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Home > Open Access Journals > JSS > Vol. 16 > No. 4 (2023)

 

Author Biography

(Prof./Dr.) Adam D.M. Svendsen, Ph.D., is a multi-sector-experienced international intelligence and defence strategist, researcher, educator (Salamanca and Georgetown), analyst, adviser and consultant. Author of several publications, his books are: Intelligence Cooperation and the War on Terror: Anglo-American Security Relations after 9/11 (London: Routledge / Studies in Intelligence Series, 2010); Understanding the Globalization of Intelligence (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2012); The Professionalization of Intelligence Cooperation: Fashioning Method out of Mayhem (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2012); Intelligence Engineering: Operating Beyond the Conventional (New York: Rowman & Littlefield / Security and Professional Intelligence Education Series - SPIES, 2017). More via: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0684-9967 | Twitter: @intstrategist

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.16.4.2162

Subject Area Keywords

Civil war and internal conflict, Complex emergencies, Complex operations, Conflict studies, Counterintelligence, Counterterrorism, Cybersecurity, Defense policy, Development and security, Espionage, Foreign internal defense, Foreign policy, Fundamentalism, Gangs and criminal organizations, Global trends and risks, Globalization and global change, Governance and rule of law, History, Homeland security, Human rights, Information operations, Intelligence analysis, Intelligence collection, Intelligence studies/education, International relations, International security, Methodology, Military affairs, National security, Networks and network analysis, Psychology, Radicalization, Regional conflict, Science and technology & security, Security management, Security policy, Security studies, Strategy, Threat assessment, War studies

Abstract

This article provides an annotated review essay of Jennifer E. Sims’ book, Decision Advantage (2022). She communicates several valuable insights into how intelligence manifests in international affairs. Qualities are accomplished through Sims’ development of the concept and theory of ‘decision advantage’ in a variety of intelligence contexts, articulated via a series of different historical case studies ranging chronologically from the Spanish Armada to Cyberwar. Alongside acknowledging intelligence systems and engineering, notions of ‘intelligence power’ and ‘intelligence advantage(s)’ emerge as central, together with ideas of agility and adaptability amongst exponents. While undeniably forming a useful start, what Sims’ work ultimately discloses has rich potential for being taken yet further. Her insights readily extend into other closely connected domains, such as into more widely-ranging ‘pluralistic’ and ‘globalised’ realms of research to practitioner interest. Those areas are also found today in Intelligence Studies, and especially when Intelligence is evaluated most internationally.

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