How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence

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The third section seems to cover some miscellaneous thoughts that didn't fit in other places, but, importantly, it includes an application of the author's critical thinking process to dangers of social media for democracy. There are attempts to organize the author's thinking in a systematic manner for the benefit of the reader. The consensual hallucination - group belief and telling our bosses what they want to hear not what they should hear. Wie belang stelt in het werk van inlichtingendiensten en van hun interactie met beleidsmakers en besluitvormers kan, kortom, niet om dit boek heen.

De tekortkomingen van het menselijke brein blijven niettemin een belangrijke hinderpaal voor analisten, beleidsmakers en besluitvormers. However, the main overall message in the book is that we should now recognise that sedition and subversion have now gone digital. For me, the most memorable advice was from Omand's former boss, Jack Straw: ‘when in doubt, do the right thing’.

De tien lessen van Omand zijn bij deze opgave een uitstekende raadgever, in het belang van de democratische rechtsorde. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book, all views are my own.

Na pewno jednym z najbardziej interesujących zagadnień jest problem misinformacji, dezinformacji i fake-newsów. As fiction gets mixed with reflections, historical accounts, reflections on the level of concepts as well as on political happenings in the then and now, the book is quite hard to read, or at least it requires some "mental agility" from the reader. I needed something exciting to read and did not really check who Mr Omand is until I had read the first twenty or so pages.In summary, ‘How Spies Think’ offers decision-making advice for senior leaders, a fascinating and timely examination of cognitive biases and a useful guide to making strategic partnerships that last.

These build to more contemporary examples such as Russian disinformation campaigns in the US and French general elections. Omand besteedt daarnaast veel tijd aan de logica van gehanteerde aannames en gevolgtrekkingen (“assumptions and inferences”). It's really how the suits - Whitehall analysts, managers and those charged with assessing intelligence - might, could or should, think (but usually don't).We always tend to believe that people working in intelligent department use different ways of thinking actually not.

Across five decades, intelligence, its uses and pervasion in public society have been shaped and altered by a wide array of world events and technological advances. Instead, the work comes across more like a professional autobiography (of course of an individual who has reached the pinnacle within his industry). Bullet-pointed summaries at the end of each chapter allow the reader to easily take in these insights.

Although we may rarely negotiate with rogue Serbian generals ourselves, he suggests that by thinking like intelligence analysts, we can all make better decisions in our own lives.