Notes on Intelligence Essentials for Everyone

By Lisa Krizan

JOINT MILITARY INTELLIGENCE COLLEGE WASHINGTON, DC
June 1999

 

INTELLIGENCE ESSENTIALS FOR EVERYONE

Preface

The “importance of understanding” has become almost an obsession with significant portions of American business. There remain, however, many companies that attempt to operate as they traditionally have in the past — placing great faith in the owner’s or man- ager’s judgment as to what is required to remain competitive.

In this paper, the author has articulated clearly the fundamentals of sound intelligence practice and has identified some guidelines that can lead toward creation of a solid intelligence infrastructure. These signposts apply both to government intelligence and to business. Good intelligence should always be based on validated requirements, but it may be derived from a wide variety of sources, not all of which are reliable.

Understanding the needs of the consumer and the sources available enable an analyst to choose the correct methodology to arrive at useful answers. The author has laid out in clear, concise language a logical approach to creating an infrastructure for government and business. Every system will have flaws but this discussion should help the reader minimize those weaknesses. It is an important contribution to the education of government and business intelligence professionals.

James A. Williams, LTG, U.S. Army (Ret.) Former Director, Defense Intelligence Agency

Foreword

Decades of government intelligence experience and reflection on that experience are captured in this primer. Ms. Krizan combines her own findings on best practices in the intelligence profession with the discoveries and ruminations of other practitioners, including several Joint Military Intelligence College instructors and students who preceded her. Many of the selections she refers to are from documents that are out of print or have wrongly been assigned to a dustbin.

This primer reviews and reassesses Intelligence Community best practices with special emphasis on how they may be adopted by the private sector. The government convention of referring to intelligence users as “customers” suggests by itself the demonstrable similarities between government intelligence and business information support functions.

The genesis for this study was the author’s discovery of a need to codify for the Intelligence Community certain basic principles missing from the formal training of intelligence analysts. At the same time, she learned of requests from the private sector for the same type of codified, government best practices for adaptation to the business world. As no formal mechanism existed for an exchange of these insights between the public and private sectors, Ms. Krizan developed this paper as an adjunct to her Master’s thesis, Benchmarking the Intelligence Process for the Private Sector. Her thesis explores the rationale and mechanisms for benchmarking the intelligence process in government, and for sharing the resultant findings with the private sector.

Dr. Russell G. Swenson, Editor and Director, Office of Applied Research

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE: INTELLIGENCE SHARING IN A NEW LIGHT

Education is the cheapest defense of a nation.

— Edmund Burke, 18th-century British philosopher

National Intelligence Meets Business Intelligence

This intelligence primer reflects the author’s examination of dozens of unclassified government documents on the practice of intelligence over a period of nearly seven years. For the national security Intelligence Community (IC), it represents a concise distillation and clarification of the national intelligence function. To the private sector, it offers an unprecedented translation into lay terms of national intelligence principles and their application within and potentially outside of government.1 Whereas “intelligence sharing” has traditionally been a government-to-government transaction, the environment is now receptive to government-private sector interaction.

The widespread trend toward incorporating government intelligence methodology into commerce and education was a primary impetus for publishing this document. As eco- nomic competition accelerates around the world, private businesses are initiating their own “business intelligence” (BI) or “competitive intelligence” services to advise their decisionmakers. Educators in business and academia are following suit, inserting BI concepts into professional training and college curricula

Whereas businesses in the past have concentrated on knowing the market and making the best product, they are shifting their focus to include knowing, and staying ahead of, competitors. This emphasis on competitiveness requires the sophisticated production and use of carefully analyzed information tailored to specific users; in other words, intelligence. But the use of intelligence as a strategic planning tool, common in government, is a skill that few companies have perfected.

The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), headquartered in the Washington, DC area, is an international organization founded in 1986 to “assist members in enhancing their firms’ competitiveness through a greater… understanding of competitor behaviors and future strategies as well as the market dynamics in which they do business.” SCIP’s code of conduct specifically promotes ethical and legal BI practices. The main focus of “collection” is on exploiting online and open-source information services, and the theme of “analysis” is to go beyond mere numerical and factual information, to interpretation of events for strategic decisionmaking.

 

 

 

 

Large corporations are creating their own intelligence units, and a few are successful at performing analysis in support of strategic decisionmaking. Others are hiring BI contractors, or “out-sourcing” this function. However, the majority of businesses having some familiarity with BI are not able to conduct rigorous research and analysis for value-added reporting. According to University of Pittsburgh professor of Business Administration John Prescott, no theoretical framework exists for BI. He believes that most studies done lack the rigor that would come with following sound research-design principles. By his estimate, only one percent of companies have a research-design capability exploitable for BI applications.7 At the same time, companies are increasingly opting to establish their own intelligence units rather than purchasing services from BI specialists. The implication of this trend is that BI professionals should be skilled in both intelligence and in a business discipline of value to the company.

The private sector can therefore benefit from IC expertise in disciplines complementary to active intelligence production, namely defensive measures. The whole concept of openness regarding intelligence practices may hinge upon the counter-balancing effect of self-defense, particularly as practiced through information systems security (INFOSEC) and operations security (OPSEC).9 Because the IC seeks to be a world leader in INFOSEC and OPSEC as well as intelligence production, defensive measures are an appropriate topic for dialogue between the public and private sectors.

The U.S. government INFOSEC Manual sums up the relationship between offense and defense in a comprehensive intelligence strategy in this way:

In today’s information age environment, control of information and information technology is vital. As the nation daily becomes more dependent on networked information systems to conduct essential business, including mili- tary operations, government functions, and national and international eco- nomic enterprises, information infrastructures are assuming increased strategic importance. This has, in turn, given rise to the concept of information warfare (INFOWAR) — a new form of warfare directed toward attacking (offensive) or defending (defensive) such infrastructures.10

Giving citizens the tools they need to survive INFOWAR is one of the IC’s explicit missions. This intelligence primer can assist that mission by offering a conceptual and practical “common operating environment” for business and government alike.

Assessing and Exchanging Best Practices

In documenting the essentials of intelligence, this primer is an example of benchmark- ing, a widely used process for achieving quality in organizations,

Benchmarking normally assesses best professional practices, developed and refined through experience, for carrying out an organization’s core tasks.An additional aim of benchmarking is to establish reciprocal relationships among best-in-class parties for the exchange of mutually beneficial information. Because the IC is the de facto functional leader in the intelligence profession, and is publicly funded, it is obligated to lead both the government and private sector toward a greater understanding of the intelligence discipline.

In the mid-1990s, as national intelligence agencies began to participate in international benchmarking forums, individuals from the private sector began to request practical information on the intelligence process from IC representatives. The requestors were often participants in the growing BI movement and apparently sought to adapt IC methods to their own purposes. Their circumspect counterparts in the government were not prepared to respond to these requests, preferring instead to limit benchmarking relationships to common business topics, such as resource management.

Demand in the private sector for intelligence skills can be met through the application of validated intelligence practices presented in this document. Conversely, the business- oriented perspective on intelligence can be highly useful to government intelligence professionals. As a BI practitioner explains, every activity in the intelligence process must be related to a requirement, otherwise it is irrelevant. Government personnel would benefit from this practical reminder in every training course and every work center. In the private sector, straying from this principle means wasting money and losing a competitive edge.

Curriculum exchanges between private sector educators and the IC are encouraged by legislation and by Congressional Commission recommendations,17 yet little such formal exchange has taken place.

17. For example, the 1991 National Security Education Act (P.L. 102-183), the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (P.L. 103-62), and the Congressional Report of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community, Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence (Washington, DC: GPO, 1 March 1996), 87.

Whereas government practitioners are the acknowledged subject-matter experts in intelligence methodology, the private sector offers a wealth of expertise in particular areas such as business management, technology, the global marketplace, and skills training. Each has valuable knowledge to share with the other, and experience gaps to fill. On the basis of these unique needs and capabilities, the public and private sectors can forge a new partnership in understanding their common responsibilities, and this primer may make a modest contribution toward the exchange of ideas.

The following chapters outline validated steps to operating an intelligence service for both the government and the private sector. In either setting, this document should prove useful as a basic curriculum for students, an on-the-job working aid for practitioners, and a reference tool for experienced professionals, especially those teaching or mentoring others. Although the primer does not exhaustively describe procedures for quality intelligence production or defensive measures, it does offer the business community fundamental concepts that can transfer readily from national intelligence to commercial applications, including competitive analysis, strategic planning and the protection of proprietary information. Universities may incorporate these ideas into their business, political science, and intelligence studies curricula to encourage and prepare students to become intelligence practitioners in commerce or government.

PART I INTELLIGENCE PROCESS

[I]ntelligence is more than information. It is knowledge that has been specially prepared for a customer’s unique circumstances. The word knowledge highlights the need for human involvement. Intelligence collection systems produce… data, not intelligence; only the human mind can provide that special touch that makes sense of data for different customers’ requirements. The special processing that partially defines intelligence is the continual collection, verification, and analysis of information that allows us to understand the problem or situation in actionable terms and then tailor a product in the con- text of the customer’s circumstances. If any of these essential attributes is missing, then the product remains information rather than intelligence.18

Captain William S. Brei, Getting Intelligence Right: The Power of Logical Procedure, Occasional Paper Number Two (Washington, DC: Joint Military Intelligence College, January 1996), 4.

 

According to government convention, the author will use the term “customer” to refer to the intended recipient of an intelligence product — either a fellow intelligence ser- vice member, or a policy official or decisionmaker. The process of converting raw information into actionable intelligence can serve government and business equally well in their respective domains.

The Intelligence Process in Government and Business

Production of intelligence follows a cyclical process, a series of repeated and interrelated steps that add value to original inputs and create a substantially transformed product. That transformation is what distinguishes intelligence from a simple cyclical activity.

In government and private sector alike, analysis is the catalyst that converts information into intelligence for planners and decisionmakers.

Although the intelligence process is complex and dynamic, several component functions may be distinguished from the whole. In this primer, components are identified as Intelligence Needs, Collection Activities, Processing of Collected Information, Analysis and Production.

These labels, and the illustration below, should not be interpreted to mean that intelligence is a unidimensional and unidirectional process. “[I]n fact, the [process] is multidimensional, multi- directional, and — most importantly — interactive and iterative.”

The purpose of this process is for the intelligence service to provide decisionmakers with tools, or “products” that assist them in identifying key decision factors.

A nation’s power or a firm’s success results from a combination of factors, so intelligence producers and customers should examine potential adversaries and competitive situations from as many relevant viewpoints as possible. A competitor’s economic resources, political alignments, the number, education and health of its people, and apparent objectives are all important in determining the ability of a country or a business to exert influence on others. The eight subject categories of intelligence are exhaustive, but they are not mutually exclusive. Although dividing intelligence into subject areas is useful for analyzing information and administering production, it should not become a rigid formula.

Operational support intelligence incorporates all types of intelligence by use, but is produced in a tailored, focused, and timely manner for planners and operators of the supported activity.

How government and business leaders define their needs for these types of intelligence affects the intelligence service’s organization and operating procedures. Managers of this intricate process, whether in government or business, need to decide whether to make one intelligence unit responsible for all the component parts of the process or to create several specialized organizations for particular sub-processes.

Functional Organization of Intelligence

The national Intelligence Community comprises Executive Branch agencies that produce classified and unclassified studies on selected foreign developments as a prelude to decisions and actions by the president, military leaders, and other senior authorities.

Private sector organizations use open-source information to produce intelligence in a fashion similar to national authorities. By mimicking the government process of translating customer needs into production requirements, and particularly by performing rigorous analysis on gathered information, private organizations can produce assessments that aid their leaders in planning and carrying out decisions to increase their competitiveness in the global economy. This primer will point out why private entities may desire to transfer into their domain some well-honed proficiencies developed in the national Intelligence Community. At the same time, the Intelligence Community self-examination conducted in these pages may allow government managers to reflect on any unique capabilities worthy of further development and protection.

PART II
CONVERTING CUSTOMER NEEDS INTO INTELLIGENCE REQUIREMENTS

The articulation of the requirement is the most important part of the process, and it seldom is as simple as it might seem. There should be a dialogue concerning the requirement, rather than a simple assertion of need. Perhaps the customer knows precisely what is needed and what the product should look like. Perhaps… not. Interaction is required: discussion between ultimate user and principal producer. This is often difficult due to time, distance, and bureaucratic impediments, not to mention disparities of rank, personality, perspectives, and functions.

Defining the Intelligence Problem

Customer demands, or “needs,” particularly if they are complex and time-sensitive, require interpretation or analysis by the intelligence service before being expressed as intelligence requirements that drive the production process. This dialog between intelligence producer and customer may begin with a simple set of questions, and if appropriate, progress to a more sophisticated analysis of the intelligence problem being addressed.

The “Five Ws” — Who, What, When, Where, and Why — are a good starting point for translating intelligence needs into requirements. A sixth related question, How, may also be considered. In both government and business, these questions form the basic frame- work for decisionmakers and intelligence practitioners to follow in formulating intelligence requirements and devising a strategy to satisfy them.

This ability to establish a baseline and set in motion a collection and production strategy is crucial to conducting a successful intelligence effort. Too often, both producers and customers waste valuable time and effort struggling to characterize for themselves a given situation, or perhaps worse, they hastily embark upon an action plan without determining its appropriateness to the problem. Employing a structured approach as outlined in the Taxonomy of Problem Types can help the players avoid these inefficiencies and take the first step toward generating clear intelligence requirements by defining both the intelligence problem and the requisite components to its solution.

 

Intelligence Problem Definition A Government Scenario

The Severely Random problem type is one frequently encountered by the military in planning an operational strategy. This is the realm of wargaming. The initial intelligence problem is to identify all possible outcomes in an unbounded situation, so that commanders can generate plans for every contingency. The role of valid data is relatively minor, while the role of judgment is great, as history and current statistics may shed little light on how the adversary will behave in a hypothetical situation, and the progress and outcome of an operation against that adversary cannot be predicted with absolute accuracy. There- fore, the analytical task is to define and prepare for all potential outcomes. The analytical method is role playing and wargaming: placing oneself mentally in the imagined situation, and experiencing it in advance, even to the point of acting it out in a realistic setting. After experiencing the various scenarios, the players subjectively evaluate the outcomes of the games, assessing which ones may be plausible or expected to occur in the real world. The probability of error in judgment here is inherently high, as no one can be certain that the future will occur exactly as events unfolded in the game. However, repeated exercises can help to establish a measure of confidence, for practice in living out these scenarios may enable the players to more quickly identify and execute desired behaviors, and avoid mistakes in a similar real situation.

A Business Scenario

The Indeterminate problem type is one facing the entrepreneur in the modern telecommunications market. Predicting the future for a given proposed new technology or product is an extremely imprecise task fraught with potentially dire, or rewarding, consequences. The role of valid data is extremely minor here, whereas analytical judgments about the buying public’s future — and changing — needs and desires are crucial. Defining the key factors influencing the future market is the analytical task, to be approached via the analytical method of setting up models and scenarios: the if/then/else process. Experts in the proposed technology or market are then employed to analyze these possibilities. Their output is a synthesized assessment of how the future will look under various conditions with regard to the proposed new product. The probability of error in judgment is extremely high, as the deci- sion is based entirely on mental models rather than experience; after all, neither the new product nor the future environment exists yet. Continual reassessment of the changing fac- tors influencing the future can help the analysts adjust their conclusions and better advise decisionmakers on whether, and how, to proceed with the new product.

Generating Intelligence Requirements

Once they have agreed upon the nature of the intelligence problem at hand, the intelligence service and the customer together can next generate intelligence requirements to drive the production process. The intelligence requirement translates customer needs into an intelligence action plan. A good working relationship between the two parties at this stage will determine whether the intelligence produced in subsequent stages actually meets customer needs.

As a discipline, intelligence seeks to remain an independent, objective advisor to the decisionmaker. The realm of intelligence is that of “fact,” considered judgment, and prob- ability, but not prescription. It does not tell the customer what to do to meet an agenda, but rather, identifies the factors at play, and how various actions may affect outcomes. Intelligence tends to be packaged in standard formats and, because of its methodical approach, may not be delivered within the user’s ideal timeframe. For all these reasons, the customer may not see intelligence as a useful service.

Understanding each other’s views on intelligence is the first step toward improving the relationship between them. The next step is communication. Free interaction among the players will foster agreement on intelligence priorities and result in products that decisionmakers recognize as meaningful to their agendas, yet balanced by rigorous analysis.

Types of Intelligence Requirements

Having thus developed an understanding of customer needs, the intelligence service may proactively and continuously generate intelligence collection and production requirements to maintain customer-focused operations. Examples of such internally generated specifications include analyst-driven, events-driven, and scheduled requirements.

Further distinctions among intelligence requirements include timeliness and scope, or level, of intended use. Timeliness of requirements is established to meet standing (long- term) and ad hoc (short-term) needs. When the customer and intelligence service agree to define certain topics as long-term intelligence issues, they generate a standing requirement to ensure that a regular production effort can, and will, be maintained against that target. The customer will initiate an ad hoc requirement upon realizing a sudden short- term need for a specific type of intelligence, and will specify the target of interest, the coverage timeframe, and the type of output desired.

The scope or level of intended use of the intelligence may be characterized as strategic or tactical. Strategic intelligence is geared to a policymaker dealing with big-picture issues affecting the mission and future of an organization: the U.S. President, corporate executives, high-level diplomats, or military commanders of major commands or fleets. Tactical intelligence serves players and decisionmakers “on the ground” engaged in current operations: trade negotiators, marketing and sales representatives, deployed military units, or product developers.

Ensuring that Requirements Meet Customer Needs

Even when they follow this method of formulating intelligence requirements together, decisionmakers and their intelligence units in the public and private sectors may still have an incomplete grasp of how to define their needs and capabilities — until they have evaluated the resultant products.

customer feedback, production planning and tasking, as well as any internal product evaluation, all become part of the process of defining needs and creating intelligence requirements.

Whether in business or government, six fundamental values or attributes underlie the core principles from which all the essential intelligence functions are derived. The corollary is that intelligence customers’ needs may be defined and engaged by intelligence professionals using these same values.

Interpretation of these values turns a customer’s need into a collection and production requirement that the intelligence service understands in the context of its own functions. However, illustrating the complexity of the intelligence process, once this is done, the next step is not necessarily collection.

Rather, the next stage is analysis. Perhaps the requirement is simply and readily answered — by an existing product, by ready extrapolation from files or data bases, or by a simple phone call or short desk note based on an analyst’s or manager’s knowledge.

consumers do not drive collection per se; analysts do — or should.

PART III COLLECTION

The collection function rests on research — on matching validated intelligence objectives to available sources of information, with the results to be transformed into usable intelligence. Just as within needs-definition, analysis is an integral function of collection.

Collection Requirements

The collection requirement specifies exactly how the intelligence service will go about acquiring the intelligence information the customer needs. Any one, or any of several, players in the intelligence system may be involved in formulating collection requirements: the intelligence analyst, a dedicated staff officer, or a specialized collection unit.

In large intelligence services, collection requirements may be managed by a group of specialists acting as liaisons between customers and collectors (people who actually obtain the needed information, either directly or by use of technical means). Within that requirements staff, individual requirements officers may be dedicated to a particular set of customers, a type of collection resource, or a specific intelligence issue. This use of col- lection requirements officers is prevalent in the government. Smaller services, especially in the private sector, may assign collection requirements management to one person or team within a multidisciplinary intelligence unit that serves a particular customer or that is arrayed against a particular topic area.

the requirements management function entails much more than simple administrative duties. It requires analytic skill to evaluate how well the customer has expressed the intelligence need; whether, how and when the intelligence unit is able to obtain the required information through its available collection sources; and in what form to deliver the collected information to the intelligence analyst.

Collection Planning and Operations

One method for selecting a collection strategy is to first prepare a list of expected target evidence.

The collection requirements officer and the intelligence analyst for the target may collaborate in identifying the most revealing evidence of target activity, which may include physical features of terrain or objects, human behavior, or natural and man- made phenomena. The issue that can be resolved through this analysis is “What am I looking for, and how will I know it if I see it”?

Increasingly sophisticated identification of evidence types may reveal what collectible data are essential for drawing key conclusions, and therefore should be given priority; whether the evidence is distinguishable from innocuous information; and whether the intelligence service has the skills, time, money and authorization to collect the data needed to exploit a particular target. Furthermore, the collection must yield information in a format that is either usable in raw form by the intelligence analyst, or that can be converted practicably into usable form.

Finally, upon defining the collection requirement and selecting a collection strategy, the intelligence unit should implement that strategy by tasking personnel and resources to exploit selected sources, perform the collection, reformat the results if necessary to make them usable in the next stages, and forward the information to the intelligence production unit. This aspect of the collection phase may be called collection operations management. As with requirements management, it is often done by specialists, particularly in the large intelligence service. In smaller operations, the same person or team may perform some or all of the collection-related functions.

In comparison to the large, compartmentalized service, the smaller unit will likely experience greater overall efficiency of operations and fewer bureaucratic barriers to customer service. The same few people may act as requirements officers, operations managers and intelligence analysts/producers, decreasing the likelihood of communication and scheduling problems among them. This approach may be less expensive in terms of infrastructure and logistics than a functionally divided operation.

careful selection and assignment of personnel who thrive in a multidisciplinary environment will be vital to the unit’s success, to help ward off potential worker stress and overload. An additional pitfall that the small unit should strive to avoid is the tendency to be self-limiting: overreliance on the same customer contacts, collection sources and methods, analytic approaches, and production formulas can lead to stagnation and irrelevance. The small intelligence unit should be careful to invest in new initiatives that keep pace with changing times and customer needs.

Collection Sources

The range of sources available to all intelligence analysts, including those outside of government, is of course much broader than the set of restricted, special sources available only for government use.

four general categories serve to identify the types of information sources available to the intelligence analyst: people, objects, emanations, and records.

Strictly speaking, the information offered by these sources may not be called intelligence if the information has not yet been converted into a value-added product. In the government or private sector, collection may be performed by the reporting analyst or by a specialist in one or more of the collection disciplines.

The collection phase of the intelligence process thus involves several steps: translation of the intelligence need into a collection requirement, definition of a collection strategy, selection of collection sources, and information collection. The resultant collected information must often undergo a further conversion before it can yield intelligence in the analysis stage.

PART IV PROCESSING COLLECTED INFORMATION

From Raw Data to Intelligence Information

No matter what the setting or type of collection, gathered information must be pack- aged meaningfully before it can be used in the production of intelligence. Processing methods will vary depending on the form of the collected information and its intended use, but they include everything done to make the results of collection efforts usable by intelligence producers. Typically, “processing” applies to the techniques used by government intelligence services to transform raw data from special-source technical collection into intelligence information.

While collectors collect “raw” information, certain [collection] disciplines involve a sort of pre-analysis in order to make the information “readable” to the average all-source analyst.

Another term for processing, collation, encompasses many of the different operations that must be performed on collected information or data before further analysis and intel- ligence production can occur. More than merely physically manipulating information, collation organizes the information into a usable form, adding meaning where it was not evident in the original. Collation includes gathering, arranging, and annotating related information; drawing tentative conclusions about the relationship of “facts” to each other and their significance; evaluating the accuracy and reliability of each item; grouping items into logical categories; critically examining the information source; and assessing the meaning and usefulness of the content for further analysis. Collation reveals information gaps, guides further collection and analysis, and provides a framework for selecting and organizing additional information.

Examples of collation include filing documents, condensing information by categories or relationships, and employing electronic database programs to store, sort, and arrange large quantities of information or data in preconceived or self-generating patterns. Regardless of its form or setting, an effective collation method will have the following attributes:

1. Be impersonal. It should not depend on the memory of one analyst; another person knowledgeable in the subject should be able to carry out the operation.
2. Not become the “master” of the analyst or an end in itself.
3. Be free of bias in integrating the information.
4. Be receptive to new data without extensive alteration of the collating criterion.

Evaluating and Selecting Evidence

To prepare collected information for further use, one must evaluate its relevance and value to the specific problem at hand. An examination of the information’s source and applicability to the intelligence issue can determine whether that information will be further employed in the intelligence production process. Three aspects to consider in evaluating the relevance of information sources are reliability, proximity, and appropriateness.

Reliability of a source is determined through an evaluation of its past performance; if the source proved accurate in the past, then a reasonable estimate of its likely accuracy in a given case can be made.

Proximity refers to the source’s closeness to the information. The direct observer or participant in an event may gather and present evidence directly, but in the absence of such firsthand information, the analyst must rely on sources with varying degrees of proximity to the situation. A primary source passes direct knowledge of an event on to the analyst. A secondary source provides information twice removed from the original event; one observer informs another, who then relays the account to the analyst. Such regression of source proximity may continue indefinitely, and naturally, the more numerous the steps between the information and the source, the greater the opportunity for error or distortion.

Appropriateness of the source rests upon whether the source speaks from a position of authority on the specific issue in question. As no one person or institution is an expert on all matters, the source’s individual capabilities and shortcomings affect the level of validity or reliability assigned to the information it provides regarding a given topic.

Plausibility refers to whether the information is true under any circumstances or only under certain conditions, either known or possible. Expectabilityis assessed in the context of the analyst’s prior knowledge of the subject. Support for information exists when another piece of evidence corroborates it — either the same information from a different source, or different information that points to the same conclusion.

PART V ANALYSIS

Analysis is the breaking down of a large problem into a number of smaller problems and performing mental operations on the data in order to arrive at a conclusion or a generalization. It involves close examination of related items of information to determine the extent to which they confirm, supplement, or contradict each other and thus to establish probabilities and relationships.

Analysis is not merely reorganizing data and information into a new format. At the very least, analysis should fully describe the phenomenon under study, accounting for as many relevant variables as possible. At the next higher level of analysis, a thorough explanation of the phenomenon is obtained, through interpreting the significance and effects of its elements on the whole. Ideally, analysis can reach successfully beyond the descriptive and explanatory levels to synthesis and effective persuasion, often referred to as estimation.

The purpose of intelligence analysis is to reveal to a specific decisionmaker the underlying significance of selected target information. Frequently intelligence analysis involves estimating the likelihood of one possible outcome, given the many possibilities in a particular scenario.

The mnemonic “Four Fs Minus One” may serve as a reminder of how to apply this criterion. Whenever the intelligence information allows, and the customer’s validated needs demand it, the intelligence analyst will extend the thought process as far along the Food Chain as possible, to the third “F” but not beyond to the fourth.

Types of Reasoning

Objectivity is the intelligence analyst’s primary asset in creating intelligence that meets the Four Fs Minus One criterion. More than simply a conscientious attitude, objectivity is “a professional ethic that celebrates tough-mindedness and clarity in applying rules of evidence, inference, and judgment.”

Four basic types of reasoning apply to intelligence analysis: induction, deduction, abduction and the scientific method.

Induction. The induction process is one of discovering relationships among the phenomena under study.

In the words of Clauser and Weir:

Induction is the intellectual process of drawing generalizations on the basis of observations or other evidence. Induction takes place when one learns from experience. For example, induction is the process by which a person learns to associate the color red with heat and heat with pain, and to generalize these associations to new situations.

Induction occurs when one is able to postulate causal relationships. Intelligence estimates are largely the result of inductive processes, and, of course, induction takes place in the formulation of every hypothesis. Unlike other types of intellectual activities such as deductive logic and mathematics, there are no established rules for induction.

Deduction. “Deduction is the process of reasoning from general rules to particular cases. Deduction may also involve drawing out or analyzing premises to form a conclusion.

Deduction works best in closed systems such as mathematics, formal logic, or certain kinds of games in which all the rules are clearly spelled out.

However, intelligence analysis rarely deals with closed systems, so premises assumed to be true may in fact be false, and lead to false conclusions.

Abduction. Abduction is the process of generating a novel hypothesis to explain given evidence that does not readily suggest a familiar explanation. This process differs from induction in that it adds to the set of hypotheses available to the analyst. In inductive reasoning, the hypothesized relationship among pieces of evidence is considered to be already existing, needing only to be perceived and articulated by the analyst.

In abduction, the analyst creatively generates an hypothesis, then sets about examining whether the available evidence unequivocally leads to the new conclusion. The latter step, testing the evidence, is a deductive inference.

Examples of abductive reasoning in intelligence analysis include situations in which the analyst has a nagging suspicion that something of intelligence value has happened or is about to happen, but has no immediate explanation for this conclusion. The government intelligence analyst may conclude that an obscure rebel faction in a target country is about to stage a political coup, although no overt preparations for the takeover are evident. The business analyst may determine that a competitor company is on the brink of a dramatic shift from its traditional product line into a new market, even though its balance sheet and status in the industry are secure. In each case, the analyst, trusting this sense that the time is right for a significant event, will set out to gather and evaluate evidence in light of the new, improbable, yet tantalizing hypothesis.

Scientific Method. The scientific method combines deductive and inductive reasoning: Induction is used to develop the hypothesis, and deduction is used to test it. In science, the analyst obtains data through direct observation of the subject and formulates an hypothesis to explain conclusions suggested by the evidence.

Methods of Analysis

Opportunity Analysis. Opportunity analysis identifies for policy officials opportunities or vulnerabilities that the customer’s organization can exploit to advance a pol- icy, as well as dangers that could undermine a policy.60 It identifies institutions, interest groups, and key leaders in a target country or organization that support the intelligence customer’s objective; the means of enhancing supportive elements; challenges to positive elements (which could be diminished or eliminated); logistic, financial, and other vulnerabilities of adversaries; and activities that could be employed to rally resources and support to the objective.

Jack Davis notes that in the conduct of opportunity analysis,

[T]he analyst should start with the assumption that every policy concern can be transformed into a legitimate intelligence concern. What follows from this is that analysts and their managers should learn to think like a policy- maker in order to identify the issues on which they can provide utility, but they should always [behave like intelligence producers]. … The first step in producing effective opportunity analysis is to redefine an intelligence issue in the policymaker’s terms. This requires close attention to the policymaker’s role as “action officer” – reflecting a preoccupation with getting things started or stopped among adversaries and allies…. It also requires that analysts recog- nize a policy official’s propensity to take risk for gain….[P]olicymakers often see, say, a one-in-five chance of turning a situation around as a sound invest- ment of [organizational] prestige and their professional energies….[A]nalysts have to search for appropriate ways to help the policymaker inch the odds upward – not by distorting their bottom line when required to make a predic- tive judgment, or by cheerleading, but by pointing to opportunities as well as obstacles. Indeed, on politically sensitive issues, analysts would be well advised to utilize a matrix that first lists and then assesses both the promising and discouraging signs they, as objective observers, see for… policy goals…. [P]roperly executed opportunity analysis stresses information and possibili- ties rather than [explicit] predictions.

Jack Davis, The Challenge of Opportunity Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, July 1992)

Linchpin Analysis. Linchpin analysis is one way of showing intelligence managers and policy officials alike that all the bases have been touched. Linchpin analysis, a color- ful term for structured forecasting, is an anchoring tool that seeks to reduce the hazard of self-inflicted intelligence error as well as policymaker misinterpretation.

Analogy. Analogies depend on the real or presumed similarities between two things. For example, analysts might reason that because two aircraft have many features in com- mon, they may have been designed to perform similar missions. The strength of any such analogy depends upon the strength of the connection between a given condition and a specified result.

In addition, the analyst must consider the characteristics that are dissimilar between the phenomena under study. The dissimilarities may be so great that they ren- der the few similarities irrelevant.

One of the most widely used tools in intelligence analysis is the analogy. Analogies serve as the basis for most hypotheses, and rightly or wrongly, underlie many generalizations about what the other side will do and how they will go about doing it.

Thus, drawing well-considered generalizations is the key to using analogy effectively. When postulating human behavior, the analyst may effectively use analogy by applying it to a specific person acting in a situation similar to one in which his actions are well documented…

Customer Focus

As with the previous stages of the intelligence process, effective analysis depends upon a good working relationship between the intelligence customer and producer.

The government intelligence analyst is generally considered a legitimate and necessary policymaking resource, and even fairly junior employees may be accepted as national experts by virtue of the knowledge and analytic talent they offer to high level customers. Conversely, in the private sector, the intelligence analyst’s corporate rank is generally orders of magnitude lower than that of a company vice-president or CEO. The individual analyst may have little access to the ultimate customer, and the intelligence service as a whole may receive little favor from a senior echelon that makes little distinction between so-called intelligence and the myriad of other decisionmaking inputs. When private sector practitioners apply validated methods of analysis geared to meet specific customer needs, they can win the same kind of customer appreciation and support as that enjoyed by government practitioners.

Statistical Tools

Additional decisionmaking tools derived from parametric or non-parametric statistical techniques, such as Bayesian analysis, are sometime used in intelligence.

Analytic Mindset

Customer needs and collected information and data are not the only factors that influence the analytic process; the analyst brings his or her own unique thought patterns as well. This personal approach to problem-solving is “the distillation of the intelligence analyst’s cumulative factual and conceptual knowledge into a framework for making estimative judgments on a complex subject.”

Categories of Misperception and Bias

Evoked-Set Reasoning: That information and concern which dominates one’s thinking based on prior experience. One tends to uncritically relate new information to past or current dominant concerns.

Prematurely Formed Views: These spring from a desire for simplicity and stability, and lead to premature closure in the consideration of a problem.

Presumption that Support for One Hypothesis Disconfirms Others: Evidence that is consistent with one’s preexisting beliefs is allowed to disconfirm other views. Rapid closure in the consideration of an issue is a problem.

Inappropriate Analogies: Perception that an event is analogous to past events, based on inadequate consideration of concepts or facts, or irrelevant criteria. Bias of “Representativeness.”

Superficial Lessons From History: Uncritical analysis of concepts or events, superficial causality, over-generalization of obvious factors, inappropriate extrapolation from past success or failure.

Presumption of Unitary Action by Organizations: Perception that behavior of others is more planned, centralized, and coordinated than it really is. Dismisses accident and chaos. Ignores misperceptions of others. Fundamental attribution error, possibly caused by cultural bias.

Organizational Parochialism: Selective focus or rigid adherence to prior judgments based on organizational norms or loyalties. Can result from functional specialization. Group-think or stereotypical thinking.

Excessive Secrecy (Compartmentation): Over-narrow reliance on selected evidence. Based on concern for operational security. Narrows consideration of alternative views. Can result from or cause organizational parochialism.

Ethnocentrism: Projection of one’s own culture, ideological beliefs, doctrine, or expectations on others. Exaggeration of the causal significance of one’s own action. Can lead to mirror-imaging and wishful thinking. Parochialism.

Lack of Empathy: Undeveloped capacity to understand others’ perception of their world, their conception of their role in that world, and their definition of their interests. Difference in cognitive contexts.

Mirror-Imaging: Perceiving others as one perceives oneself. Basis is ethnocentrism. Facilitated by closed systems and parochialism.

Ignorance: Lack of knowledge. Can result from prior-limited priorities or lack of curiosity, perhaps based on ethnocentrism, parochialism, denial of reality, rational-actor hypothesis (see next entry).

Rational-Actor Hypothesis: Assumption that others will act in a “rational” manner, based on one’s own rational reference. Results from ethnocentrism, mirror-imaging, or ignorance.

Denial of Rationality: Attribution of irrationality to others who are perceived to act outside the bounds of one’s own standards of behavior or decisionmaking. Opposite of rational-actor hypothesis. Can result from ignorance, mirror-imaging, parochialism, or ethnocentrism.

Proportionality Bias: Expectation that the adversary will expend efforts proportionate to the ends he seeks. Inference about the intentions of others from costs and consequences of actions they initiate.

Willful Disregard of New Evidence: Rejection of information that conflicts with already-held beliefs. Results from prior policy commitments, and/or excessive pursuit of consistency.

Image and Self-Image: Perception of what has been, is, will be, or should be (image as subset of belief system). Both inward-directed (self-image) and outward-directed (image). Both often influenced by self-absorption and ethnocentrism.

Defensive Avoidance: Refusal to perceive and understand extremely threatening stimuli. Need to avoid painful choices. Leads to wishful thinking.

Overconfidence in Subjective Estimates: Optimistic bias in assessment. Can result from premature or rapid closure of consideration, or ignorance.

Wishful Thinking (Pollyanna Complex): Hyper-credulity. Excessive optimism born of smugness and overconfidence.

Best-Case Analysis: Optimistic assessment based on cognitive predisposition and general beliefs of how others are likely to behave, or in support of personal or organizational interests or policy preferences.

Conservatism in Probability Estimation: In a desire to avoid risk, tendency to avoid estimating extremely high or extremely low probabilities. Routine thinking. Inclination to judge new phenomena in light of past experience, to miss essentially novel situational elements, or failure to reexamine established tenets. Tendency to seek confirmation of prior- held beliefs.

Worst-Case Analysis (Cassandra Complex): Excessive skepticism. Reflects pessimism and extreme caution, based on predilection (cognitive predisposition), adverse past experience, or on support of personal or organizational interests or policy preferences.

Because the biases and misperceptions outlined above can influence analysis, they may also affect the resultant analytic products. As explained in the following Part, analysis does not cease when intelligence production begins; indeed, the two are interdependent. The foregoing overview of analytic pitfalls should caution intelligence managers and analysts that intelligence products should remain as free as possible from such errors of omission and commission, yet still be tailored to the specific needs of customers.

PART VI PRODUCTION

The previously-described steps of the intelligence process are necessary precursors to production, but it is only in this final step that functionality of the whole process is achieved. Production results in the creation of intelligence, that is, value-added actionable information tailored to a specific customer. In practical terms, production refers to the creation, in any medium, of either interim or finished briefings or reports for other analysts, or for decisionmakers or policy officials.

In government parlance, the term “finished” intelligence is reserved for products issued by analysts responsible for synthesizing all available sources of intelligence, resulting in a comprehensive assessment of an issue or situation, for use by senior analysts or decisionmakers.

Analysts within the single-source intelligence agencies consider any information or intelligence not issued by their own organization to be “collateral.”

Similar designations for finished intelligence products may apply in the business world. Particularly in large corporations with multidisciplinary intelligence units, or in business intelligence consulting firms, some production personnel may specialize in the creation of intelligence from a single source, while others specialize in finished reporting. For example, there may be specialists in library and on-line research, “HUMINT” experts who conduct interviews and attend conferences and trade shows, or scientists who per- form experiments on products or materials. The reports generated by such personnel may be considered finished intelligence by their intended customers within subdivisions of the larger company. The marketing, product development, or public relations department of a corporation may consume single-source intelligence products designed to meet their indi- vidual needs. Such a large corporation may also have an intelligence synthesis unit that merges the reports from the specialized units into finished intelligence for use in strategic planning by senior decisionmakers. Similarly, in the intelligence consulting firm, each of the specialized production units may contribute their reports to a centralized finished intelligence unit which generates a synthesized product for the client.

Emphasizing the Customer’s Bottom Line

The intelligence report or presentation must focus on the results of the analysis and make evident their significance through sound arguments geared to the customer’s interests. In short, intelligence producers must BLUF their way through the presentation — that is, they must keep the “Bottom Line Up Front.”

It is often difficult for… intelligence [producers] to avoid the temptation to succumb to the Agatha Christie Syndrome. Like the great mystery writer, we want to keep our readers in suspense until we can deliver that “punch line.” After we have worked hard on this analysis… we want the reader to know all the wonderful facts and analytical methods that have gone into our conclusions…. Most readers really will not care about all those bells and whistles that went into the analysis. They want the bottom line, and that is what intelligence professionals are paid to deliver.

James S. Major, The Style Guide: Research and Writing at the Joint Military Intelligence College

Some customers are “big picture” thinkers, seeking a general overview of the issue, and guidance on the implications for their own position and responsibilities. An appropriate intelligence product for such a customer will be clear, concise, conclusive, and free of jargon or distracting detail.Conversely, some customers are detail-oriented, seeing themselves as the ultimate expert on the subject area. This type of customer needs highly detailed and specialized intelligence to supplement and amplify known information.

Anatomy of an Intelligence Product

Whether it is produced within the government, or in the business setting, the basic nature of the intelligence product remains the same. The analyst creates a product to document ongoing research, give the customer an update on a current issue or situation, or provide an estimate of expected target activity. In general terms, the product’s function is to cover one or more subject areas, or to be used by the customer for a particular application.

Content

Determination of product content is done in close cooperation with the customer, sometimes at the initiative of one or the other, often in a cycle of give-and-take of ideas. Formal intelligence requirements, agreed upon by both producer and customer in advance, do drive the production process, but the converse is also true. The intelligence unit’s own self-concept and procedures influence its choice of which topics to cover, and which aspects to emphasize. As a result, the customer comes to expect a certain type of product from that unit, and adjusts requirement statements accordingly. In addition, the intelligence process may bring to light aspects of the target that neither the producer nor customer anticipated. When the parties involved have a close working relationship, either one may receive inspiration from interim products, and take the lead in pursuing new ways to exploit the target.

Often, this dialogue centers around the pursuit of new sources associated with known lucrative sources.

The basic orientation of the intelligence product toward a particular subject or application is also determined by the producer-customer relationship. Frequently, the intelligence service will organize the production process and its output to mirror the customer organization. Government production by the single-source intelligence agencies is largely organized geographically or topically, to meet the needs of all-source country, region, or topic analysts in the finished-intelligence producing agencies, such as DIA or the National Counterintelligence Center.

In terms of intended use by the customer, both business and government producers may generate intelligence to be applied in the current, estimative, operational, research, science and technology, or warning context. Serendipity plays a role here, because the collected and analyzed information may meet any or all of these criteria.

Features

Three key features of the intelligence product are timeliness, scope, and periodicity. Timeliness includes not only the amount of time required to deliver the product, but also the usefulness of the product to the customer at a given moment. Scope involves the level of detail or comprehensiveness of the material contained in the product. Periodicity describes the schedule of product initiation and generation.

In intelligence production, the adage “timing is everything” is particularly apt. When a customer requests specific support, and when actionable information is discovered through collection and analysis, the resultant intelligence product is irrelevant unless the customer receives it in time to take action — by adapting to or influencing the target entity. Timeliness therefore encompasses the short-term or long-term duration of the production process, and the degree to which the intelligence itself proves opportune for the customer.

It is important to remember that many users of intelligence have neither the time nor the patience to read through a voluminous study, however excellent it may be, and would much prefer to have the essential elements of the analysis set down in a few succinct paragraphs

Analysts may proactively generate products to meet known needs of specific customers, or they may respond to spontaneous customer requests for tailored intelligence. Furthermore, “analysts, as experts in their fields, are expected to initiate studies that address questions yet unformulated by [customers].” By selecting from available source material, and determining when to issue an intelligence product, analysts have the potential to influence how their customers use intelligence to make policy decisions.

Packaging

Government intelligence products are typically packaged as highly structured written and oral presentations, including electrical messages, hardcopy reports, and briefings.

The format of the intelligence product, regardless of the medium used to convey it, affects how well it is received by the customer. Even in a multimedia presentation, the personal touch can make a positive difference. Therefore, the degree of formality, and the mix of textual and graphical material should match the customer’s preferences.

Many customers prefer written analyses, often in the form of concise executive summaries or point papers; some will ask for an in-depth study after consuming the initial or periodic assessment.

producers should be aware of the potential pitfalls of relying on the executive summary to reach key customers. If the product does not appeal to the executive’s staff members who read it first, it may never reach the intended recipient.

Customer

In addition to understanding the customer’s intelligence requirements, the producer may benefit from an awareness of the relationship between the customer organization and the intelligence service itself.

The intelligence producer selects the product content and format to suit a specific individual or customer set. However, the producer should beware of selecting material or phraseology that is too esoteric or personal for a potential wide audience. Intelligence products are official publications that become official records for use by all authorized personnel within the producer and customer organizations. They should focus on the primary customer’s needs, yet address the interests of other legitimate players. Sometimes, when the producer is struggling with how to meet the needs of both internal and external customers, the solution is to create two different types of products, one for each type of customer. Internal products contain details about the sources and methods used to generate the intelligence, while external products emphasize actionable target information. Similarly, the producer adjusts the product content and tone to the customer’s level of expertise.

Finally, the number of designated recipients is often determined by the sensitivity of the intelligence issue covered in the product. If the intelligence is highly sensitive… then only the few involved persons will receive the report. A routine report may be broadly distributed to a large customer set. Thus, the choice of distribution method is more a marketing decision than a mechanical exercise. Successful delivery of a truly useful intelligence product to a receptive customer is the result of communication and cooperation among all the players.

Customer Feedback and Production Evaluation

The production phase of the intelligence process does not end with delivering the prod- uct to the customer. Rather, it continues in the same manner in which it began: with dialogue between producer and customer.

If the product is really to be useful for policy-making and command, dis- semination involves feedback, which is part of the marketing function…. Ide- ally, the “marketer” who delivers the product is the same individual who accepts and helps to refine the initial requirement.

Intelligence producers need feedback from end-users. If producers do not learn what is useful and not useful to customers, they cannot create genuine intelligence. Internal review procedures that focus on the format and style of intelligence products are not sufficient for producers to judge their performance; they must hear from customers on the intelligence value of their work.

Feedback procedures between producers and customers should include key questions, such as: Is the product usable? Is it timely? Was it in fact used? Did the product meet expectations? If not, why not? What next? The answers to these questions will lead to refined production, greater use of intelligence by decisionmakers, and further feedback sessions. Thus, production of intelligence actually generates more requirements in this iterative process. Producers and managers may use the framework developed by Brei and summarized below as an initial checklist for evaluating their own work, and as a basis for formal customer surveys to obtain constructive feedback.

Producers also need performance feedback from their own managers. Useful aspects of such an internal evaluation may include whether the output met the conditions set down by customers and producers in formal intelligence requirements, whether the intelligence was indeed used by customers, and whether the product resulted from a high standard of analytic quality.

To establish a formal internal review process for monitoring the quality of analysis in intelligence products, managers could select experienced analysts to serve on a rotating basis as “mindset coaches” — reviewing assessments for issues of mindset, uncertainty, and policy utility, or consider pairing with another production division to swap personnel for this activity. As a rule, the less the critical reader knows about the substance of the paper the more he or she will concentrate on the quality of the argumentation.

Managers make key decisions that mirror the intelligence process and make production possible. In conjunction with customers, managers determine what customer set the intelligence unit will serve; what sources it will exploit; what types of intelligence it will produce; and what methods of collection, processing, analysis, production, customer feedback, and self-evaluation it will use.

PART VII MANAGING THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS

The Role of Management

Another discipline integral to the intelligence profession — but worthy of special consideration in this context — is that of management. The effective administration and direction of intelligence activities can be regarded as the epitome of intelligence professionalism. Just as an untutored civilian cannot be expected competently to command [a military unit], so an untrained or inexperienced layperson cannot be expected effectively to direct [an intelligence operation]. But mastery of professional intelligence skills does not, in itself, ensure that a person is able to direct intelligence functions competently; expertise in administrative techniques and behavioral skills is also essential to managerial effectiveness. Some facility in these areas can be acquired through experience, but a professional level of competence requires familiarity with the principles and theories of management, and leadership.

George Allen, “The Professionalization of Intelligence,” in Dearth and Goodden, 1995, 37.

supervisors and managers have a particular responsibility for ensuring the professional development of their subordinates. When all the members of the intelligence unit are competent, then the effectiveness of the group increases. Enabling subordinates also frees managers to thoroughly plan and administer the intelligence operation, instead of redoing the work of production personnel.

Organizing the Intelligence Service

In the national Intelligence Community, federal laws form the basis for a centrally coordinated but functionally organized system.

The unifying principle across government intelligence missions is the basic charter to monitor and manage threats to national interests and to the intelligence service itself. In both the national Intelligence Community and the business community, managers may make a distinction between self-protective intelligence activities and competitive intelligence activities.

Threat analysis in the business environment depends on the open exchange of information between companies, as it is widely recognized that no one benefits from other companies encountering unnecessary risk or danger to their personnel.

On the other hand, at the corporate level, competitive business intelligence relies on the protection or discovery of important corporate data. In the public security environment, diplomatic security and force protection for a government’s own citizens, and for personnel in multilateral operations, is in the best interests of all. Conversely, foreign capabilities assessment operates in the context of a zero-sum game among countries, with potential winners and losers of the tactical advantage.

When the very survival of a corporation or country is at stake vis-a-vis other players in their respective environments, a global or strategic model applies. At this level, strategic warning intelligence takes center stage in the government security setting, and its counter- part — strategic scenario planning — achieves value in the private sector.

The alternative to taking global or strategic intelligence action is to allow threats to emerge and to bring company or government officials to the realm of crisis management. There, fundamental government or business interests are at stake, and the outcome is more likely to be left to the vagaries of impulse and chance than to the considered judgment and actions of corporate or government leaders.

Managing Analysis and Production

Intelligence managers in government and industry need to decide how to organize the pro- duction process just as they need to determine the structure of the intelligence service as a whole. Typical methods of assigning analysts are by target function, geographical region, technical subject, or policy issue. The intelligence service may task analysts to concentrate on one type of source information, or to merge all available sources to produce “finished” intelligence or estimates.

Some industries will need analysts to specialize in certain technical subject areas or complex issues, while large corporations may assign intelligence analysts to each of several departments such as Research or Product Development. Small independent intelligence services may require personnel to perform all the functions of the intelligence process from needs assessment to production and performance evaluation. In that case, analysts might be assigned to a particular customer account rather than a specific topic area.

Furthermore, managers can take the initiative in transforming intelligence into a proactive service. Managers who are isolated from the intelligence customer tend to monitor the quantity of reports produced and level of polish in intelligence products, but not the utility of the intelligence itself.

But policy officials will seek information and judgment from the source that provides it at the lowest personal cost, including the mass media, no matter how much money the intelligence organization is spending to fund analysis on their behalf. Thus, managers need to learn to ask for and accept opportunity analysis included in intelligence products, not remove it as inappropriate during the review process.

Evaluating the Intelligence Process

Beyond organizing and monitoring intelligence production, an additional management responsibility is to evaluate the intelligence service’s overall mission performance. From the manager’s perspective, intelligence products are not the only output from the intelligence process; therefore, products are not the only focus of rigorous self-evaluation.

In the course of its operations, the intelligence unit expends and generates significant amounts of financial and political capital. Careful examination of this commodity flow may yield key insights into pro- cess improvement. Internal review procedures may thus include measures of how well the intelligence service and its components organize their work, use funds, allocate materiel and human resources, and coordinate with parent and customer organizations, all from the self- interested perspective of the intelligence service itself.

To assist them in this effort, managers may evaluate the sub-processes and interim products of the Needs Definition, Collection, Processing, Analysis, and Production phases of the intelligence process in terms of Brei’s Intelligence Values: Accuracy, Objectivity, Usability, Relevance, Readiness, and Timeliness.

Seeing the members of the intelligence service as customers of management, and of each other, can enable managers to create a work culture in which each person’s needs and talents are respected and incorporated into the organization’s mission.

PART VIII
PORTRAIT OF AN INTELLIGENCE ANALYST

The efficacy of the intelligence process described in the foregoing chapters depends upon personnel who are both able and willing to do the specialized work required. Through the findings of several government studies, this section presents the ideal characteristics of the central figure in value-added production — the intelligence analyst. According to these studies, the successful intelligence analyst brings to the discipline certain requisite knowledges and abilities, or has a high aptitude for acquiring them through specialized training; is able to perform the specific tasks associated with the job; and exhibits personality traits compatible with intelligence analysis work.

Cognitive Attributes

An individual’s analytic skill results from a combination of innate qualities, acquired experience, and relevant education. Psychologists call these mental faculties cognitive attributes, and further divide them into two types: abilities (behavioral traits, being able to perform a task) and knowledges (learned information about a specific subject).

According to a recent formal job analysis of selected intelligence analysts conducted by the NSA Office of Human Resources Services, important cognitive abilities for intelligence analysis include written expression, reading comprehension, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, pattern recognition, oral comprehension, and information ordering.

Unlike the abilities categories, areas of knowledge for government intelligence specialists do not necessarily apply to their private sector counterparts. The formal job study of government intelligence analysts revealed that knowledge of military-related and technical subjects, not surprisingly, was prevalent among the individuals in the research group.

Performance Factors

Seven intelligence analysis performance categories:

Data Collection – Research and gather data from all available sources.

Data Monitoring – Review flow of scheduled incoming data.

Data Organizing – Organize, format, and maintain data for analysis and technical report generation.

Data Analysis – Analyze gathered data to identify patterns, relationships, or anomalies.

Data Interpretation/Communication – Assign meaning to analyzed data and communicate it to appropriate parties.

Computer Utilization – Use computer applications to assist in analysis. Coordination – Coordinate with internal and external organizations.

This concise inventory echoes the intelligence process and illustrates the complexity of the intelligence analyst’s job. It also serves as a blueprint for managers as they design intelligence organizations and individual personnel assignments. In particular, the analyst’s job description should reflect these expected behaviors for purposes of recruitment, selection, placement, training, and performance evaluation

Research at the Joint Military Intelligence College (JMIC) demonstrates that intelligence professionals exhibit a pattern of personality traits that sets them apart from the U.S. population as a whole. In this regard, intelligence professionals are no different from many others, for every profession has its own distinct pattern of personality traits. A significant percentage (21 percent) of those who choose to pursue employment in national security intelligence tend to express the following behavior preferences: orientation to the inner world of ideas rather than the outer world of things and people, tendency to gather factual information through the senses rather than inspiration, proclivity to make decisions on the basis of logic rather than emotion, and an eagerness to seek closure proactively instead of leaving possibilities open. In contrast, researchers found that people who exhibit the opposite set of personality traits are almost non-existent among intelligence professionals.

the most frequently occurring type among the respondents to the JMIC survey exhibit the traits I, S, T and J.

Because people tend to be satisfied and productive in their work if their own personalities match the corresponding behaviors suitable to their jobs, this research tying personality traits to the intelligence profession can help individuals consider their general suitability for certain types of intelligence work.

PART IX DEFENSIVE MEASURES FOR INTELLIGENCE

[A]s information becomes more and more a factor of production, of tangible worth for its own sake, the value of the special knowledge that is the essence of intelligence will command a higher price in the global information age marketplace than will the generally available knowledge. Therein lies the most ancient and, at the same time, the most modern challenge to the future of intelligence — protecting it.

— Goodden, in Dearth and Goodden, 415.

Beyond Intelligence Process: Protecting the Means and the Results

An intelligence organization’s openness about its validated intelligence methods is of course tempered by self-defense considerations.

In light of the tendency to overlook OPSEC and INFOSEC implementation, the remainder of this section develops an instructional overview of the basic information that government and business personnel should know to protect their activities from unauthorized exploitation. Indeed, for the health of U.S. commerce and national security activities, everyone needs user-friendly information on how to protect proprietary information.

Operations Security

OPSEC is essential to the intelligence function in both the national security and business environments. OPSEC denies adversaries information about one’s own operational capabilities and intentions by identifying, controlling, and protecting indicators associated with the planning and conduct of those operations and other related activities.

An adversary is not necessarily a belligerent enemy: In OPSEC terms, an adversary is any entity that acts against one’s own interest or actively opposes one’s own goals.

Countermeasure options to prevent an adversary from exploiting these factors include: eliminating the indicators altogether, concealing indicator activities, disguising indicator activities, and staging deceptive (false) activities.

Information Systems Security

Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) refers to the protection of information that an organization uses and produces in the course of its operations. Today, this means protecting complex electronic networks. Government and business depend upon computerized systems for everything from banking, communications, and data processing to physical security and travel reservations. To the casual observer, INFOSEC may seem the domain of a few technical specialists, or the exclusive concern of the military or intelligence agencies. But INFOSEC is the responsibility of everyone who has ever used a tele- phone, computer, or automatic bank teller machine.

Each intelligence organization and activity must tailor its INFOSEC measures particular technologies and operational practices, weighing the costs of such measures against their value in safeguarding the mission.

INFOSEC for Everyone

The national authorities for INFOSEC described above evolved out of the need to protect the fundamental role of information in a democratic society and market economy. They help strike the balance between free exchange of information and privacy, and between free enterprise and regulation. Government-sponsored information policy and technology set the standards upon which nearly every facet of public and private life is based. Citizens receive basic services through government-created or -regulated information infrastructure, including automatic payroll deposit to employee bank accounts, cellular telephone service, electronic commerce via the Internet, air and rail traffic control, emergency medical services, and electrical power supply.

Such services contribute not only to the citizen’s quality of life, but to the very functioning of the nation. Information is the lifeblood of society and the economy. Imagine the chaos that would reign if the government, the military, banks, businesses, schools, and hospitals could not communicate reliably. Life would come to a halt.

Government expertise in information technology and policy has made it the authority specifically on protecting intelligence operations. The private sector may also benefit from this expertise by applying INFOSEC measures in business intelligence.

EPILOGUE

This primer has reviewed government intelligence production practices in building-block fashion. It has also explored the defensive measures comprising information security and operations security, which are integral to all the building blocks, and are equally applicable to private businesses and government organizations. Finally, the primer has drawn a cognitive, behavioral and personality profile of the central figure in intelligence production — the intelligence analyst. In the spirit of benchmarking, this document invites a reciprocal examination of best practices that may have been developed by private businesses, and of principles that may have been derived from other academic studies of intelligence-related processes.

Although this effort reflects a government initiative, in fact the government Intelligence Community may receive the greater share of rewards from benchmarking its own process. Potential benefits to the Community include an improved public image, increased self-awareness, more efficient recruitment through more informed self-selection by candidates for employment, as well as any resultant acquisition of specialized information from subject matter experts in the business and academic communities.