Additional information
by Wilhelm Agrell (Author)
Intelligence is currently facing increasingly challenging cross-pressures from both a need for accurate and timely assessments of potential or imminent security threats and the unpredictability of many of these emerging threats. We are living in a social environment of growing security and intelligence challenges, yet the traditional, narrow intelligence process is becoming increasingly insufficient for coping with diffuse, complex, and rapidly-transforming threats. The essence of intelligence is no longer the collection, analysis, and dissemination of secret information, but has become instead the management of uncertainty in areas critical for overriding security goals--not only for nations, but also for the international community as a whole. For its part, scientific research on major societal risks like climate change is facing a similar cross-pressure from demand on the one hand and incomplete data and developing theoretical concepts on the other. For both of these
knowledge-producing domains, the common denominator is the paramount challenges of framing and communicating uncertainty and of managing the pitfalls of politicization.
Author Biography
Wilhelm Agrell is Professor of Intelligence Analysis at Lund University, Sweden and Visiting Professor at the Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm. He has a background in Swedish intelligence and military service in the Middle East. As an academic scholar, he received a Ph.D. in history at Lund University in 1985 and has written over 25 books, primarily dealing with Cold War history and Swedish security. He has been active in establishing intelligence analysis as an academic field and became the first Scandinavian professor in the subject in 2006. In addition to his academic work, he has also written several novels, some of which were translated into Finnish and German.
