Open Source Intelligence in a Networked World: 6

This is a very valuable book for professional analysts and for managers in the US intelligence community, to whom it is directly addressed. There is a lot here about the potential value of open-source information as a rich potential source of clues regarding major possible events, that are still gestating in the future: events which often announce themselves as surprises. I think, however, that its greatest value is to redefine the concept of “open-source,” by taking it beyond the simple category of information that is not held secret, but is free for the taking. He correctly expands the definition to cover the exploding universe of digital information, growing beyond any form of institutional control. From that starting point, Olcott announces to both intelligence analysts and policy makers that open-source information is not just more information about what is going on: it is what is going on. As he says: “information erodes form.” Tell that to the broken collossi of the last twenty years: empires and despotisms brought down because information became liberated. –Leon Fuerth, Distinguished Research Fellow. Center for Technology and National Security Policy, The National Defense University and Research Professor of International Affairs, The Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University

This is a wonderful book. It is what it says it is – a study of the history of open source intelligence analysis in the United States since the Second World War – but it is much more, all in the clean, understated prose of an intelligence professional. It is also a delightfully clear description of the developments in information technology that are reshaping intelligence – along with everything else. Olcott’s particular focus is the “Gutenberg parenthesis” now ending, those few centuries in which a limited number of authoritative sources dominated the production of information. Now, anyone can produce “information” and what gets the attention – goes viral – may have little relation to what is “true.” Olcott’s third subject is intelligence analysis more generally, for if there was a Gutenberg parenthesis, so too was there a “Cold War parenthesis,” a period when the problem for intelligence was too little information and the response was to try to add value through secrets. Now, the world is awash with “stuff,” if not information, and the task is less to discern the truth (as in the passage from John 8.32 etched in the lobby of CIA headquarters) than to identify what is or could be important in moving people to act. For that task, there is no better touchstone than Olcott’s repeated theme:  “Begin with a question.” – Gregory F. Treverton, Director, Center for Global Risk and Security, RAND Corporation, USA and Visiting Fellow, Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies, Swedish National Defence College.