Speaker
Description
Many today believe that developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI), sensors, and automation presage the coming of a ‘Revolution in Intelligence Affairs’ with far-reaching consequences on the performance of intelligence systems. RIA proponents advocate vast-scale acquisition of AI, state-of-the-art sensors, and automation technologies; support swift organizational and operational changes fostering integration between the various stages of the intelligence cycle; recommend development of operational concepts for human-machine teaming. In such a view, intelligence organizations embracing the RIA will be capable of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information at such scope, speed, and scale as to enable decision-makers to leverage ‘decision advantage’ on an almost continuous basis in the conduct of statecraft.
How would such a transformation affect intelligence performance? We do not know, as scholars and experts advancing the RIA construct have assumed rather than demonstrated increases in effectiveness and scholarship has paid only scant attention to the impact of ‘technological revolutions’ on the functioning of intelligence systems.
This paper argues that the RIA will yield results incrementally and unevenly, providing an answer in four steps. It first defines the RIA construct and identifies the causal mechanisms underpinning it by reviewing scholarship on the integration of advanced ICT into intelligence systems. Secondly, it develops a theory of intelligence power, by inductively deriving measures of effectiveness for the key intelligence functions from historical studies and grey literature. Third, it conducts an in-depth within case empirical analysis of the implementation of the RIA employing the Israeli intelligence between the late-1990s and 2014 as a case study. Fourth and last, it uses the intelligence power theory to test the actual performance of the RIA construct taking advantage of the extraordinary insights provided by the 2017 special report of the Israeli State Comptroller on the conduct of the 2014 war, which is based on official intelligence records.
| What discipline or branch of humanities or social sciences do you identify yourself with? | Political Science/History |
|---|---|
| If you are submitting an Open Panel proposal, have you included all four abstracts in attachment? | No, I am submitting a Closed Panel abstract |
| Are you a PhD student or early-career researcher? | No |
