1.3 Intelligence Analysis Principles

Intelligence is the result of information analysis and an organized process to make sense of situations. Information alone does not drive decision-making or inform leaders of the optimal course of action necessary to achieve strategic goals. An analyst or group of specialized professionals collect, analyze, and evaluate information to produce intelligence which benefits their organization.

Competitive Intelligence

Information, human behavior, and geopolitical forces are in constant flux. The timeliness of intelligence significantly impacts the outcomes of a leader’s decisions. Thus, intelligence is a formal process, a continuous cycle, as information is gathered, accessed, and resulting outcomes are disseminated and used to set new collection requirements. The cycle is a framework for competitive intelligence, conducted in secret to gain a decision advantage over adversaries.

An entity conducts intelligence when competition exists, and power is the leverage to maintain security against an adversary’s threats. The key is to develop and apply intelligence to achieve strategic objectives; converting power to an advantage for the nation or organization. National intelligence supports policymakers and exists to avoid strategic surprise and maintain the secrecy of information, needs, and methods. (Lowenthal, 2015: 2)

First Principles

To Prunckun, secret research is founded on the first principles of intelligence. Competition between adversaries drives decision makers’ priorities and defines the intelligence requirements. The result of intelligence analysis must be that “Intelligence enables the analyst to present solutions or options to decision makers based on defensible conclusions.”

First principles of intelligence research and analysis coexist in the intelligence cycle and production of assessments to meet policymaker requirements:

“The theory’s six propositions state that intelligence research is: 1) conducted in secret, 2) identified within the intelligence cycle process so that data collection and analysis can be problem focused. In this regard, intelligence analysis can be 3) offensive as well as 4) defensive, but 5) it must be timely, and 6) its findings need to be defensible.” (Prunckun, 2015: 31)

Intelligence is typically conducted in secrecy to conceal information, uncover hidden information, and identify other governments' methods of espionage or discovery. Denying an opponent’s access to key information is critical to maintaining secrecy and is as important as exposing that adversary’s hidden information, capabilities, and intentions. (Lowenthal, 2015: 400)

Propositions can also be referred to as conditions in Prunckun's theoretical work.

We're not emphasizing a need for secrecy in all location intelligence activities. An organization (or government) determines the needs for protecting information - and there are significant advantages for transparency and openness.

A formal intelligence process forms a cycle of identifying requirements, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, dissemination, consumption, and feedback. Requirements and priorities focus the effort of an organization or intelligence agencies and, ostensibly, improve the effectiveness of intelligence production.

Lowenthal describes collection as the bedrock of intelligence; influenced by the variety of collection means, intelligence methods, and effective feedback from policymakers. (Lowenthal, 2015: 87) We will review methods of collecting geospatial information and business data in Lessons 3 & 4.