Intelligence analysis is the process of taking known information about situations and entities of strategic, operational, or tactical importance, characterizing the known, and, with appropriate statements of probability, the future actions in those situations and by those entities. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of deliberately deceptive information; the analyst must correlate the similarities among deceptions and extract a common truth. Although its practice is found in its purest form inside intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States or the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, MI6) in the UK, its methods are also applicable in fields such as business intelligence or competitive intelligence.
Read more about Intelligence Analysis: Overview, Analytic Tradecraft, The Nature of Analysis, The Analytic Process, Never Forget The End User, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words intelligence and/or analysis:
“It’s easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.”
—John le Carré (b. 1931)
“A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)