At the Norwegian Intelligence School in Oslo, we are leading an innovative research and development project that combines traditional approaches to understand Chinese leadership, decision making, politics with methods from computer science. The goal is to develop a new type of intelligence methodology for understanding closed, authoritarian regimes where classic political intelligence analysis is enhanced with AI-powered tools – a “Digital Beijingology”.
At a time when not only Xi in China, but also Putin in Russia and other important leaders, rule through increasingly personalistic and closed power structures, the need for methodological innovation to understand politics in closed, authoritarian regimes is more urgent than ever.
While for Norway Russia poses a direct security challenge, with a military presence in our immediate vicinity, digital threats, and information operations aimed at Norwegian interests. China is a more complex actor – both a challenge and a potential partner.
In the face of such regimes, both a revitalisation of classic methods – often referred to within intelligence circles as Kremlinology or Beijingology – and an embrace of new technologies are required for intelligence to provide decision-makers with a better understanding of threats and opportunities.
Closed regimes and hidden exercise of power
In closed, authoritarian regimes, there is neither transparency nor independent institutions that can provide reliable information about political decision-making processes. Instead, intelligence analysts focusing on such regimes must read between the lines – interpreting signals in speeches, cadre movements, language use, and symbolic politics to understand what is happening behind the scenes. This is not least true in Xi’s China, where collective leadership has been replaced by personal concentration of power, and in Putin’s Russia, where information control, propaganda warfare, and an unclear balance between state and security services make understanding decision-making processes demanding.
Such regimes are “hard intelligence targets”. Access to decision-makers is non-existent, strong security awareness makes covert intelligence collection difficult, and information is leaked mainly when it serves the regime. Nevertheless, the West – and Norway – must understand these actors, not only to assess their threat potential and intentions, but also to identify spaces for cooperation, conflict prevention, and crisis management. It requires an intelligence service that combines the best of the old and the new: an analytical discipline rooted in a deep understanding of political culture, and a methodological framework that fully exploits new technologies.
Leadership analysis as a core task
To understand closed, authoritarian systems where power is concentrated around individuals, leadership analysis becomes a core task. Xi and Putin are not just presidents – they are ideological shapers, strategic architects, and ultimate decision-makers in regimes that cultivate loyalty and personal power. Understanding these leaders’ psychological profiles, symbolic self-presentations, and decision-making patterns is crucial to explaining and predicting politics. It is equally important to understand the basis of leaders’ power and how they exercise it.
Leadership analysis, however, needs to renew itself. In the past, the field has been criticized for being speculative and person-centred, but in the current situation, it is on the contrary necessary to delve deeper into how personality, ideology, and strategic rationality are woven together in authoritarian institutions and decision-making processes. This requires not only biographical and cultural insight, but also a methodological framework that can combine qualitative assessments and systematic data analysis.
Artificial intelligence and big data
Developments in artificial intelligence, large language models, and big data analytics are opening new possibilities for analysing closed, authoritarian regimes. Where humans can only read a limited number of documents, machines can analyse an infinite number of texts, identifying discursive and sentiment shifts, and patterns in language use that point to changing priorities or internal tensions within the regime.
Our R&D project at the Norwegian Intelligence School explores how digital methods, network analysis, machine learning, scraping, sentiment analysis etc support the analysis of leadership, decision making, and politics China and Russia. The goal is to strengthen analysts’ ability to capture subtle signals that are otherwise easily overlooked, such as subtle shifts in political language use, changes in power relations or the emergence of new centres of power within the regime.
Such AI-driven Kremlinology or Beijingology is not as a replacement for human judgment, but a powerful reinforcement of analytical capacity.
A new chapter for intelligence analysis
The revitalisation of intelligence analysis of closed, authoritarian regimes is not about choosing between technology and expertise but about combining them. It is about developing an analytical approach where classical political analysis, psychological understanding of leaders, and machine learning work together. It is also about building bridges between academia and intelligence – between theories of authoritarian systems and practical methods for analysing them.
By combining academic immersion in Chinese and Russian political culture with new digital methods, our R&D project seeks to develop a methodological framework for the intelligence analysis of the future. This will have value far beyond academic research – it will strengthen intelligence’s ability to inform decision-makers in a world where power is concentrated in a few hands, and insights must be drawn from dispersed and fragmented sources.
Conclusion
The need for intelligence that can penetrate the dense veils often surrounding authoritarian regimes is greater than ever. Xi’s China and Putin’s Russia challenge not only Western security, but also our ability to understand political systems that do not follow open, democratic logics. To meet this challenge, our project seeks to combine the best of two worlds: new technology that makes it possible to analyse large amounts of data, and classic leadership analysis that provides deeper insight into personal power structures and decision-making processes. Only in this way can we ensure that intelligence continues to deliver its core value: insight into the hidden – in support of wise and informed decisions.
Stig Stenslie
Research Director
Norwegian Intelligence School
Norway
Professor
Oslo New University College
Norway
