Bibliography

INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS

“Spooks,” “cloak and dagger cowboys,” “mouthbreathers” and “knuckledraggers” are terms that are often applied to some practitioners of the intelligence arts. Most of us who have lived with these appellations don’t mind much. However, the smart folks, the analysts who are many cuts above and who are typically detached from the grunt work are offended when they are lumped together with the proletariat.

Correspondingly, most national intelligence structures paint a fairly bright-line between operations and analysis (e.g., the leadership designations of DDO [Deputy Director for Operations] and the DDI [Deputy Director for Intelligence] within Central Intelligence Agency). Indeed, many within the DDI are quick to point out that one of the primary purposes of the creation of the CIA in the first place was to prevent a repeat of the disaster at Pearl Harbor where the many, disparate pieces of information could have been aggregated, analyzed and forecast the place and timing of the attack – and not to conduct clandestine/overt intelligence collection and covert actions that have since colored the debate about intelligence in a democracy.

The separation between the two primary functions is quite legitimately and properly made, in that it helps to ensure objectivity in analysis. Arguably, there are advantages to compartmentation as well, yet reasonable people long ago agreed to disagree on this point. There’s a similar separation on the other end as well: rarely is there a linkage or influence on or from the “policy-maker” side when the system works at its optimum level.

Such matters notwithstanding, intelligence analysis really does form the end result of everything else that’s done, and may lay claim to being a higher form of art. No matter how arcane the techniques of collection, no matter the trials and travails of getting the information from those who have it, and into the hands of people who can make sense out of it, the bottom line is that everything comes together in the analytical part of the intelligence cycle. Rarely do the fictional characters of the espionage genre include analysts; indeed, the analyst is more likely to drive a four-door sedan than a Lamborghini (not that operational officers lives are all that more exciting).

In this section, we’ll refer to the lives, times and work of the analytical side – a side that is challenging in its own right, is far lesser known, and frequently neglected. While perhaps more intellectually stimulating than operations, analysis takes on its own special brand of challenges and demands, pressures and pains as it completes the cycle and makes its conclusions known to the policy maker who is the usual consumer, whether in government or in the private sector.

Ultimately, the decision-maker needs to have the information in an actionable format – in time, with the greatest accuracy, objectivity and imagination to make up for the inevitable gaps in collected “secrets.” It’s the analyst who gets it to the decision-maker in the best form possible. Not always right, but certainly the result of the utmost in professional integrity.

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