How can Strategic Intelligence adapt to the age of advanced technologies?

In recent years I have written quite a bit about the challenges facing strategic intelligence, including what I see as a declining demand for this type of intelligence, at least in Israelן and the US national security. Many others have written about similar issues. For instance, an article by Me'ir Finkel which discusses this from a cognitive perspective. Another interesting article in Hebrew criticizes the notion of "strategic early warning". And in my private sector intelligence work, most of the technological aspects I see of Intelligence and Investigation vendors relate to tactical and targeting intelligence. Not to strategic intelligence.

So what is the conclusion we should draw from this? Should we give up on strategic intelligence, in business and in government? Does strategic intelligence stand a chance in exploiting advanced technologies just like tactical and targeting intelligence, and in gaining the trust of decision-makers? Is this a true "crisis of strategic intelligence"?

My answer to this is complicated...and through this post, I hope to stimulate a critical discussion.

First, I think this is a crisis. But startegic intelligence always faced problems. So the crisis is not completely new. Its influence over foreign policy has always been limited (in democractic countries, let alone in totalitarian regimes). Decision-makers in national security, but also in business, always relied on tactical intelligence; but for strategic issues, often conducted their own analysis. I remember this issue from my MBA thesis which studied the limited influence of competitive intelligence over corporate strategy in Israel. And I definitely remember this from my military service in the IDF.

Second, I think that strategic intelligence should exploit advanced technologies, but there is no need to "compete" with operational/tactical/targeting intelligence. In national security, machines can help more in producing targets for airstrikes than in assessing adversary intentions or contingency scenarios. And in business, machines can help more in recoginizing market anomalies that in identifying inflection points. It really is more complicated for strategic intelligence.

But third, I think there is a way for recovering from the crisis. One of the most dramatic challenges for strategic intelligence, in national security and in business, is unerstanding how qualitative analysis can be partially reduced in some quantitative aspects. In other words, how models and algorithms can partially help in engaging non-deterministic problems. I know this sounds a but philosophical, but whan can you do...

Anyway, these were just initial thoughts with which I am concerned these days. In my own advisory work, I produce strategic intelligence in the private sector with only minimal reliance on advanced technologies. But I am also changing and adapting...