Intelligence in the private sector:
Ethics and efficiency in uncertain times
Robert David STEELE Vivas
ABSTRACT
Intelligence is a process: requirements definition, collection management, source discovery and validation, multi-source
fusion, machine and human translation and analysis, visualization of complex ideas, and timely appropriate delivery of
decision-support. Intelligence is decision-support. Secret sources and methods are not and should not define
intelligence. Indeed, secret sources and methods in the private sector, apart from being illegal, are generally fraudulent,
over-rated, over-priced, and rarely equal to what can be obtained for a fraction of the cost and none of the risk from open
sources of information including eleven types of human intelligence that are legally and ethically available to the astute
manager. The renaissance of a nation today demands a renaissance of national and commercial intelligence.
Ethics is the codification of human memory of what works to enhance the prosperity and security of communities that
practice ethics among themselves and in relation to other communities. A Nobel Prize has been awarded to a person who
demonstrated that trust lowers the cost of doing business. In today’s world of ubiquitous surveillance, ethics begins with
transparency, is rooted in the truth, and ultimately becomes an intangible value. In India, US companies that initially
complained about US anti-corruption laws found that Indian officials preferred them precisely because it protected those
officials from being suspected of corruption in any award to a US company. Recently a national hero in India finally broke
his fast in support of the nation-wide anti-corruption campaign. Corruption is a form of lie – a hidden cost -- a cost
externalized to the public -- a cancer that introduces waste and abuse. Restoring integrity to business is essential.
In these uncertain times it is not possible for any Industrial-Era or hierarchical system to survive with the old concepts of
top-down “command and control.” There are only two ways to create a Smart Nation and/or a Smart Corporation that is
agile, alert, and effective in the face of constant change: first, management must learn new priorities and new values
including placing more priority on the education and independence of employees from the bottom up, and on demanding
the truth at any cost; and second, management must realize that the employees in the aggregate and as individuals are
the only thing standing between the business and ignorance. They are your “intelligence minutemen,” if they are not
educated, empowered, and listened to, the business will inevitably lose money and market share while also failing to see
new opportunities only discernible from very tight feedback loops among customers, suppliers, regulators, and “the
st
company.” The other half of performance and profit in the 21 Century is integrity – both personal integrity and
organizational integrity of purpose, process, and outcomes. Integrity must be inherent at all levels.
The seven strategic concepts I will discuss are these:
1) CEOs are more out of touch with reality and the truth than they realize—commercial intelligence is
important, but CEOs must understand the difference between decision-support and snake oil.
2) The future of capitalism lays in the five billion poor with their four trillion a year annual income, four
times that of the one billion rich. This requires a fundamental change in business design.
3) The future of profit lies in holistic sustainable businesses that do not externalize costs to the public
today or tomorrow. Integrity is central to performance, profit, and the public good.
4) Software is eating all industries one at a time—beware of Google, embrace the open—open source
software, open data access, open spectrum, and of course open source intelligence.
5) The time for Spain to restore its greatness as a partner to all countries in the Southern Hemisphere,
but especially in Latin America, is now.
6) Governments cannot cope with complexity—and the information explosion—without help from the
business community both large and small. Hybrid information-sharing networks are essential to all.
7) Strategic analytics demand an appreciation for holistic attention, the “new craft of intelligence.”
Page 1 of 15
Introduction and Context
This article, and my briefing, have been created for this event and are completely new. However, in the course
of thinking about how best to help the participants, all leaders in government and industry concerned with the
business world, I had occasion to examine my earliest published work, and found five articles that are still
relevant, still useful. For this group I have posted them in full text online where they are easily translated into
Spanish or other languages with Google Translate. Here are links to the five articles with full-text:
1992 E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, and Intelligence
1993 Corporate Role in National Competitiveness: Smart People + Good Tools + Information = Profit
1995 Private Enterprise Intelligence: Its Potential Contribution to National Security
2002 New Rules for the New Craft of Intelligence
2008 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information
By way of introduction, I would respectfully emphasize that corruption is treason. Corruption is not just about
honor and keeping one’s word. It is about falsifying information, ignoring standards, failing to focus on the
minutia of sources, process, products, and services such that the consumer is not well served; the public is
deprived of resources or costs are externalized to the public, and the legitimacy of the government is
undermined, whether from a loss of tax revenue or a loss of public well-being. When corruption becomes a
pervasive characteristic of a culture, it is a stake in the heart of the country and a stake in the heart of any
business. If there is one thing that government and industry should agree on, in my view it is that corruption is
the enemy, and integrity is the shared value.
Integrity is priceless. Integrity properly understood is about much more than honor. It is about
completeness—the quality or condition of being whole or undivided. In the world of intelligence, both the
secret world and the commercial world, this means that a holistic process, a respect for the fullest possible
diversity of sources and methods, is essential.1
If both the government and the private sector commit themselves to integrity, there is no conflict between the
goals of intelligence—to find the “best truth” for all parties—and the goals of politics—to find the “best
compromise” for all parties.2
Today, I am heartened by what I perceive to be a new appreciation for integrity. We can see this among the
protesters from Athens to New York, and we can see this in new investment practices that recognize the role
that integrity plays in achieving efficiencies that enhance profit. Below I quote from Steven Howard Johnson,
author of the free online book Integrity at Scale:
It turns out that companies who rank in the Top 100 for corporate responsibility outperform
the S&P 500 by a considerable margin. But that comes not from the profit-maximization ethos
that lies behind agency theory. It comes from a qualitative belief in the value of service as part
of the way one does business. The good companies set a higher bar, ask people to live by
higher standards, elicit greater competence, and achieve better results. It isn’t about dollars,
alone; it’s also about doing business in ways that give life more meaning.3
It is my honor to speak to you about intelligence and integrity. They go together very well.
1
Journal: Reflections on Integrity UPDATED + Integrity RECAP. Online translation possible.
2
Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both. Online translation possible.
3
A good example is provided by the Commit Forum.
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1. Commercial Intelligence
CEOs are more out of touch with reality and the truth than they realize—commercial intelligence is important, but
CEOs must understand the difference between decision-support and snake oil.
I approach this at four levels—strategic, operational, tactical, and technical. Of all the individuals in an
organization, the CEO is both the only one that must think in terms of all four levels at all times, and also the
one individual most dependent upon others for accurate information.
Ben Gilad, co-founder of the Academy of Competitive Intelligence, says this in his book, Business Blindspots:
Replacing Your Company's Entrenched and Outdated Myths, Beliefs and Assumptions With the Realities of
Today's Markets (Probus Professional Publications, 1993)
Top managers’ information is invariably either biased, subjective, filtered or late. . . . Using
intelligence correctly requires a fundamental change in the way top executives make decisions.
At the strategic level, if the CEO does not have a professional, completely independent decision-support or
intelligence function in place, the CEO will not be able to avoid costly surprises and also react quickly to new
opportunities.
I have learned three things over the past forty years as an intelligence professional:
First, the government does not do economic or industrial intelligence nor does it do economic or industrial
counter-intelligence. This is one reason why Goldman Sachs and other U.S. based banks were able to
maliciously “explode” the economies of Greece and other countries. This is an area where the private sector
could take the lead, with full government participation, creating a regional and national commercial
intelligence centre.
Second, CEOs that rely on their executives or special assistants for information essential to making decisions
are going to be working with, at best 20% of what they could and should know, and as Ben Gilad observes, this
information is generally going to be biased, subjective, filtered, or late.
Third, there is a very specific combination
of four levels of commercial intelligence
that have been proven to yield dividends.
Known as the Herring Triangle, I illustrate
them here, together with their need and
cost percentages.
Most commercial intelligence endeavors
in my experience stop at the lowest level
and are nothing more than in-house
newspapers with a little research on
demand.
These capabilities can and should be
developed as shared capabilities, both
within and among industries, and in
partnership with the government.
I will end this point with a short story
from the French steel industry in 1993. They spent millions investigating foreign steel industries. However,
because they were not working closely with other industries, they completely overlooked the emergence of
the plastics industry as the new provider of automotive parts. Whatever you do, cast a wide net and be ready
to think, share, and collaborate outside your company, outside your industry, outside your country.
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2. Five Billion Poor Have Four Trillion Dollars A Year
The future of capitalism lays in the five billion poor with their four trillion a year annual income, four times that
of the one billion rich. This requires a fundamental change in business design.
When considering the future, it is helpful to begin with an appreciation of threats to that future. There is only
one global study that has both identified the high-level threats to the future, and also put them in priority
order. I refer to the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenge, and Change, which published its
report in 2004, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, which is also available free online.
Every one of these threats is a threat to the future of industry, government,
01 Poverty and society around the world.
02 Infectious Disease
I am often told by those I speak with that they prefer to focus on their local
03 Environmental business. I understand that point of view, but must respectfully point out
Degradation that the Earth is shrinking; that changes that used to take 10,000 years now
04 Inter-State Conflict take less than three years; and that reality kicks the last ball.
05 Civil War You may not be interested in reality, but reality is interested in you.
06 Genocide Poverty, to take one example, creates more infectious disease and destroys
more of the environment than all corporations combined.
07 Other Atrocities
08 Proliferation Addressing all of these threats is not just a job for 01 Agriculture
government, and in fact governments need the
09 Terrorism help of industry such that traditional ministries can
02 Diplomacy
10 Transnational Crime benefit from a new form of hybrid information- 03 Economy
driven governance in which industry and 04 Education
government are full partners in eradicating threats and in orchestrating behavior and 05 Energy
spending across all relevant policy areas. To that end, here are twelve policy domains
where industrial and government intelligence and policy must be closely integrated; 06 Family
investments both inside and outside one’s home country must be fully informed -- in 07 Health
China now, everyone is discovering that they are severely deficient in energy, health, 08 Immigration
and water, three vital areas of concern for any manager.
09 Justice
My point is that sustainable profit for the future is going to require a focus on the 10 Security
emerging marketplace of the five billion poor, and that in turn is going to reward those
governments and those industries that learn to create, maintain, and exploit a global
11 Society
information-sharing and sense-making network. 12 Water
The good news is that the five billion poor have the one thing that is priceless and essential to our future:
human brains. There is an entire literature on the theme “wealth of networks,” In my view, those offerings
that empower the poor with information and communications tools at a very low cost, and those offerings that
leverage advanced knowledge to provide very low-cost offerings to the poor, with prosper.
This will require a dramatic change in how we understand business design, market design, sales design, and
how we approach not just the governments, but the other groups that are important in gaining access to the
marketplace of poverty. A much more holistic approach is required.
In the world of the rich, a refrigerator is a very expensive item that requires electrical power. In the world of
the poor, a simple refrigerator consists of two clay pots with long necks, one inside the other with an air gap,
and requiring now power. Buried in the ground, they keep meat fresh for five days. Clean water and
nutritious low-cost food are two other areas of great promise.
In the world of the rich, there is generally stable government and a well-defined process for entering the
market. In the world of the poor, most governments have failed and gaining access to the poor is complicated.
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3. Integrity and Profit
The future of profit lies in holistic sustainable businesses that do not externalize costs to the public today or
tomorrow. Integrity is central to performance, profit, and the public good.
Before I discuss software, the Latin American marketplace, panarchy, and holistic analytics, I must address the
matter of integrity, and closely related to integrity, the matter of true cost economics.
1. Integrity is not just about honor–it is about wholeness of view, completeness of effort, and accuracy or
reliability of all of the elements of the whole.
2. Industrial-Era Systems do not adapt because they lack integrity and continue to pay for doing the wrong
things righter–the Pentagon is a classic example of such as system but so are most big businesses.
3. In the 21st Century, intelligence, design, and integrity are the triad that matters most. The truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth is the non-negotiable starting position for getting it right, and this is crucially
important with respect to the sustainability of the Earth as a home for humanity.
4. Integrity at the top requires clarity, diversity, and BALANCE including respect for the customer as a partner.
5. Integrity can be compounded or discounted. It is compounded when public understanding demands
political accountability and government officers ultimately understand that they have sworn an oath to uphold
the rule of law rather than a particular political party. It is discounted when officers are careerists, ascribe to
rankism, and generally betray the public interest in favor of personal advancement. The same is true in
business.
In the business world, a very useful measure of whether a business has integrity is that of true cost economics.
True cost economics factors in all costs that contribute to a specific product or service. Below is an illustration
of the true cost of a cotton T-shirt made in China and sold in the USA.
Even if the water is “free” it is actually a cost
relevant to the sustainability of the offering.
In the US a gallon of gasoline that sells for US$4.00
externalizes US$12.00 to the public in the form of
pollution, health, and water costs.
We are entering an era when CEOs cannot carry on
as they have, ignorant of both the threats to their
country and their business model, and the emerging
opportunities. The time has come for pro-active
intelligence (decision-support), and for integrity in all
respects.
Secular corruption is the enemy of both government and industry. I said this in a letter to The Most Holy
Father sent on 20 January 2011, long before OccupyWallStreet emerged as a movement.
Put most directly, material corruption in the secular world is an obstacle to spiritual
harmony. The public has lost faith in governments and corporations, including all banks and
the media—broadcasting and print. There is no trusted source of information about the
material world at the same time that there is growing distrust—schisms of suspicion and
hatred—among the religions, with fundamentalists and relativists growing in numbers.
I submit to you that a government-industry commitment to integrity is essential to doing well in the future.
Page 5 of 15
4. Software and the Future
Software is eating all industries one at a time—beware of Google, embrace the open—open source
software, open data access, open spectrum, and of course open source intelligence.
Integrity and software can be brought together by understanding that in this new era, proprietary software is
not affordable and it is also not scalable. Although Marc Andreessen is on record as believing that software is
eating each industry in turn, with education and health being next, and that software is the primary means
today of creating “real, high-growth, high-margin, highly defensible businesses,”4 he does not address the
reality that as we move toward a World Brain and a Global Game, only those industries, and those
governments, that can exchange all relevant information at machine speed – at machine speed – will prosper.
There are both design and education implications of this view.
Here I illustrate my concept for
an Open Source Agency that
could help any country become
the first country in the world to
be a truly Smart Nation.
The four core elements are open
source software that you are all
familiar with, adding open data
access that is now the law in The
Netherlands, open spectrum
that is inevitable, and my own
personal interest, open source
intelligence, now called public
intelligence.
To the left I have put some other
business-relevant opens.
All of this is critical to achieving
something that no government,
least of all the government of the USA, has been able to plan, much less achieve: resilience. We are at the end
of an era of industrialization in which corporations have ruled the world and subverted governments. In
fairness to the corporations, I must point out that at least in the case of the USA, corporations did not actively
seek to bribe our Senators and Representatives, but rather the opposite: our Senators and Representations, as
well as our Presidents and Vice Presidents, have shaken down business for bribes, and created a “government
for sale” culture that has destroyed the Commonwealth of the USA.
The design implication is this: no government—and no business—can be resilient—can carry on into the
future and be assured of a steady flow of customers, profits, and supplies—in isolation. The ability to
exchange information and share information across all boundaries is absolutely vital. The education
implications of this are considerable. At a time when U.S. unemployment is over 22% (not the fabricated
number the government claims, over 9%), every software company that is innovating is desperate to find
qualified individuals, not just for software coding, but for all related aspects of those businesses. We are now
at a point where we are realizing that our educational systems are still producing factory workers and middle
managers whose jobs no longer exist—individual who are not qualified to work in the new economy where
software and information are the primary foundations for innovation, for profit, for prosperity.
4
Marc Andreessen, “Why Software Is Eating The World,” Wall Street Journal, 20 August 2011.
Page 6 of 15
5. Renaissance and Resurrection
The time for Spain to restore its greatness as a partner to all countries in the Southern Hemisphere, but especially
in Latin America, is now.
Although Chinese and several languages rooted in India are well on their way to becoming the major global
languages, while English is in sharp decline. French, Portuguese, and Spanish are in the middle, in large part
because these languages are common in the Southern Hemisphere.
Within the three middle languages, Spanish has two huge advantages—the first is the fact that with the
exception of Brazil, all of Central and South America have Spanish as their core language. The second, perhaps
a mixed blessing, is the Catholic Church.
There is an Apostolic Summit for Peace in Assisi next week, and it might deal with corruption in passing. I did
my best with a letter to The Most Holy Father, also delivered to the Franciscans in Assisi, a major organization
in Rome, and the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington, D.C. The fact is that Benedict XVI is reversing himself on
some of his strongly held views of the past, and embracing the vision, the spirit, and the public focus on John
Paul II to the point that I actually feel John Paul II has been resurrected in Benedict XVI.
Here is a map to help illustrate a few points.
First, the Open Veins of Latin America as given to
Barack Obama by Hugo Chavez has not been read
and is not understood. It is complemented by
another book, Savage Capitalism. UNASUR,
consisting of the South American countries only,
now exists, and Spain has an opportunity to lead
the creation of a regional intelligence center
within UNASUR but in fact central to the Spanish-
speaking world. There is nothing wrong with
capitalism as a concept, only its implementation
without integrity by certain countries. If Spain
and the Spanish business community can
represent both moral and informed capitalism, I
believe there is an enormous opportunity here.
Second, like it or not Cuba and Venezuela define
the Caribbean, and together with advanced and wealthy islands such as Trinidad & Tobago, are a force to be
respected. A regional center in Trinidad & Tobago, speaking English, French, and Creole as well as Spanish, has
substantial business implications. A strategic accommodation with both Cuba and Venezuela is in my view
valuable. It is time to help UNASUR throw the American military, American law enforcement, and American
banks out of the region.
Third, Central America, where the Spanish government has pursued more traditional paths of influence from
the days of secret wars, is on the verge of major change. I believe drugs will be legalized in the USA within the
next few years—certainly marijuana—and I believe that the regional centers offer the only reasonable
prospect for helping government and industry to reclaim the land from transnational criminal gangs. It is time
to offer them a path to retirement.
Fourth, Mexico has succeeded in its strategy of promoting immigration into the USA, and virtually reclaimed all
the land back to the Guadalupe-Hidalgo line—there is a marketplace for Spain in the USA.
Three joint government-industry intelligence centers, one in southern Spain, one in Uruguay, and one in
Trinidad and Tobago or Cuba, could radically change the balance of power around the world, to your benefit.
Page 7 of 15
6. Panarchy—Hybrid Governance, Reality, and Information-Sharing
Governments cannot cope with complexity—and the information explosion—without help from the business
community both large and small. Hybrid information-sharing networks are essential to all.
When I say that governments cannot copy, this should be understood in relation to functional utility in the face
of great complexity, it is not a judgment on one political system or even one political party. The Industrial Era
has been one of top-down control and many stovepipes of authority that do not communicate well with one
another. Governments—and individual corporations—are not agile enough to adapt to the constant change
and the huge information explosion, where managing information is actually a vital determinant of whether or
not one is effective or profitable.
What is vital for all of you to understand is that now is the time when the government needs your help, and
you all need one another’s help, in creating truly national as well as global information-sharing and sense-
making capabilities.
I want to emphasize two core concepts that will influence both the legitimacy of governments and the
profitability of companies as we move more deeply into the Information Era.
First and foremost, it is no longer possible to
micro-manage anything from the top. The
needed information and the needed sense-
making simply cannot be done. The biases,
filters, and delays inherent in structured
organizations cannot be overcome.
Instead, what works is a new culture that
respects bottom-up and indigenous
knowledge, and places the authority at the
lowest possible
point in the 01 Academic
organization,
while enabling 02 Civil Society
that authority 03 Commerce
to interact 04 Government
freely—and particularly to share information freely—with all others as needed.
05 Law Enforcement
Secondly, there are now eight tribes of governance, not one. Each tribe has 06 Media
important contributions to make to a holistic understanding of anything, and
each of which must be engaged within the concept of hybrid governance.5 It is 07 Military
now established that government alone is incapable of governing. 08 Non-Profit &
Panarchy is the term used to signify a form of governance that is open, Non-Government
transparent, based on the truth, and enjoying a significant degree of truth among all participants, all of whom
have access to the relevant information needed to make decisions both individually and as a constantly-
changing mix of groups. Government and industry both need to adapt and become much more agile at
information sharing and sense-making with these other stakeholders (the other six “tribes”).
5
The most relevant book to call for hybrid governance that I know of is by J. F. Rischard (then Vice President for Europe
of the World Bank, HIGH NOON: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them (Basic, 2003). See also Wolfgang Reinicke’s
two books, Global Public Policy: Governing Without Government? (Brookings, 1998) and Critical Choices: The United
Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance (IDRC, 2000).
Page 8 of 15
7. Strategic Analytics—Eradicating Corruption for Public and Private Profit
Strategic analytics demand an appreciation for holistic attention, the “new craft of intelligence.”
In this final point, I want to emphasize the urgency of the CEO having a very holistic, inclusive, comprehensive,
even visionary view of information, and a deep understanding of the new craft of intelligence—decision-
support using only legal and ethical methods.
In this first graphic, I show the four quadrants
of information. Most organizations are still
trapped in Quadrant I: Knowledge
Management, trying to make the most of what
they already know internally.
Quadrant II: Collaborative Work, integrates
both the art of engaging all stakeholders
through structured and unstructured
information exchanges, and the science of
using customers to actually define and design
what they want to buy.
Quadrant III: External Information, is rarely
exploited by governments and corporations—
they pay lip service to this, and focus too
narrowly.
Quadrant IV: Organizational Intelligence, was the subject of a book by Harold Wilensky in 1967,
Organizational Intelligence: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry. It remains a valuable book—I
personally would be most interested in an opportunity to write the sequel on the basis of one Smart Nation
actually doing all that is possible—imagine if all of you spent the next year actually creating regional
intelligence centers and creating a global Spanish-language public intelligence network devoted to peace and
prosperity. It would be an honor to document your successes.
This final slide shows how one
can conceptualize holistic
analytics, and in this case I
emphasize the centrality of
corruption in furthering all ten
high-level threats to humanity,
and in diminishing the success
of all policies.
It is my view, presented to all of
you as leaders in your
respective sectors, that it is no
longer possible to be the best
without demanding holistic
analytics.
Corruption & Waste are
consuming at least fifty percent
of the value of what we attempt
to do for the good of all.
Page 9 of 15
Conclusion
Twenty-three years ago I began a revolution in intelligence affairs, seeking to move governments away from an
obsession with secrets they could not share that also did not provide needed decision-support for 80% of the
government; toward open sources of information in 183 languages covering every threat, every policy, every
opportunity, every service, every product. I have not failed, but a clear victory is not yet in sight. This is
normal. It takes twenty-five years or more to achieve great deeds.
I take this with a sense of humility and humor. A few years ago, after speaking to a gathering of senior
executives and general officers for year after year, I was invited to speak again. I asked the retired general if
they were not tired of listening to me year after year. He laughed and said, “Robert, you don’t understand. All
these past years, they have not been listening. This is the year I hope they do listen.”
I am new to all of you, but my roots on my mother’s site run to the Barcelona region in the 17 th century, to the
Vivas family. I hope you have found something of merit in my presentation, and wish from the heart for Spain
to be one of the most peaceful and prosperous nations of this new century.
This conference, bringing together the government and the private sector, is an excellent initiative, and I hope
that my ideas can be translated by all of you in the evolution of Spain as a Smart Nation, and into a renaissance
of Spanish influence and presence across Central and South America.
Before the year ends, I expect that Greece, Italy, Portugal, and perhaps Spain will have defaulted on their
national debts, and I applaud such a default. The first thing each of these countries should do is to re-
nationalize all public enterprises that were privatized, and begin a deep series of investigations that culminate
in international lawsuits against Goldman Sachs, Citi-Bank, Morgan, Bank of America, and others whose global
economic crimes are equal to financial terrorism. I would like to see those banks put out of business, and
replaced by national and community banks whose integrity is guaranteed.
It is my view that a new financial order is in the process of being created, and that it will be led by Brazil, China,
India, Indonesia, Russia, and Venezuela, among others. Certainly I expect Malaysia, Nigeria, and Turkey to
have a great deal of influence in this new financial order, and I would be most pleased if Spain were to join
with Portugal, Greece, and Turkey to lead the migration from the old financial system that has been
imperialistic, predatory, and immoral, toward a new financial system that is in the service of the public. It is
the public that consumes, innovates, and produces. You can screw some of the people all of the time, you can
screw all of the people some of the time, but you cannot screw all of the people all of the time—that kills the
source of life and the source of profit.
Corruption has destroyed Western Civilization. Governments grew too distant from the land and the people,
and became overly impressed with their imperial ambitions. The artificial political boundaries that the
governments of the West created in the Southern Hemisphere have been deep wounds on the fabric of
civilization, disturbing the relations among tribes and between the people and the natural resources, relations
that were centuries in the making. Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain all bear
responsibility here, as do the Americans, second generation colonialists with equal lust, greater greed, and
lesser intellects.
It is my view that this body of government and private sector leaders could lead, must lead, the resurrection of
Spain in the 21st Century. I offer a few concluding thoughts.
First, national intelligence must be restructured, with a national open source intelligence capability that can
harness the distributed intelligence of the entire nation. Spies do not do real estate, they do not do crime or
drugs well, and they are nearly worthless on economic and financial crime including money laundering.
National intelligence must be able to map the financial crimes that have undermined the peace and prosperity
of the Spanish Republic, and must be able to support criminal and civil prosecutions, not only of the
Page 10 of 15
responsible organizations, but of the responsible individuals as well. Much of this information must be open
so that it can be shared with the public, both to show how the government is changing to protect the public
interest, and to destroy the credibility of the financial and corporate media empires that have sought to
undermine Spain and other countries with investment assistance that has been at best ill-advised and at
worst—most often—simply criminal, replete with false assurance, conflicts of interest, and pre-planned
leveraging of induced defaults.
Second, I recommend that the new national and commercial intelligence service focus on asset confiscation.
When I helped create the Scotland Yard SO-11 Open Source Intelligence unit, I had no idea that apart from
reducing the time and cost of identifying and capturing terrorists, arms merchants, and other undesirables, it
would become responsible for a hundred-fold increase in the confiscation of assets following conviction. Let
me say that again: a hundred-fold increase. Spies don’t do real estate, or economic intelligence at the asset
level, and ministries generally do not know how to do intelligence. More recently my associates did what the
US Government still cannot do—we identified the top twenty Islamic families in each Caliphate nation, and
then we identified their specific assets world-wide. You can do the same against crime families. Asset
confiscation is what my world calls “low-hanging fruit.” Spies are good at throwing money away—they are not
good at finding and confiscating money from others.
Third, I recommend that Spain offer to host a regional intelligence centre somewhere along the southern
shore west of Cadiz. If I have learned one thing about reducing arms smuggling, drugs, human trafficking, and
money laundering, it is that no one country can do this along, and that neither EUROPOL nor INTERPOL are
effective because they are not truly integrated operations. Needed for the protection of Spain, as for the
region, is a Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making
(M4IS2) Centre that operates in all languages of the region, and is able to provide timely intelligence in support
of interdiction as well as asset confiscation.
Fourth, I recommend that Spain take an interest—bringing together all eight tribes of intelligence—in
establishing a similar regional centre in Latin America. I personally do not favor the exclusion of Venezuela or
Cuba from discussions about this matter—Venezuela has money and Cuba has human networks across the
region, now is the time to move beyond the Cold War frameworks and focus on creating mutual profits.
Fifth, I believe that it is possible to resurrect the glory, the peace, and the prosperity that is and must be
Spain, by recommitting to the public interest. I see a need for the government to recommit, and I see a need
for the business community to recommit. The only sustainable profit is that profit that does no harm to the
larger Earth and the public that is the root of all profit as well as all productivity. Spain is a blessed land and
the spring water of Iberian culture. Similarly, many investors are very honorable individuals who are
distraught over both the evil that has been done in the name of the investor class, and the risk to themselves
and their families should the “99%” turn against all who exhibit excessive wealth. Millionaires, not just
billionaires, now have legitimate concerns that a breakdown of law and order could place them at risk. Spain
can recover much more quickly than most people realize if the Prime Minister and a select group of billionaires
and millionaires with integrity come together to draw a line in the sand and demonstrate the fundamental
value of integrity in its larger sense—not just honor, but cohesion, holistic analytics, public buy-in, and the
ultimate proof: RESILIENCE with profit. Emerging Unstable Markets could be replaced by Trusted Resilient
Markets as a draw for wealth seeking investments secured by the integrity of the governments and the
financial sectors that choose to follow a morally and financially rigorous path. Transparency, truth, and truth
are the foundation for sustainable profit.
Seventh, Central and South America are a new land of opportunity for Spain. I believe that you can achieve a
renaissance of Spanish influence, profit, and peace around the world, using commercial intelligence as a lever.
Thank you.
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Appendix—New Rules for the New Craft of Intelligence
001 Decision-Support is the Raison D'être
002 Value-Added Comes from Analysis, Not Secret Sources
003 Global Coverage Matters More
004 Non-Traditional Threats Are of Paramount Importance
005 Intelligence without Translation is Ignorant
006 Source Balance Matters More
007 "Two Levels Down“
008 Processing Matters More, Becomes Core Competency
009 Cultural Intelligence is Fundamental
010 Geospatial and Time Tagging is Vital
011 Global Open Source Benchmarking
012 Counterintelligence Matters More
013 Cross-Fertilization Matters More
014 Decentralized Intelligence Matters More
015 Collaborative Work and Informal Communications Rise
016 New Value is in Content + Context + Speed
017 Collection Based on Gaps versus Priorities
018 Collection Doctrine Grows in Sophistication
019 Citizen "Intelligence Minutemen" are Vital
020 Production Based on Needs vs. Capabilities
021 Strategic Intelligence Matters More
022 Budget Intelligence Is Mandatory
023 Public Intelligence Drives Public Policy
024 Analysts are Managers
025 New Measures of Merit
026 Multi-Lateral Burden-Sharing is Vital
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About the Author I (What Others Say)
Robert Steele is unusual for an American…he is clearly internationalist in his orientation. He has written a book
that can bring us together in facing our greatest enemies: ignorance, poverty, and mistrust.
Rear Admiral Hamit Gulemre Aybars, Turkish Navy (Retired)
Robert Steele’s vision for the future of intelligence is clearly “internationalist” in nature. It focuses on regional
partnerships…and on the value of open source intelligence collection.
Rear Admiral Dr. Sigurd Hess, DE N(Ret), Former Chief of Staff, Allied Command Baltic Approaches
Constantly committed to truth and honesty, [his work] demonstrates his ability to grasp the real issues and to
take into account the views and concerns of men of good will from all nations and all cultures.
Admiral Pierre Lacoste, French Navy (Ret), Former Director of Foreign Intelligence (DSGE)
Robert Steele goes well beyond the original visions of the best of the Directors of Central Intelligence, and has
crafted a brilliant, sensible, and honorable future for the intelligence profession.
Major General Oleg Kalugin, KGB (Ret), former Elected Deputy to the Russian Parliament
Over a broad canvas reflecting the changing nature of information and information technologies, Robert Steele
lays the foundation for the future of e-intelligence.
Commodore Patrick Tyrrell, OBE, Royal Navy, United Kingdom
Few have thought as deeply or imaginatively about such questions as a super-smart [now fifty-seven]-year old
former Marine and intelligence officer named Robert D. Steele…
Alvin & Heidi Toffler, War & Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century
Steele consistently has been well ahead of the pack in his appreciation for everything from open source
research to the implications of technology…his work thrills with its insights and ideas.
Ralph Peters, Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph?
Robert Steele is about 100 times as smart and 10,000 times as dangerous as the best of the hackers, for he is
successfully hacking the most challenging of bureaucracies…for the right reasons.
Bruce Sterling in Hacker Crackdown: Law and Order on the Electronic Frontier
Steele’s concept is simple: Empower the citizen and private sector to gather and analyze intelligence so that we
can make informed decisions [using] Open Source Intelligence gathering [that] is faster, smarter, cheaper…
Robert Young Pelton, author, World’s Most Dangerous Places, producer, Come Back Alive
Robert Steele deserves our admiration and our focused attention for bringing the idea of open source
information to the fore. His passion to serve the nation by developing this new approach...is exemplary.
Lieutenant General Patrick Hughes, U.S. Army (Retired), Former Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
Robert Steele storms into the core of intelligence issues without fear. The scope of his work is impressive and
whether you agree with him or not, you cannot ignore what he says.
The Honorable Richard Kerr, Former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
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About the Author II (Short History)
Robert David STEELE Vivas is the son of a Colombian mother with Spanish roots
(Barcelona region in the 17th Century, “Que Vivas”) and a US father with Scottish
and English roots, also documented back to the 17th Century.
Born in 1952 (59) in the USA, he lived most of his young life in Latin America and
Asia—six years in Colombia, one in the Dutch West Indies, then four in Viet-
Nam, two in the Philippines (concurrently with Viet-Nam), one in Thailand, and
three in Singapore.
He was educated at Muhlenberg College (AB Political Science), Lehigh University
(MA International Relations), and the University of Oklahoma (MPA Public
Administration). He also holds a Diploma with Distinction from the Naval War
College. He is a graduate of the US Marine Corps Command & Staff College (Reserve) as well as the Mid-Career
Course of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and has completed a wide variety of professional intelligence,
management, and information technology courses in association with his varied responsibilities.
After active duty as a Marine Corps infantry officer he was selected for the Clandestine Service of the CIA, and
after accelerated training, completed three back-to-back tours as a clandestine case officer in Latin America,
where he was one of the first case officers assigned full-time against the terrorist target, in the 1980’s.
Returning to CIA Headquarters, he did three tours, one in counterintelligence, one in advanced information
technology, and the last in advanced technical program management (overhead satellites and other collection
systems). He resigned to accept an offer from the US Marine Corps to serve as the founding senior civilian of
the new Marine Corps Intelligence Center.
As the Special Assistant (GM-14) and Deputy Directory (LtCol) he planned and executed the entire program in
detail, from personnel job descriptions and hiring to security and communications and information technology
as well as facilities planning and budgeting. He served as Study Director and architect of the flagship product
of the Center, Planning and Programming Factors for Expeditionary Operations in the Third World (1990), a
product that for the first time in US history, created a global survey across 144 war-fighting factors, each
defined at three to five levels of difficulty specified by the war-fighters in their own terms. The study also
produced Strategic Generalizations for guiding acquisition away from the existing “big, expensive, complex”
systems favored by the larger US military services.
As a direct consequence of what he learned in creating a Center where $20 million was spent on Top Secret
systems and access to Top Secret information, only to find that most of what was needed was not known to
the US Government or the US Intelligence Community, but easily acquired from open sources, he became the
first modern champion of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). From 1988-1993 he sought to influence from
within; in 1993 he resigned from the civil service and founded Open Source Solutions, Inc., later Open Source
Solutions Network, Inc., so as to spend seventeen years helping 90 governments—66 of them directly—do
better with open sources and methods in 183 languages most governments do not understand.
During this seventeen year period he was also active as an innovator in commercial intelligence (what most call
competitor intelligence is poorly named, and competitors are the least relevant element for anyone seeking to
make the most of the future). He organized international conferences, personally orchestrated the training of
7,500 mid-career officers from 66 countries, and visited 20 countries under contract to carry out direct training
and consulting.
More recently he founded Earth Intelligence Network, an accredited 501c3 (non-profit), and Phi Beta Iota the
Public Intelligence Blog that includes the informal Journal of Public Intelligence, and ready access to all of his
book reviews—over 1,700 of them, in 98 non-fiction categories. He is the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction.
Page 14 of 15
Bibliography
Recommended for this Group, in Spanish (YouTube 6 Segments and Slides)
2010 M4IS2 Briefing for South America — 2010 M4IS2 Presentacion por Sur America (ANEPE Chile)
Recommended for this Group, Full Text Online with Automatic Translation
1992 E3i: Ethics, Ecology, Evolution, & intelligence (Full Text Online for Google Translate))
1993 Corporate Role in National Competitiveness: Smart People + Good Tools + Information = Profit (Full Text
Online for Google Translate)
1995 Private Enterprise Intelligence – Its Potential Contribution to National Security (Full Text Online for
Google Translate)
2002: New Rules for the New Craft of Intelligence (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2003 Information Peacekeeping & the Future of Intelligence – The United Nations, Smart Mobs, & the Seven
Tribes (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2006: Information Operations – All Information, All Languages, All the Time Technical Preface by Robert
Garigue (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2008 Paradigms of Failure ELECTION 2008 – Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2008 The Substance of Governance ELECTION 2008 Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2008 Legitimate Grievances (US Citizens versus US Government) ELECTION 2008 – Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text
Online for Google Translate)
2008 Legitimate Grievances (Foreign vs USA) ELECTION 2008 – Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text Online for Google
Translate)
2008 Annotated Bibliography ELECTION 2008 – Lipstick on the Pig (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2008: Creating a Smart Nation (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2008: World Brain as EarthGame (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
2011 Thinking About Revolution in the USA and Elsewhere (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
Alessandro Politi: Need for Euro to Default As a Group, Nail the Banks and Restore Integrity of Global Economy
(Full Text Online for Google Translate)
Robert Steele: Trip Report – Occupy Wall Street 6 October 2011 – Second American Revolution is Real
Robert Steele: Citizen in Search of Integrity (Full Text Online for Google Translate)
Books by Robert Steele Recommended for this Book (Free Online & At Amazon)
2012 Manifesto for Truth: Expanding the Open Source Revolution (Evolver Editions, July 2012)
2010 INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability
2006 THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
2002 THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political
Other Work by Robert Steele
Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Robert David STEELE Vivas
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