Richard Fadden, direttore del CSIS canadese, sottolinea l’accresciuto ruolo della funzione analitica negli attuali scenari operativi dell’intelligence.

[…] In a speech obtained under access-to-information laws, Richard Fadden said CSIS’ mandate is no longer just about working informants and intercepting communications but understanding the information collected and being able to predict how threats to the country will change.
“In today’s information universe of WikiLeaks, the Internet and social media, there are fewer and fewer meaningful secrets for the James Bonds of the world to steal,” Fadden told a conference of the Canadian Association of Professional Intelligence Analysts in November 2011. “Suddenly the ability to make sense of information is as valued a skill as collecting it.”
Fadden said today’s intelligence analysts must be well-read in history, religion, politics and geography and be able to provide answers to complex questions, such as what sort of threat political upheaval in the Middle East poses to Canada’s security interests five years from now.[…]
“The increasing complexity of the threat environment, not least the speed with which new threats can materialize, means that analysts are learning not just to scan the horizon but to try and look over it.