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:
“Having intelligence is not as important as knowing when to use it, just as having a hoe is not as important as knowing when to plant.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)