Towards Postmodern Intelligence

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Towards postmodern intelligence

Andrew Rathmell
Online publication date: 04 June 2010
To cite this Article Rathmell, Andrew(2002) 'Towards postmodern intelligence', Intelligence and National Security, 17: 3,
87 104
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Towards Postmodern Intelligence
A N D R E W R ATHMELL
Western intelligence services have had to operate in a rapidly-

changing and fluid environment for the past decade and a half. Many
in the Intelligence policy and studies communities have struggled to
conceptualise the changes underway and to prescribe solutions to the
Intelligence communitys evident problems.
Downloaded By: [Kings College London] At: 11:41 7 November 2010
Conceptualisations have emerged to describe and prescribe

solutions to the communitys challenges but, by focusing on portions
of the whole, such as the end of the Cold War, they fail to provide a
meta-theory.
In an attempt to provide such a framework, this article explores
postmodern social theory. The article explores whether post-
modernism may be a valuable analytical tool, as it has proved in
related disciplines such as military sociology.
It is argued that postmodernist perspectives do indeed capture
important elements of the contemporary Intelligence environment.
Further, recognition of these elements can be used prescriptively to
shape future Intelligence policy.
While the concept of postmodern Intelligence may not, by itself,
adequately characterise all facets of the contemporary Intelligence
environment, the term does provide a valuable conceptual framework
within which change can be managed and Intelligence sources and
methods can be adapted to a new era.
Over the past decade, Western intelligence services have had to respond to
a succession of radical environmental changes. Most dramatic was the end
of the Cold War and subsequent revisions of roles and missions. At the same
time, the information revolution has challenged established sources,
methods and institutional structures. In general, intelligence services have
faced the problem of operating in an ever more chaotic and fast-changing
global environment.
The pace of change has left many in the intelligence community
struggling to adapt their practices and world-views, while many in the
intelligence policy and studies communities have struggled to conceptualize
the changes underway and to prescribe solutions to their evident problems.
Intelligence and National Security, Vol.17, No.3 (Autumn 2002), pp.87104
PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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88 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y
Conceptually, the developments affecting intelligence have often been seen

as discrete trends geopolitical change, technological innovation,
budgetary and political pressures. Practically, in the rush of events, there is
a tendency for the community to lurch from crisis to crisis.
It would be preferable to have a more systematic approach to
conceptualizing this rush of change. The aim of such a conceptualization
would be both to describe contemporary reality and to prescribe how
contemporary changes can be managed to ensure the future success of
intelligence. Several such conceptualizations have emerged but it is the
argument of this article that, by focusing on portions of the whole, such as
the end of the Cold War, they fail to provide a meta-theory that can be both
descriptive and prescriptive.
In an attempt to provide such a framework, this article explores

postmodern social theory.1 The use of social theory, let alone postmodernism,
may seem unusual in the field of intelligence studies. This field tends to draw
on the disciplinary perspectives of diplomatic history, international relations,
strategic studies or public policy. In general, scholars and practitioners of
intelligence tend to be wedded to the robust paradigms of realism, with little
time for the generalities and perceived vacuities of social theorists.2
However, this article seeks to demonstrate that postmodernism may be a
valuable analytical tool. The argument is that postmodernist perspectives do
indeed capture important elements of the contemporary intelligence
environment. Further, recognition of these elements can be used
prescriptively to shape future intelligence policy. While the concept of
postmodern intelligence may not, by itself, adequately characterize all
facets of the contemporary intelligence environment, the term does provide
a valuable conceptual framework within which change can be managed and
intelligence sources and methods can be adapted to a new era.
DEF INING I NTELLI GENCE
Intelligence is a much-abused term, in both the scholarly literature and in

official discourse. There are also genuine national and institutional
differences of perspective that complicate the search for definitions.
This article does not advance any new definitions of intelligence but
rather builds on established schools of thought. First, it does not accept the
approach that conflates intelligence with secret sources and methods.
Rather, it adopts Sherman Kents classic definition of intelligence as a kind
of knowledge.3 Today, we need to broaden Kents scope so that intelligence
serves not just a states diplomatic and military affairs. Nonetheless, the
central concept is that the business of the intelligence community is the
production of knowledge. Not just any knowledge, but targeted, actionable
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TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 89

4
and predictive knowledge for specific consumers. Secret sources and
methods will contribute to this process but only as a part of the whole.
Second, the term Intelligence (consciously capitalized) is taken to
include a variety of activities. Kent characterized these as being knowledge
(the research process), organization (the institution) and activity (the
process of estimating). This article adopts Dearths reformulation of Kents
triad; namely, Process, Profession and Politics.5 Process refers to the
elements of the intelligence cycle and its outputs. Profession refers to the
organizations and organizational norms within which individuals work.
Politics refers to the fact that intelligence is an art relying on assessment
and interpretation. Products are therefore subject to political influences.6
These influences include organizational, bureaucratic and party political
pressures as well as individual or institutional cognitive filters.

This article considers how postmodern concepts can be applied to the
process, profession and politics of the production of knowledge for
contemporary states, that is of intelligence.
EVOLUTIO N OF I NTELLI GENCE
Before exploring the future of intelligence it is important to sketch out

where we are and how we got here.
Like the state structures and armed forces that it evolved to serve,
intelligence is a product of modernity but in chronological terms a rather late
product. The modern period can be characterised as, roughly speaking,
stretching from the late seventeenth century until the mid/late twentieth
century. In general, it refers to the modes of social life or organization which
emerged in Europe from about the seventeenth century onward and which
subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence.7 The central
elements of modernity are generally taken to be the state, the industrial
economy, capitalism, the class system and the nuclear family. Clearly, this
broad definitional sweep subsumes a large number and variety of
developments as well as analytical disagreements over the periodization and
elements of modernity. Nonetheless, this broad periodization does allow us
to see how the state and its armed forces evolved from the pre-modern era to
the modern era of bureaucratic nation states and industrialized, mass warfare.
State-building and warfare both drove and reflected many of the
developments that characterise modernity whether these were successive
industrial and technological revolutions or the development of centralised,
hierarchized and bureaucratized states.8 It is interesting to note, however, that
intelligence lagged behind these developments. Obviously, rulers and generals
have always used intelligence. Intelligencers quite rightly hark back to Sun
Tzu or the Ancient Greeks for texts to establish their heritage as the second
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oldest profession. However, intelligence as a modern process and profession

was remarkably late to evolve. The complex mix of bureaucratic structures,
strategies and tactics, doctrines, procedures and cultures, professional ethos
and outlook that characterize contemporary Western intelligence is largely a
product of World War II and of the Cold War. Before the second half of this
century intelligence emerged only gradually as a formalized activity along
with the rise of nation states and of industrial-era warfare.9
In the early modern period, military and diplomatic intelligence was an ad
hoc affair. Not all statesmen and generals agreed with Clausewitzs complaint
about the false and uncertain nature of intelligence in war but even the leading
intelligence services of the early modern era were informal and personal
affairs.10 Foreign intelligence became more systematized with the
establishment of embassies from the seventeenth century as the post-

Westphalian concept and practice of international relations evolved.11 Military
intelligence only began to take on a modern guise in the Napoleonic era as the
changing nature of war increased the requirement for militarily useful
information. However, it was not until the late nineteenth century that leading
powers integrated intelligence into their military staff functions and the
accreditation of military attachs became a widely accepted practice.12
Technological, industrial and military developments around the turn of the
century paved the way for an enhancement of the role of intelligence in the
First World War. As military information requirements grew, so did the
availability of technologically advanced means of collection and
dissemination. These factors both enabled and required the development of
more structured and bureaucratized intelligence institutions and processes that
were integrated into nation state and military C3 (command, control and
communications) systems.
The demobilization of intelligence between the wars however delayed the
institutionalization of these structures and processes. This had to wait for
193945, during which the exponential leap in information requirements due
to the global scale and the speed and scope of operations, combined with new
technologies such as signals intelligence, imagery and radar, led to the creation
of large permanent intelligence staffs serving both military and political
consumers. At the same time, the coalition against Germany and Japan laid the
foundations for the unprecedented emergence of an international intelligence
community embodied in the UKUSA structures.
The Cold War intelligence structures that emerged in the 1940s and 1950s
deepened and widened this institutionalization of intelligence. For the first
time, intelligence developed the characteristics of a truly modern process and
profession. Interestingly, the emergence of modern intelligence took place in
an era when modernity itself was beginning to be challenged in the artistic and
intellectual spheres.
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The modern intelligence community that evolved out of World War II and
the Cold War was a historically unique institution in that it involved garrison-
state, standing intelligence bureaucracies with a global surveillance remit.13
This intelligence community shared the characteristics of other modern state
and capitalist institutions. For instance, the concept of the intelligence
factory captured the similarity of intelligence to Fordist modes of
production. The hierarchical and bureaucratized organisational structures of
most intelligence institutions came close to the Weberian bureaucratic ideal.
In addition, the organization and practices of this community were shaped
by the particular geopolitical and technical requirements of the Cold War.
Three characteristics of the Cold War were crucial.
First, the scale of the perceived threat, that is, existential ideological
struggle overlain by the threat of nuclear annihilation: this overarching threat

meant that, although substantial intelligence effort went into other regions,
such as the Middle East, and other issues, such as post-colonial insurgencies,
these activities did not shape the process and profession in the way that the
Soviet target did.
Second, the hardness and the militarized nature of the target: These
characteristics meant that there was a concentration on acquisition of
tangible technical military, scientific and economic indicators through
clandestine and specialized collection mechanisms.
Third, the predictability of the geopolitical context: Although there were
numerous surprises during the Cold War, the core intelligence task the
monitoring of the USSRs strategic and military posture remained within
predictably limited bounds.
These characteristics shaped the modern intelligence community that
emerged from the Cold War secretive and divorced from society,
emphasising clandestine and often technical collection and comfortable with
linear predictive reasoning.14
REFORM AND REVOLUTION
As they were shaped by the Cold War, so the end of the Cold War led to
pressures for change in the Wests intelligence communities. Although it was
the collapse of the Soviet threat that spurred much of the debate over
intelligence reform, this debate has sometimes referred also to concurrent
developments such as the information revolution and the rise of
transnational, non-state threats.
There has been no shortage of critics calling for radical reform. These
revolutionary theorists emphasize factors such as the expanded range of
security threats that face Western governments since the end of the Cold War
and the information revolution which has supposedly ushered in an
Information Age.15 These observers have argued a range of positions, from
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minimal reform of target sets to root and branch overthrow of the intelligence
community.16
Unsurprisingly, actual reforms have been dominated by a spirit of
evolutionary realism that has taken account of the more obvious pressures
for change.17 Reforms have included shifts in the roles and missions of the
intelligence community and the gradual adoption of new practices and
approaches.18 Western intelligence services have shifted some of their
resources to studying issues previously seen as of lesser importance,
including arms proliferation, regional contingencies, terrorism, organized
crime and drugs trafficking, even environmental and humanitarian
problems.19 At the same time, new technologies have been incorporated, as
with the US Intelink and the exploitation of digital open source information.20
Additionally, there has been a limited breaking down of institutional barriers.

On the one hand, defence intelligence organizations have begun to cooperate
with law enforcement, on the other hand Anglo-American and NATO
services have begun to cooperate with PfP and the NATO invitee nations.21
These evolutionary changes in focus, technology and cooperative
structures have been welcome in ensuring that the intelligence community
continues to serve its customers. However, on the whole these reforms have
tended to be conceived as ad hoc reforms to external pressures whether
geopolitical or budgetary. This approach appears to have generated a
concern in the intelligence community that it is consistently behind the
curve and running to catch up with a fluid and unpredictable environment.
The fact that this perception is not uncommon amongst institutions and
individuals in the wider world indicates that there may be a broader context
within which intelligence reform can be conceptualized. This context can
loosely be defined as postmodernity.
POSTMODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM
By self-definition, there can be no overarching definition of postmodernism

or of postmodernity. Quite apart from the fact that the concepts remain
bitterly contested, on its own grounds postmodernism rejects
epistemological assumptions, refutes methodological conventions, resists
knowledge claims, obscures all versions of the truth, and dismisses policy
recommendations.22 It is therefore hard to see how these concepts can
contribute to a description of an activity as policy-oriented and realist as
intelligence, let alone provide a prescription for intelligence reform.
This section nonetheless seeks to lay the groundwork for just such an
application. It does so by providing a brief overview of the intellectual
genealogy of the concepts, distinguishing between postmodernity and
postmodernism and identifying key themes of relevance to intelligence.
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As noted above, the concepts of modernity and modernism are generally
taken to refer to the European social, economic, cultural and political forms
that developed between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.23 The term
postmodern first emerged in the 1930s but only really began to be used in
the West in the 1950s and 1960s to refer to cultural developments.24 It was
not until the 1970s that the term emerged into the intellectual mainstream
and began to be applied more widely across all intellectual disciplines and
also to social theory.
As it emerged into the mainstream in the late 1970s, the concept evolved
two distinct but inter-related components, postmodernism and post-
modernity.25
Postmodernism refers to the emergence of new approaches towards
knowledge and the processes of creating knowledge. Those who used the
term in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s referred mainly to new aspects and
forms of culture and the arts, notably architecture.26 However, Lyotards
1979 survey of the state of the academy crossed disciplinary boundaries and
identified an emerging postmodern state of knowledge and of science.27 For
Lyotard, postmodern approaches to knowledge reject the modernist
legitimacy of meta-narratives and celebrate and emphasize different
perspectives. In relation to the social sciences, postmodernism challenges
the privileging of the objective scientific method, arguing that truth is
contextually dependent and culturally determined.28
The postmodern cultural and epistemological condition did not,
however arise autonomously. A succession of theorists has sought to
identify linkages between the changed cultural forms and intellectual
processes identified by postmodernism and the social and economic
conditions of the contemporary environment. Jameson, for instance, sought
to correlate new forms of practice and social and mental habits with the
new forms of economic production and organization thrown up by the
modification of capitalism in recent years.29
Postmodernity, therefore, refers to an object of study postmodernity
is the study of the temporal and spatial organization, and the complex
interaction, of economic, political and cultural processes in the late
twentieth century.30 Three broad theoretical perspectives emerge from the
literature on postmodernity.
First, critics of the concept of postmodernity argue that there are more
historical continuities than discontinuities in the contemporary era and that
theorists of postmodernity have not explained the dynamic or the nature of
the supposed epochal break between modernity and postmodernity. Rather,
these critics argue, the contemporary era represents a sub-phase in
modernity, which some label high modernity. In this phase, the modern
structures of the bureaucratic state and capitalism are intensified and
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combine to eliminate the last vestiges of traditional society.31 A notable

critique of postmodernism, for instance, is that contemporary economic
globalization is merely an intensification of processes in train since at least
the sixteenth century.32
A second perspective is that society is in the process of transition to a
postmodern era. In this transitional phase, there co-exist traditional pre-
modern, modern and postmodern forms. This transitional perspective
reflects the recognition that radical social change occurs unevenly and over
very long periods.
A third perspective is that society has already entered a truly postmodern
era which marks a radical break from the past. Proponents of this view
disagree over the periodization of this epochal break, with Peter Drucker
putting it as far back as sometime between the 1930s and 1950s for the
United States.33
Whichever perspective one takes, most analysts agree that there are
significant economic and technological changes underway that are
impacting on social structures and on individuals. At the macro level,
industrial-era political and economic systems are fragmenting and
restructuring from capital intensive mass production, urbanized nation
states into knowledge intensive, dispersed and globalized systems. The key
features of this new landscape are:
Post-industrialism. This concept highlights the way in which the balance

of the workforce and economic value have shifted from fabricating
goods in industries to processing information in the service sector.
Daniel Bell, the earliest theorist of this development, argued that the
emergence of the service economy reduced the significance of
industrial-era factors of production, such as labour and capital and
increased the significance of information and knowledge as factors of
production. At the same time, this era is characterized by a shift from
machine technology to intellectual technology.34
Post-Fordism. This concept highlights the decline of the mass-
production model epitomized by the Taylorian ideal. In the post-
industrial economy, products are differentiated and niche-marketed and
workers are more involved in the production process.
Globalization. This concept emphasizes the notion that, since social,
economic and informational processes take place on a planetary scale,
modern units such as states and corporations can no longer control them.
The global electronic financial system is often cited as the paradigmatic
instance of this trend as it has eroded the ability of national governments
to manage their finances.
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It is also generally accepted by social theorists that these components of
postmodernity are fuelled by technological developments. Indeed, some
observers go so far as to identify electronic communications media and the
digitization of information as the predominant drivers of change.35
At the level of individual social organizations and of persons,
postmodern society pushes states and corporations into periodic crises as
they struggle to manage the changing environment. Meanwhile, for both
social groups and individuals, the process of constructing individual
identities is increasingly a self-reflexive activity as traditional certainties
dissolve. More generally, modernist conceptualizations of identity,
community and the place are being undermined by the emergence of
multiple identities, the merging of man and machine and the emergence of
cyberspace as an alternative space-time.36

Using both postmodern perspectives on epistemology and
postmodernity as a description of contemporary society, it is possible to
draw out five core postmodern themes:
The end of grand narratives. A central theme of postmodernism is the

rejection of modernist thinking that searches for grand, unified theories
of society and knowledge and for comprehensive explanations of
social activities. Postmodernism replaces the grand narrative with
alternative discourses and provides access to fragmented world-views.
Furthermore, whereas modernity emphasised linearity and progressive
historical advance, postmodernism substitutes non-linearity, recursive-
ness and chaos.
The end of the search for absolute truths. Postmodernism rejects the
notion of objective truths and instead acknowledges the role of the
researcher as an agent and participant. Rather than making
observations of a unified reality, postmodernism provides readings
that take account of the social and linguistic structures underpinning the
creation of knowledge.
Absent centres and uncertain identities. Postmodernism challenges the
most fundamental underpinnings of modernist thought relating to
individual identity. Postmodernism deconstructs the socio-linguistic
constructions that underpin binary opposites such as male/female,
human/machine, local/global. Theorists argue that their analysis reflects
contemporary society in which technological, social and economic
changes are breaking down these binaries.
Fluid boundaries. Linked to the above is the notion that the hard-edged
boundaries of modernist thought are becoming permeable. At the level
of meta-narrative, rival modernist approaches (political economy-
technological determinism-social constructivism; liberalism-Marxism)
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are being replaced by more fluid and multifaceted explanations. At an

empirical level, the boundaries between states, regions, cultures and
corporations are becoming more blurred as a result of economic,
technological and social change.
The knowledge economy. Economists and cultural theorists agree on the
emergence of a knowledge economy and the demassification of
production in emerging post-industrial societies. This development has
far reaching implications for the disorganization of society, ranging
from the replacement of hierarchical structures by networks, and the
replacement of broadcast media by interactive personalized media, to
the end of corporate loyalties and the rise of the autonomous knowledge
worker.
POS TM OD ERN I NTELLI GENCE
The analytical perspectives and conceptual frameworks of postmodernism

have been applied to a range of social phenomena, including the arts,
commerce, societal relations and government. Recently, there have been
efforts to explore the utility of these concepts in relation to institutions that,
on the face of it, represent the essence of modernity, such as the military.
The debate over postmodern militaries provides a useful perspective on
intelligence since the institutions in question share many characteristics.
Scholars engaged in the debate over postmodern militaries are seeking
to assess the relevance of postmodern concept(s) as a tool of analysis in
the study of present-day military institutions.37 This debate is an attempt to
go beyond the use of one-dimensional analytical constructs such as post-
Cold War to describe the changes being experienced by contemporary
armed forces in West Europe and the United States. The search for a
conceptual framework, within which to analyze these changes, has been
made more pressing by increasing evidence of significant changes in the
roles, missions and organizational structures of armed forces. These
changes are taking place at a time when the role of nation states in conflict
appears to be decreasing and Western militaries are becoming ever more
marginalized from their societies.
Among sociologists of the military there is little consensus on the
usefulness of applying concepts of postmodernism to contemporary armed
forces. Indeed, two prominent scholars suggest that it may be more
appropriate to argue that the military, as a conservative organization, has
resisted some of the changes towards modernity... but is now moving more
strikingly into modernity from a more primordial organizational form.38
In light of the close historical and institutional links between Western
armed forces and Western intelligence organizations, it is tempting to read
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across from the debate over postmodern militaries to intelligence. After all,
are not both institutions classic representatives of the modern, bureaucratic
state? Moreover, many of the issues surrounding post-Cold War roles and
missions are similar for military and intelligence institutions. There
certainly will be lessons to be drawn, especially when considering those
portions of the intelligence community that have the closest relationships to
the armed forces, such as the service and defence intelligence organizations.
However, the intelligence community as a whole cannot simply be read
as an analogue to the military. There are two main differences. First, the
historical emergence of the two institutions was not contemporaneous.
Todays armed forces evolved gradually over centuries whereas todays
Western intelligence community essentially sprung into being in the late
modern period of the mid-twentieth century. Second, since the very essence
of intelligence is the production of knowledge, there is a prima facie case
for it to be more affected than the armed forces by the trends that
postmodernism identifies. As outlined above, these trends are rooted in
transformations both in the nature of knowledge and in the
institutionalization of knowledge activities.
To examine the usefulness of postmodernism in understanding
contemporary Western intelligence it is enlightening to match the five
postmodern themes noted above with changes taking place in the
intelligence business:
Fragmentation of targets, roles and missions. Intelligences grand

narrative ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, the
intelligence community has to understand multiple, overlapping and
often contradictory narratives. Just as post-modern literature has
discovered the voices of excluded and marginalized social groups, so
postmodern intelligence has begun to discover previously marginalized
targets. Furthermore, the Cold War focus on the USSR enabled the
intelligence community to relax intellectually developments were
apparently incremental and linear. Today, the community must
understand a world that appears chaotic and developments that display
the properties of non-linear, dynamic systems.
Mysteries not puzzles. Joseph Nyes phrase captures an aspect of the
problem identified by postmodernism in its critique of the modernist
scientific method.39 Whereas Cold War intelligence knew the problem and
could envisage an objective reality that it was seeking to comprehend,
contemporary intelligence is in the position of not even knowing if there
is a single objective reality out there that it is trying to capture.
Identity. At the micro level, intelligence personnel follow the rest of
society in finding their identities challenged from multiple directions.
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Indeed, in the technology-rich world of intelligence, the human/machine

dichotomy is particularly under threat with the rise of cyborg concepts
and automated systems.40 At the macro level, identities are also under
question. During the Cold War there was no doubt for whom and against
whom the Western intelligence community worked. This is changing as
it becomes unclear for which government department, for which state,
for which multinational organization or, indeed, for which corporation,
intelligence is being produced.
Fluid boundaries. Interestingly enough, the UKUSA Sigint community
meant that, in certain respects, Western intelligence was globalized
long before the term came to be widely applied.41 Nonetheless, during
the Cold War there were clear and fairly impermeable boundaries within
which the community worked. In the contemporary environment, these

boundaries are becoming fluid and permeable. On the one hand,
horizontal knowledge networks are beginning to rival vertical national
structures as means for generating knowledge and producing
intelligence. On the other hand, boundaries of loyalty and professional
expertise are being eroded. The free flow of previously classified
technologies and expertise to the private sector and the increasing use of
commercial off-the-shelf technologies and expertise by the intelligence
community highlight this transformation.
The end of the intelligence factory. The classic concept of an
intelligence factory is as dated as its industrial counterparts. The
knowledge economy, driven by technology and social change, is
changing the intelligence business just as it is changing commerce,
government and the armed forces.
OPERATIO NALI ZI NG POSTM ODERN I NT E L L I G E N C E
In order to ground this discussion, it is helpful to consider some concrete

ways in which the contemporary environment challenges the intelligence
community. All four examples used here are instances of the changes that
characterize postmodern society.
The Information Revolution. It is not yet clear whether telematics and
digital technologies are merely transformative technologies that will change
social, economic and political structures, as did the car, telephone and
television earlier this century, or whether they truly represent an information
revolution along the lines of the adoption of the Roman alphabet or the
introduction of moveable type. Advocates of the concept of an Information
Age would have us believe the latter. They argue that, as with previous
information revolutions, the widespread adoption of cyber and digital
technologies will revolutionize our societies in ways we cannot yet conceive.42
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Even if we take a more cautious view, however, and see information and
communication technologies (ICT) as merely transformative, the
implications for intelligence are profound. Two implications are perhaps of
most significance organizational and cultural. Organizationally, the
information revolution poses challenges to existing structures and
bureaucracies. Existing intelligence organizations, just like corporations
and armed forces, emerged in the industrial era on the factory model. They
are hierarchical, stove-piped, replete with middle managers and relatively
inflexible. Contemporary ICTs both enable and require the adoption of
flatter, networked and more flexible, task-oriented structures.43
Culturally, the implications of the ICT revolution are profounder, if as
yet harder to conceptualize. As knowledge increases in importance as a
factor of production compared to capital and labour, so knowledge workers

become empowered. Although it represents the epitome of a knowledge
industry, the intelligence community is only gradually coming to grips with
the implications of this profound cultural and structural transformation.
Open Source Information: Open Source Information (OSINF) has risen
to prominence as a result of several factors. These include: geopolitical
changes that have freed up sources of information; the ICT revolution that
has transformed the collection, collation and dissemination of information;
and the expanded range of targets that have to be covered which have made
many of the intelligence communitys existing databases obsolete. These
factors have ushered in a situation where OSINF can provide the baseline
for all intelligence work and where many intelligence questions can be
answered from open sources.
OSINF raises fundamental questions regarding intelligence process and
structure. In an OSINF environment, just what is intelligence and what is the
added value of intelligence products? Traditional trade-offs between
timeliness, accuracy and comprehensiveness need to be re-examined when
policy-makers receive instantaneous reporting via satellite television and
combat troops can download and analyse high resolution commercial
satellite imagery onto their laptops. OSINF exacerbates the structural
challenges posed by the broader information revolution. Information and
knowledge required by the intelligence community increasingly resides in
horizontal, transnational, unclassified knowledge networks, comprising both
datasets and individuals. These horizontal knowledge networks undermine
existing approaches that privilege vertical integration, compartmentalization
and classification.
Information Operations: Information Operations (IO) provide a
particularly problematic instance of the trends outlined above. Offensive IO
and perception management require long-term, in-depth and timely cultural,
psychological and political knowledge. Generating actionable intelligence
173int03.qxd 23/10/02 10:12 Page 100
on these subjects requires a multi-faceted approach that considers all sides

of the issue and deconstructs a range of linguistic and sociological
discourses to comprehend the target. Furthermore, the requisite knowledge
often resides more in non-intelligence communities and networks than it
does within established intelligence organizations. Intelligence Preparation
of the IO Battlespace will therefore require novel methods and structures for
collection and analysis.44
Defensive IO, or strategic information assurance, meanwhile, requires
comprehensive, real-time monitoring of cyberspace including public, private
and transnational networks. This is an activity which cannot be carried out by
existing departmental or national intelligence structures but which will instead
involve a new paradigm of information sharing between the public and
private sectors as well as between and across state boundaries.45

Dynamic change: The fact that human affairs represent a dynamic
system characterized by non-linear and chaotic behaviour should come as
no surprise to any student of history. There are three reasons why this
feature has recently gained more systematic attention.
First, in national security terms, the Cold War provided a reasonably
predictable and linear framework. This has disappeared and has been replaced
by a chaotic global environment where unexpected change is the norm.
Second, advances in information theory and complexity theory, based on
work in the physical sciences, may give us a framework for conceptualizing
and understanding seemingly chaotic events.46
Third, the information revolution and associated revolutions in military
and media affairs have accelerated the pace of decision-making. The
challenge of accelerating the political and military OODA (observation,
orientation, decision, action) loop is testing existing systems to their limits.
Intelligence is responding to this challenge by exploring alternative
approaches to predicting, forecasting and identifying possible futures. One
approach developed in the UK has been to focus on exposing analysts to
alternative mindsets in order to inculcate a more flexible approach towards
forecasting and trend analysis.47 The challenge is to ensure that intelligence
comes to terms with the fact of continuing change.48
RIDING TH E WAVE
The discussion above has used aspects of postmodern theory to examine and
describe the changing environment and nature of intelligence. The same
perspectives can be used to derive prescriptions of ways in which
intelligence can go with the flow of change in order to ensure that its
institutions, structures and practices are adapted to a new era. The intention
is to enable the intelligence community to ride the wave of change rather
173int03.qxd 23/10/02 10:12 Page 101

than falling into the trap of being scientific and technological
revolutionaries, but political and institutional conservatives.49
Prescriptively, a postmodern analysis would lead to the conclusion that
intelligence needs to embrace sometimes painful bureaucratic and cultural
upheavals but that failure to do so will make existing intelligence
organizations and processes increasingly irrelevant to the needs of their
consumers. There are three key concepts with implications for the
intelligence business.
First, the concept of a Knowledge Industry:50 Intelligence should
embrace its essential nature as a knowledge industry. In the digitized age,
this has significant implications, including delayering, the end of the
intelligence factory and altered processes and cultural norms.
Second, the concepts of Absent Centres and Fluid Borders: Intelligence

should embrace the fluid set of mutating identities that are being thrust upon
it. There is no longer a single answer to the question of who are
intelligences customers. These will be in constant flux, as indeed will be
the organizations and individuals who make up the intelligence community.
Therefore, the Cold War model of a closely knit and exclusionary
intelligence community must be discarded. Horizontal knowledge networks
need to be embraced, even at the expense of vertical integration. Knowledge
must be sought where it resides, whether by topic (on obscure geographic
regions, on Cyberia, on cults etc), or by source (NGOs, corporations, other
governments or other departments).
Third, there should be a recognition of the Fact of Change: entwined
with all the above themes is the fact of continuing change that is dynamic,
non-linear and accelerating. This change characterizes all areas of interest
to intelligence politics, society, technology and economics. It is perhaps
the hardest of postmodern developments to comprehend, let alone to
analyze. This development has profound implications for the ways in which
intelligence carries out its collection, assessment and forecasting functions.
OPENING THE DEBATE
The aim of this article has been to explore the applicability of

postmodernism as a conceptual framework for understanding the changes
affecting contemporary Western intelligence organizations. It has been
argued that several key themes within postmodern epistemology and social
theory do indeed capture the experience of contemporary intelligence.
Moreover, it has been argued that characterization of these changes as
postmodern provides an analytical framework within which prescriptions
can be drawn up that will enable intelligence to meet the requirements of the
new environment.
173int03.qxd 23/10/02 10:12 Page 102
Inevitably, there are many problems with drawing on postmodernism as a

tool for description, let alone for prescription. Three caveats stand out.
First, there is the obvious point that postmodernist thought and social
theory do not form a coherent body but are rather, in many respects, incoherent.
It is possible to argue that this article has privileged certain aspects of post-
modern thought at the expense of other, equally valid components. Therefore,
unless the content of the term postmodern is strictly defined, in practice
application of the concept may serve more to confuse than to enlighten.
Second, postmodern thought is concerned with sweeping societal change
over decades, rather than with short-term geopolitical shifts, such as the fall of
the Soviet Union. Postmodernism privileges broad, generic social forces over
historically specific events. This problem is encountered whenever
postmodern theorists are challenged to periodize the modern and the

postmodern typically a very wide range of dates are put forward for the start
of the transitionary era. Therefore, any application of the concept will have to
distinguish carefully between the more obvious historically specific reasons
for many of the changes in the business of intelligence and the less obvious
but longer term reasons for change.
Third, as with militaries, intelligence bureaucracies in contemporary
Western societies tend still to be bastions of modernist meta-narratives of state
power, state sovereignty and national security as well as being formalized
modern hierarchies. These characteristics are being eroded but Western intelli-
gence remains a quintessentially modern institution, albeit one that is operat-
ing at the cutting edge of postmodernity in seeking to understand cont-
emporary societal, political, economic and technological change. This paradox
perhaps explains some of the problems faced by contemporary intelligence but
it also highlights the difficulties faced by intelligence reformers.
These caveats all point to the difficulty of operationalizing the concept of
postmodern intelligence. They do not however detract from the argument that
postmodernism provides a valuable perspective on the changes affecting
contemporary intelligence. If used cautiously, the framework can also assist in
the formulation of prescriptions for the future of intelligence. The task now is
to examine more thoroughly the benefits and drawbacks of the postmodern
approach and to engage in a debate over postmodern intelligence that can draw
on the vibrant debates surrounding the application of postmodernist thought to
other institutions.
NOTES
1. The use of the construction postmodern rather than Post-Modern is designed to highlight
the continuities between epochs. Even if we accept that the emerging contemporary epoch is
postmodern in many respects, there will be no clean break. The future emerges out of the
present which in turn emerges from the past; primordial forms persist in later epochs. S.
Connor, Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell 1997, 2nd ed.) p.viii.
173int03.qxd 23/10/02 10:12 Page 103

2. M.G. Fry and M. Hochstein, Epistemic Communities: Intelligence Studies and International
Relations in W.K. Wark (ed.) Espionage: Past, Present and Future (London and Portland,
OR: Frank Cass 1994) pp.1428. An interesting comparison is with international relations.
N. Rengger and M. Hoffman, Modernity, postmodernism and international relations, in J.
Doherty, E. Graham and M. Malek (eds.) Postmodernism and the Social Sciences (London:
Macmillan 1992) pp.12747.
3. S. Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy (Hamden, CT: Archon Books 1965).
4. On these characteristics of intelligence, see R.V. Jones, Reflections on Intelligence (London:
Heinemann 1989).
5. D. Dearth and R. Thomas Goodden (eds.) Strategic Intelligence: Theory and Application
(Carlisle PA: US Army War College and Washington DC: Joint Military Intelligence
Training Center 1995, 2nd ed.) Part I and Part II.
6. D. Dearth, The Politics of Intelligence in Dearth and Goodden (note 5) pp.97115.
7. A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford UP 1990) p.1.
8. C. Dandeker, Surveillance, Power and Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press 1990).
9. M. Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (London: RIIA 1996) pp.929; J.T.
Richelson, A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: OUP 1995).
10. J.M. Archer, Sovereignty and Intelligence: Spying and Court Culture in the English
Renaissance (Stanford UP 1993); A. Marshall, Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of
Charles II, 16601685 (Cambridge: CUP 1994).
11. M. Herman, Diplomacy and Intelligence Diplomacy & Statecraft 9/2 (July 1998) pp.122.
12. M. Howard, War in European History (London: Oxford UP 1976), passim; G. Parker, The
Military Revolution (Cambridge: CUP 1996, 2nd ed.) pp.1589.
13. C. Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London:
Heinemann 1985); H. Barnett, Legislation-based national security services: Australia
Intelligence and National Security 9/2 (April 1994) pp.287300; G.W. Hopple and B. Watson
(eds.) The Military Intelligence Community (Boulder, CO: Westview 1985), Part I; R. Jeffreys-
Jones and C. Andrew (eds.) Eternal Vigilance: 50 Years of the CIA (London and Portland, OR:
Frank Cass 1997); M.M. Lowenthal, U.S. Intelligence: Evolution and Anatomy (Westport, CT:
Praeger 1992, 2nd ed.); J.T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press 1995).
14. Herman (note 11) passim.
15. A. Bergin and R. Hall (eds.) Intelligence and Australian National Security (Canberra:
Australian Defence Force Academy 1994).
16. Intelligence Reform Project, Aspin/Brown Commission Report on US Intelligence Budget at
www.fas.org/irp/agency.html; R. Pipes, What to do about the CIA, Commentary (March
1995) pp.3643; US Congress, HPSCI Staff Report, Preparing for the 21st Century: An
Appraisal of US Intelligence at www.access.gpo.gov/int/report.html; B. Berkowitz and A.E.
Goodman, Why spy, and how, in the 1990s? Orbis 36/2 (Spring 1992) pp.26980; D.L.
Boren, The Intelligence Community: How Crucial? Foreign Affairs 71/3 (Summer 1992)
pp.5262; A.S. Farson, D. Stafford and W.K. Wark (eds.) Security and Intelligence in a
Changing World: New Perspectives for the 1990s (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass
1991); A. Goodman and B.D. Berkowitz, [US] Intelligence without the Cold War Intelligence
and National Security 9/2 (April 1994) pp.30119; D. Gries, A New Look for [US]
Intelligence Intelligence and National Security 10/1 (Jan. 1995) pp.17083.
17. J. Adams, The New Spies: Exploring the Frontiers of Espionage (London: Hutchinson 1994)
pp.xiixix.
18. S. Kerr, The Debate on US Post-Cold War Intelligence: One More new Botched Beginning?
Defense Analysis 10/3 (Dec. 1994) pp.32350.
19. H. Smith, Intelligence and UN Peacekeeping Survival 36/3 (Autumn 1994) pp.17492; H.
Sokolski, Fighting Proliferation with Intelligence Orbis 38/2 (Spring 1994) pp.24560; S.A.
Baker, Should Spies be Cops? Foreign Policy No.97 (Winter 199495) pp.3652.
20. R. Steele, Creating a Bare Bones Capability for Open Source Support to Defense
Intelligence Analysts DIA Report 001.1 (Aug. 1997) at www.oss.net/CONCEPT/; J.F.
Holden-Rhodes, Sharing the Secrets: Open Source Intelligence and the War on Drugs
(Westport, CT: Praeger 1997); F. Thomas Martin, Top Secret Intranet: The Story of Intelink
How US Intelligence Built the Worlds Largest, Most Secure Network (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall 1998).
173int03.qxd 23/10/02 10:12 Page 104
21. A. Hulnick, Intelligence Co-operation in the Post-Cold War Era: A New Game Plan?
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 5/4 (Winter 1991/1992) pp.45566.
22. P.M. Rosenau, Postmodernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads and Intrusions
(Princeton UP 1992) p.3.
23. J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans F. Lawrence, (Cambridge &
Oxford: Polity Press and Basil Blackwell 1987) pp.144.
24. P. Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (London: Verso 1998); A. Huyssen, After the Great
Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana UP 1986)
pp.viixii.
25. T. Docherty, Postmodernism: an Introduction in T. Docherty (ed.) Postmodernism: A Reader
(London: Harvester Wheatsheaf 1993) pp.131.
26. R. Venturi, D.S. Brown and S. Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of
Architectural Form (London: The MIT Press 1993, revised ed.).
27. J-F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans G. Bennington and B.
Massumi (Manchester UP 1984).
28. S. Seidman and D.G. Wagner (eds.) Postmodernism & Social Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell
1992) pp.58.
29. F. Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso 1991)
p.xiv.
30. R. Kitchin, Cyberspace: The World in the Wires (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons 1998) p.62.
31. C. Calhoun, Postmodernism as Pseudohistory in M. Waters, S. Crook and J. Pakulski (eds.)
Postmodernization: Change in Advanced Society (London: Sage 1992) pp.188206.
32. R. Robertson, Mapping the Global Condition: Globalization as the Central Concept in Waters
et al. (note 31) pp.397410.
33. P. Drucker, Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New Post-Modern World (London:
Transaction Publishers 1996, 2nd ed.).
34. D. Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (NY: Basic Books 1999).
35. A. Toffler, Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence in the 21st Century (London: Bantam
1991).
36. M. Walters (ed.) Modernity: Critical Concepts, Vol.IV: After Modernity (London: Routledge
1999) pp.34; S. Toulmin, Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of
Nature (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press 1982) pp.23754.
37. B. Bone, A Tribe among Tribes: Postmodern Militaries and Civil-Military Relations?, paper
prepared for XIVth World Congress of the International Sociological Association, Montreal, 26
July 1 Aug. 1998, p.1.
38. B. Booth and D.R. Segal, Are Post-Cold War Militaries Postmodern?, paper prepared for
XIVth World Congress of the International Sociological Association, Montreal, 26 July 1
Aug. 1998, p.2.
39. J.S. Nye, Peering into the Future Foreign Affairs 73/4 (July/Aug. 1994) pp.8293.
40. C. Jonscher, WiredLife: Who are We in the Digital Age? (London: Bantam Press 1999)
pp.12353.
41. J.T. Richelson and D. Ball, The Ties that Bind: Intelligence Cooperation between the UKUSA
Countries the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand (Boston: Allen & Unwin 1985).
42. Toffler (note 35). For a critical perspective, see: R.W. McChesney, E. Meiksins Wood and J.B.
Foster (eds.) Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the Global
Communication Revolution (NY: Monthly Review Press 1998).
43. S.A. Katsikides, The Societal Impact of Technology (Aldershot: Ashgate 1998) pp.3749 and
7384.
44. L. Scott Johnson, Towards a Functional Model of Information Warfare, available at: www.
infowar.com/mil_c4i/mil_c4i_101497a.html-ssi.
45. White House, Executive Order on the National Infrastructure Assurance Council, 14 July 1999.
46. D. Alberts and T.J.Czerwinski (eds.) Complexity, Global Politics and National Security
(Washington DC: National Defense University 1997).
47. DERA, Strategic Assessment Methodology, private presentation.
48. D. Dearth, New Directions for Intelligence in Dearth and Goodden (note 5) pp.385400.
49. C. Leadbeater, Living on Thin Air (London: Viking 1999) p.viii.
50. Lyotard (note 27) pp.36.

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Towards Postmodern Intelligence

Western intelligence services have had to operate in a rapidly-

Conceptualisations have emerged to describe and prescribe

Conceptually, the developments affecting intelligence have often been seen

In an attempt to provide such a framework, this article explores

DEF INING I NTELLI GENCE

Intelligence is a much-abused term, in both the scholarly literature and in

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 89

pressures as well as individual or institutional cognitive filters.

EVOLUTIO N OF I NTELLI GENCE

Before exploring the future of intelligence it is important to sketch out

oldest profession. However, intelligence as a modern process and profession

establishment of embassies from the seventeenth century as the post-

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 91

struggle overlain by the threat of nuclear annihilation: this overarching threat

REFORM AND REVOLUTION

Additionally, there has been a limited breaking down of institutional barriers.

POSTMODERNITY AND POSTMODERNISM

By self-definition, there can be no overarching definition of postmodernism

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 93

combine to eliminate the last vestiges of traditional society.31 A notable

Post-industrialism. This concept highlights the way in which the balance

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 95

cyberspace as an alternative space-time.36

The end of grand narratives. A central theme of postmodernism is the

are being replaced by more fluid and multifaceted explanations. At an

POS TM OD ERN I NTELLI GENCE

The analytical perspectives and conceptual frameworks of postmodernism

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 97

Fragmentation of targets, roles and missions. Intelligences grand

Indeed, in the technology-rich world of intelligence, the human/machine

which the community worked. In the contemporary environment, these

OPERATIO NALI ZI NG POSTM ODERN I NT E L L I G E N C E

In order to ground this discussion, it is helpful to consider some concrete

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 99

factor of production compared to capital and labour, so knowledge workers

100 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

on these subjects requires a multi-faceted approach that considers all sides

private sectors as well as between and across state boundaries.45

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 101

Second, the concepts of Absent Centres and Fluid Borders: Intelligence

OPENING THE DEBATE

The aim of this article has been to explore the applicability of

102 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

Inevitably, there are many problems with drawing on postmodernism as a

postmodern theorists are challenged to periodize the modern and the

TOWARDS POSTM ODERN I NTELLI GENC E 103

104 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

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