Intelligence cycle management refers to the overall activity of guiding the intelligence cycle, which is a set of processes used to provide decision-useful information (intelligence) to leaders. The cycle consists of several processes, including planning and direction (the focus of this article), collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, and dissemination and integration. The related field of counterintelligence is tasked with impeding the intelligence efforts of others. Intelligence organizations are not infallible (intelligence reports are often referred to as "estimates," and often include measures of confidence and reliability) but, when properly managed and tasked, can be among the most valuable tools of management and government.
The principles of intelligence have been discussed and developed from the earliest writers on warfare to the most recent writers on technology. Despite the most powerful computers, the human mind remains at the core of intelligence, discerning patterns and extracting meaning from a flood of correct, incorrect, and sometimes deliberately misleading information (also known as disinformation).
Overview
Intelligence defined
One study of analytic culture established the following "consensus" definitions:
Intelligence is secret state or group activity to understand or influence foreign or domestic entities.
Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context.
Intelligence errors are factual inaccuracies in analysis resulting from poor or missing data. Intelligence failure is systemic organizational surprise resulting from incorrect, missing, discarded, or inadequate hypotheses.
Management of the intelligence cycle
One basic model of the intelligence process is called the "intelligence cycle". This model can be applied and, like all basic models, it does not reflect the fullness of real-world operations. Intelligence is processed information. The activities of the intelligence cycle obtain and assemble information, convert it into intelligence and make it available to its users. The intelligence cycle comprises five phases:
Planning and Direction: Deciding what is to be monitored and analyzed. In intelligence usage, the determination of intelligence requirements, development of appropriate intelligence architecture, preparation of a collection plan, issuance of orders and requests to information collection agencies. Collection: Obtaining raw information using a variety of collection disciplines such as human intelligence (HUMINT), geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and others. Processing: Refining and analyzing the information Analysis and production: The data that has been processed is translated into a finished intelligence product, which includes integrating, collating, evaluating, and analyzing all the data. Dissemination: Providing the results of processing to consumers (including those in the intelligence community), including the use of intelligence information in net assessment and strategic gaming. A distinct intelligence officer is often entrusted with managing each level of the process.
In some organisations, such as the UK military, these phases are reduced to four, with the "analysis and production" being incorporated into the "processing" phase. These phases describe the minimum process of intelligence, but several other activities also come into play. The output of the intelligence cycle, if accepted, drives operations, which, in turn, produces new material to enter another iteration of the intelligence cycle. Consumers give the intelligence organization broad directions, and the highest level sets budgets.
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) describes an activity that synchronizes and integrates the planning and operation of sensors, assets, and processing, exploitation, and dissemination systems in direct support of current and future operations. This is an integrated intelligence and operations function.
Sensors (people or systems) collect data from the operational environment during the collection phase, which is then converted into information during the processing and exploitation phase. During the analysis and production phase, the information is converted into intelligence.
Planning and direction overview The planning and direction phase of the intelligence cycle includes four major steps: Identification and prioritization of intelligence requirements; Development of appropriate intelligence architecture; Preparation of a collection plan; and Issuance of orders and requests to information collection agencies.
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff described planning & direction in 2013 as: "...the development of intelligence plans and the continuous management of their execution. Planning and direction activities include, but are not limited to: the identification and prioritization of intelligence requirements; the development of concepts of intelligence operations and architectures required to support the commander’s mission; tasking subordinate intelligence elements for the collection of information or the production of finished intelligence; submitting requests for additional capabilities to higher headquarters; and submitting requests for collection, exploitation, or all-source production support to external, supporting intelligence entities."
Requirements Leaders with specific objectives communicate their requirements for intelligence inputs to applicable agencies or contacts. An intelligence "consumer" might be an infantry officer who needs to know what is on the other side of the next hill, a head of government who wants to know the probability that a foreign leader will go to war over a certain point, a corporate executive who wants to know what his or her competitors are planning, or any person or organization (for example, a person who wants to know if his or her spouse is faithful).
National/strategic "Establishing the intelligence requirements of the policy-makers ... is management of the entire intelligence cycle, from identifying the need for data to delivering an intelligence product to a consumer," according to a 2007 report by the U.S. Intelligence Board. "It is the beginning and the end of the cycle—the beginning because it involves drawing up specific collection requirements and the end because finished intelligence, which supports policy decisions, generates new requirements."
"The whole process depends on guidance from public officials. Policy-makers—the president, his aides, the National Security Council, and other major departments and agencies of government—initiate requests for intelligence. Issue coordinators interact with these public officials to establish their core concerns and related information requirements. These needs are then used to guide collection strategies and the production of appropriate intelligence products".
Military/operational Intelligence requirements are determined by the commander to support his operational needs. The commander's requirement, sometimes called "essential elements of intelligence" (EEIs), initiates the intelligence cycle. Operational and tactical intelligence always should help the commander select an action.
Each intelligence source has different characteristics that can be used, but which may also be limiting. Imagery intelligence (IMINT), for instance, may depend on weather, satellite orbits or the ability of aircraft to elude ground defenses, and time for analysis. Other sources may take considerable time to collect the necessary information. Measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) depends on having built a library of signatures of normal sensor readings, in order that deviations will stand out.
In rare cases, intelligence is taken from such extremely sensitive sources that it cannot be used without exposing the methods or persons providing such intelligence. One of the strengths of the British penetration of the German Enigma cryptosystem was that no information learned from it was ever used for operations, unless there was a plausible cover story that the Germans believed was the reason for Allied victories. If, for example, the movement of a ship was learned through Enigma COMINT, a reconnaissance aircraft was sent into the same area, and allowed to be seen by the Axis, so they thought the resulting sinking was due to IMINT.
Intelligence architecture The intelligence cycle is only a model. Budgetary and policy direction are hierarchically above it. In reality, it is not a cycle, but a series of parallel activities. According to Arthur S. Hulnick, author of What's Wrong with the Intelligence Cycle, "Collection and analysis, which are supposed to work in tandem, in fact work more properly in parallel. Finally, the idea that decision-makers wait for the delivery of intelligence before making policy decisions is equally incorrect. In the modern era, policy officials seem to want intelligence to support policy rather than to inform it. The Intelligence Cycle also fails to consider either counterintelligence or covert action." The OODA loop developed by military strategist John Boyd, discussed in the context of the Intelligence Cycle, may come somewhat closer, as OODA is action-oriented and spiraling, rather than a continuing circle.
Budgeting The architectural design must then be funded. While each nation has its own budgeting process, the major divisions of the US process are representative: National intelligence, often excluding specifically national-level military intelligence, National-level military intelligence, Military tactical intelligence, Transnational intelligence, often involving law enforcement, for terrorism and organized crime, and Internal counterintelligence and antiterrorism.
Depending on the nation, at some level of detail, budgetary information will be classified, as changes in budget indicate changes in priorities. After considerable debate, the U.S. now publishes total budgets for the combination of its intelligence agencies. Depending on the sensitivity of a line item, it may be identified simply as "classified activity,"not broken out, but briefed to full oversight committees, or only revealed to a small number of officials.
"It should be possible to empower a committee composed of mid-level officials (or aides to senior officials) from the intelligence and policy-making communities to convene regularly to determine and revise priorities. The key is to try to get policymakers to provide guidance for both collection and analysis, to communicate not just what they want but also what they do not."
The CFR proposed a "market constraint" on consumers, in which they could only get a certain amount of intelligence from the intelligence community, before they had to provide additional funding. A different constraint would be that an agency, to get information on a new topic, must agree to stop or reduce coverage on something currently being monitored for it. Even with this consumer-oriented model, the intelligence community itself needs to have a certain amount of resources that it can direct itself, for building basic intelligence and identifying unusual threats.
"It is important that intelligence officers involved in articulating requirements represent both analysts and collectors, including those from the clandestine side. In addition, collection should be affected by the needs of policymakers and operators. All of this argues strongly against any organizational reforms that would isolate the collection agencies further or increase their autonomy."