There are just a few times in the past decade that I’ve opened a book and felt an immediate connection with its author. That is what happened when I began reading The Area Intelligence Handbook, by Mike Shelby.
I suppose that a better title for the book would be: The Area Intelligence Handbook For Survivalists, because that is how the book is geared. This 249-page trade paperback is not just a generic manual on Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) for folks in the Military Intelligence (MI) arena. Rather, it is truly tailored for preparedness-minded private citizens, in anticipation of a severe situation such as an economic collapse, societal collapse, martial law, civil war, or even an invasion. In Shelby’s estimation, America is already in a Low-Intensity Conflict (LIC). The Area Intelligence Handbook postulates a continuing escalation of that conflict. Most importantly, the book describes how you can conduct a detailed Area Intelligence study of your own region, to prepare for a wide range of possible threats and outcomes.
I should back up to mention a bit about the author’s background: Mike Shelby is a former Intelligence NCO. You probably already know him from hearing his excellent Forward Observer podcast series. Shelby is a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan deployments, and the depth of that experience really shows. He served on active duty and later went back overseas to work as a contractor. Clearly, he has “walked the walk.” Both his logic and his methodology are sound. He is not an alarmist. Rather, Shelby forthrightly and dispassionately lays out some plausible threat spirals and viable threat mitigation options.
In Part One of the book, Shelby describes Area Intelligence, and how to conduct an Area Study, with descriptions of both the Operational Environment and the Threat Environment. Then he briefly describes how to do Mission Analysis. In Part Two of the book, the author does a deep dive into the various aspects of the Operational Environment: Physical Terrain and Weather, Human Terrain, Critical Infrastructure, Politics and Governance, Safety, Security & Defense, and Economics & Finance. Part Three of the book is a succinct set of very useful annexes. That is followed by appendixes on web resources and collection requirements.
All-in-all, The Area Intelligence Handbook is an outstanding reference. It concentrates on one aspect of preparedness that most other preparedness books almost completely ignore. I find that commendable. Because I also served in military intelligence, this book really resonated with me. In editing SurvivalBlog, I have strived to generalize, in order to make it useful to a wide audience. But in Shelby’s book (and on his podcasts and in his Gray Zone training series) he zeroes in on the importance of intelligence gathering and analysis.
Mike Shelby does a great job of turning an otherwise dry subject into some fascinating reading. This book is obviously intended for readers in North America. His insights into American culture in general, and economics in particular, are quite useful. Rather than just itemizing societal trends, he goes deeper and identifies the root causes — the “drivers” — of those trends. It is this depth of analysis that makes The Area Intelligence Handbook particularly useful.
When reading The Area Intelligence Handbook, pay particular attention to Chapter 15, titled Next Steps.
The only noticeable weakness of this book is that it underemphasizes the importance of discrete cellular organization, to minimize the risk of having your preparedness group or “tribe” penetrated or co-opted. Shelby does correctly stress the importance of “going gray”. In his Gray Zone training series, the author covers that in great detail, but by necessity that is beyond the scope of this book under review. But please, folks: be vigilant, be wary of newcomers, and organize detached cells for Leaderless Resistance. Rather than building a large hierarchical organization, you should strive to create truly detached cells that are almost invulnerable to agent provocateurs. I’m confident that Mike Shelby fully addresses those OPSEC issues in his ongoing Surveillance Awareness (SA) Courses.
The book uses Shelby’s own region, in and near Austin, Texas, as a model. But you can of course take that as a template to apply to analyzing the econo-socio-political milieu of your own locale. All of the tools that you’ll need to do an Area Study of your region are between the covers of Shelby’s book. I strongly recommend that you get a copy of The Area Intelligence Handbook. Study it closely, and then put it into action. – JWR