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 4
Intelligence: From Secret To Policy
By Mark Lowenthal
5th 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 requirements
2. Collection
3. Processing and exploitation
4. Analysis and production
5. Dissemination
6. Consumption
7. Feedback

Identifying requirements
Identifying 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 ]

COLLECTION
Each 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 EXPLOITATION
Furthermore, 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.

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.

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

PROCESS
A policy maker asks not to convey the
possibility that the process might not be
completed in one cycle.

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

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

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

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