Brian Fuller brings a rare perspective to open-source intelligence—one that bridges military, academic, and professional worlds. A former intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army, he now oversees Mercyhurst University’s Intelligence Studies program, helping shape the next generation of analysts.
In this episode, we talk about how OSINT became a recognized discipline in the military and what students (and mid-career analysts) need to know to build successful careers
Below, you’ll find highlights from our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length.
On why intelligence professionals must keep evolving:
My mantra is to keep progressing. Keep up. Especially in the intelligence world, everything changes day to day, week to week — whether it’s tools, tradecraft, technology, you’ve got to keep up with it.
On training the next generation of OSINT analysts:
We're trying to create generalists. We're trying to make all-source analysts that can work anywhere, for any mission. They can be plugged in anywhere, know how to be an analyst, know how to do the job properly.
All they need to learn is what their mission focus or operation is of that entity they're working for.
On students entering the field with misconceptions:
A lot of them want to be Jason Bourne. They think they're coming here to be a spy. We’re the spy school, that’s what they think. Or they want to work for the FBI and go catch bad guys.
Most of the young students that come here, don’t know a lot about the private sector opportunities. So what they’re coming here for are the more sexy things they see in movies or TV shows.
But once they get here and realize, 'I'm not necessarily here to be the guy or gal that kicks in the door, throwing the bad guy on the ground. I’m here to be the person that provides the information. I'm here to be the person that’s going to provide the information.’
They learn that in order for that door kicker to know what door to kick in, there's got to be an analyst. They soon realize that the real fun and the real challenge of the job is being the analyst who's outsmarting the bad guys.
On real-world intelligence training at Mercyhurst:
The students are learning inside the classroom, they’ll learn their tradecraft, they’ll learn their tools.
But in order to properly apply that, they’ll need real-world projects to work on. That’s what the CIRAT (Center for Intelligence, Research, Analysis & Training) provides — it provides students the opportunity to take what they’re learning in the classroom and apply it in the government, private sector, law enforcement, or non-governmental organizations.
They get to apply that for real-world clients.
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