That seems to be the suggestion behind their "zero-based intelligence method"
While I acknowledge the detail in Stratfor's research reports I am wary of probable deeply hidden assumptions.
I got the following by browsing out from www.stratfor/com
>About Stratfor.Com
[Extract]
Kosovo Crisis Center
What began as a slow ramp-up to the Internet quickly took off when Stratfor.com launched the Kosovo Crisis Center on March 24, 1999, the same day that NATO forces began air strikes against Yugoslavia. All it took was one email announcement sent to a then list of 20,000 Global Intelligence Update subscribers and before long Stratfor.com was being visited by thousands of visitors around the clock.
[Then this on pre-internet background.]
Corporate Intelligence Services
Stratfor.com’s earlier non-Internet experience of providing intelligence to a host of business clients worldwide gives the company a serious advantage over other online news efforts today. Granted, numerous journalists and other online writers are versed in using Lexis Nexis, Dow Jones, and other electronic databases as sources for developing investigative news and reports. But Stratfor.com’s edge is being able to make sense out of this wealth of information and to take a stand - we’re not afraid to be wrong. While an AP reporter or a CNN photographer may be able to capture relevant details, Stratfor.com’s advantage is in interpretation and making meaning. The company’s strong background as a private intelligence company makes us particularly suited for the new Internet journalism in that, as far as we can tell, we are breaking new ground. The company helps clients with intelligence consulting and operations, intelligence system design and intelligence implementation by: constantly monitoring regions, industries, issues, and competitors; providing businesses with situational awareness; and researching problems posed by corporations and others. We use a multi-disciplinary approach and a cost-effective knowledge management system. We design customized intelligence systems for clients, assessing the need for and implementing in-house intelligence systems and staff training.
The Stratfor Process
In an increasingly complex world, understanding is needed to make the right decisions. Within new data pouring forth each day are the patterns of information critical to success. Today the issue is discerning what is relevant. The key is having the knowledge to transform available data into intelligence - superior intelligence. Stratfor, Inc. does this with its method of zero-based intelligence and its fresh approach to information gathering. Stratfor, Inc. assumes nothing and lets the facts dictate our analysis, understanding, and recommendations. Using proprietary electronic databases and in-house data retrieval capabilities, we capture the crucial information. Once sorted our experienced analysts begin their evaluation, the essential ingredient to any intelligence process.
An Open Source Intelligence Based Internet News Service
With the turn to the web, and now with the strategic decision to expand coverage to the entire world, the company is in a period of bringing in new writers, new analysts, and new editors. Stratfor.com is in the process of developing the infrastructure for an open-source intelligence-based Internet news service. Whether it be foresight, or a matter of being in the right place at the right time, when Stratfor.com launched the Kosovo Crisis Center is of little consequence. What is important is that we have arrived. Stratfor.com is here. And Stratfor.com has already become a force to be reckoned with. A source to cite. And an Internet presence to follow closely. We are delivering news at the speed of television and with the depth of print. As far as we know, no one else is doing this.
>Who we are
While now using the moniker, Stratfor.com, the company has more historically be known as Stratfor, Inc. and before that Strategic Forecasting. A private intelligence company serving business globally, Stratfor, Inc., founded in 1995 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was started by now former faculty and students of Louisiana State University, associated with the Center for Geopolitical Studies. The company moved to Austin, Texas in the summer of 1997, decidedly centering its operations in a key city of the information age. Before taking the plunge into publishing online, the Stratfor.com staff were well versed in the world of print. Several staff members are authors of best selling books on national security, international relations, the military and intelligence. The company has had business clients in defense, media, telecommunication, banking, law, textiles, petrochemicals, forestry, and government.
I gather the following points by Michael Pollak were confirmed in further correspondence in August.
On Sat, 28 Aug 1999 06:46:25 -0400 (EDT) Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> writes:
>On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> A couple of people asked me to summarize my interview with Mr
>> Stratfor, George Friedman, last night....Among other things he said:
>He also completely sidestepped the ex-CIA question except to say he
>was an academic of long standing (aren't all CIA analysts)? And he never
>explained how they get the funds to support the kind of staff that
>could turn out this much writing per day. Although I suppose that latter is
>no more mysterious than Yahoo economics. They certainly turn out a
>distinctive, addictive and hard to duplicate product.
>
>Oh, one last mystery -- does any know if the George Friedman that
>wrote _The Intelligence Edge: How to Profit from the Information Age_ and
>_The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the
>21st Century_ in the last two years is the same George Friedman that wrote
>_The Political Philosophy of the Frankfurt School_ in 1981? Sounds like
>the perfect intellectual trajectory for a liberal CIA analyst to me :o)
Chris Burford
London