Intelligence analysis

Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context.

The analyst must avoid the special cognitive traps for intelligence analysis projecting what she or he wants the opponent to think, and using available information to justify that conclusion.

Being aware that one's enemies may try to confuse is a relevant factor, especially in the areas of intelligence cycle security and its subdiscipline counterintelligence.

[4][5][6] Without falling into the trap of avoiding decisions by wanting more information, analysts also need to recognize that they always can learn more about the opponent.

"More charitably, he now characterizes his early periods of service at the NSC Staff and in State Department bureaus as ones of "mutual ignorance" "DI analysts did not have the foggiest notion of what I did; and I did not have a clue as to what they could or should do.

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.

When an indicator is approved, policymakers are alerted and a crisis team is often convened, with the mission of providing time-sensitive intelligence on the situation to all relevant customers.

Even in professional sports, where there are strict anti-fraternization rules on the playing field, players often have deep friendships with counterparts on opposing teams.

Collection processes provide analysts with assorted kinds of information, some important and some irrelevant, some true and some false (with many shades in between), and some requiring further preprocessing before they can be used in analysis.

With due regard for protecting documents and information, a great deal can be done with pieces of paper, a whiteboard, a table, and perhaps a corkboard.

Unquestionably, when quantitative methods such as modeling and simulation are appropriate, the analyst will want computer assistance, and possibly consultation from experts in methodology.

Increasingly deep analysis can explain the internal dynamics of the matter being studied, and eventually to prediction, known as estimation.

[5] An analyst might notice that when Country X's command post with call sign ABC sent out a message on frequency 1 between Thursday and Saturday, an air unit will move to a training range within one week.

Another kind of causality could come from interviews, in which soldiers might describe the things that warn them of an impending attack, or how the ground might look when an improvised explosive device has been emplaced.

While induction, for human beings, is usually not at a fully rational level, do not discount the potential role of software that uses statistical or logical techniques for finding patterns.

Even when the intelligence subject at hand is a technical one, analysts must remain aware that the other side may be presenting deliberately deceptive information.

Furthermore, intelligence analysts cannot usually experiment directly upon the subject matter as in science, but must generate fictional scenarios and rigorously test them through methods of analysis suggested below.

Structured analytic techniques are used to help challenge judgments, identify mental mindsets, overcome biases, stimulate creativity, and manage uncertainty.

By starting from knowns (and impossibilities), the analyst has a powerful technique for showing consumers, peers, and managers that a problem has both been thoroughly studied and constrained to reality.

[22] Linchpin analysis was introduced to CIA by deputy director for Intelligence (1993–1996) Doug MacEachin, as one of the "muscular" terms he pressed as an alternative to academic language, which was unpopular with many analysts.

[3] Some of his key conclusions, coming from both experience and an academic background in philosophy, include: In 1980, he wrote an article, "Perception: Why Can't We See What Is There to be Seen?"

[16] Analogy is common in technical analysis, but engineering characteristics seeming alike do not necessarily mean that the other side has the same employment doctrine for an otherwise similar thing.

Sometimes, the analogy was valid for a time, such as the MiG-25 aircraft being designed as a Soviet counter to the perceived threat of the high-altitude, supersonic B-70 bomber.

HUMINT revealed that a single Mach 3.2 flight of the MiG wrecked the engines beyond hope of repair, and the cost of replacement was prohibitive.

For the U.S. doctrine, the aircraft was too inflexible for American fighter tactics, but made sense for the Soviets as an interceptor that could make one pass at a penetrating bomber, using an extremely powerful radar to burn through jamming for final targeting.

Often, these hypotheses are shaped not merely by the cognitive biases of individual analysts, but by complex social mechanism both inside and outside that analytic unit.

Therefore, careful analysts should recognize the key role that their own and their organization's identity and culture play in accepting or rejecting hypotheses at each step in their analysis.

Many organizations also generate video intelligence products, especially in the form of live daily "newscasts", or canned documentary presentations.

There may be times that while the ultimate consumer and originating analyst simply want to pass information, a manager in either chain of command may insist on a polished format.

The question needs to be asked "did the original analyst contact a technical specialist in separation centrifuges, perhaps at Department of Energy intelligence?"