Intelligence Cycle

After raw unrefined data or information is gathered, it must be converted into intelligence and made available in a form useful to end users such as political and military leaders and policymakers. This process consists of several steps: requirements, planning/direction, collection, processing, production/analysis, and dissemination. This procedure is called the intelligence cycle. This entry discusses the steps of the intelligence cycle, what happens when intelligence fails, and advanced intelligence analysis.

First, requirements are specified information needs that must be known to ensure national security. In the case of the Central Intelligence Agency, the director of national intelligence receives guidance from the president, the national security advisor, and the homeland security advisor. The attorney general and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation also have input regarding the intelligence requirements necessary to counter national security and major criminal threats. The determining of requirements is often done in concert with or as part of the planning and direction step of the process.

Next, the planning and direction step is led by the executive assistant director for the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by senior leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and the director of homeland security. This step is really the beginning and end of the intelligence cycle as management of the entire effort as well as benchmarking of results (and the generation of new requirements) is vested in the direction and guidance of public officials and bodies such as the National Security Council. Specific collection requirements are elucidated, and action plans are prepared.

Collection is the gathering of raw data and information needed to fulfill requirements. Information can be collected overly (openly) or covertly (secretly). Open-source reporting (monitoring of television and radio broadcasts, newspapers, books, political meetings, speeches, and Internet sources) is critical. More covert sources, such as interviews, technical (electronic, camera, satellite, and computer) surveillance, physical surveillance (spying), human source operations (liaisons, defectors, and informants), and searches all contribute to the raw data collection. Electronic surveillance requires numerous specialists to implement the collection methods, operate the equipment, and interpret the results. As an example, satellite photographs may require specialized weapons experts to interpret them properly. Military intelligence is also segregated into human intelligence and signal intelligence, depending on the source.

Processing and exploitation is the fourth step. There exists a spectrum of processing and exploitation methods. The intelligence collector might have processing capacity, or processing can be “downstream,” after the information is passed along to other individuals or agencies. Usually there will be heavy computing requirements and consequent economies of scale in processing. Additionally, there are requirements for intimate technical knowledge, as noted above. Some methods used in converting the vast amount of raw information into a form usable by analysts are decryption, language translation, data reduction, and the entering of raw data into databases to apply algorithms. In the current military environment, the intelligence cycle is expressed through the acronym TPED, which stands for tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination. Not really a process or a system, TPED is a sort of supply chain management for the intelligence community, especially the electronic imagery aspects of intelligence gathering. But TPED does point the way to further incorporation of processing and exploitation into a single coincidental step.

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