Discussing the issue of risk of politicization, Omand (2020) rejects Sherman Kent’s pure, academically rigorous model, valuing it as false comfort while also considering it as an obstacle to achieving the full functionality of intelligence, i.e. he considers it a reducing element. At the same time, he does not dispute the human tendency that makes intelligence users produce assessments that suit their worldviews and/or political preferences. He clearly addresses the problem in order to encapsulate the collision into a principle according to which analysts should be trained in both understanding the users and explaining the situation. ‘As a former chair of the JIC famously wrote: The best arrangement is intelligence and policy in separate but adjoining rooms, with communicating doors and thin partition walls, as in cheap hotels.’ (Omand 2020:44).

What is the relation between the shared mind set and the quote by the former chair of the JIC? At what level would the latter concept be on Treverton’s scale? Would he include it there? Or would he agree that it is a minimum that one cannot do without?

If we take a moment to look at the fundamental that Floridi (2008:90) analyzes in isolation from the subject matter, a claim such as ‘Agents require a constant flow and a high level of processing of relevant information in order to interact successfully among themselves and with the environment in which they are embedded.’ can serve as a useful point of interest.

The usefulness of the issue on both sides is reflected in the increased ability to produce epistemic relevant information as seen in the simple example given by Floridi in the chapter on the relevance of misinformation. If a student’s answer to the question ‘Who fought in the Battle of Thermopylae?’ is ‘Napoleon’, it is clear that they said something incorrect, uninformative and irrelevant to someone who is interested in the battle, but it could be relevant to someone who is grading the student’s knowledge of history. Due to such examples, Floridi considers it necessary to keep the domain and context in which relevance is evaluated, as well as the level of abstraction at which relevance is evaluated, clear and fixed during the analysis because otherwise the outcome is a conceptual carnage.

According to Strawson’s Principle of Relevance (Floridi 2008:73) we ‘intend in general to give or add information about what is a matter of standing or current interest or concern’. Floridi adds that this process most often happens in the interaction of questions and answers, which corresponds to the Borlund’s claim, as Floridi paraphrases, that relevance is situational.

If we return to the questions that require answers from analysts (what, where, when and who) and which are used to achieve situational awareness, we can imagine answers similar to the student’s response described above. They would certainly be poorly received by information users/decision makers while the informative answers would at least be accepted at a basic level. However, it is hard to dispute the fact that it is them who ask the questions what, where, when and who and not the analysts, so we should think about whether this can be seen as regular politicization of the process/shared mind set/rooms in cheap hotels, level up or down.

Betts claims (2007) that given the purpose of intelligence, which is to serve politics, there is an agreement on the principle according to which users/decision makers lead the process with their requests and prioritization and this acts to strengthen the relevance and mitigate futile or misdirected efforts. He, however, also mentions the problems which occur in practice when applying the principle everyone generally agrees with and the need for better integration of intelligence requirements and concerns of decision makers, which further strengthens the importance of the perspective that takes into account the regularities that Floridi implements in his consideration of epistemic relevance.

Betts further describes situations in which, due to lack of communication, that is, ‘abdication’ of the decision maker, intelligence formed ‘key intelligence questions (KIQs) to “identify topics of particular interest to national policymakers” when Departmental intelligence agencies set comparable mechanisms for determining requirements.’(Betts 2007:72) and regardless of the fact that in the circumstances of that time the attempt did not yield results, it is possible that this could be a bright spot in the discussion of politicization. It is to be expected, and entirely legitimate, to express at least five reasons against such an approach, which goes beyond the scope of this paper, but I can mention some that do not require much thought – non-transparency of prioritization, excessive secrecy in relation to the public interest, possibility of several forms of corruption, reduced opportunities for public oversight, etc. Most importantly, it is necessary to take into account the degree to which phenomena depend on the human factor, which only in sufficient quantity makes up the system from which we expect the correction of action irregularities, regardless of the position of individual human factors in a given moment. Therefore, the choice of personnel is often a crucial intervention into the system’s irregularity, as opposed to the organization and reorganization of quality control mechanisms, which are also important, but only secondarily. However, it cannot be disputed that this approach prevented politicization, at least initially, and induced an attempt at professionalization.

Perhaps it is not the best analogy, but it is certainly worth mentioning that economic entities, which are now largely international and transnational, can certainly be influence holders and may even be factor M. At least some of the cons mentioned above can be attributed to them, but their existence does not cause significant concern in the context of democracy and its values. It is true that the argument is that it is about private capital which as such must enjoy certain fundamental autonomy while it is really about that – about private capital which generates profit for the owner. However, the instrumentalization of functions, the scope of action and the interwovenness with other structures are certainly outside of the realm of autonomy, but not even those circumstances make them minimally equal to ‘suspicious and probably bad guys in intelligence’.

Nevertheless, I consider these possibilities for the sake of the argument and not because of the belief that they should or should not be implemented. In a similar vein, it is necessary to emphasize that with this last principle I am stepping away from epistemic relevance, unless I transfer the relation to other entities and allow a version in which the epistemic relevance of intelligence is determined between other agents. We can imagine a situation (scenario) D in which the analyst is the one who asks questions and the one who answers them (it may be the same agent or different one or it may be the act of a certain group of personnel in accordance with the agreed document, but in any case located in the intelligence system) while all sources, human and non-human, are treated as an agent with whom epistemic relevance is determined in certain domains, context and at a certain level of abstraction. In doing so, we then agree that the product probably will not have epistemic relevance for the information user/decision maker who will, nonetheless, without their own engagement, receive a concise, informative intelligence that may or may not be followed.

If we look at this model in theory, it could seem that politicization is comprised in the decision maker’s decision to act/not to act and that it is limited to it; since the decision-making function lies in the political structure, the model works. However, in theory, it is not difficult to come up with a model that works, yet it is also not difficult to refute it, which then, admittedly, makes it a legitimate result of consideration.

This analysis of the issue touched upon debatable points in the problem area, as well as areas in which it is possible to search for answers or even new questions. Although it is not yet possible to get exact answers, any new opening in a given problem area can help in the consideration of the phenomenon as a whole and of its parts and thus contribute to the processes.

From the current position of the intelligence system, any detection of factor M may prove crucial. Restoration of ethical principles, such as employees of the competent agency leaving their private political views in the confines of their homes even after they cease to be active officials or stopping the leakage of information that is less a consequence of omissions and more frequently of political actions, are just some elements (Gentry 2021) which could protect the system from irregular politicization.

A number of other suggestions possibly useful in the continuous correction of actions could certainly be discussed. That is to say, the reproducibility of problems encountered by the intelligence system and their modification in the environment are certainly reasons to continuously question the actions toward the intelligence system and its actions toward the rest of the system with which it was imported through formal or informal connections. Last but not least, part of the solution, inevitably lies in the society and its resilience while developing critical thinking that can help it in becoming more constructive audience/actors in the interactive scenarios.