SEEING THE INVISIBLE

“Tom Quiggin has written a timely book for the national security community. Political extremism is likely to supplant transnational terrorism as a key factor in national security. State run intelligence institutions are going to have to improve their strategic level analytical capabilities to meet this new challenge and many others.

This book outlines the changing needs of national security intelligence, the complex international environment in which it operates, and the ways that will have to adapt to counter the multiple emerging asymmetric threats. Lessons for intelligence have been learned on the front lines of counter terrorism, but we still need fundamental change to meet the future.”

“This is one of the most original, broad-ranging, and indeed exciting books to emerge in the new era that juxtaposes asymmetric and non-traditional threats with distributed and innovative combinations of open sources and methods. Tom Quiggin fully understands that in the age of distributed information the concept of “central intelligence” is not only obsolete, but that effective intelligence cannot be achieved without the full cooperation of all organizations — governmental as well as non-governmental.

This work is in my view the first major work in the new generation of intelligence and national security studies and will inform those who have to make the decisions and carry out the work, not only in government, but in the private and non-profit sectors where much of the innovation is occurring. With the author being most persuasive to the effect that “connecting the dots” for discrete event predictions is not within the capacity of the existing strategic intelligence community, anticipatory warning systems such as horizon scanning must not only be implemented for all forms of threat including communicable diseases, but they must be created with the full participation of all elements of society.”