Abstract

In this historical moment, characterized by a resurgence of conflicts throughout the world, the upheaval of geopolitical balances, but above all by the war in Ukraine, access to open sources is proving to be of absolute strategic importance for the military sector. The defense and national security needs of states, combined with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, are reshaping the field of military intelligence, which now increasingly relies on advanced information analysis tools, with the aim of gaining a strategic advantage over the enemy. In a hybrid warfare scenario, where the war fought on the battlefield is accompanied by the information war, full control of information is fundamental to achieve informational supremacy over the adversary. The use of Open-source intelligence (Osint) in the military context is extremely varied: threat assessment, field operation planning, enemy movements analysis, data collection on their offensive and defensive capabilities, assessment of collateral damages, monitoring of activities of terrorist groups and international criminal organizations, forecasting sabotage actions on sensitive targets, peacekeeping operation planning. Since this is a highly complex scenario, but still without an adequate theoretical framework, this article aims to develop a reference model capable of illustrating the open sources processing dynamics by the military organizations, which exploit open data following specific procedures.