Behalve voor GCHQ werkte Omand vele jaren voor het Britse ministerie van Defensie en was hij Permanent Secretary of the Home Office (1997-2000).

As a general rule it is the explanatory hypothesis with the least evidence against it that is most likely to be the best one for us to adopt.The book is not as thorough in the discussion of the author's critical thinking approach as I would like, but it's certainly enough to get interested readers started in the approach.

Obviously this isn't a costless solution, risking a chilling effect on the online exchange of ideas that is the key benefit of the Internet. This is not particularly easy, especially when you don’t know what the full picture is nor do you know if the snippet of information in front of you actually relates to the task in hand. Each lesson is grounded in case studies such as the UK’s flawed anticipation of the Falklands invasion in 1982. In particular, Omand has observations about cyber interference in elections and other aspects of public life which should probably be read more than once.There are some interesting examples of the use of intelligence and what happens when things go wrong, but the general discussions of how intelligence operatives think didn’t strike me as any sort of special thinking - it’s really just the decision making skills of any intelligent person, so I felt the author was explaining the obvious sometimes. A well-studied lesson of the dangers of misinterpreting complex situations is the "security dilemma" when rearmament steps taken by one nation with purely defensive intent trigger fears in a potential adversary. These snippets of a true story help demonstrate the message of each 'lesson' and add a little colour to what is otherwise a fairly dry read.

W swojej pracy zajmował się gromadzeniem informacji, weryfikowaniem ich wiarygodności i prognozowaniem jak one mogą wpłynąć na przebieg różnych wydarzeń. e. ‘information that is known to be false before it is circulated’ – ook wel bekend als nepnieuws) en ‘malinformation’ (i. Analysts might also rely too much on outdated information or fail to distinguish between assessments based on hard evidence from those based on assumptions. Both have a similar kind of message that one needs to be careful with the world when surrounded and bombarded with information from various sources, with various degrees of freedom and truthfulness.

intelligence communities have the duty of trying to forestall unwelcome surprises by spotting international developments that would spell real trouble.