An Introduction to Intelligence Research and Analysis

An Introduction to Intelligence Research and Analysis
Author: Jerome Clauser
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2008
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780810861817

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, the intelligence community has been scrutinized. Consequently, the 9/11 Commission recommended how to improve the quality of intelligence analysis. Those recommendations and the United States' involvement in the war in Iraq have spawned additional charges of the politicization of intelligence. In turn, the intelligence community has reconfigured itself with newly created departments supported by an expanded and inexperienced workforce that was not envisioned when intelligence agencies were formally established in 1947.

Intelligence Analysis

Intelligence Analysis
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2011-03-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309210925

The U.S. intelligence community (IC) is a complex human enterprise whose success depends on how well the people in it perform their work. Although often aided by sophisticated technologies, these people ultimately rely on their own intellect to identify, synthesize, and communicate the information on which the nation's security depends. The IC's success depends on having trained, motivated, and thoughtful people working within organizations able to understand, value, and coordinate their capabilities. Intelligence Analysis provides up-to-date scientific guidance for the intelligence community (IC) so that it might improve individual and group judgments, communication between analysts, and analytic processes. The papers in this volume provide the detailed evidentiary base for the National Research Council's report, Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences. The opening chapter focuses on the structure, missions, operations, and characteristics of the IC while the following 12 papers provide in-depth reviews of key topics in three areas: analytic methods, analysts, and organizations. Informed by the IC's unique missions and constraints, each paper documents the latest advancements of the relevant science and is a stand-alone resource for the IC's leadership and workforce. The collection allows readers to focus on one area of interest (analytic methods, analysts, or organizations) or even one particular aspect of a category. As a collection, the volume provides a broad perspective of the issues involved in making difficult decisions, which is at the heart of intelligence analysis.

Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow

Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2011-04-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309163420

The intelligence community (IC) plays an essential role in the national security of the United States. Decision makers rely on IC analyses and predictions to reduce uncertainty and to provide warnings about everything from international diplomatic relations to overseas conflicts. In today's complex and rapidly changing world, it is more important than ever that analytic products be accurate and timely. Recognizing that need, the IC has been actively seeking ways to improve its performance and expand its capabilities. In 2008, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) asked the National Research Council (NRC) to establish a committee to synthesize and assess evidence from the behavioral and social sciences relevant to analytic methods and their potential application for the U.S. intelligence community. In Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences, the NRC offers the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) recommendations to address many of the IC's challenges. Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow asserts that one of the most important things that the IC can learn from the behavioral and social sciences is how to characterize and evaluate its analytic assumptions, methods, technologies, and management practices. Behavioral and social scientific knowledge can help the IC to understand and improve all phases of the analytic cycle: how to recruit, select, train, and motivate analysts; how to master and deploy the most suitable analytic methods; how to organize the day-to-day work of analysts, as individuals and teams; and how to communicate with its customers. The report makes five broad recommendations which offer practical ways to apply the behavioral and social sciences, which will bring the IC substantial immediate and longer-term benefits with modest costs and minimal disruption.

Cases in Intelligence Analysis

Cases in Intelligence Analysis
Author: Sarah Miller Beebe
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2014-04-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1483340147

In their Second Edition of Cases in Intelligence Analysis: Structured Analytic Techniques in Action, accomplished instructors and intelligence practitioners Sarah Miller Beebe and Randolph H. Pherson offer robust, class-tested cases studies of events in foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, terrorism, homeland security, law enforcement, and decision-making support. Designed to give analysts-in-training an opportunity to apply structured analytic techniques and tackle real-life problems, each turnkey case delivers a captivating narrative, discussion questions, recommended readings, and a series of engaging analytic exercises.

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
Author: Richards J Heuer
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2020-03-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1839743050

In this seminal work, published by the C.I.A. itself, produced by Intelligence veteran Richards Heuer discusses three pivotal points. First, human minds are ill-equipped ("poorly wired") to cope effectively with both inherent and induced uncertainty. Second, increased knowledge of our inherent biases tends to be of little assistance to the analyst. And lastly, tools and techniques that apply higher levels of critical thinking can substantially improve analysis on complex problems.

Reducing Uncertainty

Reducing Uncertainty
Author: Thomas Fingar
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2011-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 080477594X

This book describes what Intelligence Community (IC) analysts do, how they do it, and how they are affected by the political context that shapes, uses, and sometimes abuses their output. It is written by a 25-year intelligence professional.

Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis

Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis
Author: Patrick Walsh
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2011-05-31
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1136718567

This book tracks post 9/11 developments in national security and policing intelligence and their relevance to new emerging areas of intelligence practice such as: corrections, biosecurity, private industry and regulatory environments. Developments are explored thematically across three broad sections: applying intelligence understanding structures developing a discipline. Issues explored include: understanding intelligence models; the strategic management challenges of intelligence; intelligence capacity building; and the ethical dimensions of intelligence practice. Using case studies collected from wide-ranging interviews with leaders, managers and intelligence practitioners from a range of practice areas in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and US, the book indentifies examples of good practice across countries and agencies that may be relevant to other settings. Uniquely bringing together significant theoretical and practical developments in a sample of traditional and emerging areas of intelligence, this book provides readers with a more holistic and inter-disciplinary perspective on the evolving intelligence field across several different practice contexts. Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis will be relevant to a broad audience including intelligence practitioners and managers working across all fields of intelligence (national security, policing, private industry and emerging areas) as well as students taking courses in policing and intelligence analysis.

Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis

Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis
Author: David T. Moore
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2010-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1437934927

Contents: (1) How Do People Reason?; (2) What is Critical Thinking?; (3) What Can Be Learned from the Past?: Thinking Critically about Cuba: Deploying the Missiles; Assessing the Implications; Between Dogmatism and Refutation; Lacking: Disconfirmation; The Roles of Critical Thinking in the Cuban Crisis; Winners and Losers: The Crisis in Context; Ten Years Later, They Meet Again; Judgment; (4) How Can Intelligence Analysts Employ Critical Thinking?; (5) How Can Intelligence Analysts be Taught to Think Critically?; (6) How Does Critical Thinking Transform?; (7) What Other Points of View Exist?; (8) What Does the Future Hold?; (9) NSA¿s Critical Thinking and Structured Analysis Class Syllabus. Charts and tables.

Intelligence Analysis

Intelligence Analysis
Author: Wayne Michael Hall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2009-12-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0313382662

This book offers a vast conceptual and theoretical exploration of the ways intelligence analysis must change in order to succeed against today's most dangerous combatants and most complex irregular theatres of conflict. Intelligence Analysis: How to Think in Complex Environments fills a void in the existing literature on contemporary warfare by examining the theoretical and conceptual foundations of effective modern intelligence analysis—the type of analysis needed to support military operations in modern, complex operational environments. This volume is an expert guide for rethinking intelligence analysis and understanding the true nature of the operational environment, adversaries, and most importantly, the populace. Intelligence Analysis proposes substantive improvements in the way the U.S. national security system interprets intelligence, drawing on the groundbreaking work of theorists ranging from Carl von Clauswitz and Sun Tzu to M. Mitchell Waldrop, General David Petraeus, Richards Heuer, Jr., Orson Scott Card, and others. The new ideas presented here will help the nation to amass a formidable, cumulative intelligence power, with distinct advantages over any and all adversaries of the future regardless of the level of war or type of operational environment.

Scientific Methods of Inquiry for Intelligence Analysis

Scientific Methods of Inquiry for Intelligence Analysis
Author: Hank Prunckun
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2014-09-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442224339

Since 9/11, the needs of intelligence agencies as well as the missions they conduct have increased in number, size, and complexity. As such, government and private security agencies are recruiting staff to analyze the vast amount of data collected in these missions. This textbook offers a way of gaining the analytic skills essential to undertake intelligence work. It acquaints students and analysts with how intelligence fits into the larger research framework. It covers not only the essentials of applied research, but also the function, structure, and operational methods specifically involved in intelligence work. It looks at how analysts work with classified information in a security conscious environment as well as obtain data via covert methods. Students are left with little doubt about what intelligence is and how it is developed using scientific methods of inquiry. This revised edition of the popular text has been expanded and updated significantly.