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Crucial in any military conflict, information warfare has proved to be a distinguishing characteristic and an essential strategic means in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Both sides have invested in advancing narratives that can facilitate and support their version of truth and that can make a difference in winning the war. Publishing open source and declassified intelligence has been employed as a tactic in an unprecedented way, one that has stimulated an intense debate over the reconceptualisation of intelligence and the new role intelligence needs to play in a larger social context. Due to its novelty and potential, this major shift requires further attention. Additionally, its meanings and reflections deserve deciphering in other national contexts that are relevant for understanding the role of intelligence in the Russo-Ukrainian war. The paper looks at the particular case of Romania, whose relevance is determined mostly by its geographical proximity to the conflict area. By using qualitative research, it aims to investigate the perceptions of two types of respondents: Romanian experts in intelligence, security and strategic communication, and students taking intelligence and security-related study programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of new technologies and the accelerated changes in the security arena, it has become apparent that intelligence organizations need to develop learning, self-reflective, and competitive working environments and communities of practice with a distinct set of values and norms that may go beyond the cultural values and practices of the twentieth century. One of the values that needs to be further explored and integrated is diversity. A look at the literature and policies in the field shows that in certain parts of the world, consistent steps have been made toward investigating the implications of diversity and inclusion as setting goals for reconceptualizing human resources and internal culture strategies. This introductory study aims to introduce readers to the current debates on diversity and inclusion, as well as offer a short glimpse at the questions that animated the authors who agreed to contribute to this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to critically reflect on why scholars need to reevaluate the definition of intelligence practices in the 21st century. Our assessment starts with digital communication advancements and their progressive appropriation by power agents to the benefit of propaganda, disinformation, and political manipulation. While analyzing the very nature of intelligence as being 'institutionally' and 'nationally' constructed, the paper advances a new, deeply societal model in which intelligence is de-reified and approached as key instrument in diverting the use of digital communication to de-construct polarizing narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the last decade, we have witnessed a significant shift in the way local, regional, or global confrontations are performed with specific roles being attributed to the economic intelligence systems. By executing intelligence and counterintelligence operations, the economic intelligence systems are operating in confluence areas bringing together intelligence communities, governmental and diplomacy apparatus, and the business actors. Also, recently, revamped forms of warfare have illustrated how economic leverage is frequently used in combined and versatile hybrid interventions against democratic state stability and legitimacy. Despite this intense employment of economic advantage, economic intelligence represents one of the concepts that is still looking for conceptual clarity as it is frequently used in conjunction with other proxy terms (i.e., business intelligence, industrial espionage, competitive intelligence, economic security, and economic espionage), while its meaning ascribed in different contexts is rarely explicit. Starting from the premise that when lacking clarification, concepts become broad, ambiguous, and difficult to apply, the paper aims to bring forward conceptual clarifications by exploring and comparing various definitions existing in the literature while seeking to advance an operational definition for economic intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, radicalisation has greatly evolved. Armed conflicts from failed states have boosted radicalisation inside the EU, and the rise of foreign terrorist fighters (FTF) is only an example. Thousands of the EU citizens have joined the war theatres of Syria and Iraq. As a result, radicalized returnees with combat skills and indoctrinated against European values pose a great threat to the security of EU. Furthermore, terrorist propaganda led to uncoordinated attacks of home-grown lone actor terrorists, difficult to detect before they strike. A response strategy to the above mentioned societal trends might be dealing with their root causes. Education and good quality training remain at the central core of building a resilient society against extremist ideologies and radicalisation, as well as of having first line practitioners that hold expertise. Practitioners like intelligence officers, community police officers, prison and probation officers, law enforcement, youth and social workers, healthcare professionals and others, are valuable key actors in the prevention and combat of radicalization. Each one of them provides a part of the solution; there is no single actor that can prevent the phenomenon on its own. Therefore, it is important that they all know how to contribute. Training practitioners in the spirit of creating a multi-agency network where they can share both expertise and information is a key solution to efficiently combating radicalization. In addition to this, having a society resilient to radicalisation is part of the wider desideratum of promoting a security culture among civil society. Building a resilient society means transforming teaching institutions into "labs for democracy" and "training the teachers" because they are at the frontline when it comes to potentially identifying early signs of radicalisation, besides raising awareness through educational programs and public campaigns or round tables that address the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of scientific contributions coming from interrelated disciplines such as psychology, communication sciences, and sociology argue that people generally use personal frames to interpret and give meaning to reality, in other words perceptions "have a reality of their own." Thus, the existing literature promotes the idea that there are "realities" (which means that the idea of "correctness" applied to reality is erroneous), while the objectivity and fairness are excluded as reference criteria. By translating this conclusion into the national security framework, it becomes obvious that each social actor approaches security in accordance with their own references, establishing alternative or different meanings. In this context, by assuming the subjective dimension of security and the importance of individual perceptions in the definition of security risks, any attempt to develop a national security culture must address the challenge of "reconciling" individual perceptions of security risks with the way specialised institutions with responsibilities in the field of national security understand risk. At the same time, by analysing social perceptions, the article aims at identifying potential solutions for a better social insertion of the complex doctrinal-strategic definitions of national security risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the challenges that arise while developing an intelligence culture for the public and the relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to intelligence studies. Topics include the responsibilities of modern businesses to society, the issue of lack of trust for intelligence agencies, and the totalitarian regimes of countries which have used their intelligence services to repress people.