ability to put today’s conflict into proper historical
context. New geopolitical realities like United States’ withdrawal from
Afghanistan, Covid-19 pandemic, and the election of Ibrahim Raisi as new
president of Iran certainly merit a revised addition of this book.
ORCID iD
Tawseef Ahmad Mir https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4817-3560
Tawseef Ahmad Mir
University of Kashmir,
Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
E-mail: tawseef5394@gmail.com
Bob de Graaff ed., Intelligence Communities and Cultures in Asia and the
Middle East: A Comprehensive Reference. Lynne Rienner Publishers,
2020, 505 pp. (hardback). ISBN: 978-1626378896.
DOI: 10.1177/23477970221098510
Bob de Graaff’s edited volume Intelligence Communities and Cultures in Asia
and the Middle East brings together the histories of 23 intelligence communities
in Asia and the Middle East—a timely exposition considering the emergent
‘Asian century’. The book is organised alphabetically beginning with Diva
Patang’s contribution to Afghanistan and concluding with Anthony Chimente’s
chapter on Yemen. Between these contributions, the volume includes chapters
on Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan,
Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea,
Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan and Turkey. de Graaff tasks authors with
providing a description of each country’s past and current security threats, a
history of its intelligence community from 1945, an overview of the intelligence
communities’ structure, international cooperation arrangements and a discussion
on accountability mechanisms. This criterion establishes a suitable taxonomy for
characteristics of intelligence communities which is feasible and offers a degree
of portability. Each contribution goes beyond common knowledge and captures
granularities of the intelligence community in question. One example is how

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