This book was part of a project of the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies (CATS) at the Swedish National Defence College. It was sponsored by the Swedish Emergency Management Agencies (SEMA), which in 2008 were combined with another agency to form the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). SEMA and MSB had the wisdom, from our perspective, to see benefit for their operations in asking deeper questions about what is required of intelligence for homeland security and the fight against terrorism.

In this portion of the project, we sought to ask about the state of serious, academic research on intelligence. Our purpose was, first, to improve understanding and lay out suggestions for where additional research might fill gaps or enrich our understanding. To that end, we assembled a distinguished set of experts on various facets of intelligence, and in particular sought to reach beyond the native English speakers that dominate so much of the literature on intelligence. The result is a book that is different from many other recent volumes on intelligence. It is a little more academic in style and international in composition.

Yet, our second purpose was to build better understanding in the hope of improving the practice of intelligence. A theme that runs through the entire book, and is turned to explicitly in the conclusions, is where intelligence stands as a profession. Is it an experience-based activity or a science, or something in between?