An Historical Precedent
Posted: October 2, 2018 Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, History | Tags: Max Warburg, Ron Chernow, The Warburgs 1 CommentOctober 2, 2018
From time to time, I run into an historical nugget that offers a link between competitive intelligence today and the distant past.
Most of the time, we talk about how CI was heavily influenced by what happens in government, and how modern CI borrows heavily from the government model. However, in the past, that was reversed.
Take, for example, this extract from a wonderful biographical history of the international banking family the Warburgs:
“Max Warburg attained eminence in the heyday of imperial intrigue [the “eve of World War I”], when statesmen picked countries ripe for exploitation on unfurled maps and bankers served their will. Private bankers were ideal channels for such covert action because they didn’t answer to shareholders or publish balance sheets. They also prized intelligence and operated with sphinxlike discretion that mimicked diplomatic activity.”[1]
[1]Ron Chernow, The Warburgs, Random House, NY, 1993, p. 141.
Nice, John.
I never bought into the “government does it best” thing. It’s self-serving BS, TBH. There is nothing government does best, in my experience.
There is a juicy new history of intelligence by Chris Andrews that I’ve been ploughing through while recovering from surgery. You’d like it, and it provides assurance that intelligence was not invented by Sherman Kent, nor by George Washington – though both of course played huge roles.
Andrews traces intelligence back to the Bible’s oldest stories…
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From: Proactive Intelligence
Reply-To: Proactive Intelligence
Date: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 11:08 AM
To: Tim Powell
Subject: [New post] An Historical Precedent
John McGonagle posted: “October 2, 2018 From time to time, I run into an historical nugget that offers a link between competitive intelligence today and the distant past. Most of the time, we talk about how CI was heavily influenced by what happens in government, and how moder”