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«Economic Intelligence» by Simone Pasquazzi1
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Genesis and development of economic intelligence conomic intelligence (from now on «EI») is a broad and diversified range of activities, which serve the acquisition and management of information needed to safeguard a country’s economic security2. Nowadays, these activities may involve both governments and companies. The latter, indeed, are today fundamental actors in economic warfare and national economic security systems, where secret services are indispensable but not exclusive (at least in the most advanced countries). Wellknown in ancient, medieval and modern history3, EI assumed increasing strategic importance since the American Independence4, the growth of the British Empire, the first contemporary globalization (1870-1914) and the 1 Senior Intelligence & Country Risk Analyst for multinational corporations and consultancies, Contract Lecturer in Security Studies at LUISS ‘Guido Carli’ and Senior Fellow at the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies ‘Niccolò Machiavelli’. 2 S. Pasquazzi, Geo-economia, guerra economica e intelligence. Quadro Teorico-concettuale e caso di studio, Edizioni Machiavelli, 2014, pp. 5-19. A shared definition of economic intelligence is still missing. In 2011, Jean and Savona defined it as «the information cycle which is necessary for companies and states to correctly make development choices» (see L’intelligence economica, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli). Even a shared meaning of national economic security does not exist; however, the current trend is to include in its definitions not only productive capacity and access to resources and markets, but also an acceptable level of welfare. See A.Y. Mamychev et al., «Economic Security and Organizational Culture», International Review of Management and Marketing, 2016, 6 (S1), pp. 153-158. 3 See e. g. the Republic of Venice, taken as a case study in contemporary literature (L. Gaiser, «Intelligence Economica: una proposta per l’Italia», in Sicurezza, Terrorismo e Società, 2, 2015, pp. 66-70; M. Althoff, Human Intelligence, in M. Lowenthal – R. Clark, The Disciplines of Intelligence Collection, Sage, 2015). See also C. Jean, «Introduzione», in G. Gagliano, L. Gaiser, M. Caligiuri, Intelligence economica e guerra dell’informazione, Rubbettino, 2016, p. 7. 4 In 1776, the Committee of Secret Correspondence of the Continental Congress sent a special representative to Europe to evaluate a series of relevant economic issues, among which the effects of the introduction of tobacco from Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire in European markets and their consequences for American tobacco exports in Europe.
