Crowdsourcing as an Element of Strategic-Operational Intelligence How NATO Used it and Changed the Game

Abstract

The article focuses on the concept of crowdsourcing in the social networking environment as a new phenomenon involving civilians in the intelligence process, enabling the use of their intelligence potential during armed conflict. Crowdsourcing of the civilian population is introduced by the example of NATO intervention during the first civil war in Libya. The article presents its use during the intelligence process at the strategic-operational level of command and control of the armed forces. It establishes its possible definition as a collection method of the intelligence process, and as a collection method which is disjunctively separable from similar intelligence collection methods.

Keywords

• crosint
• crowdsourcing
• role of civilians in armed conflicts
• intelligence collection
• intelligence proces