We never expected that – a corporative study of failures in national and business intelligence by Avner Barnea

Abstract

For JISIB Barnea has previously written aboutcompetitive intelligence in Israel (2016), aboutIsraeli start-ups in cyber security (2018), andabout how AI will change intelligence anddecision-making (2020).The book, We never expected that – Acorporative study of failures in national andbusiness intelligence, is not on Israeliintelligence per se. Still, the best documentedof the four cases presented come from the FirstIntifada in 1993 when Barnea was wellsituated to observe what was going on behindthe scenes. For 27 years, until 1997, he was theSenior Official for Intelligence in the PrimeMinister’s office. Since then, he has been acompetitive intelligence consultant, a teacherand student of intelligence studies and sine2016 a research fellow at the National SecurityStudies Center, NSSC.The book, which is a translation of a book inHebrew, which again builds on the author’sPhD thesis, proposes an analysis of a series ofintelligence failures. To study failures is a goodway to learn. It is a good methodology, maybethe best. To present a book with bothgovernment and state failures is also a goodidea from the perspective that there are boundto be fruitful parallels. So far so good.