Italian Intelligence Studies Literature - Understanding the State of Play - A Comparative Perspective

ABSTRACT

Contributions to the Italian intelligence studies literature have seen an expansion since the major reform of Italian intelligence introduced in 2007. Italian civil society also increasingly recognizes the importance of intelligence. This paper first explores Italian intelligence studies literature as it stands today before considering the academic research. The six main categories of Italian intelligence literature are presented within: history, sources of intelligence, international relations and geopolitics, theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks, great figures and memoirs, law enforcement, and the fight against criminal organizations. A short comparative analysis between the Italian literature and international intelligence studies is drawn which includes a comparison of categories, topics, key questions, and projects. The goal of this paper, therefore, is to draw a likely depiction of the state of Italian intelligence studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Italian Intelligence Studies
• Italian Intelligence
• Intelligence Studies
• Literature Review

Introduction

Italian intelligence studies literature is proliferating following a major reform of Italian intelligence in 2007 (Minniti & Pili, 2020). The Italian intelligence community is currently attempting to encourage and improve open discussion on intelligence. In addition, at least in the last twenty years, several Italian institutions have started to include intelligence within different university courses at BA and MA level. Bridging the gap between academia and intelligence is not an easy process, and this is not an issue in Italy alone: Difficult relationships between open societies and the secret services first became widespread during the Cold War, and while important improvements in transparency and accountability have occurred since, the debate is still a hot topic. Meanwhile, Italian civil society is starting to recognize the importance of intelligence in risk management for national security. However, while how intelligence agencies are perceived from within is still an issue, this point will not be considered here. The focus instead will be on the specific topic of national Italian intelligence studies literature written in Italian mainly for (Italian) academics and scholars. This is not the only literature available on intelligence; however, the selection is necessary and defensible in order to define a first attempt toward a general understanding of the Italian experience. This experience is as reported in publications and through public debate, though still more scholarly oriented. Italian intelligence studies literature will then be explored in its current and recent states, tracking back twenty years from now. We have restricted our attention to this timeframe for the following reasons.

In order to bring this literature to the international public, we opted for a comparative approach based on a general view of how some leading international scholars view international intelligence studies literature. Their understanding has been fundamental in setting the stage for describing the state of play of Italian intelligence literature. These viewpoints were also necessary to help bring the Italian case to the attention of the international community: Categories, key questions, and main projects can all only be elaborated on when compared with the international literature. The goal of this paper can then be defined as: To bring an essential, but comprehensive, literature review of Italian intelligence studies to the attention of an international readership. Given the growth of this field in terms of number of publications (and, as will be highlighted in the article, mainly published books), it was not possible to address the full list of all studies available in Italian, and so this goal should be considered in a realistic sense. As a caveat, it was also not possible to include titles or research released during the period of this article’s publication. This point will be elaborated on further into the research. However, we do aim to portray a meaningful picture of the state of the art of the body of literature available in Italian on intelligence as it is broadly understood. In this sense, the target is a “model” of the state of play of Italian intelligence studies, focusing on scientific research. This approach can hopefully activate a wider and more comprehensive and inclusive perspective on this specific national experience.

To ground our research, the paper starts with a general framework based on international intelligence studies literature. We then move on to explore important distinctions among the targets (public) of the literature considered. Because it would be impossible to exhaust all available publications, and to avoid restricting our scope, we used a methodological analysis based on a selection of scholarly publications. In this approach, the national context and the authors’ biographies are considered to be a fundamental component of their influence on the debate.¹

Books were the primary source of information because, in the context of scientific publications, Italian literature is dominated by them. In fact, there is not yet a peer-review scientific journal in Italy devoted entirely to intelligence. Gnosis is no exception because it is the official intelligence journal, whose copyright is held by AISI (Agenzia Informazioni della Sicurezza Interna – Intelligence Agency for the Internal Security).² The type of publications considered was, therefore, a necessary limitation on the scope of the literature analysis and this aspect must be expanded in future research. As the focus of this research is to represent the state of the art of the Italian scientific literature on intelligence, we had to focus only on what could appropriately be considered under that terminology as defined by international standards. For this reason, the main list of publications is constrained to books issued by scientific publishers.³

After a description of the general framework, the six main categories of Italian intelligence literature will be presented: History, sources of intelligence, international relations and geopolitics, theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks, great figures and memoirs, and law enforcement. Before moving to the conclusions, a short comparative analysis of Italian literature and international intelligence studies will be considered, including a comparison between categories, topics, key questions, and projects. Through this process, we aim to arrive at a reliable depiction of the current state of Italian intelligence studies.⁴

A further disclaimer must be considered. The literature review we are going to consider could be perceived as a-systematic or, more problematically, slightly de-structured. Given how recent this field is, not only in Italy but especially in the national framework, it fails to exhibit many unifying threads. Therefore, the study tries to be as systematic as possible within the limitations posed by this lack of structure. The Italian academy is working to be more consistent, systematic, and universal in order to establish intelligence studies inside official Italian programs. However, considering this work in progress, the research can only depict the current state of play in Italy today.

A general framework based on the international intelligence studies literature

The target of the study

Intelligence studies literature can be divided into two broad categories: international intelligence studies literature and national intelligence studies literature.⁵ The former is written in English mainly for and by international academic researchers and scholars. Ex practitioners’ specific experience is also included, e.g., practitioners that developed their expertise in academia but pursued a practitioner-oriented conception of intelligence, “‘practitioner-turned-scholar’“ as Damien Van Puyvelde and Curtis put it.⁶ National intelligence studies literature, by contrast, is a category that includes all studies written in a language other than English. The audience generally does not include international academic researchers because the focus is typically national, whatever its definition and scope. Both national and international intelligence literature generally has three target audiences which are not exclusively limited to academia: (a) ex or actual practitioners in the intelligence community, (b) scholars, and (c) the general public. These three categories vary in their respective importance but can legitimately be considered the main targets of intelligence studies. The two main journals in the international field are Intelligence and National Security (INS) and the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (IJIC). Though founded in the same year (1986) for a similar purpose (to boost the study of intelligence broadly conceived), they orient slightly differently toward their respective public, where the former is more academic than the latter. While one of the main current debates in international intelligence literature discusses improving the relationship between policymakers, intelligence officers and analysts, it could also be argued that policymakers themselves are a key target of this literature. In fact, policy/decision-makers are often also producers of this literature, and this is especially true for national literature. At any rate, we can add policy/decision-makers as, at the very least, a desirable target to the list of general targets of the literature.

However, while it is reasonable to assume that each national literature contribution orients toward at least one of those four targets: Practitioners, scholars, policy/decision-makers, and the general public, an esoteric topic such as intelligence is more likely in an international context to be accessed by those in positions of power directly from academic research.⁷ In democratic societies, the open debate of intelligence topics is today being encouraged between these same four groups. Their distinctions allow for unique perspectives in studies that investigate specific portions of intelligence literature; for instance, the international literature section tends to target the academic perspective more frequently than those of other categories. However, the literature’s current state does not include any comparative research, as a kind of ‘market analysis,’ on international intelligence studies. Through an analysis of the primary relevant papers, this type of study could allow for a better general understanding or self-awareness of what is going on in the field in intelligence studies,⁸ which developed since Wesley Wark’s publication,⁹ though it does not touch on this issue.

The goal is to draw the (Italian) national intelligence studies’ picture as it emerges in Italian academic-oriented literature. This topic has not yet been fully considered even in international intelligence studies. For example, even though two recent studies on the literature make some (brief) comparisons with other cases of national intelligence literature (e.g., German, French, and Spanish), Italian was not considered.¹⁰ Broadly speaking, the lack of inclusion of other national debates written in languages other than English is explicitly recognized as a limit of the field¹¹: “Intelligence Studies should not be limited to literature written in English. In practice, the field is much larger as publicly available literature on intelligence practices and organizations is readily available in other languages including Dutch, French, Hebrew, Japanese, and Spanish, to name a few” (Van Puyvelde and Curtis (2016), p. 1,048). Italian is missing from this list of languages just as it is missing from studies on the intelligence studies literature. This is merely a ‘symptom of the disease’ because, after all, in three different journals (INS, IJIC, the International Journal of Intelligence, Security and Public Affairs) there are no mentions of any analysis of Italian intelligence studies broadly speaking: however, what we did find is a good quantity of some portion of the Italian intelligence historical experience, which is not by chance as we shall see below. This pattern is also evident in another recent paper¹² written outside the anglosphere, which reports interesting findings in other cases of available national literature while still missing the Italian perspective (Mansour (2018), p. 4). To be clear, this is not a problem particular to the Italian case: it is one of many countries more or less ignored by international intelligence studies – a field still oriented by anglosphere countries, apart from a few exceptions, as shown by Damien Van Puyvelde, Sean Curtis and Shady Mansour in two different studies.

Given the volume of studies, it is unfeasible to give a complete analysis of Italian intelligence studies literature. The method selected is empirical in the sense that the categories identified were not drawn ex ante but ex post the data collection, namely by the scholarly publications available. In this sense, the categories were drawn directly from what the data suggested rather than from trying to impose those categories on the data – an appropriate approach when a systematic classification needs to be improved rather than created for the first time. The fluidity of the body of the scientific literature and its quick development, combined with a gap of systematic classification systems of the field, offered an unbalanced approach to the task at hand. The focus was first on gathering the publications and then drawing conclusions (the categories) from them. This is an inductive approach to the data compatible with the idea that the categories are a generalization of existing items more than general frameworks to impose on the data. However, in order to maintain a meter of comparison and add some structure to our research, a discussion of the intelligence studies categories and project is also outlined to be somewhat compatible with the international standards and literature. In this way, the data collection and bottom-up approach was structured by the boundaries already defined by the international scientific community. The target is centered mainly on academic research.¹³

This selection strategy came about for good reason: First, it offers a representative piece of the whole puzzle, but worth consideration in itself. Second, our background is academic. Third, it made sense in our analysis to start from the clearer and more well-defined academic research that is currently available and move progressively toward the unknown. Finally, the findings are grounded in a significant number of publications. A selection had to be made, although we are well-aware of the limits of this approach and will consider these in the final section. Notwithstanding, this is a reasonable first attempt to include the Italian case in international research.

International intelligence studies literature and national studies literature(s): a starting framework

In order to represent the current state of affairs within the Italian intelligence studies literature (IISL) and to offer a meter of comparison in terms of similarities and differences with international literature, a general framework for (international) intelligence studies (IS) was first required. There are two different considerations: (a) the IS framework must first be considered before bringing the IISL to the attention of an international readership. (b) To achieve this intermediate step, a selection of previous similar studies needs to be fully explored and analyzed.¹⁴ What emerges from these and other studies is that the IS is a consistent research body whose main characteristic is its intrinsic multi-disciplinarity. Indeed, one of the open problems is how to manage this feature, as multi-disciplinarity could also mean a lack of focus or consistency inside the literature. This is considered to be one of the most crucial debates inside the IS (Johnson & Shelton, 2013, p. 110). At the same time, these scholars recognize the preeminence of a restricted number of topics and leading questions, which need to be considered when drawing a comparison between the shapes and topologies of the IS and the IISL respectively. Let’s start with the central questions of the IS.

We selected six main questions, some of them taken directly from Loch Johnson and Allison Shelton’s paper:

1. Is IS a discipline?

2. What are the key questions of IS?

3. What are the most explored topics?

4. What are the lesser explored topics?

5. What are the main works considered in the field?

6. What are the main categories of IS?

As anticipated, it is not entirely clear whether IS is a discipline per se. The question should be whether IS is something methodologically or essentially distinct from other close fields such as International Relations or Security Studies more broadly. If the answer is merely descriptive, we should conclude that there are sections of IS that are independent and autonomous (thinking about structured analytic techniques, core intelligence methodologies, or research on intelligence analysis). However, a normative answer could be different (whether IS should be distinct or not). There is a general agreement that IS literature is a consistent body of research whose main goal is to investigate intelligence from different perspectives. To answer the second point about key questions of the international debate, it is possible to look at the main categories as part of the answer from a statistical perspective. The main categories highlight those topics scholars considered to be most interesting and important to study. Though this is not a qualitative selection; it is still an interesting quantitative insight. Wesley Wark has selected eight key categories or “projects” as reported by Peter Gill and Mark Phythian: “research, historical, definitional, methodological (applying social science concepts to intelligence), memoirs, civil liberties, investigative journalism, and popular culture” (Gill & Phythian, 2016, p. 8). These eight categories could be intertwined with two other possible lists. The first was given by Mark Phythian when interviewed by Johnson and Shelton as an answer to what the main questions open in the literature are: “ … the reasons for intelligence failure; the nature of ‘politicization’; the role and optimal structure of intelligence oversight; the relationship between intelligence and ethics; and the relationship between intelligence and the state, including the question of the extent to which intelligence is an outgrowth of national political cultures or how far it helps define these cultures” (Johnson & Shelton, 2013, p. 110). In two different papers, Gill and Phythian give their understanding of the IS and its projects. They selected four key categories: research/historical, definitional/methodological, organizational/functional, governance, and policy. For this research, the general categorization of IS given by Gill and Phythian is embraced, though Wark’s categories will be utilized to look to the subfields of IS. It could be argued that Wark’s list of sub-categories could be used to segment each IS project. However, IS is still without differentiated schools of thought, as argued by Stephen Marrin.¹⁵ In addition, according to Shady Mansour: “Another main feature of intelligence studies is that there is no single principal debate or theory that dominates Intelligence studies as an academic field” (Mansour, 2018, p. 5), and this opinion is shared by many others.¹⁶ IS could then be understood as a multi-disciplinary field whose broad goal is to clarify the nature of intelligence from different perspectives (projects), while various scholars have defined even narrower research subfields within each perspective.

Inside this general framework, based on a selection of relevant works and a general knowledge of the discipline, IS emerges as a consistent body of studies based on four different projects with at least eight specific subfields. As this is not the place to explore a more detailed topology of the IS, this definition will be sufficient for our purposes. In fact, several different categorizations and topological reconstructions of the IS are possible. However, most scholars could agree on the (limited) proposal defended, and we believe this general framework helps to draw a possible understanding and comparison between IS and IISL, as we shall continue to explore.

A bottom-up approach to creating a framework: the Italian national academic literature and its categories

Our first step framed the stage for analysis of the IISL. The next step will be to draw a general picture of it. In this way, we can elaborate on a trusted overview of its categories. This strategy is based on a bottom-up approach, as considered essential according to the methodology we selected.¹⁷ This is in contrast to our approach in the previous paragraph, but necessary in order to stay as close to the data as possible when gathering evidence and attempting to draw reliable conclusions from it.

The collection of studies are selected from 70 publications released over the last twenty years. Six main categories are considered, plus an additional category of a further selection of the most influential works (let’s call it the classics). The nature of the six big categories and their relative subfields is discussed below, and the selection of significant books is also included in the third paragraph. The importance of a given class is driven simply by the sheer number of items it contains. We also considered subfields when necessary. Finally, we looked at the diversity issue which is defined by two variables: The number of authors and gender division (male and female.) Indeed, the diversity of the topics is addressed by the distinction of different categories of research. Diversity of nationality is not considered in a study that has a declared national character from a descriptive point of view. These four diversity categories are the main classes considered by the Damien Van Puyvelde and Sean Curtis’ study, and we are simply endorsing them without further analysis.¹⁸ Finally, it is note-worthy that inside the IISL, a good portion of the research consists of translated works mainly from the IS or, occasionally, beyond (such as a translation from French, Russian, or Israeli literature), in particular for publications about the history of foreign intelligence agencies or sources of intelligence (such as the Robert Steele’s pioneering work published in Italian in 2002,⁸⁰ or some of the significant publications written by Christopher Andrew). We did not consider the translations because they are not part of the Italian production in the field. The reader will find an appendix with all the texts for each category.

The main categories of the IISL

History – 24 + 4 publications, 30 unique authors, 19 publishers

Regarding the IS, the biggest and most frequently studied aspect of intelligence in Italy seems to be its history. In fact, we collected 24 main studies plus another four publications (which could be part of other categories such as memoirs) which were distributed uniformly over 20 years, since 2000. We divided the historical production into three major subfields: (I) history of intelligence, (II) history of Italian agencies and history of intelligence in Italy, (III) history of foreign intelligence agencies. In the first category, we considered works that address a broad history of intelligence. For instance, Stefano Musco¹⁹ examined the history of espionage from the beginning of civilization to the fall of the Roman empire. This essay has a comparative component in which the author tries to find common ground in different intelligence-related activities throughout Western civilization’s early history. In the same fashion, the ambassador Domenico Vecchioni explored the historical evolution and transition from mere espionage to intelligence, where the latter is intended as the current bureaucratic institution(s) and set of methods and techniques involved in contemporary intelligence.²⁰ Vecchioni is an author of several studies on the history of intelligence,²¹ some of them written for the general public. One of the most important publications in the field is a collective book edited by Virgilio Ilari and Tomaso Vialardi di Sanvigliano which was based on a conference organized by the Italian Society of Military History (Ilari & Vialardi Di Sanvigliano, 2005, p. 10). The aim of the book is threefold: (a) investigate the history of the Italian military secret service since the foundation of the liberal Italian State (1861), (b) analyze the recent development of electronic intelligence, and (c) present the Chinese case. This essay is particularly detailed in the first section, where the reader can find five different chapters devoted to Italian history. Looking at the authors, their profile, and the historical analysis, this should be considered a fundamental study on the topic of the Italian experience from a historical perspective. Indeed, Virgilio Ilari was a professor of military history at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan) and is the president of the Italian Society of the Military History (SISM). Ilari wrote a comprehensive military history of Italy from 1943 to 1993 in which he extensively considered the role of intelligence.²² Maria Gabriella Pasqualini’s work directly approached crucial aspects of Italian intelligence history through systematic archival research. She issued a book on the subject,²³ which was included in a recent digest published by the Italian intelligence.²⁴

Inside this category, we also counted works on Vatican intelligence, which although it is not – technically speaking – part of the Italian state, its influence and importance spreads much further afield than the Vatican or even Rome; for instance, Nicola Tranfaglia analyzed the history of intelligence in the years of the Italian Republic in between the second world war and the beginning of the cold war (1943–1947).²⁵ A latere, a translated author is David Alvarez, Emeritus professor at Saint Mary’s college (Cal. US), who is often invited to speak in Italy and his works are frequently translated and requested by Gnosis, the official Italian journal of intelligence. However, Christopher Andrew is probably the most translated author on the topic of the history of intelligence. Inside the second category (Italian intelligence history), we find a great variety of works that span all the different periods and topics of Italian history. For instance, Mimmo Franzinelli analyzed a specific historical case study, “Piano Solo (1964),” one of the critical moments of Italian democracy,²⁶ while Solange Manfredi researched Psychological Operations (Psyop.) from 1934 to today.²⁷ Finally, the third subfield considers essays which investigate foreign intelligence agencies, though still written by Italian researchers for an Italian public. For instance, Gianluca Falanga wrote three books on the relationship between German intelligence agencies (from the Nazism period to the Stasi, investigating the history of the Stasi in detail),²⁸ and their influence and operations in Italy.²⁹ Antonio Selvatici wrote a book on the history of various intelligence agencies (KGB, Stasi, RAF).³⁰ Stefano Bonino recently published a comprehensive history of British intelligence in the XX century.^31,81 As for the IS, the historical category also includes analyses of intelligence whose goal is to draw some general lessons for relevant aspects of intelligence methodology or operations. These works could also be included in other categories (such as the next one), but we decided to omit them because their methodology and primary aim are historically oriented.⁸² A different interpretation is possible, however.

This category hosts 24 publications (plus four that could be part of other categories), 23 different authors plus eight different contributors in Ilari and Vialardi di Sanvigliano’s collective book for a comprehensive 31 different authors. In addition, the books are published by 20 different publishers. Interestingly, the main publishing companies in Italy, e.g. Mondadori, Rizzoli, Bompiani, Rubbettino, and Carocci are included in the list of publishers. In the endnote, we reported the list of works considered, aside from those already referenced (see also the appendix).³² In this category, we found five female scholars (Maria Gabriella Pasqualini, Solange Manfredi, Stefania Limiti, Maria Elena Scandialiato and Clara Conti).

Sources of intelligence – 12 publications, 11 unique authors, 5 publishers

Numerically speaking, this category (sources of intelligence) is the second biggest with its 15 main works. We have included all the different sources of intelligence that fall under the definition given by Jan Goldman (Goldman, 2005, p. 125). However, it should be stated that the Italian categorization of intelligence sources does not exactly match those from the IS, as it is much broader and more inclusive as a result of its higher number of publications. This category is then divided into four sources, dictated by the various researchers’ interests, and are the main origins of intelligence considered in recent national debate: OSINT, cyber intelligence, big data, predictive analytics, and economic intelligence. Of these four, OSINT and economic intelligence are probably the most studied.

For instance, economic intelligence is widely investigated by Giuseppe Gagliano, founder of a center of strategic studies (CESTUDEC), who published a great number of books on topics ranging from the history of economic intelligence to information warfare and active measures.³³ Information warfare is often considered relevant to intelligence even if not intelligence, strictly speaking. Umberto Gori is probably the most influential author in the field of information warfare and cyber warfare, editing several collective books on the issue. Sergio Germani is the head of a center of intelligence study in Rome (Istituto Gino Germani di Scienze Sociali e Studi Strategici), which organizes conferences and talks on intelligence matters. The institute usually publishes collective books at the end of its conferences. Germani has also edited several books on intelligence related to its close disciplines. Germani and Gori edited two common volumes: in their 2011 book, they collected essays on cyber intelligence related to information warfare and, in 2012, they focused their attention on cyber intelligence.³⁴ Mario Caligiuri, Laris Gaiser and Gagliano issued a publication on the current role of economic intelligence inside and outside Italy.³⁵ Giorgio Boatti and Giuliano Tavaroli analyzed how intelligence operates in the private sector.³⁶ However, the most influential study in this field is the handbook on economic intelligence written by General Carlo Jean and Paolo Savona, professor, economist and former minister of European Affairs.³⁷

Caligiuri investigates the topic of cyber intelligence, exploring its increasing role inside intelligence operations and revealing the difficult relationship between intelligence and new technologies.³⁸ Antonio Teti issued a volume on cyber espionage and cyber counterintelligence in which he analyzed social and psychological acts of the digital revolutions. He depicted the consequences of information technologies (IT) on intelligence, and introduces the reader to the different techniques available to exploit information elaborated upon and shared by IT technologies.³⁹ Teti is a prolific author in the field of big data and data analytics⁴⁰ and he is also the author of a study of OSINT.⁴¹ Ex-navy officer, Giovanni Nacci, issued a study on OSINT in which he proposes a general theory of this source.⁴²

The category of intelligence sources hosts 15 publications with 16 different authors (where we counted also the coauthors but not the number of contributors for the collective books). There are only two female researchers in this list, Serena Lisi and Maria Luisa Maniscalco,⁸³ and the books are published by 8 different publishers. The list of publishers is narrower than the previous cases because this category contains mainly technical analyses, with the audience consisting primarily of practitioners or academic researchers with some exceptions (e.g., Caligiuri, 2016a). In the list of publishers, we found influential publishing companies such as Mondadori, Donzelli, Franco Angeli and Rubbettino. The full list of works we considered is in the endnote and in the appendix.⁴³

International relations and geopolitics – 10 publications, 11 unique authors, 7 publishers

As in the IS, the IISL hosts a series of works on the relationship between intelligence, international relations, and geopolitics. Within ‘geopolitics’ we would like to include a specific approach to international relations which considers both how the current world order is and how the main powers exploit and require intelligence to work. One of the main journals of geopolitics is Limes, whose publisher is Espresso. Lucio Caracciolo is the editor in chief of the journal and an expert in the field of geopolitics. He is also a regularly invited lecturer to the Master of Intelligence (Università della Calabria) and to many other academic institutions. Limes regularly issues pieces on intelligence and devotes an entire volume to explaining how it works (Limes (07/2014). This should be considered as one of the main issues in the field. The volume includes chapters written by Dario Fabbri, Virgilio Ilari, Federico Petroni, Matteo Faini, Luca Mainoldi, Paolo Scotto di Castelbianco, and Gen. Fabio Mini. The volume hosts a series of international experts in intelligence with different institutional and national experience. Though aimed at an Italian readership, Limes usually brings the Italian perspective and the international debate together by inviting Italian and international scholars to engage in a common dialogue. In one volume we find international figures such as Mark Galeotti (New York City University, US), Christian Harbulot (Director of the École de guerre économique, Paris), John Hulsman (Council of Foreign Relations), Amir Rapaport (Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (Besa)), and Teun Van Dogen (Hague Center for Strategic Studies). Limes’ long-lasting interest in intelligence has been apparent since its beginning as the journal has published several papers on intelligence topics. For instance, one volume (10/1997) hosted two chapters on the secret service – an example is the piece written by Francesco Cossiga, former Head of the Republic, Minister of Defense and appointed to numerous political positions.⁴⁴ Though Limes is a monthly journal, its issues can be considered within the collective book category. All the volumes aim to present a general picture, as expressed by Caracciolo on the journal’s YouTube channel. As a supporting resource, Limes regularly organizes events, conferences, and talks. IISL also includes many other works interested in developing a theory of intelligence from a geopolitical perspective which presents a general conception of intelligence as part of the competition for power.⁴⁵ In this category we find a general analysis of intelligence inside international relations⁴⁶ or specific case studies.⁴⁷ This category (international relations and geopolitics) hosts 10 publications and 11 different authors (where we counted the coauthors but not the number of contributors for the collective books). In this case, the authors are all male (although the Limes volume hosted a contribution from a female researcher, Cecilia Tosi), and the books are published by 7 different publishers. The works are all listed in the reference section and in the appendix.

Theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks – 9 publications, 10 unique authors, 7 publishers

The fourth category is theoretical studies, or theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks. The IISL is a multi-disciplinary field in Italy, and different approaches to intelligence are explored in the literature. We also found different subfields: Philosophy, pedagogy, social sciences, and a general introduction to intelligence. We did not consider international relations and geopolitics because they will be included in a different category. Starting from philosophy, Dario Antiseri and Adriano Soi issued a study on intelligence and scientific methods in which they analyze intelligence from a perspective driven by the philosophy of science.⁴⁸ Enrico Petris investigates the philosophical analytical roots of intelligence,⁴⁹ while Giangiuseppe Pili focuses his attention on a possible reconciliation of intelligence inside liberal democracies, looking to how intelligence is and can be an institution of democracy from a philosophical point of view.⁵⁰ From the perspective of the social sciences, a volume was edited by Caligiuri, in which the contributors investigate the nature of intelligence from different perspectives, all included in the wider framework of the social and human sciences⁵¹: intelligence and pedagogy (Giuseppe Spadafora), intelligence and history (Virgilio Ilari), intelligence and law enforcement (Carlo Mosca), intelligence and political science (Giorgio Galli), intelligence and international relations (Umberto Gori), intelligence and social sciences (Pino Arlacchi), intelligence and science of information (Gerardo Iovane), intelligence and psychology (Tiziano Agostini and Alessandra Galmonte), and intelligence and the science of investigation (Francesco Sidoti). This book stands out for the number and selection of relevant scholars in their different fields, and the variety of approaches presented. A similar one, though more interested in the strategical and operational aspects of intelligence than in intelligence theory as such, was recently edited by Vincenzo Scotti.⁵² The volume hosted several influential scholars both national (e.g., Jean, Gori, Paola Giannetakis, Michele Colajanni, Francesco Corona, Adriana Piancastelli Manganelli, etc,) and international (Christopher Andrew and Phil Williams). Finally, we included a general introduction on intelligence in this section because the available studies’ primary goal is to provide a broad understanding of the discipline itself. Though some of them lack depth, they are still important to the field from a general perspective.

Probably the most representative work of this category is Cossiga’s book, which could be considered a classic.⁵³ Another fundamental book is the more recent Mario Mori’s handbook.⁵⁴ Gen. Mori was part of the task force that captured one of the most hunted mafia-criminals (Totò Riina), and he was the chief of Sisde (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica, an intelligence agency active from 1978 to 2007). Mori presents intelligence in a broad framework; he describes its main functions, general history, and methods. Finally, Aldo Giannuli issued an introduction to intelligence.⁵⁵

This category hosts 9 publications, 10 different authors (where we counted the coauthors but not the number of contributors for the collective books) and the scholars are all male. The books are published by 8 different publishers and the list of works we considered is in the endnote and in the appendix.⁵⁶ We did not find any female researchers in this list.

Fighting criminal organizations and law enforcement – 9 publications, 4 unique authors, 4 publishers

This category combines two different aspects of the same problem: Law enforcement and fighting criminal organizations. Indeed, an important issue inside the IISL and within public debate is the Italian state’s fight against criminal organizations, whose origins trace back to the early stages of Italian unification. While their presence is historically rooted in the south of Italy, their diffusion and distribution have since increased to include most other Italian regions, and even beyond Italian borders. The struggle against criminal organizations is considered within intelligence literature and we have combined the categories of law enforcement and criminal organizations for two reasons: They were not sufficiently robust to be examined individually, and they are part of the same topic, broadly understood as intelligence as part of law enforcement procedures and tools.

Caligiuri edited a collective book on intelligence and ‘Ndrangheta (a Calabrian criminal organization),⁵⁷ as well as a second volume on the same issue a year later.⁵⁸ Recently, the same scholar coauthored research on criminal organizations inside the Italian port system and infrastructure.⁵⁹ In this field we also find other works.⁶⁰ Francesco Minniti analyzes the penal system and police activities inside it to understand how intelligence can effectively gather relevant information from within this institution.⁶¹

Coming to law enforcement and law, Mosca, Giuseppe Scandone, Stefano Gambacurta, and Marco Valentini edited a volume dealing with a general understanding of the reform of Italian intelligence from a juridical perspective (the major 2007 reform – law 124/2007).⁶² Valentini also issued a volume on this topic and offered a general theory of intelligence as part of the constitutional democracy in which he identifies the limits and legitimate actions of intelligence.⁶³ Finally, Caligiuri investigates the difficult relationship between the law and the Italian judiciary and intelligence systems.⁶⁴

This category hosts 9 publications, 10 different authors (where we counted the coauthors but not the number of contributors for the collective books). The authors are all male. The books are published by four different publishers and all the works are listed in the reference section and in the appendix.

Great figures and memoirs – 7 publications, 5 unique authors, 5 publishers

This category is closely aligned with the history of intelligence in that it involves biographies and memoirs of significant figures from Italian intelligence. We included both works about great figures and pieces written by them. For instance, Caligiuri edited two major collective books; one is about Cossiga,⁶⁵ and the second considers Aldo Moro’s relationship with the Italian secret services.⁶⁶ Gen. Aldo Lisetti reported on his twenty-years’ experience inside Sisde⁶⁷ and on his entire career.⁶⁸ Adm. Fulvio Martini was former head of SISMI (1984–1991). He wrote a book about his work inside Italian intelligence⁶⁹ in which he focused in particular on the NATO alliance, the cold war era and the rivalry with the Warsaw Pact allies, counterterrorism and the difficult years in the Middle East.⁸⁴ Amos Spiazzi (member of the Organizzazione di Sicurezza dell’Esercito), with Sandro Neri, wrote about the work of a secret agent in an interview published as a book.⁷⁰ Finally, Emilio Randacio recounted Marco Bernardini’s experience inside the Sisde as an officer inside Latin America, the Balkans, France, and the Middle East.⁷¹

This category hosts 7 publications, 5 different authors (where we counted the coauthors but not the number of contributors for the collective books). The books are published by 5 different publishers and all the authors included in this category are male. The works are all listed in the reference section and in the appendix.

Between IS and IISL: an analysis and a short comparative perspective

In 2.2, we tried to identify some key factors to reliably describe the IISL compared to the IS. We identified eight categories, four projects, and six key questions and concluded that international intelligence studies is effectively multi-disciplinary research on the nature of intelligence. While lacking a school of thought, it does offer a wide-open range of subfields, scholars, and theoretical frameworks. To summarize, the IS could be understood as a multi-disciplinary field whose broad goal is to clarify the nature of intelligence from different inside perspectives which various scholars define through narrow research projects. So, let’s try to draw a brief comparison between IS and IISL. We will start with the categories, then move on to the projects and, finally, conclude with the six key questions.

Six different categories were identified; we wrote the main subfields between brackets where appropriate: History (history of intelligence, history of Italian intelligence agencies and history of intelligence in Italy, history of foreign intelligence agencies), sources of intelligence (OSINT, cyber intelligence, big data, and predictive analytics, and economic intelligence), theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks (philosophy, pedagogy, political science, human science, and general introductions), significant figures and memoirs, and fighting criminal organizations and memoirs. History is the most researched area with 24 + 4 (28) publications, 31 unique authors, and 19 different publishers. Sources of intelligence follows with 12 publications, 11 unique authors, and 5 publishers. International relations and geopolitics comes next with 10 publications, 11 unique authors, and 7 publishers. Theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks include 9 publications, 9 unique authors, and 8 publishers. Fighting criminal organizations and law enforcement includes 10 publications, 4 unique authors and 4 publishers, and great figures and memoirs contains 8 publications, 6 unique authors and 6 different publishers. We found 6 female researchers within this sample and while we know there is a wider female contribution to the IISL, other researchers such as Stefania Ducci and Paola Giannetakis (Link Campus University of Malta), were not included in this list simply because they were not part of our literature review, but their role must be acknowledged. However, it is reasonable to say that, though not ideal, this discrepancy between male and female researchers probably gives a realistic picture of the current state of affairs in terms of diversity. Diversity and inclusion are also problems for the IS, as Van Puyvelde and Curtis illustrated, and we believe that a better balance within both national and international fields is both desirable and possible.

In terms of IS literature, we found that Italian intelligence studies is mainly driven by historical research (28/70), and that while methodological studies (applying social science concepts to intelligence) are of significant interest to Italian scholars (10/70), they seem to be more interested in the sources of intelligence per se (15/70). As with the IS literature, memoirs are an important source of information. Finally, because we focused our attention on academic research, we did not pursue a detailed study of investigative journalism,⁸⁵ which is alive and well in Italy. The same applies to the popular culture of intelligence, which is probably less national and more internationally oriented and is a topic worthy of further research. Finally, and significantly, we found that the fight against criminal organizations and law enforcement is indeed a split subfield of the same research topic, which is of high importance within the IISL (10/70).

It seems that the IISL and IS are fairly similar both in their categories and in their main driver (historical research), though some differences can be found. Besides content, the number of studies and publications differs appreciably between the two, for obvious reasons, and the same observation can be drawn regarding the disparity between the number of researchers. Very few scholars devote their attention solely to intelligence (if any).

The four projects proposed by Phythian and Gill can also be used appropriately to define Italian intelligence as well as international projects. As we have seen, the research/historical project is by far the liveliest, especially if we take into account that we focused our attention only on the most recent literature. This seems to be in line not only with the IS literature but also with other national literature, such as the German, French and Spanish cases as reported by Gill and Phythian.⁷² Less explored but still critical is the definitional/methodological project, though it is questionable that there is a sufficient number of works on the definition of intelligence, at least comparable to the international attention on this issue. The organizational/functional project is also still important and comprises several relevant works, especially if we include the private sector and economic intelligence that, as we have seen, is a particularly researched topic in Italy. Finally, governance and policy are part of the IISL as well, especially in law enforcement and the fight against criminal organizations. Therefore, it could be said that, at least from a general perspective, the IISL and IS share a common theme and vision toward open issues, though with significant differences in numbers of contributors and less significant differences in terms of general goals and scope. Finally, within the IISL, more than simply a school of thought, we have a good diversification of research topics and issues (although nothing like what Stephen Marrin advocates for IS literature), which accounts for another similarity between the two cases. Let’s consider the six key questions before turning to the conclusions. These will address the Italian perspective (IISL) in comparison with the international literature (IS).

1. Is IISL a discipline? As IS is a multi-disciplinary understanding of the nature of intelligence, the IISL can be considered as an emerging body of research with its own parameters, standards, and topics. It is questionable to say that IISL is a discipline, strictly speaking, because of its lack of general academic institutionalization. For instance, there are still relatively few scholarly journals in this field, at least when compared with academic journals within the IS. However, several institutions now include courses and lectures on intelligence topics, and its importance is growing in absolute and relative terms. In addition, looking at the recent increase in literature, it could be predicted that the IISL will eventually achieve discipline status, but we are not there yet.

2. What are the key questions of IISL? As we have seen, there is probably no one key debate within the Italian national literature. However, in our opinion, the difficult relationship between Italian intelligence and society in general is perhaps one of the most important topics of all. It can be considered from many different angles and analysis of this relationship can be found in different forms in all the categories considered. Another important debate focuses on the effectiveness of intelligence and how it can be improved in order to transform it into a science, though probably more of a human science than a rigid-mathematical approach. Another key topic is the effectiveness of intelligence in the fight against criminal organizations, this consistently being one of the most troubling open issues in the field and beyond.

3. What are the most explored topics? It is not yet possible to give a definitive response to this question. However, history, sources of intelligence (though a concise selection from those available), and international relations and geopolitics related to intelligence were the most explored topics in our sample of literature, followed by law enforcement and theoretical research. In contrast with the IS, where business and economic intelligence are considered to be different branches of literature with a different audience, parameters, and journals, the Italian literature considers economic intelligence and business intelligence as part of the IISL and explores both topics within this field.

4. From the data we collected, the less explored topics include other sources of intelligence not fully considered in the literature (especially SIGINT and IMINT). The definition of intelligence or a detailed analysis of its function(s), could be open to further analysis. The relationship between artificial intelligence and intelligence could be another productive open debate, though research is now being done in this growing field. Finally, ethical studies on intelligence are still very few and philosophers could contribute by adding their expertise to the IISL more consistently. During analysis for our forthcoming publication, we encountered several gaps in the literature, and we hope to continue, along with other scholars, to fill some of the open topics in IISL.⁷³

5. What are the main works considered in the field? We focused our attention on recent literature, from the last twenty years, as one of the authors already has extensive experience researching this period. However, with this limitation in mind, we gathered a broad range of works selected from each category. Although it is difficult to precisely measure the influence of these studies on the current state of play (partly because of limitations in the quotation-track for this field), we selected them because at the time of their publication there were no better alternatives, and as a consequence of the improvements they brought to the field in terms of novelty and rigor.⁷⁴ First, Cossiga⁷⁵ (2002) could be considered a classic. The detailed volume on law enforcement and intelligence, coauthored by Mosca, Scandone, Gambacurta, and Valentini is necessary reading in order to understand the intelligence law framework. Ilari and Vilardi di Sanvigliano’s collective book on the history of Italian intelligence also has to be mentioned. Teti’s research on the sources of intelligence is particularly relevant – Teti’s OSINT handbook in particular⁷⁶ which, as far as OSINT, is probably the most researched source of intelligence in the IISL. The collective volume on intelligence and human sciences has to be put on the list for its wide selections of topics and scholars, and is still one of the few works on the topic.⁷⁷ Mario Mori’s handbook is also a convincing introduction to intelligence.⁷⁸ Finally, we consider Limes’s volume on intelligence to be a relevant piece of research. A different selection is possible, but it is difficult to argue that these are not some of the field’s most fundamental works.

6. What are the main categories of IS? As we have already addressed this question several times above, we will move on to the conclusions.

Conclusions

This study of the national Italian intelligence studies literature mainly looked at academic research which highlighted that the IISL and the international intelligence studies literature have more similarities than differences. However, there is still a lack of consistency inside this new field which is particularly clear when considering sources of intelligence. Notwithstanding, the IISL reveals itself to be a multi-disciplinary resource that is going through increasing specialization and technical reform. The study was based on a restricted number of books (70) spread across all the different categories and topics of intelligence. To anticipate any objections, we are aware that it is possible to further refine these findings; however, this study aimed to introduce a different and sufficiently outlying national experience to the broader international debate. This is a starting point. Further critical aspects will be outlined below.

First, a more detailed look at diversity distribution could be beneficial: Looking into why the range of gender and origins of the Italian scholars is unbalanced could help shed further light on this IISL issue. Second, we decided to focus our attention mainly on published books for several reasons: The Italian literature on intelligence comprises far more books than any other medium. We also consider Limes’ publications to be collective books for this purpose. This meant that we excluded the main journal in the field, Gnosis, from our consideration. Gnosis is the AISI’s official journal, where AISI is one of the Italian intelligence agencies (Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna). It should be noted that this is not a peer-reviewed journal, and the submissions are limited only to invited authors. The authors are scholars, academic researchers, and practitioners, and not necessarily only Italians. Gnosis’ history is worthy of a brief review. The first Italian journal of intelligence was Per aspera ad veritatem, founded in 1995. Gnosis has been in circulation since 2004, and its directors were Mosca and Valentini. Carlo Mosca is a prominent Italian political-institutional figure, and was the deputy-director of Sisde (the previous Italian internal secret service before the 2007 reform) in 1994. Marco Valentini worked as a legal consultant for the Italian secret services. After 2004, Per aspera ad veritatem ceased to issue, and Gnosis started. Gnosis is deeply connected to Italian state institutions, as demonstrated by the special issue dedicated to the ten-year anniversary of the reform of 2007. In this volume, the authors included figures of the Italian state such as Paolo Gentiloni (prime minister at the time). Gnosis also publishes books that can be bought with the journal. We did not consider it in this study because we decided to focus our attention on research targeting mainly academics: Italy still lacks an academic journal similar to that of the International Journal of Intelligence, Security and Public Affairs, which was originally published in Spanish and now is available in English in a peer-reviewed system, while still translating the abstracts into Spanish. However, another study could include the Gnosis collective books, and we are aware that this is one limitation of this study. Finally, it could have been interesting to consider the direct opinions of the main Italian scholars on this topic in the same fashion as the remarkable Johnson and Shelton study.⁷⁹ However, this would have required additional space and would have exceeded the boundaries of our main research topic which is to present a general understanding of the Italian experience on national intelligence studies in general. Further research will be possible in future, but meanwhile we hope this is a relevant first attempt toward an even more detailed depiction of the current Italian intelligence studies literature.

Acknowledgments

We warmly want to thank Jules Gaspard for an early assessment of the paper. Stefano Bonino, Umberto Gori and a third friendly reviewer for their precious suggestions that helped us in strengthening the paper. Finally, we are very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mario Caligiuri

Dr Giangiuseppe Pili is a research member at Intelligence Lab, and a former Lecturer in the International Master in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies at Dublin City University in Ireland. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan, Italy). He is part of the organizational committee of the Intelligence Lab at Calabria University in Italy and an editorial board member of the Italian Society of Intelligence (SOCINT). He is the Editor of a collective series of books on applied philosophy based on the blog Scuola Filosofica, and the host of “Intelligence & Interview.” Along with seven books on war, philosophy, and intelligence, he is the coauthor with Professor Mario Caligiuri of Intelligence Studies — A Comparative Analysis between Italy and Anglo-Saxon World (2020).

Giangiuseppe Pili

Mario Caligiuri is the director of the Master of Intelligence (Master di Intelligence) at Calabria University. He fostered the study of intelligence in Italy promoting centers for the study of intelligence, the opening of an Italian MA on intelligence, summer schools, roundtables and open discussions. He lectured inside the most important Italian institutions. He is the author of several books (Cyber Intelligence (2016), Intelligence e scienze umane (2016), Aldo Modo e l’intelligence (2018)) and articles in the main Italian journals about many different aspects of intelligence. His research deals mainly with the pedagogy of intelligence and the importance of intelligence as an academic discipline for the XXI century. He is coauthor of the book Intelligence studies with Dr. Giangiuseppe Pili. He was recently interviewed by the American Herald Tribune (US).

Notes

1. This is different from the average international style, but this difference cannot be excluded entirely.

2. We will consider Gnosis elsewhere in the paper.

3. However, we tried to consider other sources when appropriate.

4. Finally, this paper is based on a more extensive comparison between Italian intelligence studies and international studies literature, included in the official digest of the Italian secret services: Caligiuri, Pili, (2020).

5. Here we are considering as part of the international studies literature those publications directly published in English for the international audience. Indeed, we consider below such studies as precursors to this research. However, those are already non-national publications strictu sensu exactly because they are aimed at the international readership. We elaborate the notion of “national intelligence literature” on the prosecution of the paragraph.

6. Van Puyvelde and Curtis (2016), p. 1046.

7. We are not suggesting that the international literature readership does not include this category. We are only making the limited point that policy/decision-makers usually get their information for these topics from other sources. While the publication scope is widening, thanks to a more diverse publishing offer, the target audience of international journals such as INS or IJIC, for instance, is not so much policymakers the other three categories (especially scholars), as explicitly recognized by the previous studies such as Van Puyvelde and Curtis.

8. Johnson and Shelton (2013), Gill (2009), Gill and Phythian (2012; 2016, 2018), Marrin (2016; 2017, 2018), Mansour (2018).

9. Wark (1993).

10. Gill and Phythian (2016), p. 9.

11. Van Puyvelde and Curtis (2016), p. 9.

12. Mansour (2018).

13. There are pieces of research written by Italians into English and part of the Intelligence Studies such as Paoli (2007), Sidoti (2009), Lombardi and Gaiser (2016). However, as they are already part of the Intelligence Studies as such, they are not in the following analysis.

14. Wark (1993), Gill (2009), Johnson and Shelton (2013), Gill and Phythian (2012; 2016, 2018), Van Puyvelde and Curtis (2016), Marrin (2016, 2017), Mansour (2018).

15. Marrin (2016).

16. Johnson and Shelton (2013).

17. See p. 6 of this publication.

18. Considering how diverse the country is according to regional experiences and histories, it would be worthy to include a regional analysis in the study. Indeed, Italy is divided into twenty regions in which the political, economic, and cultural differences are quite remarkable. Therefore, it would be relevant to study the different geographical origins of the authors. It would also be interesting to know whether there is a different distribution based on the researchers’ biographical origins (e.g., how many from the north, south, and center, etc.). Although it is outside the scope here, it is important to include this point in the limits of our analysis.

19. Musco (2014).

20. Vecchioni (2008).

21. Vecchioni (2012, 2013, 2015).

22. Ilari (2009).

23. Pasqualini (2014).

24. Sicurezza.Gov, Leggiamo l’Intelligence.

25. Tranfaglia (2011).

26. Franzinelli (2009).

27. Manfredi (2014).

28. Falanga (2012).

29. Falanga (2014).

30. Selvatici (2010).

31. Bonino (2020).

32. Alvarez (2008), Colombo (2012), Conti (2010), Falanga (2012, 2014), Franzinelli (2009), Limiti (2013, 2014), Manfredi (2014), Musco (2014), Orlando (2008), Pacini (2010), Ilari (2009), Ilari and Vialardi Di Sanvigliano (2005), Cornacchia (2016), De Prospo and Priore (2001), Frattini and Moroni (2013), Giannuli (2011), Sceresini, Palma, and Scandaliato (2010), Vecchioni (2008, 2012, 2013, 2015), Tranfaglia (2011).

33. Gagliano (2015a, 2015b, 2017).

34. Gori and Germani (2011), Gori & Germani (2012).

35. Gagliano, Gaiser, and Caligiuri (2016).

36. Boatti and Tavaroli (2008).

37. Jean and Savona (2011).

38. Caligiuri (2016).

39. Teti (2018).

40. Teti (2017).

41. Teti (2015).

42. Nacci (2014).

43. Gagliano (2015a), 2015b, Caligiuri (2017), Gori and Germani (2011), Gori & Germani (2012), Gagliano et al. (2016), Boatti and Tavaroli (2008), Jean and Savona (2011), Caligiuri (2016a), Teti (2017, 2018), Nacci (2014), Gori, Lisi (2013).

44. Cossiga (1997), p. 269-278. For the recent volume, see Caracciolo (2014).

45. Sellari (2015), Franchi and Caruso De Carolis (2017), Ravasi (2012), Di Giacomantonio (2018).

46. Selvatici (2018), Valori (2015, 2017), Salvatori (2018).

47. De Stefano, Piacentini, and Trento (2011).

48. Antiseri and Soi (2014).

49. Petris (2016).

50. Pili (2019), p. 77-89.

51. Caligiuri (2016b).

52. Scotti (2018).

53. Cossiga (2002).

54. Mori (2015).

55. Giannuli (2013).

56. Antiseri and Soi (2014), Petris (2016), Pili (2019), Caligiuri (2016b), Scotti (2018), Cossiga (2002), Mori (2015), Taurisano (2015), Giannuli (2013).

57. Caligiuri (2009).

58. Caligiuri (2010).

59. Caligiuri and Sberze (2017).

60. Antonielli and Levati (2016), De Stefano et al. (2011).

61. Minniti (2012).

62. Mosca, Scandone, Gambacurta, and Valentini (2008).

63. Valentini (2017).

64. Caligiuri (2017).

65. Caligiuri (2011).

66. Caligiuri (2018b).

67. Lisetti (2008).

68. Lisetti (2013).

69. Martini (1999).

70. Neri (2008).

71. Randacio (2008).

72. Gill and Phythian (2016), p. 9.

73. Caligiuri and Pili (2020).

74. Finding classics is a difficult endeavor. Even the international scientific literature finds it difficult to identify something equivalent for intelligence studies. As Stephen Marrin pointed out in 2016, classics are useful for creating a common understanding of a given field. We, therefore, decided to give a possible selection of basic texts generally considered important by scholars in Italy. However, exactly for the aleatory difficulty of the selection, we were limited to selecting those publications without any great controversy.

75. Cossiga (2002).

76. Teti (2015).

77. Caligiuri (2016b).

78. Mori (2015).

79. Johnson and Shelton (2013), p. 109-120.

80. Steele (2002).

81. For Mossad, see Salerno (2010).

82. Other books are also available, for instance, Cereghino, Fasanella (2014, 2015).

83. See Maniscalco (2016) and Maniscalco, Nomikos, Ducci (2011).

84. Ramponi (2016).

85. Aldo Giannuli covered this topic in Giannuli (2012).

APPENDIX

Table

Table of the Selected Works Classified per Category
(1) History	Alvarez (I servizi segreti del Vaticano: Spionaggio, complotti, intrighi da Napoleone ai giorni nostri, 2008), Bonino (Sicurezza e Intelligence nel Regno Unito del Novecento, 2020), Colombo (Trame. Segreti di Stato e diplomazia occulta della nostra storia repubblicana, 2012), Conti (Servizio segreto. Cronache e documenti dei delitti di Stato, 2010), Cornacchia (Airone 1. Retroscena di un’epoca, 2016), De Prospo, Priore (Chi manovrava le Brigate rosse? Storia e misteri dell’Hyperion di Parigi, scuola di lingue e centrale del terrorismo internazionale, 2001), Falanga (L’avamposto di Mussolini nel Reich di Hitler – La politica italiana a Berlino 1933–1945, 2011) Falanga (Il Ministero della Paranoia. Storia della Stasi, 2012), Falanga (Spie dall’est. L’Italia nelle carte segrete della Stasi, 2014), Franzinelli (Il piano Solo. I servizi segreti, il centro-sinistra e il «golpe» del 1964, 2009), Frattini, Moroni (Italia, sorvegliata speciale. I servizi segreti americani e l’Italia (1943–2013): una relazione difficile raccontata attraverso centocinquanta documenti inediti, 2013), Giannuli (Il Noto servizio, Giulio Andreotti e il caso Moro, 2011), Ilari (Storia militare della prima Repubblica, (1943–1993), 2009), Ilari, Vialardi di Sanvigliano (Storia dello spionaggio, 2005), Limiti (Doppio livello. Come si organizza la destabilizzazione in Italia, 2013), Limiti (L’Anello della Repubblica. La scoperta di un nuovo servizio segreto. Dal Fascismo alle Brigate Rosse, 2014), Manfredi (Psyop.70 anni di operazioni di guerra psicologica in Italia, 2014), Musco (Storia dello spionaggio antico. Teoria e strategie di intelligence dagli albori alla caduta dell’Impero romano, 2014), Orlando (La repubblica del ricatto. Dossier segreti e depistaggi nell’Italia di oggi, 2008), Pacini (Il cuore occulto del potere. Storia dell’ufficio affari riservati del Viminale (1919–1984), 2010), Sceresini, Palma, Scandaliato, (Piazza Fontana, noi sapevamo. Golpe e stragi di Stato. La verità del generale Maletti, 2010), Pasqualini (Carte Segrete dell’Intelligence Italiana. Il S.I.M. in archivi stranieri, 2014) Selvatici (Chi spiava i terroristi. KGB, STASI-BR, RAF. I documenti negli archivi dei servizi segreti dell’Europa «comunista», 2010), Tranfaglia (La «santissima trinità». Mafia, Vaticano e servizi segreti all’assalto dell’Italia 1943–1947, 2011), Vecchioni (Storia degli 007 dall’era moderna a oggi, 2008), Vecchioni (Richard Sorge. La più grande spia del XX secolo, 2012), Vecchioni (Kim Philby. Il terzo uomo, 2013), Vecchioni (Storia degli agenti segreti. Dallo spionaggio all’intelligence, 2015)
(2) Sources of intelligence	Boatti, Tavaroli (Spie – I servizi segreti delle multinazionali: dossier, intercettazioni, guerre informatiche, 2008), Caligiuri (Cyber Intelligence – Tra sicurezza e libertà, 2016), Caligiuri, Gaiser, Gagliano (Intelligence economica e guerra dell’informazione. Le riflessioni teoriche francesi e le prospettive italiane, 2016), Gagliano (Deception. Disinformazione e propaganda nelle moderne società di massa, 2015a), Gagliano (La geoeconomia nel pensiero strategico francese contemporaneo, 2015b), Gagliano (La grande strategia cinese. Problemi e prospettive geopolitiche e geoeconomiche, 2017), Gori, Germani (Information warfare 2011. La sfida della Cyber Intelligence al sistema Italia: dalla sicurezza delle imprese alla sicurezza nazionale, 2011), Gori, Germani (Information warfare 2011 – La sfida della Cyber-intelligence al sistema Italia – Dalla sicurezza delle imprese alla sicurezza nazionale, 2012), Jean, Savona (Intelligence economica. Il ciclo dell’informazione nell’era della globalizzazione, 2011), Nacci (Open source intelligence abstraction layer. Proposta per una teoria generale dell’intelligence delle fonti aperte, 2014), Teti (Open source intelligence & Cyberspace. La nuova frontiera della conoscenza, 2015), Teti (Big Data. La guida completa per il Data Scientist, 2017), Teti (Cyber espionage e cyber counterintelligence. Spionaggio e controspionaggio cibernetico, 2018)
(3) International Relations and Geopolitics	Cossiga (“Intelligence: istruzioni per l’uso,” 1997), De Stefano, Piacentini, Trento, (I nuovi scenari del terrorismo internazionale di matrice jihadista, 2011), Di Giacomantonio (Guerra economica e servizi di intelligence. Dai conflitti militari e geo-politici alla supremazia economica e finanziaria. Gli eserciti e i militari del XXI secolo, 2018), Franchi, Caruso de Carolis (Guerra economica: Modelli decisionali e intelligence economico finanziaria, 2017), Ravasi (Guerra economica e servizi di intelligence. Dai conflitti militari e geo-politici alla supremazia economica e finanziaria. Gli eserciti e i militari del XXI secolo, 2012), Salvatori (Spie? L’Intelligence nel sistema di sicurezza internazionale, 2018), Sellari (Geopolitica, intelligence, alimentazione, 2015), Selvatici (La Cina e la Nuova Via della Seta. Progetto per un’invasione globale, 2018), Valori (Intelligence e geopolitica. Riflessioni in libertà, 2015), Valori (Geopolitica dell’incertezza, 2017).
(4) Theories of Intelligence and theoretical frameworks	Antiseri & Soi (Intelligence e metodo scientifico, 2014), Caligiuri (Intelligence e scienze umane, 2016), Cossiga (Abecedario, 2002), Giannuli (Come funzionano i servizi segreti. Dalla tradizione dello spionaggio alle guerre non convenzionali del prossimo futuro, 2013), Mori (Servizi e segreti. Introduzione allo studio dell’intelligence, 2015), Petris (Filosofia e servizi segreti. Il doppio mestiere dei filosofi analitici, 2016), Pili (“Filosofia e intelligence,” 2019), Scotti (Phronesis – Ventennale di intelligence, 2018), Taurisano (Intelligence e sistema di informazione nella repubblica italiana, 2015).
(5) Fighting criminal organizations and law enforcement	Antonielli, Levati (Contrabbando e legalità: polizie a difesa di privative, diritti sovrani, 2016), Caligiuri (Intelligence e ‘Ndrangheta, 2009; Cultura della legalità – come lo Stato sta combattendo la ‘ndrangheta, 2010, Intelligence e magistratura – Dalla diffidenza reciproca alla collaborazione necessaria, 2017), Caligiuri, Sberze (Il pericolo viene dal mare – Intelligence e portualità, 2017), De Stefano, Piacentini, Trento (I nuovi scenari del terrorismo internazionale di matrice jihadista, 2011), Minniti (Intelligence e sistema penitenziario. Indagini in una terra di confine, 2012), Mosca, Scandone, Gambacurta, Valentini (I servizi di informazione e il segreto di Stato, 2008), Valentini (Sicurezza della Repubblica e democrazia costituzionale, 2017).
(6) Great figures and memoirs	Caligiuri (Cossiga e l’intelligence, 2011), Caligiuri (Aldo Moro e l’intelligence, 2018), Lisetti (Vent’anni nel Sisde. Servizi segreti dal 1992 alla riforma del 2007, 2008), Lisetti (La gavetta del generale nell’Italia repubblicana, 2013), Martini (Nome in codice “Ulisse,” 1999), Neri (Segreti di Stato, 2008), Randacio (Una vita da spia. 007 si nasce o si diventa?, 2008).