Photo by www.capfalcon.net   The future of the Intelligence cannot prescind from the role that think tanks can play with regard to the development of the best practices on which to found the activities of research and analysis of information. According to a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, there are 5,465 active think tanks in the world today – an evident sign of the growing interest in these structures. But a new instrument could modify the role of the think tanks: it is called crowdsourcing for Intelligence and promises sparks…

The STRATINT concept

”Know the enemy as you know yourself. If you do this, even in the midst of a hundred battles you will never find yourself in danger. If you do not know the enemy, but know only yourself, your possibilities of victory will be equal to your possibilities of defeat. If you know neither yourself, nor your enemy, be certain that every battle will be for you the source of the gravest danger”.
These are the words of Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese general and philosopher, who lived sometime between the V and VI Century BC, author of one of the most famous treatises of military strategy of all time. (1) However, the intuitive Chinese leader, notwithstanding his indisputable qualities as strategist and visionary, which also led him to indicate the activity of collection and analysis of information as fundamental, could never have predicted that the value of this information for the military Intelligence sector would have extended also to the “civil” sector, to the point of creating the conditions for the realization of specialized structures in the collection and analysis of data of a political, commercial, industrial and even religious nature.
Therefore, knowledge, as a product of information processing, represents, for any activity or sector, a prerequisite for the achievement of the objective pursued. The knowledge can only come from the collection and analysis of all the information acquired by the Intelligence structures or by the firms specialized in the exploration of the scenarios. Exploratory action lies with the specialized analysts in the Strategic Intelligence (STRATINT), who have accumulated special ability and experience in the collection, processing, analysis and verification of elements of knowledge useful for the identification of the best Intelligence policies to be adopt in different times and scenarios. Therefore, from a conceptual point of view, all the activities of Strategic Intelligence are related to the processing of information, originating from different sources, for the production of strategic knowledge that constitutes the cognitive center from which indications for the planning of Intelligence actions at world level are drawn.
At this point, it is fundamental to give some attention to the characteristics and qualifications that the STRATINT expert must possess. Usually, these people come from academic environments or research structures. First and foremost, they must be farsighted, able to examine with care, patience, shrewdness and ingenuity all data submitted to them. They must be able to formulate reliable scenarios and forecasts founded on the elaboration of the data and information collected from their sources, which must be appropriately screened, analyzed, identified and intercrossed, in a sort of cognitive mosaic. Among the methods of data acquisition, the OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) is strongly predominant. A variegated culture, predisposition for thought processing ability, great patience, work method, motivational stimulus for investigation and research represent the essential elements which make the Strategic Intelligence Expert (SIE) a determining component for the creation of a formidable repository of knowledge, which is fundamentally important for the constant demand of the formulation of scenarios and structured questions continually required by the heads of the Intelligence structures. Thus, the STRATINT can be identified as a real form of knowledge processing for strategic applications produced by means of the analysis of all the information available and attributable to facts, events, news items, data of a political, economic, social and military nature, usable world wide. In this context, a further careful consideration is given to the relationship between the applicants and suppliers of the services of strategic Intelligence. Not infrequently, in fact, misunderstandings and problems of various kinds occur in the difficult relationship between the two parts.
Many International terrorist attacks, which, for a long time, have terrorized entire populations in various geographical contexts, could have been avoided if only indications from the strategic Intelligence structures had been heeded. It is also true that there have been cases in which the total dependence of a State on these structures – in terms of incorrect evaluation and/or unverified information – has proved to be unsuccessful in the management of policies and actions designed for different scenarios. Naturally, the STRATINT analyses are strategically useful not only in the military field, but especially, for applications in the civil and political sectors.
As is well illustrated in an essay by three American scholars (2) : “Democracy prospers when a nation ensures itself of a well-informed population”. This means that the policy makers of a country – above all in a context of the globalization of information and continual economic, social and political changes – cannot risk encountering misunderstanding of the ongoing geopolitical phenomena. It is here, therefore, that the STRATINT constitutes the key element in supplying a cognitive support able to explain the world phenomena taking place and to prepare for the future ones. As indicated in the essay (3) of the American anthropologist and psychoanalyst, Michael Maccoby, the activity of strategic Intelligence corresponds more to a system of individual skills (4) that is, to abilities possessed by the human being – abilities which are often found in major international leaders. This argument, which sees personal abilities as a key element for the identification of individuals suitable for the activities of strategic Intelligence, finds a perfect match in the nature and purpose of the think tanks.


Think tanks as strategic assets

The basis on which a think tank operates – unlike the Intelligence structures – is essentially on the autonomy of the body, on its independence of hierarchies and rigid controls imposed by governmental institutions and corporations, but, above all, on the scientific method adopted, which produces the rapid, reasoned and precise collection of information, with the finality of the prediction and evaluation of the scenarios. Perhaps it is this last characteristic which most assumes an extraordinary value in the importance in the informative investigation. For example, the analysis of the risk assessment, for the estimation of a scenario, assumes a considerable strategic value, especially with regard to the perception, analysis and interpretation of future threats.
Another particularity of the think tanks (which constitutes, in some respects, also an element of strength) is represented by the unease felt over the possible integration with the Intelligence structures.
Belonging to a separate environment constitutes, in this case, an element of strength. People who are part of a brain group are usually university professors and researchers, PhDs, scientists, scholars who come from research centers, universities, cultural institutes, academies, and associations of intellectuals, or simply enthusiasts of a particular scientific sector. They are, therefore, “genetically” drawn to the autonomy of research, the absolute freedom in the choice of working methods, but are usually repulsed by the rigidity of hierarchical structures. And, over time, this mental and work autonomy guarantees, most of the time, particularly satisfying results.
For this reason, many heads of government and politicians throughout the world have begun to focus attention on the analyses and risk assessments conducted by think tanks, evaluating them as fundamental to the decisions they take. In a chaotic and complex world, almost daily disrupted by events which are increasingly unexpected and difficult to evaluate, the consultation of these minds becomes almost obligatory to face the difficult challenges of the third millennium. And the number of Countries that are fully aware of this reality is steadily increasing. According to a survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania (5) , there are 5,465 fully functioning think tanks in the world. North America has 34.25% of the entire number: Western Europe has 22.10%, Asia 11.95%, Eastern Europe 9.14%, Latin America and the Caribbean attest to 9.84% and, to finish, Africa with 7.76%, the Middle East and North Africa with 3.99%. With 121 active groups, India attests to the seventh place in the classification of the Countries with the highest number of think tanks. The United Kingdom has 285, Russia 107 and Japan 105.
Heading the United States classification of the “top ten think tanks” is the Brookings Institute (6) , but in the classification extended to the other Countries, we find Chatham House (7) of the United Kingdom at the top, followed by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (8) of London and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (9) of Stockholm. Further in the list of classifications is the English Academy of Social Sciences (10) , The Indian Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) (11) , the Center for Civil Society (12) , The Energy and Resources Institute (13) (TIERI) and the Liberty Institute (14) . In the Land of the Rising Sun, we find the Japan Institute for International Affairs (15) and in China, the Shanghai Institute for International Studies (16) and the Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) (17) . China, also in this case, stands out for its particular foresight and traditional pragmatism. There are nearly 500 extremely efficient think tanks in the Republic of China, the second largest number in the world after the United States, which has 1,815. It seems that the Peking Government holds the evaluations of these experts in the highest esteem, to the point of entrusting them with continued consultancy in the military, civil, political sectors, but above all, in the economic and technological sectors.
Many experts in geopolitics maintain that, to a large extent, the merit of the inexorable economic and industrial growth of the Country is due to the Chinese think tanks. The one that enjoys the greatest consideration of the Peking Government is the Strategic Research Center of the China Institute for Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) (18) , along with the China Institute for Strategic Studies (19) , an institute that is prevalently concerned with global strategic studies. It should be noted that as well as supplying know-how on different subjects, the Chinese think tanks represent an excellence also with regard to consultancy in the area of public diplomacy and international institutional communication. Generally, as we have seen, a think tank is an independent body (institute, organization, group, association) that carries out activities of research and analysis in purely scientific sectors, but it can also conduct study activities in the field of public policy. In this case, it normally concerns non-profit organizations, but they can be financed by governments, large corporations, lobbies or public institutions.
Usually, the researches and studies are published in periodicals or recurrent reports. In the United States, these think thanks have enjoyed a continual development, especially in the fields of economy and politics (where the same think tank can work for both the Democratic Party and for the Conservative Party). In the military sector, particularly, during the course of the last two decades, these centers have demonstrated their value, mainly, with regard to support for strategic assessments. Prevalently financed by public apparatuses, the think tanks operating in the sector of military and Defense Intelligence furnish an immense contribution to the United States, not only in terms of consultancy, but also in terms of training of personnel assigned to the various federal institutions. As is apparent by Figure 1, the major part of the U.S. think tanks concentrates its activities on the strategic sectors of the defense and security of the Country. Geopolitics (20) and the events that characterize it at an international level constitute an important portion for the research and consultancy activities of these think tanks. In the study of the geopolitical events, the services of advice and support offered by the think tanks range from geography to politics, from finance to sociology, from psychology to anthropology, even including the use of the techniques and methods of mass persuasion (psychological operations), which are shown to be particularly effective, especially in Countries disrupted by wars and civil conflicts. As was previously emphasized, many think tanks find their natural habitat within the universities and research centers such as, for example, the Lincoln Laboratory, which is a part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (21) (MIT), one of the most prestigious research centers of the Country. The Lincoln Laboratory represents the state of the art at world level for the design and development of semiconductors used for the production of microprocessors. The Think Tank & Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) is, instead, an operative programme conducted within the University of Pennsylvania and centered on the study of international relations.
Initially created in 1989 by the University of Philadelphia, in 2008 it was transferred to the University seat of Pennsylvania to elaborate an ambitious and futuristic study on the realization of a “think tank of think tanks”. Seemingly, the purpose is to study and examine the role and the characteristics of the continual developments of the research organizations which operate in the field of public policy. In reality though, the objective pursued by the project is much more daring than what might be imagined: to create a center of the best brains at global level, which is able to bridge the gap between knowledge and international politics, but above all, to try to individuate the best way to ensure peace, security and a global governance that can serve as a motivating force for the improvement of the world economy.
The Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) of the John Hopkins University differs from the other tanks for the particular interest it dedicates to the study of the economic relations that exist between the different Countries. The trade agreements, the partnerships between the companies in different sectors, the economic changes produced at a geopolitical level, are the subjects of study of these academic think tanks. Of particular relevance is the scientific production generated each year by researchers and scholars of the CTR.
Among the organizations listed in Figure 1, the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute deserve special mention. They are among the oldest organizations of consultancy, having been created as far back as 1940. Financed by public institutions, private enterprises and foundations, they are the most active in the promotion of the policies that most effect the lives of the Americans: from the processes of privatization of companies to social security, from tax control to the rules that regulate financing and investment, up to the laws that regulate oil trading, and the use of the Internet.
The experts of these think tanks are frequently called upon to perform the role of opinion leader in radio and television programmes and are co-opted as editorial collaborators to prepare articles for daily newspapers and specialized reviews. Furthermore, they are often the absolute protagonists in conducting seminars of political orientation or are recruited, during electoral campaigns, as personal advisors to candidates for the government of the Country. In this latter case, their role assumes substantial and decisive value for the success or failure of the political project. It is no coincidence that in the United States, the think tanks are often identified by the term “idea factories”.
Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) are think tanks that operate in the Research and Development sectors to determine areas of strategic interest. Financed almost exclusively by the Federal Government (and some directly by the Department of Defense), the think tanks of the FFRDCs are managed by non-profit companies, universities and institutes and, from time to time, work on specific research commissioned principally by governmental structures.
The most important think tank in the Intelligence sector in the United States is the Strategic Forecasting Inc. (STRATFOR) (22) , society of global Intelligence founded in 1996 with Headquarters in Austin, Texas. Its founder is the noted political expert and writer, George Friedman, known in international circles also as an expert in international political science. He also covers the role of Chief Intelligence Officer within the company. Since its beginning, the structure has periodically published reports on matters of Intelligence, reaching an unexpected notoriety in 1999, with a series of articles on the NATO air bombardments during the crisis of Kosovo. Cited many times by the most authoritative media of the Country (CNN), Bloomberg, Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times), as an authority in the strategic and tactical Intelligence sector, the American weekly, Barron’s, defined him as “The CIA Shadow” (23) . Even if the definition “shadow” might seem excessive, there is no doubt on the quality and reliability of the analyses and research made by the Friedman society. The proof is illustrated by the high number of clients that entrust themselves to the consultancy of the Texan company, many of them of great prestige and fame.
The very detailed and dependable forecasts of the Friedman analysts are sought after by anyone wishing to obtain a thorough and detailed description of a given geopolitical scenario and this has allowed, over the years, an exponential growth in the number of customers. The aura of mystery that surrounds the number and identity of those who utilize the services of the company is also indicative.
Perhaps it is also for this reason that on the 24th December 2011, the Web site of STRATFOR was attacked by some members of Anonymous (24) . The attack, it seems, resulted in the loss of circa 200 Gigabytes of data, equivalent to thousands of pieces of confidential information (data of companies, credit card numbers, and e-mail addresses) from the Web site of the Company.
The attack of the Anonymous crackers is further proof of the immense value of the data contained in the information systems of these organizations in which, analyses and studies of great strategic interest are produced. Precisely in virtue of this last consideration, it should be noted that STRATFOR supplies a unique service of consultancy to all its subscribers: there are different profiles of subscription, such as the “Premium” or the “Global Vantage” (the latter personalized for the companies and governmental structures), but a free service is also offered to all those who wish to ask questions and clarifications on the areas treated by the Company. An e-mail reply is guaranteed within 24 hours of the communication. On the surface it could seem to be an attractive free consultancy service. In reality, it guarantees the Company and impressive volume of information on the moods, sensations, fears, doubts and perplexities of a world public. Explained in other words, it is an instrument that can be used to assess the level of perception of the problems of each single Country on the planet. The Network as an instrument of knowledge, to be used to develop an Intelligence that adopts the methodology most used by the think tanks at this time: the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) (25) .
Search from open sources, therefore, but especially from those of Internet – the richest and most up-to-date information container in the world.
Unfortunately, the evolution of the technologies also poses new and more complex difficulties. According to a recent study conducted by IDC (26) , in the future, 1.8 Zettabytes of data will be created (one Zettabyte is equivalent to 1000 billion Gigabytes) which will result in the necessity of managing a complex universe of data. By 2020, this forecast, if it materializes, will impose an increase on the companies of ten times their number of computers used for the memorization of the data.
Considered as a major critical element, the unrelenting increase of the information will have the effect of making the filtered search of the data much more difficult, with the consequent increase in time employed and costs of personnel and technologies.


From think tanks to crowdsourcing for Intelligence

The problem of the uncontainable proliferation of the information on the Network has not escaped the attention of the United States Defense Department or of the Pentagon itself. In fact, it has been placed among the first difficulties to resolve. Nevertheless, the costs incurred by the Intelligence community have not diminished, but have increased exponentially in order to sustain the costs relative to the analysis of the data and information. These considerations have convinced the Intelligence structures to strengthen the efforts for the reinforcement of the existing think tanks and have also produced the awareness of the necessity for the realization of a new model of scenario predictions, able not only to ingest the overwhelming data flow coming from the Network, but also to involve – in terms of supply of moods and perceptions – the populations situated in different geographical zones. This need to have new forms of broad spectrum information acquisition, has not been slow in producing the desired effects.
In February of 2010, under the supervision of the Director of the National Intelligence (27) James R. Clapper, a project was launched oriented towards crowdsourcing for Intelligence, entrusted to IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity), having the purpose, according to J. Clapper, of guaranteeing “a crushing advantage in Intelligence over future adversaries”. IARPA is a structure similar, in an organizational way, to a think tank operating in the Intelligence sector, but with the difference that the projects designed by it benefit from conspicuous financing coming mainly from governmental funds. Symptomatic is the organization of the structure, vertically organized on the development of systems of forecasting scenarios, which is based in three particular offices:

Office of Smart Collection. ” This office deals with the treatment of the data collected from all the available sources. The information is classified and optimized to make it usable for the analysis phase;

Office of Incisive Analysis. ” This office is responsible for the valorization of all the collected information. It is mainly evaluated on the basis of the intuition and experience of the specialist who handle it;

Office of Safe and Secure Operations. ” This office is assigned to assessing and measuring the potential of the adversary, with particular reference to the possible actions that could be carried out via Internet. One of the principal objectives consists in looking for reliable methods and systems for safe communication on the Internet. Studies and research are also conducted on the sciences of quantum information and technology.

The development of the software for the crowdsourcing for Intelligence has been entrusted to a New Mexico company, the Applied Research Associates (28) (ARA). The informatics system will be able to improve the criteria of information collection through a mathematical algorithm which, choosing the best information rendered available by the think tanks and from an innovative information repository that will contain the moods and perceptions of the people, will be able to formulate, in an Intelligent way, forecasts and percentages on the development of events and scenarios on a world scale. The programme, named ACES (Aggregative Contingent Estimation System) was presented last May and it has required the collaboration of a good seven American universities (29) to prepare a system of data extrapolation originating from a general and diversified public like that of the Network.
The phase of data collection began at the beginning of July and, contrary to what had been previously imagined, the enormous proliferation of the information originating from open sources, has not represented a problem. In fact, according to Dirk Warnaar, head researcher of the ACES project, “Anyone can participate and the more the better (merrier)!” ”. This fearless statement seems to be a precise invitation to connect to a web site (30) , the access to which is open to anyone who wishes to give a contribution to develop the ACES project. The web site is considered as a component of the ACES.
Realized for the purpose of creating a global think tank, the system is based principally on issuing a packet of questions, diversified per sector, to all those who register on the portal of the ACE project.
The purpose is to intercept, through the answers received, information, forecasts, sensations, moods and perceptions on a wide range, basing the operation on the cognitive basis of the world population. In other words, the system should be able to elaborate forecasts and scenarios in accordance with its capacity to perceive the mental, emotional, cultural and informative state of the individuals. All this to optimize the understanding of the different realities that are considered in the geographic context to be “interesting” or “at risk” for the national security.
The functioning of the user interface (UI) is extremely simple: after the registration phase (in which it is possible to supply access data which is not traceable to the identity of the user), packets of diversified questions are issued, which are divided into five chosen areas: social, political, economic, science and military technologies.“You can look at the crowd as a group of people distributed in different geographical contexts and in real conditions of life: conditions which allows the supply of the best possible information” ”, Warnaar said in a recent interview granted to the National Defense Magazine, adding “Think about the feedback that a large group of soldiers which proceeds on foot could provide. The crowd would be able to provide the most accurate predictions in a world conflict and under conditions of greater uncertainty. We do not want to exclude anyone” ”.
It was also underlined in the interview how some researchers and analysts who, for years, have accurately studied certain sectors of interest, can easily be led to formulate prejudices or views which could negatively affect the correctness and reliability of the elaborated forecasts. With the crowdsourcing for Intelligence, these risks can be substantially eliminated.
The project will go ahead for four years, at the end of which the results achieved will be evaluated. At the present time there are circa 1,800 participants, who have each replied to 50 questions which have produced 14 distinct forecasts. In the coming months, these predictions will be carefully examined by the IARPA specialists. The interest of the United States Government is especially directed to the reliability of the forecasts, a decisive factor in preventing those events that could endanger the security of the Country. The objective of IARPA is to demonstrate that the system is valid and that it can, in fact, allow the prediction of risky situations in the short and medium term. For the first year, Warnaar has already obtained an improvement of 20% in the reliability compared to the surveys which were initially distributed. If his estimates prove to be effectively reliable, in a short time, the programme will be made available to the decision makers of the Government.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the numerous events that have occurred at world level have demonstrated the inevitability of misunderstandings of scenarios that occur in different sectors and geographic areas. In such a complex period in history – like the one we are experiencing – is it plausible that the “crowd” is the only element from which to obtain real and creditable information? Warnaar asserts that “With the power of the Internet a far vaster group of persons can be asked information on a problem and how to solve it. The crowdsourcing is proving to be particularly suitable for this”. ”


The author advises

Global Think Tanks Policity network governance Author:J.G. McGann, R. Sabatini Editor: Routledge, 2010