Your Crisis Isn’t a Crisis—It’s an Information Operation

Elie Jacobs:

In the classic film Spy Game, Robert Redford’s character, CIA operative Nathan Muir, rhetorically asks his assistant, “When did Noah build the ark, Gladys?” Before she can respond, he states: “Before the rain. Before the rain.” I often use this clip in the crisis communications training I run, not because it’s clever, but because it captures a truth most communications professionals learn too late: the time to prepare is before anyone sees the storm coming. The parallel between intelligence work and strategic communications isn’t new—but it’s never been more relevant.

Communications teams now face an uncomfortable reality: they operate in an environment that increasingly resembles the kinetic, adversarial, and opaque world the intelligence community inhabits.

State-sponsored disinformation operations, tariff announcements weaponized against competitors, geopolitically motivated regulatory pressure, and competitive espionage with nation-state backing are no longer just threats to national security—they’re standard operating hazards for companies. This is compounded by  a social media-driven 24/7 news cycle where misinformation spreads faster than corrections, and traditional crisis playbooks are dangerously inadequate.

Yet most communications professionals rely on frameworks designed for a gentler era, when the biggest threat was a negative news cycle. It’s time to adopt a different approach. Intelligence tradecraft—developed over decades to manage information in hostile environments—offers a more realistic model for modern corporate communications.

Communications and intelligence professionals are obviously not equivalent—but they often face similar kinds of challenges: adversarial actors working to undermine objectives, coordinated attacks designed to exploit vulnerabilities, and environments where every disclosure can be weaponized. Both must decide what to disclose, when, and to whom. Both face adversaries actively working to undermine their narratives. Both operate knowing that any message can be turned against them.

The difference? Intelligence agencies have spent generations developing methodologies for these exact challenges. Concepts like compartmentalization, threat assessment, pattern analysis, and operational security weren’t created for corporate boardrooms, but they translate remarkably well. When a technology company faces a coordinated campaign combining investigative journalism, regulatory complaints, and social media attacks, that’s not a communications crisis—it’s an information operation. And it demands an intelligence-informed response.

The intelligence community’s “need-to-know” principle challenges a sacred cow of modern corporate communications: radical transparency. While transparency sounds virtuous, it routinely hands competitors your strategy, exposes legal vulnerabilities, and provides adversaries the ammunition they’ll use against you.

Consider a company in fundraising negotiations. Employees deserve to know their company is stable, but they don’t need details that could leak to competitors. Investors need different information than what goes public. This isn’t dishonesty—it’s strategic information management.

The key is building tiered disclosure protocols: what the board must know, what employees need to know, what investors should know, and what goes public. Each tier serves different stakeholders without compromising others. This prevents the “transparency trap” whereas a well-intentioned disclosure creates ammunition for adversaries.

Intelligence operations begin with threat assessment. Communications should too. Who has incentive to damage your reputation? Short-sellers profit from your decline. Competitors want your market share. Activists oppose your business model. Disgruntled former employees seek revenge. Regulatory opponents want to halt your expansion.

Each adversary operates differently. Short-sellers need negative narratives to profit, so they pitch investigative journalists—as Bill Ackman did in his campaign against Herbalife. Activists need public pressure, so they orchestrate social campaigns. Competitors need to undermine confidence, so they leak selective information. Understanding not just what they do but why they do it transforms defensive preparation into strategic advantage.

The intelligence community’s OODA loop—Observe, Orient, Decide, Act—is a vital tool for communicators. Continuous environmental scanning identifies emerging threats. Context analysis reveals whether attacks are coordinated. Strategic decisions follow threat assessment, not panic. Execution becomes precise rather than reactive.

Companies that map their adversary landscape and monitor for early warning indicators rarely get surprised. Those that don’t often face “sudden” crises that were actually months in development. Convincing budget owners to invest in monitoring services is always a challenge, but the spend is better understood as insurance, not overhead.

Intelligence agencies assume their communications are monitored. Companies should too. The email explaining litigation strategy that surfaces in discovery. The Zoom call someone recorded. The “off the record” conversation a reporter publishes. The employee social post contradicting official messaging. Or worse, the CFO telling an audience the country would need to bail our her company, should the market crash.

Operational Security, or “OpSec,” failures sink companies far more often than messaging does. Building communications discipline requires protocols: what gets documented versus discussed verbally only, who gets included in sensitive planning, secure channels for confidential discussions, and training teams on information discipline.

The practice: war-game your vulnerabilities. What communications could most damage you if leaked? Who has access? How would adversaries exploit them? Then build safeguards before incidents occur, not after.

Traditional crisis communications advice—”get ahead of the story,” “be transparent,” “apologize quickly”—assumes good-faith actors. But coordinated attacks require an entirely different doctrine.

When facing organized opposition, rapid assessment matters most: Is this coordinated? Who’s behind it? What’s the objective? A lone critic requires different handling than a funded campaign orchestrated across multiple channels.

The response framework: assess the damage, identify the audience, calibrate response intensity, deploy counter-narratives through the right channels, and monitor impact.

Sometimes ignoring attacks starves them of oxygen. Sometimes direct confrontation exposes coordination and undermines credibility. Sometimes the right move is activating ally networks to provide third-party validation.

The key difference from traditional crisis response? Intelligence-informed communications identifies patterns and actors, not just surface-level problems. When you understand who’s orchestrating attacks and why, strategic options expand considerably.

Intelligence tradecraft isn’t natural for most communications professionals. It requires discipline that feels uncomfortable: withholding information that could help your case today but harm it tomorrow, maintaining operational security when transparency seems easier, investing in threat monitoring before threats materialize, and thinking several moves ahead, not just reacting to the piece in front of you.

This approach particularly suits companies facing sophisticated opposition—regulatory battles, competitive threats, activist campaigns, or operating in high-stakes industries where reputation damage creates material business impact. For organizations where communications failures have serious consequences, intelligence principles aren’t paranoia. They’re professional requirements.

The question isn’t whether to adopt these methods. It’s whether you’ll implement them proactively or wish you had after the attack succeeds.

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Elie Jacobs is a strategic communications and public affairs advisor with more than two decades of experience helping organizations build credibility, navigate risk, prepare and respond to crises and communicate with clarity.

Written by: Editor