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The Quest for a Theory of Intelligence

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Abstract

Intelligence Studies, as with all fields of enquiry in the social sciences and humanities, is replete with individuals seeking to develop concepts and models that will allow the specific to illuminate the universal. In short, one might be said to require a unifying theory of intelligence. This chapter argues that it is futile to seek a grand theory; instead, a better understanding and cognition of ‘intelligence’ should be sought.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In 2006 John Ferris similarly noted that ‘Fundamentally, intelligence is a human action and so is inherently ambiguous and provides no certainties; actions based on it are gambles’ (Treverton et al. 2006: 11–20).

  2. 2.

    The debates surrounding the revelations by the Church inquiry in the 1970s in the US were intense and widely discussed in the media but the ongoing debates in a number of countries, including the US, the UK and Germany, are arguably unique in their width and policy impact.

  3. 3.

    Gill suggests six areas for research on intelligence: governance, process, structures, cooperation, actors/ethics and oversight. (Gill 2010: 47).

  4. 4.

    For some commonalities between Intelligence Studies and Terrorism Studies, see Phythian (2009: 66–67).

  5. 5.

    The early works on intelligence, most notably the pioneering Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy by Sherman Kent, outlined the intelligence mission. From these foundations, scholars of intelligence have become intimately acquainted with a three-cornered model: with key functions of intelligence being collection, information assessment and policy-input. Associated with this is ‘a fourth, operational function of intelligence, incorporating such activities as propaganda, covert operations and paramilitary conflict…this paradigm will continue to be debated and refined, as scholars seek the boundaries of the concept of ‘intelligence’ and attempt to reassess the range of intelligence functions’ (Wark 1993: 4–5, quote at 5).

  6. 6.

    Though this might sound like an obvious point, Agrell (2014: 133) is surely right in stating that ‘our inability to take into account fundamental changes, even though history is made up of them, is sometimes stunning.’

  7. 7.

    On this, see Hughes/Stoddart (2014).

  8. 8.

    Metadata is data about data. Structural metadata is concerned with the repositories of data; descriptive metadata is concerned with the content of said data depositaries.

  9. 9.

    Hansard, House of Commons Official Report, Parliamentary Debates, volume 601/4, column 969, 4 November 2015.

  10. 10.

    In December 1971, British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling notoriously declared that the situation in Northern Ireland at that time amounted to ‘an acceptable level of violence’. (Chartres 1971). Subsequently, and to this day, Maudling’s phrase was widely regarded as a crass verbal error.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and International Relations, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Claudia Hillebrand

  2. Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK

    R. Gerald Hughes

Authors
  1. Claudia Hillebrand
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  2. R. Gerald Hughes
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Correspondence to Claudia Hillebrand .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Robert Dover

  2. Department of War Studies, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

    Huw Dylan

  3. Department of War Studies, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

    Michael S. Goodman

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Hillebrand, C., Hughes, R.G. (2017). The Quest for a Theory of Intelligence. In: Dover, R., Dylan, H., Goodman, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Security, Risk and Intelligence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53675-4_1

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