The conceptual structuring of the intelligence and counterintelligence processes : enduring holy grails or crumling axioms - quo vadis

Abstract

This article, as undoubtedly many others, on the eve of the tenth commemoration of 9/11, deals with the ramifications of these, and related events, on international and national security thinking. In the wake of 9/11, the previously neglected and self-isolated Intelligence Studies discipline was propelled to academic prominence. The unprecedented surge in literature reflects intensifying endeavours among scholars and practitioners to address Intelligence Studies' theoretical poverty. This article explores one area of this theoretical inquest, namely the conceptual structuring of the intelligence process. It critically appraises some existing models with a view to address the problem statement: Do existing postulations of the intelligence process accommodate the counterintelligence and counterespionage processes sufficiently and, if not, what alternatives can be proposed? With some exceptions, Intelligence Studies' theorisation on the intelligence process continues to be overlaid upon crumbling axioms. Alternatives, this article advances, are not purported to be radically new. Instead, and mirroring the incipient status of intelligence theorisation, they are, for a substantial part, the mapping out of existing knowledge in a manner conducive to further theory construction.