ABSTRACT
Both during and after the Cold War, the Intelligence Cycle became ingrained as the standard framework for explaining the workings of a standard intelligence establishment. More recently, various commentators have started to question the sanctity of the Intelligence Cycle, noting that “it doesn’t really work like that” in the contemporary era. The cycle seems to be resilient to these challenges and still persists. This chapter examines the transformations within the intelligence business since the end of the Cold War and considers how far they challenge the traditional view of the Intelligence Cycle. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, a number of major strategic shocks have suggested that the intelligence business needs to work smarter, in ways which run very much counter to the industrialised principles of the Intelligence Cycle. Experiences such as the Al Qaeda threat have provided a taste of how the landscape may have changed very fundamentally. Do these changes spell the end of the Cycle as a useful concept, or does it just need a refresh? The chapter concludes with some thoughts on how the Cycle might appropriately be recast and re-presented to better meet the needs and realities of contemporary intelligence practice.
