| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Students of international relations should seek to understand the ways in which power in international relations can be amplified by secrecy. Discussions of 'decision advantage' over rival states have explained information asymmetries and means for competitors to gain advantages by keeping secret their sources of information or the special insights they gain even from information that is widely available. The histories of war, diplomacy and intelligence illuminate such advantages, and also show various ways in which secrecy amplifies 'action' advantages as well as 'information' advantages. That amplification often seems to be accomplished by the same people and organizations, and this essay suggests the prime reason for this common institutional co-location of secret functions can be termed the 'economy of secrecy'. The key to grasping this point is to set aside traditional and academic distinctions between knowledge and action, and information and implementation, when viewing the moves of sovereignties. Sovereign leaders opt to co-locate their secret activities when they judge it too risky (e.g. potentially expensive and dangerous) to distribute secret-information and secret-action functions around too many different offices. The handful of subordinates that receive these functions are what we now call 'intelligence agencies.' Finally, a firmer grasp of the economics of secrecy can improve oversight of secrets and the offices that deal with them.
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