Despite our inability to anticipate or predict it, intelligence analysts across the public and private sector are constantly on the lookout for the next Unknown. In fact, the role of the intelligence community is to identify future threats, collating all the intel available on potential crisis areas and then backing it up with state-of-the-art computer capacity and robust human analysis rooted in expertise from every corner of the globe.
But even with this capacity, the one predictable and immutable reality is that there will continue to be intelligence failures in the future. It is inherent in the business. Just as many view the September 11 terrorist attacks as an example of an intelligence failure, so too is the recent terrorist attack in Paris on the satirical news outlet Charlie Hebdo. Both were Unknowns. While the landscape of Unknowns spreads dangerously before us, there are precautions we can take if...
