WORKING PAPER Nº3 | Proposal for a National Intelligence System in Chile

The recent explosive attacks in Santiago, the deterioration of security in the Araucanía, the criminal pressures on the northern border and the cyber-attacks against banks demonstrate the urgent need for better intelligence work. Without underestimating their seriousness, the scale of these cases means that it is still possible to stop them from growing if the right decisions are made based on information collected, organized and analyzed for that purpose.

For 2,500 years, in both the East and the West, Herodotus, Thucydides and Sun Tzu have written about the need for useful information, not only for the strategic handling of an armed conflict, but also for the political leadership of a State. In the 21st century, there is a broad consensus that the instruments of national power of a State for the achievement of its objectives are summarized in the acronym DIME — Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economy.

Information is a key and decisive factor in gaining power and advantage, and in decision- making, negotiation and management processes at all levels. And a country that seeks to become developed, such as Chile, must have a modern intelligence apparatus that can interpret information related to national and public security, which cannot be obtained from open media and commercial sources.

This new intelligence system should be based on new technologies, a deep professional preparation of its members and a regulatory control framework and controls that looks after both individual rights and freedoms and provide tangible results. In this new working document, the AthenaLab team announces its proposal.