Abstract

Intelligence services have a notoriously poor track record in anticipating revolutions. The popular uprising in the Middle East in 2011, generally known as the “Arab Spring,” is no exception. In the ten years since the uprising swept across the Arab world, the driving forces behind and the consequences of the Arab Spring have been thoroughly studied. However, why intelligence agencies failed to anticipate the outbreak of the unrest is less discussed. This article examines the Norwegian Intelligence Service’s monitoring of political stability and change in advance of the Arab Spring to avoid similar intelligence failures in the future. 

Author