Chapter 4 the intelligence process a macro look who does what for whom

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 Intelligence collected by technical means

(imagery, signals, test data, and so on) does not arrive in ready-to-use form.


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.


Collection is akin to procurement and is much more appealing than

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 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.


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


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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?


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?


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?


Are different vehicles needed for different policy makers, based on their preferences for consuming intelligence,

their own depth on the issue, and so on?


The intelligence community customarily makes these decisions taking into

account a number of factors and making the occasional trade-offs between

conflicting goals.


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


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.


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.


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.


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.


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


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

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Chapter 4 the intelligence process a macro look who does what for whom