Thoughts on Analysis: Applied Intelligence – the vital final step

“Applied intelligence exploits relevant basic and current intelligence to meet the specific requirements of and to provide direct support to the decision-making process”

This is in contrast to:

Basic intelligence – reference material for planning and provides the background to a potential adversary and the operational environment. It embraces issues such as the organisation, doctrine, equipment, capabilities and performance, personalities, infrastructure, socio-political matters and the operational environment.

and

Current intelligence, which seeks to identify or clarify the current situation by exploiting all known intelligence. By its nature, basic intelligence is used as the context for current intelligence, which in turn then becomes part of the basic intelligence picture.

To put this simply, we have the intelligence picture as at yesterday (basic intelligence), the picture as at today (current intelligence) and the predicted intelligence picture of tomorrow (applied intelligence).

How often do we see intelligence analysts focus all of their effort on basic and current intelligence and so will only ever be telling their managers about events that have already happened? Indeed, some analysts actually believe that is the job they are employed to do. Of course, this is not always the fault of the analyst as some industries are backward looking by their nature (for example, the police and the law firms) and employ what should be termed ‘research analysts, as the focus is almost exclusively on incidents in the past.

That is by no means a slight at basic and current intelligence; they are absolutely vital to the intelligence process, but do not fulfil their full potential until taken forward into applied intelligence.

Now there’s a whole load of risk involved in applied intelligence and this is where, I believe, intelligence analysts really earn their money. Almost certainly we will not have a complete basic and current intelligence picture, so the quality of the applied intelligence will depend on the analyst applying their experience and knowledge in an unbiased way and being able to quantify realistically the certainty of the assessment. A tough ask – no doubt.

This is where the truly talented analyst stands out, as there is a need to be bold at this stage. I have a saying “if your assessment is never wrong, then it is also never right”. Having written your applied intelligence assessment, make sure you have not just listed all of the possible options open to your adversary. If you’re not being paid to make those sort of decisions then the chances are you’re not an intelligence analyst, or if you are being paid to make those sort of decisions then occasionally you will be wrong – it’s an occupational hazard.

A final footnote to argue the case for applied intelligence…………..

Most situations demanding an intelligence input are complex by definition and a key challenge for the intelligence analyst is to manage this complicated process in a logical and thorough manner. A vital aid in this process is to divide the task into basic, current and applied intelligence and to approach the problem in that order, which means the analyst will first gain an understanding of his adversary and the operating environment, then will have an appreciation of the current situation and will finally apply that knowledge to predict future courses of action. Not only is this process helpful to the analyst, it is also the only rational way to approach a problem. How can one predict the future if you don’t understand what is happening today, and how can you accurately assess what is happening today unless you understand what was happening yesterday.

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