World war I and the invention of American intelligence, 1878-1918

Intelligence changes as the nature of war changes. From the late 1870s, the United States military, as part of a broader reform process, began learning about intelligence in part from experience but more importantly by observing the practices of the great powers of Europe. The period of American involvement in World War I saw a rapid acceleration of this dev.elopment, with the United States continuing to learn from the United Kingdom and France. The war also saw intelligence spreading into fields that it had seldom if ever entered in the American experience. During the nineteen months of American belligerency American Intelligence agencies, notably the War Department's Military Intelligence Division and the Navy Department's Office of Naval Intelligence expanded greatly. In addition, the services started to adopt high technology tools such as aerial photography and signals intelligence. These new tools required the admission into the military departments and services of esoteric specialists who did not fit previous military stereotypes. The war also occasioned a vast expansion of domestic surveillance and intelligence, a result of the idea that the World War was a struggle not only of militaries but of entire societies. Espionage, too, grew in extent and sophistication and the moral stigma associated with it began to erode. Overseas, the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France grew its own large intelligence staff. All of these measures allowed General John J. Pershing, the AEF's commander, as well has other American leaders to be better informed than they had ever been during previous wars.