The Course “Intelligence as a Tool of Implementing the State’s Foreign Policy”

“…Excellent analytical creative work. I really appreciate the student’s own thoughts. The content fully meets the objectives…”

Society has always been interested in such activity as intelligence, at least a certain layer of it, because among other peculiarities, it sounded romantic, not to mention the very nature of the tasks performed by intelligence officers. But such activity is quite natural, no state could do without it, and today it has become a subject in educational institutions, Ukrainian — included. For example, the course “Historical, Legal and Political Aspects of the State’s Intelligence Activity” has been successfully taught at the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” for four years, as we reported on our website. This academic year, students of the Faculty of International Relations (Department of International Relations, Information and Regional Studies) of the National Aviation University had the opportunity to study a similar course, “Intelligence as a Tool of Implementing the State’s Foreign Policy” At both universities, the course was taught by President of the Independent Analytical Center for Geopolitical Studies “Borysfen Intel”, Doctor of Military Sciences VICTOR HVOZD.

So far, the training took place in a generally accepted form, i.e., according to a proven and acceptable method: lecture → independent work → seminar; lecture → independent work → seminar… test. It was meant to be developed with the help of modern teaching methods, which improves the perception and consolidation of educational material. But the coronavirus made its “adjustments” in the educational process, forcing us, like other universities, to move to the so-called distance learning. And under such conditions we had to abandon interesting methods that make learning really efficient, when students have the opportunity to get acquainted with some spheres of intelligence, to compare legal approaches used in different years and in different countries.

It should be noted that “Borysfen Intel” is not an educational institution, but an analytical center specializing in geopolitical studies, and educational work is not the main sphere of its activity. But our employees believe that they still managed to organize meaningful distance learning and successfully conduct the mentioned course, which, if nothing else, is confirmed by the students themselves. For example, they liked that the educational material was supported by facts from intelligence activities, including of Ukrainian professionals. Many of the mentioned facts concerned the history of the Ukrainian intelligence, about which few people in our society know even today. And the fact that the educational material was always supported by presentation schemes and videos, pleasantly surprised the audience and guaranteed its attention throughout the educational process. Here is just some of many reviews that eloquently testify to the perception of the forms of presentation of educational material: “I liked the intelligence activity as such, even watched a few films on the subject, and ordered a book, broadened my horizons about the activities of intelligence agencies, and even thought, ‘how to become part of this structure in Ukraine? Where to study? And how to look for a vacancy?”; “…Structure, logic and sequence of teaching material. Teachers’ being interested in working with students. Various ways of presenting the material (presentations, lectures, videos, etc.). Adequate test tasks”.

By the way, at the end of the study of the next theme there was a mandatory survey of students, whose opinions and suggestions were set out in short written notes. Their answers help to directly improve the educational process. This time the students called the best and most interesting the following topics: “Historical Aspects of Formation of Intelligence Services”, “Structure and Legal Aspects of Intelligence Services of Leading Countries”, “Diplomacy and Intelligence”, “International and Security Trends of the Current World”.

It seems not accidentally that 92 % of students expressed a desire to enroll in a course if it were taught in English, and all 100 % of respondents would advise other colleagues to study this subject.

During the educational process, students performed test tasks and wrote final essays. Their grades are quite high, despite the content of the tests being significantly more difficult than in previous courses.

Students Vadym Tolstolesov, Daryna Yudina and Yaroslava Mazurok did the tests best.

Essays prepared by students, as a result of the work done, confirm a fairly high level of the students’ knowledge. According to the author of the course V. Hvozd, the best include essays by Vladyslav Krutovertsev (“Activities of Intelligence Services During the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1920. Intelligence of the Movement of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1921–1945”), Daryna Palamarchuk (“National Security: National Values, Interests, Goals, Tasks”), Anna Surkova (“Modern Military-Political and Security Situation in the World, in the European Region and Around Ukraine”), Vadym Tolstolesov (“Diplomacy and Intelligence. The Role and Place of the Intelligence Service in the Implementation of the State’s Foreign Policy Priorities”), Daryna Yudina (“The Main Directions of Intelligence Activity, Systematization of Methods of Collecting Intelligence and Estimating Intelligence Information”).

Here is how V. Hvozd pointed out in his notes, the essay by student D. Yudina: “An excellent analytical creative work. I really appreciate the student’s own thoughts. The content fully meets the objectives. The work has been put into shape perfectly well, competently and deserves a high mark.”

In the near future, the best of the essays will appear on our website and the general public will be able to see their content, as well as the correctness of the marks got by the authors.

As for the distance learning itself, it should be recognized that it provides fewer opportunities for a lively detailed conversation between the teacher and students. Therefore, the life experience, a lot of examples from teacher V. Hvozd’s intelligence and diplomatic experience remained “behind the scenes”. And although there were attempts to fill such “gaps” with audio and video materials, to make the most of the Google ClassRoom distance learning service, including Skype and Zoom video conferencing apps, etc., it will never replace live communication.

By the way, Daryna Yudina, the monitor of the group, should be thanked for her help in organizing the distance learning process!

О. Makhno

Photos by V. Rayevskyi

 

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