A year ago, when we published the first edition of this review, we made a commitment to our readers and a bet with ourselves.

Our commitment was to share, with our readers, reflections and analyses on the scenarios (past, present and future) which constitute the horizon of interests of a modern Service. The objective – ambitious, but not impossible - was to advance, if only in an indirect way, the culture of Intelligence in our country, trying to realize a difficult synthesis between opposite exigencies: on the one hand, to safeguard the discretion which must mark the actions of a Service of information and security and, on the other hand, to try to find a mechanism which would allow the general public to share in the achievements of this institutional activity.

By tradition, the security circuit and the culture of security, tend to remain within the institutional “system”.

In the four previous issues, we believe that we have started on a path which permits us to say that our commitment to the readers has been kept: how successfully is not for us to judge!

The bet with ourselves was to be able to present, in the simplest manner and with strict editorial continuity, the observations of the Service on topics of major interest, both historical and analytical, connected to security and integrate them with the considerations of some of the most prominent experts from the world of culture, of the university, of politics and of journalism. An interpretation and a confrontation which have enriched us and which, we feel, have contributed to render Gnosis an instrument of the opening of the Service towards the actual society.

It could be thought that the bet was easy: but SISde is still, as always, a public administration and to succeed (as we feel we have) has been less easy than it may appear from the outside.

The experiment continues with this number, in which we range from Serbia, a factor of balance or imbalance in the Balkans to nuclear Iran, from the bloody ferment of rebellion and terrorism in Italy, during the 70’s to the history of the Anglo-Irish conflict, from the turmoil of the Islamic world to Watergate, together with interesting reflections on how to deal with terrorism and the threat from the Albanian criminality.

Many topics, many voices, one sole objective: wider knowledge; Gnosis, of course.