The Intelligence Revolution

Book excerpt: It is commonplace within and outside the intelligence community to acknowledge the predominant role of technology in the collection, dissemination, and even analysis of information. Whit roots traceable to events in the late 1800s, this technological phenomenon loomed ever larger in the twentieth century. The increasing reliance on photographic, signals, and electronic intelligence has been viewed with varying degrees of celebration and concern by scholars and intelligence professionals. This volume contains the essays and commentaries originally presented at the Thirteenth Military Symposium held to address this topic at the United States Air Force Academy from October 12 to 14, 1998. The Participants in the conference attempted to provide a preliminary evaluation of the transformations that have occurred within the military intelligence community as a consequence of the Second World War. Not only did that conflict accelerate advances in technical means of collection, it also led to an international willingness to share intelligence on an unprecedented scale. The years 1939-1945 therefore witnessed a true "revolution" in intelligence collection and cooperation. That war also caused an interrelated growth in organizational size, efficiency, and sophistication that helped gain the craft of intelligence an acceptance in operational circles that it had not previously enjoyed.