Cristian BARNA, PhD

Abstract. As security threats are growing global, intelligence services must adapt faster and faster, in real time, to emerging crisis. It is our belief that the scientific community must offer academic expertise in order to capacitate intelligence services in dealing with new threats. In addition, not only the scientific community but also intelligence services must be aware of the fact that, in order to be able to replicate knowledge and expertise in the intelligence field, they must train officers to become good „trainers”. Therefore, the current paper aims to highlight the need for developing a strategy that can insure an efficient replication of best practices in intelligence by training and education.

SHIFTING INTELLIGENCE INTO THE INFORMATION ERA

Policymakers must go further to build a new intelligence system to support transformed national security needs. Threats involving unknown perpetrators, methods, and targets cannot be countered with strategies designed to combat more adversaries that are predictable.

It is impossible to anticipate “need to know” in a world where enemies are little understood, means of attack are unpredictable, and potential targets are many, diverse, and changing.

Defending against terrorism threats will require policymakers to replace the formal, hierarchical intelligence structure with a horizontal, cooperative, and fluid architecture that gets information from those who have it to those who need it through the development of virtual communities of information sources, analysts, and users.

Advances in information technology can facilitate the gathering and sharing information in real time. Information technology can provide tools to foster collabo-ration, and help assure that the right information gets to the right people at the right time.

One of the factors that led to profound changes in the evolution of intelligence is the removal of physical barriers’ that once prevented communication and interaction. In this world in which societies are no longer military threatened but rather politically, economically and culturally undermined, intelligence services are facing new challenges, being called upon to contribute to the reduction or removal of a series of threats and negative effects.

Accelerated globalization and advancement towards an information and knowledge-based society do not make the world safer. In addition, communication networks have become a global battleground in military, economical and commercial and/or political and diplomatic competition.

Alvin and Heidi Toffler had stated that intelligence services are going through an identity crisis, being forced to question their primary mission. Even today, this identity crisis can’t be said to have ended, mainly due to a volatile security environment

that constantly requires new approaches and new types of missions.¹

The explosion of information makes things more complex by adding propor-tionate amounts of useful and useless data. According to Richard Aldrich, the challenge is not their collection, but the reorganization of analytical structures to use information with more imagination.²

In a more fluid international environment intelligence decision makers felt they can no longer afford a long-term intellectual capital accumulation because of the development of Internet and of broadcasters instantly transmitting what is happening in the world 24 hours per day.³

This transition to the information society and the technological revolution in communications remove the informational privilege. Moreover, the increasing volume of data and information, the increasing velocity and capacity of their storage and processing led to an informational flood. For that matter, a big pressure is laid on the ability of decision makers who are provided a large amount of information, situation in which the decision is not easy to make. Informational flooding creates a super-saturation and makes the analyzing, forecasting and decision making processes difficult to steer in the right direction.⁴

In this informational-flooded security environment, intelligence as strategic knowledge base is the main channel which provides a decisional input for the risk management, revealing the challenges and threats to the national security strategy.⁵

Because the complexity of today’s world makes knowledge and level of expertise that most of intelligence services have, no longer sufficient. This has led to a need to transform intelligence in order to be able to face new challenges.

On one hand, the informational explosion has forced intelligence services to develop new capabilities for monitoring and collecting information from open sources (OSINT), adapted to new media.⁶

The “Facebook” and “Twitter” revolutions demonstrate the impact of virtual tools on both our daily lives and the level of international security, the rapid evolution of social media, the current tendency of people to interact and communicate without barriers, given these technological facilities, causing some groups to act outside tangible reality, thus developing an online collectivism that is difficult to anticipate.

These forms of evolution of “digital power”, in the era of informational glo-balization, mean, in equal measure, both opportunities and vulnerabilities (online radicalization of terrorists, fake news, trolls, bots, etc.) which, when they materialize, have negative consequences on the societal security climate.

WHAT CAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES DO
IN THIS INFORMATIONAL WAR?

The analysis of social media platforms can help intelligence services understand certain emerging phenomena as thresholds and indicators of crime or violence. Statistical analysis revealed that there are posts on Twitter, both before and after the occurrence of a violent phenomenon. Thus, by evaluating the traffic on social media platforms, the identification of emerging phenomena can be accelerated. For example, if they were to geo-localize events promoted on social networks, intelligence services could obtain maps with possible new locations of ongoing criminal or terrorist activity.

The connections that users of a social media platform establish offer the possi–bility of profiling subjects (personal opinions, data on acquaintances, online relationship circle, social status, photos in which the user has been tagged by other users, etc.).

For example, Facebook users can be tagged with names in photos posted on other users’ profiles or groups, in spaces with photos of friends or connections they maintain, information that could not be accessed through a simple analysis of a user’s own photos. In addition, the places frequented by the user with other people in his or her circle of relations can also be seen.

Another example is the use of the check-in/location option, which offers the possibility of observing, sometimes even in real time, where the user is at a certain time. Thus, if a post is created, we can determine the area in which it was made, indicating the approximate location of the user, in a certain area, city or region.

Therefore, the x-raying of social media platforms can lead to a series of oppor-tunities that, if used by intelligence services, can obtain a series of data of interest.

However, it should be remember that those who use social media platforms for purposes that do not serve legitimate values and interests are aware of all these opportunities and benefit from them, so social media platforms can be considered more of a “demilitarized” zone or a battleground in which all parties fight to acquire “digital power”.

DEVELOPING TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN INTELLIGENCE
IN INFORMATIONAL ERA

Intelligence officers’ professional development is linked to the informational tools integrated into their current activity, the fast communication through collabo-rative working platform, the strengthening of cooperation between analysts and operatives and the applying of new standards of professional performance.

The intelligence transformation means that overall effectiveness will be im-proved by the successful integration of the innovations: technology, doctrine, organi-zation, leadership, learning and training. It means refashioning tradecraft, business practices, habits of thought, and a cultural change to gain advantages against adversa-ries. The transformation of intelligence services is a process by which the organization is shaped into a preeminent learning organization.⁷

According to Stephen Marrin, one way of shaping intelligence as a profession is through education, the key for strengthening expertise, responsibility and sharing capabilities of the intelligence practitioners, in particular, and of the intelligence institutions they work for, in general.⁸

As Wilhelm Agrell mentions, the intelligence work that he joined was not based on training programs, specific education, or theoretical knowledge, but rather professional expertise. The craft was not developed but reproduced. According to him, if intelligence is to be treated as a modern profession then it has to be character-rized by the transformation from improvisation and master-apprentice relations to formalized education and training programs.⁹

In this respect, Lloyd Salvetti had rhetorically asked himself what we should teach in courses on intelligence. In his opinion, in designing a curricula for intelligence courses, someone must bear in mind the growth in importance of technology (espe-cially technical means of collection), the role of an intelligence service in a democratic society (oversight and public scrutiny), the influence of intelligence on policy and concomitantly, the influence of politics and policymakers on intelligence, the partner-ship of intelligence with law enforcement and the military, the relevancy of secret intelligence in the Information Age and, of course, successes and failures.¹⁰

We must stress that investing too much or too less in either short-term or long-term issues always involves hazards. Because a difficult decision to be made is that of where to allot resources in order to keep intelligence services tuned to the challenges of an ever-changing world.

According to Fred Schreier, knowledge strategies have to build on an intelligence service’s short, medium, and long-term goals, by taking in consideration what skills will intelligence services need to meet the challenges ahead, what expertise do they have in this respect and how can this be improved, what expertise exists outside the service, who are the people that intelligence services need and how will the knowledge acquired while fulfilling the current goals benefit their other activities.¹¹