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THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS—A MACRO LOOK: WHO DOES WHAT
FOR WHOM?
Chapter 4Intelligence: From Secret To Policy
By Mark Lowenthal5th edition
* what is meant by a "macro look" at the intel process?
* what does the overall process entail?
* know each step, including strengths and weaknesses/problems with each
* know how the steps interrelate and affect one another
THE TERM
Intelligence process refers to the steps or stages in intelligence, from policy makers perceiving a need for information to the
community’s delivery of an analytical intelligence product to them.
The seven phases of the intelligence process are:
1. Identifying requirements2. Collection 3. Processing and exploitation4. Analysis and production5. Dissemination6. Consumption 7. Feedback
Identifying requirementsIdentifying requirements means defining those
policy issues or areas to which intelligence is Expected to make a contribution, as well as
decisions about which of these issues has priority over the others.
Some requirements will be better met by specific types of collection; some may require the Use of
several types of collection.
Collection
In the United States, constant tension exists over the allocation of resources to
collection and to processing and exploitation, with collection inevitably
coming out the winner; the result is that Much more intelligence is collected than
can be processed or exploited.
Identifying requirements, conducting collection, and processing and
exploitation are meaningless unless the intelligence is given to analysts who are experts in their respective fields and can
turn the Intelligence into reports that respond to the needs of the policy
makers.
Collection
The types of products chosen, the quality of the analysis and production, and the continuous tension between
current intelligence Products and longer range products are major issues.
Collection
Collection
Most discussions of the intelligence process end here, with the intelligence having reached the Policy makers whose requirements first set everything in motion. However, two important phases Remain:
1.Consumption 2.Feedback
Collection
Although feedback does not occur nearly as often as the intelligence
community might desire, a Dialogue between intelligence consumers and producers should take place after the
intelligence has been received.
REQUIREMENTS Each nation has a wide
variety of national security and foreign policy interests. Some nations have more
than others.
REQUIREMENTS
Of these interests, the priority of some is self-evident— those that deal with large and known
threats, those that deal with neighboring or proximate states, and those that are more
severe. But the international arena is dynamic and fluid
REQUIREMENTS
For example, the Soviet Union was the overwhelming top priority of U.S. intelligence from 1946 to
1991, after which the country as we knew it ceased to exist.
REQUIREMENTS
And now terrorism has become a concern of U.S. national security policy since the 1970s, but the
nature of the terrorism issue changed dramatically in 2001. So, even for issues that have long been on
the national security agenda, there are shifts in priorities and in the intrinsic importance of the
issues.
REQUIREMENTS
Intelligence priorities should reflect policy priorities. Policy makers should have well-
considered and well-established views of their own priorities and convey these clearly to their
intelligence apparatus.
REQUIREMENTS
Senior policy makers often assume that their needs are known by their intelligence providers. After all,
the key issues are apparent. An obvious way to fill the requirements gap left by
policy makers would be for the intelligence community to assume this task on its own.
REQUIREMENTS
The intelligence community thus faces two unpalatable choices. The first is to fill the
requirements vacuum, running the risk of being wrong or accused of having overstepped into the
realm of policy.
REQUIREMENTS
The second is to overlook the absence of defined requirements and to continue collection and the
phases that follow, based on the last-known priorities and the intelligence community’s own sense of priorities, fully realizing that it may be
accused of making the wrong choices.
REQUIREMENTS
In the United States, parts of the community may reflect the preferences of the policy makers to
whom they are most closely tied. In some cases, there may be no final adjudicating authority,
leaving the intelligence community to do the best that it can.
REQUIREMENTS In the U. S. system, the National Security Council
(NSC) sets the policy and intelligence priorities. The director of national intelligence (DNI) should be the final adjudicator within the intelligence community,
but the director’s ability to impose priorities on a day-to-day basis across the entire intelligence
community remains uncertain. All issues tend to get shorter shrift when too many are competing for
attention.
REQUIREMENTS
One intellectual means of assessing requirements is to look at the likelihood of an event and its relative
importance to national security concerns. Of great concern will be the high likelihood and high-importance
of events. It should be easier to assess importance (which should be based on known or stated national interests)
than it is to assess likelihood (which is itself an intelligence judgment or estimate). (Likelihood, however,
is not a prediction.
In both Panel A and Panel B of Figure 4-1, the issues that fall closer to the upper right reflect more important intelligence requirements. However, there may not be startling
clarity as to likelihood or there may be a debate as to issues’ relative importance.
[ Insert IMAGE ]
COLLECTIONEach nation has a wide
variety of national security and foreign policy interests. Some nations have more
than others.
This admittedly imperfect process can be portrayed as in Figure 4-3. This diagram, although better than the CIA’s, remains somewhat one-dimensional. A still better portrayal would capture the more than
occasional need to go back to an earlier part of the process to meet unfulfilled or changing requirements, collection needs, and so on.
COLLECTION
Collection is also the first—and perhaps the most important—facet of intelligence where budgets and
resources come into play in precise terms (as opposed to broader discussions when priorities are at issue).
Collection analysts must wade through the material—to process and exploit it—to find the intelligence that is
really needed.
COLLECTION
Technical collection is extremely expensive and, because different types of systems offer different benefits and
capabilities, the administration and Congress must make difficult budget choices.
How much information should be collected? Or, put another way, does more collection mean better intelligence? The answer to these questions is
ambiguous.
COLLECTION
In other words, increased collection also increases the task of finding the truly important intelligence.
For example, concerns over possible threats from cyber-attacks likely derive little useful intelligence from imagery as the locus of the threat cannot be captured in a photo.
COLLECTION
For example, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) may put greater store in clandestine human intelligence (espionage), in part because it is a product of CIA
activities.
Intelligence community, is that different analytical groups may prefer different types of intelligence.
COLLECTION
On the one hand, the more information that is collected, the more likely it will include the required intelligence.
Much better intelligence might be derived from signals intelligence, which can reveal capabilities or intentions.
COLLECTION
The requirements depend on the nature of the issue and on the types of collection that are available.
Not every issue requires the same types of collection support.
COLLECTION derives directly from requirements.
On the other hand, not everything that is collected is of equal value.
COLLECTION
Also, the needs of agencies vary, further complicating the choices.
This is often referred to as the wheat versus chaff problem.
An interesting phenomenon, found at least in the U. S.
Meanwhile, other all-source analysts may place greater emphasis on signals intelligence.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATIONFurthermore, technical collection
systems have found greater favor in the executive branch and Congress
than the systems and personnel requirements for processing and
exploitation.
Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (1985–
1993) and later the secretary of defense (1993–1994)
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
Once observed that both Congress and the executive branch were more
interested in procurement (buying new weapons) than operations and
maintenance (keeping already purchased systems functioning).
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION Intelligence collected by technical means
(imagery, signals, test data, and so on) does not arrive in ready-to-use form.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
Collection also has support from the companies (prime contractors and
their numerous subcontractors) who build the technical collection systems and who lobby for follow-
on systems.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
Collection is akin to procurement and is much more appealing than
processing and exploitation.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
Processing and exploitation are key steps in converting technically
collected information into intelligence.
In the United States, collection far outruns processing and exploitation.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
Processing and exploitation are in-house intelligence community activities.
Collection advocates argue, usually successfully, that collection is the bedrock of
intelligence, that without it the entire enterprise has little meaning.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
Buying new systems was more attractive to decision makers in both branches and, more important, to defense contractors.
It must be processed from complex digital signals into images or intercepts,
and these must then be
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
A similar circumstance, for example, exists in formation of the defense budget.
Operations and maintenance, although important, are less exciting and less
glamorous. One reason for this appeal is emotional.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
exploited—analyzed if they are images; perhaps decoded, and probably translated,
if they are signals.
Much more intelligence is collected than can ever be processed and exploited.
PROCESSING AND EXPLOITATION
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION The congressional committees that
oversee intelligence have increasingly expressed concern about this imbalance, urging the intelligence community to put
more money into processing and exploitation.
The large and still growing disparity between collection and processing and exploitation
results in a great amount of collected material never being used.
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
TPEDs refers to tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination.
Advocates of processing and exploitation therefore argue that the image or signal that
is not processed and not exploited is identical to the one that is not collected—it
has no effect at all.
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
Of the four parts of TPEDs, tasking and dissemination are the least problematic for the intelligence community or for Congress. No proper ratio exists between collection
and processing and exploitation. The processing and exploitation (P&E) gap is
of highest concern to Congress.
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
downstream activities (the steps that follow collection) are also dependent on
technology, the technology is not in the same league, in terms of contractor profit,
as collection systems.
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
DISSEMINATION AND CONSUMPTION
• Among the large mass of material being collected and analyzed each day, what is important enough to report?
• How much detail should be reported to the various intelligence consumers?
To which policy makers should it be reported—the most senior or lower
ranking ones? To many or just a few?
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
How quickly should it be reported? Is it urgent enough to require immediate delivery, or can it wait for one of the
reports that senior policy makers receive the next morning?
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
How long should the report be?
What is the best vehicle for reporting it—one of the items in the product line, a
memo, a briefing?
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
Are different vehicles needed for different policy makers, based on their preferences for consuming intelligence,
their own depth on the issue, and so on?
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
The intelligence community customarily makes these decisions taking into
account a number of factors and making the occasional trade-offs between
conflicting goals.
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
World Wide intelligence review The Worldwide Intelligence Review
(WIRe) is an electronically disseminated analytical product, the successor to the CIA’s Senior Executive Intelligence Brief
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
The National Intelligence Daily, both of which were viewed as early morning
intelligence “newspapers.” WIRe articles vary in length and detail and include
links and graphics that allow readers to drill down for more information.
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
Ideally, the community employs a layered approach, using a variety of
intelligence products to convey the same intelligence (in different formats and degrees of detail) to a broad array of
policy makers.
ANALYSIS AND PRODUCTION
FEEDBACK
The NIPF does include an evaluation function in which the various aspects of the process—collection, analysis, and the utility
of different intelligence products—are assessed, including input from cabinet-level
policy makers.
FEEDBACK
Ideally, the policy makers should give continual feedback to their intelligence
producers—detailing what has been useful, what has not, which areas need continuing
or increased emphasis, which can be reduced, and so on.
FEEDBACK
Communications between the policy community and the intelligence community
are at best imperfect throughout the intelligence process.
The failure to provide feedback is analogous to the policy makers’ inability or refusal to
help define requirements.
FEEDBACK
In reality, however, the community receives feedback less often than it desires, and it certainly does not receive feedback in any
systematic manner, for several reasons.
THINKING ABOUT THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS
Initial collection may prove unsatisfactory and may lead policy makers to change the
requirements; processing and exploitation or analysis may reveal gaps, resulting in new
collection requirements; Consumers may change their needs or ask for more intelligence.
THINKING ABOUT THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS
Given the importance of the intelligence process as both a concept and an organizing principle, it is worth thinking about how the
process works and how best to conceptualize it.
THINKING ABOUT THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS
A more realistic diagram would show that at any stage in the process it is possible— and
sometimes necessary—to go back to an earlier step
THINKING ABOUT THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS
A policy maker asks not to convey the possibility that the process might not be
completed in one cycle.
This admittedly imperfect process can be portrayed as in Figure 4-3. This diagram, although better than the CIA’s, remains
somewhat one-dimensional. A still better portrayal would capture the more than occasional need to go back to an earlier part of the process to meet unfulfilled or changing requirements, collection
needs, and so on.
Figure 4-4 shows how in any one intelligence process issues likely arise (the need for more collection, uncertainties in processing, results of analysis, changing
requirements) that cause a second or even third intelligence process to take place. Ultimately, one could repeat the process lines over and over to portray continuing changes in any of the various parts of the process and the fact that policy issues
are rarely resolved in a single neat cycle. This diagram is a bit more complex, and it gives a much better sense of how the intelligence process operates in reality, being
linear, circular, and open-ended all at the same time.
Ad hocs Analysis and production Collection Consumption dissemination Downstream activities Feedback Footnote wars Priority creep Processing and exploitation Requirements Tyranny of the ad hocs
KEY TERMS