The Role of Private Sector Intelligence in a Divided World

Why It Matters

As governments and corporations intertwine on security and economic fronts, private intelligence will dictate market access, regulatory risk, and the very shape of international norms, making geopolitical competence a core business imperative.

Key Takeaways

• Private intelligence predates modern state agencies, e.g., Lloyd’s 1811 unit.
• Corporations now publish cyber threat reports that act as political attributions.
• Companies influence geopolitics through market exits, lobbying, and norm‑setting.
• US model shares intelligence universally, unlike France’s selective, strategic approach.
• Executives lack geopolitical expertise, forcing firms to restructure supply chains.

Summary

The video explores how private‑sector intelligence, long predating formal state services, has become a pivotal force in today’s fragmented geopolitical landscape, especially in cyberspace.

Host historian Lewish Sage Passant traces origins to Lloyd’s of London’s 1811 intelligence unit, predating Britain’s SIS, and cites early state‑private interplay in Venice’s glass‑making restrictions. He shows modern firms publishing cyber‑threat reports—such as Microsoft’s attribution of Russian attacks on Ukraine—function as de‑facto political statements.

Examples include Lloyd’s feeding naval loss data to the British Admiralty, Microsoft’s public exposure of Russian cyber operations, and the US State Department’s OSAC platform delivering universal threat alerts to allied corporations, contrasted with France’s more selective, strategic intelligence sharing.

The discussion warns that executives, untrained in geopolitics, must now embed intelligence into strategy, diversify supply chains, and navigate pressures to take political sides, reshaping corporate governance and potentially altering the balance between state and market power.

Original Description

Long before governments built dedicated intelligence services, private actors were already collecting and analysing strategic information – insuring ships, protecting trade secrets and mapping risk.

Today, that dynamic hasn't gone away, and in cyberspace, it has arguably become one of its defining features. When ‘Big Tech’ companies and other cyber threat intelligence companies publish reports on Russian operations against Ukraine, or name a Chinese intrusion set targeting critical infrastructure, these are not just technical reports. Instead, they can function as political acts – attributions, framings, signals – of the kind that used to sit more squarely within the domain of governments.

In this video commentary, Lewis Sage Passant, author of Beyond States and Spies: the Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector and Louise Marie Hurel, Senior Research Fellow in RUSI’s Cyber and Tech team, discuss the role of private cyber companies in a time when countries increasingly depend on digital infrastructure.