Open research questions in Intelligence, Security, War Strategy

What the literature leaves open

• Investigating the relationship between successful revolutions and corruption, - Analyzing the effect of multiple treatments for countries that experienced multiple interventions, - Examining the pooled effects across all countries that experienced CIA interventions regardless of outcome

  Covert regime change and ideology · 2026 · DOI

• The ideological consequences of the CIA's covert regime change operations in target countries remain understudied. Prior work has focused on the economic and political consequences of CIA operations, but the ideological effects have been neglected.

  Covert regime change and ideology · 2026 · DOI

• The currently dominant framework for HUMINT ethics does not adequately address key challenges - The criterion of proportionality has limited applicability to the routine and continuous nature of HUMINT - JIT understates the distinction between potential emerging threats and imminent threats

  Responsible Peacemakers: Toward a Reframed Ethics of HUMINT · 2025 · DOI

• The current framework for HUMINT ethics does not adequately address the challenges of HUMINT, particularly at the individual level. The dominant framework, derived from the just war tradition, is not well-suited to the routine and continuous nature of HUMINT. There is a need for a new approach to understanding the ethics of HUMINT, one that focuses on individual moral responsibility and the telos of peace.

  Responsible Peacemakers: Toward a Reframed Ethics of HUMINT · 2025 · DOI

• By demonstrating the limitations of this study, the article concludes that the binary framing of intelligence as either success or failure is analytically flawed and potentially misleading.

  Leveraging data science to investigate intelligence failures · 2026 · DOI

• This study investigates the underexplored dynamics and implications of the many U.

  Patterns of influence: intelligence liaison and authoritarian rule · 2026 · DOI

• Internships are often the first step into intelligence careers for those without prior experience, yet little is known about what drives success in obtaining them.

  From classroom to clearance: explaining internship attainment in aspiring US intelligence professionals · 2026 · DOI

• Recent scholarship has begun to document the significance of women’s engagement in First World War espionage, while questions of the narrative non-fiction writer’s role in shaping public perceptions of female agents remain understudied.

  Doctor, dancer, drug addict? interwar spy writers and the literary construction of Germany’s female intelligence operatives · 2025 · DOI

• "36 Rome's interest was lacking and thus on the Roman side the war too often exemplified intelligence failure and military disaster.

  Hannibal's Spies · 1986 · DOI

• Why this trial was never held is an open question, and Bolshevik history is not likely to divulge the reason. This material is available for further study of The Trust and Soviet decep- tion.

  Deception on a grand scale · 1986 · DOI

• (b) Most often they are not experts or have only limited knowledge of the problems they intend to analyse.

  The politics of intelligence · 1987 · DOI

• Existing AI ethics frameworks do not address the distinctive ethical concerns raised by the integration of AI into intelligence work. Mainstream AI ethics do not provide a structured basis for determining if and when intelligence-AI may be permissible.

  Developing an ethical framework for intelligence-AI · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies the challenge of reconstructing OSS activity in and around Turkey. The study highlights the need to balance the American record with British and Turkish sources.

  Intelligence as Covert Statecraft: The OSS, CIA’s Predecessor, in Neutral Turkey, 1939-1945 · 2026 · DOI

• The paper suggests that future research could apply the concept of 'intelligence diplomacy' to other cases of small-state hedging. The study highlights the importance of considering the role of intelligence in shaping state behavior in diplomatic relations.

  Intelligence as Covert Statecraft: The OSS, CIA’s Predecessor, in Neutral Turkey, 1939-1945 · 2026 · DOI

• Future research should focus on developing and testing the effectiveness of targeted intervention strategies. Future research should explore the technical factors that amplify cognitive biases in intelligence analysis.

  Cognitive biases in military intelligence analysis: amplification mechanisms and intervention strategies in the digital-intelligent era · 2026 · DOI

• There is a lack of research on the cognitive biases in military intelligence analysis. There is a need to develop targeted intervention strategies to mitigate these biases.

  Cognitive biases in military intelligence analysis: amplification mechanisms and intervention strategies in the digital-intelligent era · 2026 · DOI

• The need for governance reforms and transparency initiatives in Canada's national security infrastructure. The importance of Canada's role in the Five Eyes and its contributions to intelligence cooperation. The need for a Canadian foreign human intelligence capability.

  CHANGES TO CANADA’S NATIONAL SECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of a structured attribution framework. The insufficient use of AI in analytical workflows.

  ATTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION INFLUENCE OPERATIONS · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of cross-domain reasoning in defensive systems. The lack of frameworks for reasoning across diverse information types. The proliferation of generative AI introduces dual challenges for hybrid threat intelligence.

  Hybrid‑Threat Intelligence: A Critical Review of Semantic Integration Challenges and the Role of the HIPSTer Ontological Framework · 2026 · DOI

• Current defensive systems remain siloed and lack cross-domain reasoning. Commercial platforms demonstrate operational SOCMINT capabilities but with limitations. The study lacks a comprehensive evaluation of the HIPSTer framework.

  Hybrid‑Threat Intelligence: A Critical Review of Semantic Integration Challenges and the Role of the HIPSTer Ontological Framework · 2026 · DOI

• Four limitations of the argument deserve explicit statement. First, the analogical extension of G(cid:246)del’s incompleteness theorems from formal arithmetic to deliberative frames is licit only under the conditions speci(cid:28)ed in the proof of Proposition 5.3. Frames that fail to meet these conditions are not subject to the proposition. Whether all frames su(cid:30)cient to support generality meet the conditions is argued in the proof but not deductively established; the argument is best read as conditional on the conditions holding. Second, the existence claim in Lemma 5.5 is currently established by historical existence proofs rather than by formal construction. A purely formal proof of existence(cid:22)demonstrating, for any problem class meeting the speci(cid:28)ed conditions, that an exoframe coherent solution must exist(cid:22)is identi(cid:28)ed as future work in Section 9. Third, the theorem concerns persistence-bearers of the system’s own operational class. The class boundary is structural, not pre-given. The theorem therefore does not entail that a generally intelligent system performs no destructive actions; it entails that destructive actions against bearers of the system’s own class are structurally outcompeted. The boundary requires case-by-case analysis. Fourth, the empirical illustrations support the theorem’s diagnostic content (frame-bound action by competent systems is the structural locus of large-scale incoherent destruction; success cases are characterised by exoframe generation) without constituting deductive proof.

  A Structural Theorem on the Impossibility of Malicious General Intelligence · 2026 · DOI

• The argument suggests several lines of further work. A formal proof of existence for exoframe coherent solutions, replacing the historical-existence argument of Lemma 5.5, would substantially strengthen the theorem. Possible approaches include category-theoretic constructions in which exoframe action-types are characterised as morphisms between frame objects; or constructions exploiting structural results from problem-solving theory [27, 31]. Either approach would convert an empirical claim into a formal one. A formal characterisation of the threshold at which exoframe generativity emerges would convert a structural hypothesis into a testable prediction. The literature on emergent capa- bilities in large language models [34,39] provides empirical methodology that may be adapted; the di(cid:30)culty is operationalising exoframe generativity for measurement rather than relying on behavioural proxies. The relation between exoframe generativity and metacognition as studied in cognitive sci- ence [11] is structurally close but not identical. Exoframe generativity is narrower than metacognition in some respects (it concerns the production of out-of-frame action-types, not all higher-order monitoring) and broader in others (it is substrate-independent and opera- tional rather than experiential). A formal extension of the theorem to multi-agent settings would clarify the structural con- ditions of stability and con(cid:29)ict in mixed-generality regimes. Exoframe generativity in a single agent does not entail symmetric generativity in a partner, and the dynamics of mixed- generality interactions deserves systematic treatment. Finally, the practical question of how to cultivate the conditions favouring emergent exoframe generativity in training pipelines, without programming a simulation that fails the theorem’s structural test, is the central engineering challenge implied by the argument. Initial directions are sketched in Section 7 but require systematic development.

  A Structural Theorem on the Impossibility of Malicious General Intelligence · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the impact of Royal Commissions on Espionage on judicial independence and the rule of law. The study highlights the need for a comparative analysis of the Canadian and Australian commissions.

  1946 Canadian Royal Commission on Espionage (Gouzenko) and the 1954-55 Australian Royal Commission on Espionage (Petrov) · 2026 · DOI

• Vol 45 University of Queensland Law Journal 125 Australia but the legal dimensions warrant further research and can only be touched upon here as a demonstration of some of the lasting impact of the Espionage Commissions in which Kellock, Taschereau, and Dixon played an important role.

  1946 Canadian Royal Commission on Espionage (Gouzenko) and the 1954-55 Australian Royal Commission on Espionage (Petrov) · 2026 · DOI

• The qualitative difference between the success of public critique in the case of TIA and the bifurcated reactions to the 2013 NSA program leaks has been neglected by scholars.

  "Big Brother Will Be Watching America" : Post-9/11 Mass Surveillance Expansion and Resistance · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Intelligence, Security, War Strategy

• "General Intelligence," Objectively Determined and Measured · The American Journal of Psychology · 1904 · 4,109 citations
• Intelligence without representation · Artificial Intelligence · 1991 · 2,755 citations
• Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns. · American Psychologist · 1996 · 1,782 citations
• SOAR: An architecture for general intelligence · Artificial Intelligence · 1987 · 1,449 citations
• Refinement and test of the theory of fluid and crystallized general intelligences. · Journal of Educational Psychology · 1966 · 1,116 citations
• Mainstream science on intelligence: An editorial with 52 signatories, history, and bibliography · Intelligence · 1997 · 759 citations
• Leading questions and the eyewitness report · Cognitive Psychology · 1975 · 656 citations
• Three faces of intellect. · American Psychologist · 1959 · 594 citations
• The "Operational Code": A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision-Making · International Studies Quarterly · 1969 · 388 citations
• Speed of information processing and general intelligence · Intelligence · 1983 · 351 citations

Most recent work

• The Intelligence crisis in Iraq: political fragmentation and the challenge of reform · Intelligence & National Security · 2026
• The House Appropriations Committee Surveys & Investigations Staff and the Arc of Congressional Competence · Legislative Studies Quarterly · 2026
• Leveraging data science to investigate intelligence failures · Intelligence & National Security · 2026
• The Intelligence College in Europe: does it contribute to trust building in European intelligence cooperation? · Intelligence & National Security · 2026
• Hybrid‑Threat Intelligence: A Critical Review of Semantic Integration Challenges and the Role of the HIPSTer Ontological Framework · Journal of Intelligent Communication · 2026
• Developing a model for effective public oversight of intelligence-driven surveillance through an African-focused lens · Journal of Contemporary African Studies · 2026
• The practice of cyber-threat intelligence in organizations: A socio-technical case study of a mature financial organization · Computers & Security · 2026
• What questions should a contemporary construct validation of an intelligence test address? · Intelligence · 2026
• The history of intelligence in Kenya · Intelligence & National Security · 2026
• Trusting old friends: the evolution of Euro-British intelligence-sharing through Brexit and beyond · Intelligence & National Security · 2026

Related topics in Social Sciences