Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

During the Cold War, the U.S. counterintelligence (CI) mission was clearly defined: It focused on countering the intelligence collection efforts of the Soviet Union and its allies. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the focus of CI became blurred because of a lack of an identifiable threat. A perception developed throughout the U.S. intelligence community that CI equals human intelligence (HUMINT) collection and that the two disciplines were interchangeable. This, along with an increase in the need for HUMINT to counter emerging threats, further blurred the line between CI and HUMINT. Today, the two disciplines are often grouped together as CI/HUMINT. Some will argue that the grouping together of CI and HUMINT to accomplish the growing HUMINT collection mission has significantly degraded the effectiveness of the CI mission.

• What were the most compelling topics learned in this course?
• How did participating in discussions help your understanding of the subject matter? Is anything still unclear that could be clarified?
• What approaches could have yielded additional valuable information?
• The main post should include at least 1 reference to research sources, and all sources should be cited using APA format.