The Problem of Secret Intelligence

Why is intelligence so hard to define? Why is there no systematic or adequate theory of intelligence? This book argues that classic intelligence production has been premised on an ill-founded belief in an automatic inference between history and the future, and that the lack of a working theory has exacerbated this problem. The book uses classic cases of intelligence failure to demonstrate how this problem creates a restricted language in intelligence communities that undermines threat perception. From these cases it concludes that intelligence needs to be re-thought, and argues that good intelligence is the art of threat perception beyond the limits of our habitual thinking and shared experience. This book therefore argues that intelligence can never be truths, only uncertain theories about the future. Qualified intelligence work is, accordingly, ideas that lead to theories about the future. These theories should always seek to explain a comprehension of the wholeness of threats. The hypothesis derived from these theories must thereafter be tested, as tests that make the theories less uncertain. This implies that intelligence never can be anything but uncertain theories about the future that are made less uncertain through scientific, critical tests of hypotheses derived from these theories. High quality intelligence institutions conduct these tests in what is known as the intelligence cycle. This cycle works well if it mirrors good thinking.