Intelligence and National Security

ISSN: 0268-4527 (Print) 1743-9019 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fint20

A New Definition of Intelligence

Alan Breakspear

To cite this article: Alan Breakspear (2013) A New Definition of Intelligence, Intelligence and
National Security, 28:5, 678-693, DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2012.699285

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2012.699285

Published online: 24 Jul 2012.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 5153

View related articles

Citing articles: 6 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fint20

Download by: [University of Glasgow] Date: 14 September 2017, At: 08:24

 Intelligence and National Security, 2013
Vol. 28, No. 5, 678–693, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2012.699285

ARTICLE

A New Definition of Intelligence

Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

ALAN BREAKSPEAR*

ABSTRACT Intelligence is widely misunderstood. Too much is made of secrecy, and of

covert operations and counter-intelligence (action domains informed by intelligence rather
than integral to it). Intelligence is often focused on threats, missing opportunities for
advantage. A standard definition is proposed for better understanding of intelligence by
the academy, media and public. Intelligence is a corporate capability to forecast change
in time to do something about it. The capability involves foresight and insight, and is
intended to identify impending change which may be positive, representing opportunity,
or negative, representing threat. Definitions which converge with this proposal are found
in several intelligence settings.

Introduction
This article addresses the question of what intelligence is, and, more
specifically, what its purpose is; what are the expected and intended effects
of intelligence activities? The need to attempt to answer this question arises
from the general acknowledgement among scholars that it might be
impossible to arrive at a single acceptable answer. This unsatisfactory
non-answer is found in the study of intelligence, both as psychological
phenomenon (brainpower, the ability to think and learn, etc.) and as
organizational decision support (rooted in international power struggles and
increasingly practised not only by government agencies but also in
competitive business and other fields of endeavour). While the two have
seemed to diverge, especially in the last century, the fact that the same word,
intelligence, is used to signify both domains is no accident.

Discussion
Governance is concerned to help human society adapt to change. Whatever
the form and expression of governance adopted by a nation state, a

Email: alan@breakspear.com
© 2012 Taylor & Francis
 A New Definition of Intelligence 679

corporation, a non-governmental organization, a professional association, a

sports club or a debating society, the governance structure must enable the
organization to anticipate change in the external environment and thereby to
take advantage of and draw benefit from opportunities – positive change – or
to avoid the harmful effects of threats – negative change. The tools required
are foresight and insight – formulated through intelligence, in both its
senses – learning and knowledge and organizational decision support.
Dictionaries commonly cover both aspects of intelligence. The online
Oxford Dictionary, for example, gives the following definitions for
intelligence:1

. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills: an eminent man
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

of great intelligence
. a person or being with the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and
skills: extraterrestrial intelligences
. the collection of information of military or political value: the chief of
military intelligence
. people employed in the collection of military or political information:
British intelligence has secured numerous local informers
. military or political information: the gathering of intelligence
. archaic information in general; news.

The last element is a useful reminder of the old and generalized

meaning of intelligence as information or news. The earlier elements
juxtapose knowledge and skills against military or political information, a
simplistic and almost archaic usage in light of the wide range of
organizations and activities involved in intelligence work in the twenty-
first century.
The online Cambridge Dictionary also covers both senses.2 Intelligence is
‘the ability to learn, understand and make judgments or have opinions that
are based on reason’ and also ‘secret information about the governments of
other countries, especially enemy governments, or a group of people who
collect and deal with this information’. Again, the ability to learn is
contrasted with secret information, though the secret information is
normally intended to support decision-making, which in turn is a result of
adaptation and learning.
An underlying thesis of this article is that the activities of modern
intelligence agencies, of intelligence collectors and analysts in a variety of
organizations, are but the latest evolutionary stage of the collective
intellectual exercise of brainpower, which psychologists have studied as
both a function of the individual and of the collective. One of these, Shane
Legg, a post-doctoral researcher studying reinforcement learning and
theoretical neuroscience with Professor Peter Dayan at the Gatsby Unit,
University College London, has collected and posted online an extremely
1
5http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/intelligence4 (accessed 30 July 2011).
2
5http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/intelligence_1 (accessed 30 July 2011).
 680 Intelligence and National Security

useful compilation of definitions of intelligence, in its psychological sense.3 A

selection of what Legg lists under Collective Definitions will make the point
(item numbers are as found in the source document).

1. ‘The ability to use memory, knowledge, experience, understanding,

reasoning, imagination and judgement in order to solve problems and
adapt to new situations.’ AllWords Dictionary, 2006
2. ‘The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.’ The American
Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition, 2000 [. . .]
7. ‘[. . .] ability to adapt effectively to the environment, either by making
a change in oneself or by changing the environment or finding a new
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

one [. . .] intelligence is not a single mental process, but rather a

combination of many mental processes directed toward effective
adaptation to the environment.’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 2006 [. . .]
11. ‘the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations
[. . .] the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to
manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by
objective criteria (as tests).’ Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2006
12. ‘The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.’ Compact
Oxford English Dictionary, 2006
13. ‘[. . .] the ability to adapt to the environment.’ World Book
Encyclopedia, 2006

The point, of course, is that intelligence is widely seen not only as an ability
to think and learn but also to apply the learning.
A commonplace in English-language intelligence training manuals, and in
many books and articles about intelligence, is a representation of the
process by which intelligence is prepared and produced as an iterative cycle,
involving some five or six main stages: Requirements (or Priorities),
Collection (sometimes divided in two, as Collection Plan and Collection
Activity), Processing (or Collation), Analysis and Dissemination. This
representation is, out of necessity, simplistic, ignoring or omitting the
pragmatic necessity to move back and forth amongst these stages as a
project unfolds.
The problems of the intelligence cycle were cogently presented by Arthur
Hulnick in his 2006 article, ‘What’s Wrong with the Intelligence Cycle?’ He
offers the following summary comments:

the Intelligence Cycle [. . .] is not a particularly good model, since the

cyclical pattern does not describe what really happens. Policy officials
rarely give collection guidance. Collection and analysis, which are
supposed to work in tandem, in fact work more properly in parallel.

3
5http://www.vetta.org/definitions-of-intelligence/4 (accessed 30 July 2011). This site has
since been discontinued. Legg’s thesis, Machine Super Intelligence, apparently contains the
definitions cited here, and is available through 5http://www.vetta.org/2008/07/machine-
super-intelligence/4 (accessed 25 June 2012).
 A New Definition of Intelligence 681

Finally, the idea that decision makers wait for the delivery of
intelligence before making policy decisions is equally incorrect [. . .]
Taken as a whole, the cycle concept is a flawed model, but nevertheless
continues to be taught in the US and around the world.4

This writer would add other criticism of the cycle as traditionally

presented, but endorses its continued use, given its fundamental good
sense and its seeming ubiquity. It is a useful vehicle for teaching and
discussion, in part because of its very simplicity, which provokes
discussion and explication. Given the opportunity, I add labels to the
cycle diagram that point to the fact that the first and last stages,
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

Requirements and Dissemination, are in effect a dialogue between the

intelligence collection/processing/analysis team (or agency or community),
on one hand, and the decision-making client, whether individual or
group, on the other. The closer that dialogue comes to a real
conversation, conducted face to face and in real time, the greater the
likelihood of valuable intelligence being supplied. Too often, intelligence
collectors and analysts receive their guidance about target
requirements and priorities at several removes from the articulation of
the gaps, needs and problems, as seen by the decision-makers.
The term ‘Dissemination’ contributes to the distancing problem by
suggesting that the results of intelligence analysis should always be
distributed as widely as possible, consistent with need to know. In fact,
communication to the decision-maker(s) who identified the requirement,
and thereby stated the problem for which the intelligence product is
intended to suggest a solution, is fundamentally more important than
wide dissemination. The two must happen, indeed sometimes the two are
equally important, but generally communication should be regarded as
the more important. Effective communication depends upon the presenta-
tion of the right content in the right form, at the right place and time.
Getting any of these elements wrong can negate the value of the
intelligence project.
The practice of competitive intelligence in business makes the point
strongly. In most business organizations, the distance between the
decision-maker client of intelligence and the intelligence producers is far
less (in terms of bureaucratic steps or levels) than is the case in
government. Thinking of Intelligence Requirements and Communication
as part of an ongoing dialogue between producers and users is
implicit and meaningful in business but is rarely seen that way in
government, except perhaps at the most senior levels of the intelligence
apparatus.
Canadian Brigadier-General James Cox PhD (Retired) has identified
seven fundamental conceptual components of intelligence as decision
support. Five of these he finds in traditional intelligence literature – policy
4
Arthur Hulnick, ‘What’s Wrong with the Intelligence Cycle?’, Intelligence and National
Security 21 (2006) pp.959–97.
 682 Intelligence and National Security

and governance, people, process, product and organization – but Cox sees
two others also at play. One is the concept of advantageous action or
activity derived from the notion of decision advantage described by
Jennifer Sims in the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI) Vision 2015 document. Advantageous action calls on yet
another fundamental conceptual component of intelligence that
heretofore has been largely ignored, in Cox’s view: continuous review
and evaluation for efficacy. These are further described in Cox’s PhD
thesis,5 in which he discusses the problem of defining intelligence. Cox
comes closest to a proposed definition of intelligence when he cites a
‘draft CF joint intelligence doctrine, which states that, in informing
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

decision-makers, intelligence is expected to provide them with ‘‘advantage

and predictive, actionable insights’’.’
Few Canadian scholars of intelligence, and relatively few throughout the
English-speaking world, pay the kind of attention to intelligence theory that
Cox and Sims manifest. This lacuna is, however, gaining attention in the
twenty-first century, especially in the US intelligence community. The
ongoing reorganization of that community has prompted important
scholarly attention to intelligence theory,6 and equally important official
documentation of the nature of intelligence, including statements of
definition which will be examined later in this article.
In this writer’s experience, most intelligence practitioners, as distinct from
scholars, tend to assume that the particular kind of intelligence work they
are engaged in, whether strategic or tactical, whether concerned for foreign
affairs, defence, economic, financial, criminal or business matters, is true and
real, while the kinds that others practise are somehow less so.
Intelligence practitioners, like many other professionals, are not necessa-
rily given to introspection. They often rely on anecdotal or aphoristic
explanations of their craft. A former senior Canadian military intelligence
officer used to say: ‘Intelligence is hard information; that is, information that
is hard to get because someone doesn’t want you to have it’.7 This simplistic
characterization, while valid, does little to help public or media under-
standing of the role and effectiveness of intelligence.
Too many scholars have examined intelligence activities, especially those
of government agencies, without looking at the question of what intelligence
is. What does it include or omit? How is it formulated and carried out? How
should its effectiveness be judged and evaluated? Some have, in effect, simply
assumed that intelligence is what intelligence agencies do. This begs the
question, and ignores or downplays the appearance of intelligence activities
in other domains besides government.

5
Brigadier-General (Retired) James Cox, Lighting the Shadows: An Evaluation of Theory and
Practice in Canadian Defence Intelligence, PhD thesis (Royal Military College of Canada
2011).
6
Johnson, Treverton, Gill et al., cited in references 1, 2 and 3.
7
Brigadier-General Walter J. Dabros, Director General Intelligence and Security, 1977–1978,
in conversation with the author.
 A New Definition of Intelligence 683

Business corporations, both large and small, became active users of

intelligence in the last third of the twentieth century, using the terms
Competitive Intelligence and Business Intelligence. The second of these,
Business Intelligence, has become associated with automated data proces-
sing, and, especially as used by software vendors, often refers to the
systematic processing of files and data banks available within a company
and/or within its market segment (concerning sales, customer activities,
production records, etc) to produce indicators of company health and
market strengths, for example. Pete Gill has noted that some of these
techniques have migrated into security intelligence, providing the basis for
profiling in counter terrorist work.8
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

The first term, however, Competitive Intelligence, was adopted and

championed by the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP;
which recently renamed itself Strategic and Competitive Intelligence
Professionals) and is more clearly representative of a substantive and
professional intelligence discipline, meriting serious consideration alongside
the longer established intelligence disciplines practiced within government.
Many of the most successful practitioners of Competitive Intelligence
learned their craft as intelligence analysts and/or collection managers in
government,9 but intelligence agencies in government rarely show interest in
learning from the practice of Competitive Intelligence. And, as intimated
earlier, intelligence scholars rarely do more than note the existence of
Competitive Intelligence, while those who take a clinical and critical interest
in Competitive Intelligence find many points of interest that should
constitute lessons worth considering in government practice.
(Within the Competitive Intelligence community, the term is often
abbreviated to CI, but I hesitate to use the abbreviation here because it is
too easily misread as counter-intelligence, communications intelligence,
confidential informant, or any of a number of other terms in disciplines
beyond intelligence: critical infrastructure, community of interest, counter-
insurgency, etc.)
SCIP and other organizations concerned with Competitive Intelligence
have provided a forum for the production of a significant body of literature
in print and on the web, some of it arising from the commercial opportunity
for consultants and trainers to assist in the acquisition and use of
Competitive Intelligence skills, techniques and systems. Some of this
literature has addressed issues of intelligence theory, or at least of
Competitive Intelligence theory. A web search for ‘CI definition’, for
example, will lead to many sites that offer descriptive discussions of the
nature of competitive intelligence. One of such is Aurora WDC, one of the
leading American suppliers of Competitive Intelligence services.10 Another is

8
Personal correspondence with the author.
9
Prime examples are Jan Herring, who was recruited from CIA to set up Motorola’s
competitive intelligence function, and Ben Gilad, who was introduced to intelligence in the
Israeli military. Herring and Gilad are today among the leaders of Competitive Intelligence.
10
5http://www.aurorawdc.com/whatisci.htm4 (accessed 5 August 2011).
 684 Intelligence and National Security

Fuld and Company, an older, well-established firm whose founder, Leonard

Fuld, wrote one of the earliest and most useful and comprehensive books on
Competitive Intelligence, The New Competitor Intelligence.11 Many other
titles are available through Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Profes-
sionals’ (SCIP) website.12
They typically present an approach in which intelligence in business is
characterized by ethical and legal behaviour, by systematic collection of
readily available information (that is, not requiring intrusive, invasive or
special technological collection methods) relevant to a decision-maker
client’s needs, by careful analysis of collected information in order to gain
insight and understanding of the possible courses of action available to the
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

client, and by effective and timely communication of the resulting insights.

Intelligence requirements in business are clearly understood to relate to
future changes in the market environment within which the corporate client
is or intends to be operating. Market changes might be positive for the client,
that is, indicative of advantageous opportunities, or negative, representing
threats to the client’s market share or profits.
SCIP exhorts its members to adhere to a code of ethics, a breach of which
risks accusations of engaging in ‘industrial espionage’. In addition, SCIP
members clearly see themselves as serving the needs of their executive clients,
the decision-makers whose requirements for future-oriented decision support
they strive to meet. These clients make strategic action decisions on the basis of
intelligence received, but such decisions and resulting actions will rarely, if
ever, be taken by members of their Competitive Intelligence team.
The US intelligence community is the world’s largest, with the biggest
budget and the most widespread collection net. It is the community about
which more is publicly known than any other, and therefore the one to
which others are most often compared. This does not mean that all others
are exactly similar to that of the USA. Scholars have in recent years begun to
understand that the members of the important intelligence alliance which
emerged from WWII, now known familiarly as the Five Eyes (US, UK,
Canada, Australia, NZ), in fact manage their intelligence activities more
differently from one another than was previously assumed, and those
differences deserve closer scholarly examination.
Cox points to one example of different US and UK practice: ‘In current
United States (US) vocabulary, intelligence tends to refer to ‘‘finished’’
intelligence that has been put through a process of all-source analysis and
turned into a product that provides predictive advice for decision-makers.
On the other hand, in the United Kingdom (UK), ‘‘raw’’ intelligence moves
straight into departmental policy-making circles without passing through a
separate analytical stage’.13

11
5http://www.fuld.com/Tools/RefCenter.html4 (accessed 5 August 2011).
12
5http://www.scip.org/4 (accessed 5 August 2011).
13
Cox is drawing here from Philip Davies, ‘Ideas of Intelligence: Divergent National Concepts
and Institutions’ in C. Andrew, R.J. Aldrich, and W.K. Wark (eds.) Secret Intelligence: A
Reader (London/New York: Routledge 2009) ch.2.
 A New Definition of Intelligence 685

One aspect of US intelligence practice and policy has been pervasive and
has long influenced public and media assumptions about intelligence in
much of the English-speaking world. That is, the inclusion of covert action
and counter-intelligence within the meaning of ‘intelligence’. The author of
one of the few books that come close to being a comprehensive and
accessible standard text for teaching intelligence studies at the secondary and
post-secondary level, Mark Lowenthal, states plainly that: ‘Intelligence can
be divided into four broad activities: collection, analysis, covert action and
counterintelligence’.14
This unnecessary and confusing approach to the definition of intelligence
is discussed elsewhere in this article, but it cannot be ignored here. It
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

influences the approach of US scholars to the issue of intelligence theory and

serves as a useful marker in the consideration of the intended purpose of
intelligence.
Michael Warner’s article, ‘Wanted: A Definition of ‘‘Intelligence’’’,15 is a
valuable and important contribution to intelligence theory. As he says:
‘Without a clear idea of what intelligence is, how can we develop a theory to
explain how it works?’16
Warner’s discussion focuses exclusively on government intelligence. His
selection of definitions emphasizes the foreign targeting of intelligence,
omitting the domestic security and business versions of intelligence. He also
suggests that secrecy is a ‘constitutive’ element of intelligence and wholly
endorses the assumption that intelligence includes covert action and counter-
intelligence. His suggestion for the much needed new definition of
intelligence is: Intelligence is secret state activity to understand or influence
foreign entities.
As noted elsewhere in this article, secrecy is frequently attached to
intelligence but should not, in my view, be considered a defining
element. Intelligence is conducted by other actors besides the state.
Influencing is the job of the policy-makers who are the clients and
recipients of intelligence, and should not be the job of the intelligence
agencies, except in very special circumstances, by exception and under
separate direction.
This might leave us, for now, with Intelligence is an organizational
activity to understand other entities. We will come back to this.
A British practitioner and scholar of intelligence, Michael Herman, wrote
two books on intelligence, which, like Lowenthal’s, come close to being the

14
Mark M. Lowenthal, Intelligence from Secrets to Policy, 3rd ed. (Washington DC: CQ
Press 2006).
15
Michael Warner, ‘Wanted: A Definition of ‘‘Intelligence’’’, Studies in Intelligence 46 (2002)
pp.15–22.
16
Warner has provided further valuable discussion of the nature of intelligence in his
chapter, Michael Warner, ‘Intelligence as Risk Shifting’ in P. Gill, S. Marrin, and M.
Phythian (eds.) Intelligence Theory; Key Questions and Debates (Oxford: Routledge 2009)
pp.16–32.
 686 Intelligence and National Security

ideal or standard intelligence text.17 He has also made available invaluable

musings on the nature of intelligence, paraphrased here as:18

Intelligence means knowing the target. Intelligence collects information

about the target and develops expert knowledge about the target, using
evidence from all sources [. . .] Intelligence is about knowledge, and also
about forecasting [. . .] It must reach its clients in useable forms and in
time. The key question is what use they make of it, which is rarely easy
to establish.

Now we have three elements to add to our developing definition: forecasting

Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

target activities, timeliness of receipt and action by the recipient.

Intelligence, whether practised in government or in business, remains
widely misunderstood in Canada. Sheltered by British defence policy until
well after WW1, and in large measure by its defence partnership with the
USA since WWII, Canada never found a need for an active foreign
intelligence service of the type represented by Britain’s Secret Intelligence
Service (SIS, aka MI-6) or the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Canada remains one of the few developed industrial nations without a
foreign espionage service (perhaps even the only country so distinguished).
Many Canadians, even in the media, see the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service (CSIS) as a foreign espionage agency, rather than the domestic
security organization it was developed to be. Tellingly, that agency’s name is
not infrequently reported as the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service,
demonstrating a careless but important misunderstanding.
Canada’s intelligence community is recognized internationally as highly
professional and effective, despite its lack of a fully developed foreign
espionage capability. The community is distinguished by its highly developed
accountability mechanisms, appearing first in the CSIS Act, which laid down
important qualifications and conditions for security intelligence activities
and prescribed rigorous review and reporting arrangements to ensure proper
conduct of security intelligence. Similar arrangements have been put in place
for Canada’s signals intelligence agency, CSE, and are expected to be
developed for the national security intelligence and investigations role of the
RCMP.
In public discussions of intelligence, usually addressing it as an activity of
the national government, too much is made of secrecy. Secrecy is not a
necessary and defining characteristic of intelligence, but rather attaches
frequently to intelligence for one or both of two reasons. One is the need to
protect the source or means by which intelligence is collected or derived

17
Michael Herman, Intelligence Services in the Information Age (Oxford/New York: Frank
Cass Publishers 2001); Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1996).
18
Michael Herman, ‘Why Does Military Intelligence Matter?’, Changing Character of War
Seminar, Oxford, 27 November 2007 5http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/OIG2/herman%20
paper%202007.pdf4 (accessed 1 August 2011).
 A New Definition of Intelligence 687

from collected information. The other is the need to avoid premature

revelation of a decision taken on the basis of, or assisted by, the intelligence
produced. Both reasons are transient, though the former can and often does
lead to ongoing classification of intelligence records that lasts for decades.
The value and importance of open source intelligence (OSINT) have long
been recognized within the intelligence community, and more recently in
public and media discussion. Competitive Intelligence, almost by definition,
relies heavily if not completely on OSINT and demonstrates that secret
sources, processes and techniques are not a determinant of intelligence.
Secrecy often attaches to the competitive intelligence findings which support
a strategic business decision, to maintain competitive surprise and
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

advantage, but that secrecy is clearly recognizable as an attribute of the

decision rather than of the intelligence which supported it.
Much public discussion of intelligence in Canada also assumes that intelligence
necessarily includes and involves covert operations and counter-intelligence,
which are in fact action domains informed by intelligence rather than integral to
it. This assumption probably stems from American practice, where intelligence
has sometimes been defined as specifically including such actions.
The logic for including covert operations and counter-intelligence within
the definition of intelligence might stem from an assumption that intelligence
professionals are better equipped, by their experience and knowledge, to
understand the reasons, risks and other circumstantial factors involved than
are other officials. Such reasoning is flawed and dangerous, and comes
perilously close to the line which separates intelligence from policy.
In many instances, even within Canadian government circles, intelligence
is often conflated with security and is assumed to be aimed only at threats, so
that opportunities for advantage or progress are missed.
Nonetheless, more general and relevant discussion sometimes appears in
Canada. For example, a recent review by Defence R&D Canada of intelligence
issues included the following: ‘Intelligence analysis is an important state
activity aimed to inform and support policy and command decision making
[. . .] The ultimate goal of the intelligence function is to provide timely and
relevant information to decision makers to aid their understanding of the issues
at hand and to allow them to make more informed decisions’.19

Proposal
This article argues for the understanding of intelligence in modern
governance as decision support. It goes further, to suggest that the decision
support nature of intelligence will be better understood if a standard
definition of intelligence were widely adopted. In its analysis thus far, the
article has assembled a sequence of increasingly focused possible definitions
of intelligence, which might be represented at this point as:

19
Natalia Derbentseva, Lianne McLellan, and David R. Mandel, of Defence R&D Canada,
Issues in Intelligence Production, Summary of interviews with Canadian managers of
intelligence analysts. Technical Report, DRDC Toronto TR 2010-144, December 2010.
 688 Intelligence and National Security

Intelligence is conducted by governmental and other agencies as a

means of better understanding other entities whose plans or activities
might affect their interests, in order to better understand those entities
and to forecast their actions in a timely manner, in support of decisions
to be taken by those who receive the intelligence.

A 2007 publication from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff presents ‘fundamental

principles and guidance for intelligence support to joint operations’. The
document provides an overview of the various intelligence-related dis-
ciplines, from imagery to interrogation, and their employment in support of
military operations. The document includes the following definition, which
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

parallels the emerging definition pursued here.

Intelligence allows anticipation or prediction of future situations and

circumstances, and it informs decisions by illuminating the differences
in available courses of action (COAs).20

These definitions remain less than satisfactory in their failure to generalize the
kinds of ‘actions’ or ‘situations or circumstances’ that might be anticipated. The
Joint Chiefs’ document, moreover, talks of ‘prediction’, a slippery concept that
risks derision rather than respect. Forecasting is more honest and pragmatic; it
reflects an attempt to point at probability and to identify signs which can be
watched for that might give closer warning of the change at hand.
The proposed definition must provide for universality. As shown
elsewhere in this article, intelligence is not only an activity which might be
practised without secrecy, it can also be undertaken by organizations in a
wide range of sectors; at all levels of government, in business, in not-for-
profit activities of all kinds. Any organization whose interests might be
affected by external developments, arguably, should attempt to anticipate
and forecast such developments, and have plans ready to deal with them.
That is, they should all conduct intelligence.
The following new definition is proposed:

Intelligence is a corporate capability to forecast change in time to do

something about it. The capability involves foresight and insight, and
is intended to identify impending change, which may be positive,
representing opportunity, or negative, representing threat.

Benefits
If (when) this proposal is widely adopted, even if only as one element in an
organization’s definition of intelligence, it will permit clearer communication
among intelligence practitioners, more effective audit and evaluation of
intelligence functions in business and government, and better understanding of
20
‘Joint Intelligence’, Joint Publication 2-0, 22 June 2007, p.ix 5http://www.fas.org/irp/
doddir/dod/jp2_0.pdf 4 (accessed 13 August 2011).
 A New Definition of Intelligence 689

intelligence by the academy, media and public. It will facilitate consistency of

language, better communication amongst the clients (decision-makers),
collectors, analysts and managers of intelligence, and improved understanding
amongst intelligence agencies, practitioners, educators, scholars, critics,
members of the media and public.
By clearly pointing to the intended effects of the intelligence function, this
definition will permit and encourage effective audit and evaluation. The need
to consider audit and evaluation as an essential feature of intelligence
activities, as seen by Jim Cox, was noted earlier in this article (see footnote
5). In my experience, the Canadian government has only once attempted an
evaluative audit of intelligence. The result was incomplete and disappoint-
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

ing, in part because it avoided grappling with the question of what

intelligence is supposed to do.
The definition proposed here will assist intelligence managers and
practitioners by providing a clear focus on the importance of the
requirements conversation, and on the need to convey through successive
layers of bureaucracy the nature of the policy problem for which intelligence
is needed. It will also lend emphasis and cogency to the need for intelligence
findings to be communicated effectively and quickly to decision-makers, as
well as widely disseminated.
As a definition applicable to intelligence as conducted in all sectors and
spheres, the proposal will open the way to better appreciation of the lessons
to be learned by intelligence practitioners, managers and scholars from one
another, across disciplines and sectors (e.g. the lessons about collection
management and about opportunities as much as threats, from Competitive
Intelligence for Government Intelligence; the analytic techniques used in
scientific foresight and in medical research, and how these should be applied
in criminal, military, foreign and economic intelligence; and so on).
The proposed definition should not be seen as sole and sufficient in all
settings. Those nations, notably the USA, which include actions taken to
change or influence the target environment (such as counter-intelligence
and covert operations) in the concept and definition of intelligence, will
have the option of adopting the proposed definition as part of their
national definition, and still gain the benefits foreseen here.
The proposed definition offers a means to clarify the support provided to
decision-makers by the intelligence function and to separate intelligence
from the action decisions made by its users/clients. As intelligence collection
and analysis is increasingly carried out by non-human means (e.g.
Unmanned Airborne Systems) which also carry within them the capability
to exercise force (weapons systems carried in UAS alongside intelligence
collection systems), decision responsibility for action based on intelligence
findings is separated from intelligence analysis by increasingly finer lines.

Problems
Any attempt to introduce a standardized approach, such as the new
‘standard’ definition proposed herein, risks a narrowing of intelligence
 690 Intelligence and National Security

practice to be less intuitive, more procedural. This in turn might have the
effect of encouraging the certification approach, based on the idea that there
is ‘one right way’ for the conduct of intelligence analysis, for example.
Movement to adopt certification is already visible in competitive intelligence
and in law enforcement intelligence analysis. The definition proposed here is
expressed in general terms, partly to discourage or avoid such tendency.
Michael Warner has commented that the definition proposed herein
conflates intelligence with analysis, as widely practised in many organiza-
tions under various ‘strategic’ functional headings.21 Such confusion might
perhaps be possible, if the definition is considered in isolation from the
discussion throughout this article of all functional aspects of intelligence,
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

including the intelligence cycle. While ‘strategic analysis’ and indeed

‘strategic planning’ are oriented to the future and call for foresight and
insight, these functions are supported by intelligence (or should be) and the
comment is taken as a useful illustration of the proposed definition.

Intelligence in Law Enforcement

Intelligence has yet to gain its feet in law enforcement. A movement to
recognize and adopt an approach, called Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP), began
in Britain and Australia in the latter part of the last century, has gained some
ground in the USA and Canada and has tended to dominate many discussions
of the role and effectiveness of intelligence in law enforcement.
The Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada (CISC) has contributed
strongly to the recognition of the value of intelligence for law enforcement
by producing strategic intelligence assessments, which, in effect, provide
forecasts of change in target environments such as organized crime, gangs,
drug trade, etc. What the CISC is doing, however valuable, is not ILP as
such. ILP is understood and applied in widely differing ways among the
many law enforcement agencies operating in North America, and seems to
obscure or hinder an understanding of intelligence as such.
Faint praise for ILP emerged in a recent article from the US Department of
Justice, which is typical of such discussion in that it manages to avoid any
semblance of a definition of ILP, let alone of intelligence:

In the United States, the ILP discussion is not without differing points
of view. For example, in some quarters, the terms data-driven or
information-led are preferred. Others primarily view ILP as a terror
prevention initiative and while ILP means different things to different
people, there appears to be some basic agreement regarding its place in
the evolution of American policing. ILP does not replace the concepts
of problem-solving policing of Goldstein, or the community involve-
ment and neighborhood maintenance theories of Kelling and Wilson,

21
Informal debate during a panel on Intelligence Theory, featuring Warner, Cox and
Breakspear, at the 2011 Annual International Conference of the Canadian Association for
Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS), held in Ottawa on 9–10 November 2011.
 A New Definition of Intelligence 691

nor the police accountability and information sharing practices of

Bratton and Maple. It builds on these concepts to keep pace with
changes in society, technology, and criminal behavior. Incorporating
research findings and advances in information and communication
technology, ILP encourages greater use of criminal intelligence, attends
to offenders more than offenses, and offers a more targeted, forward-
thinking, multijurisdictional and prevention point of view to the
business of policing.22

There are enormous numbers of law enforcement agencies in North

America, with widely varying abilities to adopt new approaches, methods
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

and concepts. Particularly at the tactical level, intelligence is seen to be less

useful to the police than is evidence. In fact, the tendency to treat intelligence
as evidence to be presented in court is increasingly visible in the agencies
concerned with terrorism and related problems, whether labeled as security
intelligence or enforcement. The courts have begun to press for disclosure of
intelligence and its sources, in order to ensure transparency, accountability
and proper administration of justice. This pressure, and the response from
enforcement agencies, risks the devaluation and inappropriate disclosure of
intelligence sources and techniques.
An important contribution to the debate about the appropriate ways to
deal with intelligence in court proceedings was made recently by Professor
Ron Atkey, PC, QC, former Chair of the Security Intelligence Review
Committee (Canada) and President of ICJ (Canadian Section), who delivered
a paper on ‘The Use of Intelligence Information in Criminal Court Cases’ to
the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) Expert Meeting at
The Hague, The Netherlands, on 3 March 2011.23 In it, Atkey reviews
Canada’s current approach to the issue and champions, in particular,
selected recommendations for change originally made in the Report of the
Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India
Flight 182, conducted by retired Justice John Major, published in June 1985.
On a more general level, the problem of confusing evidence and
intelligence was discussed by Bruce Berkowitz in 2003.

Detective work and intelligence collection may resemble each other, but
they are really completely different. Detectives aim at meeting a specific
legal standard – ‘probable cause,’ for example, or ‘beyond a reasonable
doubt’ or ‘preponderance of evidence.’ It depends on whether you want
to start an investigation, put a suspect in jail or win a civil suit.
Intelligence, on the other hand, rarely tries to prove anything; its main
purpose is to inform officials and military commanders.

22
Justice Issues, an article of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), a component of the Office
of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice 5http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/topics/
ilp.html4 (accessed 6 August 2011).
23
5http://www.icjcanada.org/en/documents/doc_2011-03-03.pdf4 (accessed 18 December
2011).
 692 Intelligence and National Security

The clock runs differently for detectives and intelligence analysts, too.
Intelligence analysts – one hopes – go to work before a crisis; detectives
usually go to work after a crime. Law enforcement agencies take their
time and doggedly pursue as many leads as they can. Intelligence analysts
usually operate against the clock. There is a critical point in time where
officials have to ‘go with what they’ve got,’ ambiguous or not.24

In criminal or enforcement intelligence, where evidence and intelligence are

widely confused and administrative jurisdictions fight to preserve indepen-
dence, the greatest obstacle to acceptance of a standard definition of
intelligence, such as that proposed here, is that few practitioners, and fewer
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

managers, recognize the value of consistent intelligence theory.

Summary
The adoption of a new definition of intelligence would help to improve the
conduct of intelligence through better mutual understanding between the client
decision-makers, whose needs determine intelligence requirements, and the
collectors and analysts, who strive to meet those needs. It would provide a
clearer common basis for the study and management of intelligence by scholars
and practitioners in the increasingly wide range of sectors and organizations
which conduct intelligence, and for the public and media understanding of
intelligence. Possibly most importantly, it would facilitate effective, ongoing
audit and evaluation of intelligence, an outcome sadly lacking to this point.
The following new definition is proposed:

Intelligence is a corporate capability to forecast change in time to do

something about it. The capability involves foresight and insight, and
is intended to identify impending change, which may be positive,
representing opportunity, or negative, representing threat.

The benefits of the widespread adoption of this definition, even as only one
element of the definition of intelligence used by any particular organization,
would also be increased and reinforced if accompanied by efforts to ensure
understanding of the intelligence process as requiring an effective dialogue
between decision-maker clients on one hand and intelligence collectors and
analysts on the other.

Acknowledgements
I drew particular strength for this project from three publications concerning
intelligence theory. All three serve to illuminate the domain within which
any new proposal for a standard definition must be tested.

24
Bruce Berkowitz, ‘Commentary: The Big Difference between Intelligence and Evidence’,
Washington Post, 2 February 2003 5http://rand.org/commentary/020203WP.html4 (ac-
cessed 13 August 2011).
 A New Definition of Intelligence 693

Loch Johnson’s article, ‘Bricks and Mortar for a Theory of Intelligence’,

published in 2003,25 provides a valuable survey of the concepts which shape
intelligence. It embodies several ideas which are argued in this article
(intelligence as a function of government, conducted in secrecy, for
example), but was my first encounter with the broad sweep of intelligence
theory.
In 2005, the RAND Corporation convened a workshop aimed at better
understanding of intelligence, in collaboration with the Office of the US
Secretary of Defence. The resulting report, prepared under the leadership of
Gregory Treverton, is entitled ‘Toward a Theory of Intelligence: Workshop
Report’.26
Downloaded by [University of Glasgow] at 08:24 14 September 2017

And, most recently, Intelligence Theory; Key Questions and Debates,

edited by Peter Gill, Stephen Marrin and Mark Phythian, is an important
collection of essays on several aspects and issues of intelligence theory.27

Notes on Contributor
Alan Breakspear’s career in Canada’s Public Service included service in the
Communications Security Establishment (CSE) as linguist/analyst; in the
Privy Council Office (PCO) as policy analyst, strategic intelligence analyst,
assessment coordinator and intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister’s
Office (PMO); and in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) as
senior manager. He later worked as a consultant and trainer in Competitive
Intelligence, Knowledge Management and Strategic Early Warning, and
taught Intelligence and Public Policy at the University of British Columbia
and the University of Victoria. He is currently a company director and board
chair, and President of the Canadian Association for Security and
Intelligence Studies (CASIS).

25
Loch Johnson, ‘Bricks and Mortar for a Theory of Intelligence’, Comparative Strategy 22
(2003) pp.1–28.
26
5http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/2006/RAND_CF219.pdf4 (accessed 13
August 2011).
27
P. Gill, S. Marrin, and M. Phythian (eds.), Intelligence Theory; Key Questions and Debates
(Oxford: Routledge 2009).