Talk:Intelligence assessment

Intelligence assessment
I'd thought I'd run this by here first.

I'm thinking about doing a radical update on this page. Possibly as a catch-all area for the subject of intelligence with a more concrete framework in the article. The definition on the article is kind of narrow and the different areas relating to this article are pretty sub-par.

Firstly, I'd write about how information gathering is a notable dimension of strategy, statecraft and war. Then I'd write about how intelligence is inherently intertwined with deception and surprise.

Secondly, I'd write about the main tasks of intelligence: collection, analysis, counter-intelligence and covert action.

With collection I'd write about the main collection areas - HUMINT, OSINT, IMINT, SIGINT etc. and possibly tie them into other wiki-articles and possibly update these articles because they are lacking.

A generic Intelligence analysis area for the differing collection areas hasn't been written up yet so I'd add that. The only article for analysis is the SIGINT collection analysis area of cryptanalysis, so I'd link to that.

The current counter-intelligence article needs fleshing out and could be coalesced with this main article.

With the covert action I'd write about the various methods of concealed influence and paramilitary actions.

I'd also thought I'd add some material about information gathering in general. I'd concentrate on the three main areas of information gathering those being:

1. flows of data such as news or statistics 2. information used for advantage in competitive situations and; 3. strategic information - knowledge of the enemy's game plan.

So what do you guys think? Are there any objections to myself fleshing out the articles and/or adding a more concrete framework to this area of knowledge? Thanks. --The Donbreakyourarmi 16:33, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I dont know who is writing this page, but intelligence is not inherently intertwined with deception and suprise. It is however intertwined with a country's foreign affair policies and international politics in general. nwilliams111 18Jan06

I agree in general that this page could be a lot more informative and indeed accurate. Firstly, the title should be altered as 'intelligence gathering' is, as mentioned above, only one aspect of what is known as the 'intelligence process'. As part of the page's expansion I wonder if it could include a short piece on the academic discipline of 'intelligence studies', which would tie in nicely with the bibliography of academic works already present. Although still a relatively small discipline, it has a lot to offer discussions in both the public sphere and policy-making sphere as to effective intelligence conduct, and there is a recent development of literature asking in what ways it is possible or wise to act in accordance with ethical principles when gathering and using intelligence material. Intelligence studies also compliments the study of history (most people who study it are in fact historians and intelligence studies has been described as a 'branch of history') and is deemed by many to be a 'missing dimension' when periods of history are studied with the role of intelligence left out. It is true that intelligence is crucial during war time, but it is also a major function of states during peacetime, and as such I think this should be acknowledged. Intelligence/strategic deception is a fascinating subject and I would be very pleased to see it have its own page featuring some of the great successful deception plots from military history, such as Operation Fortitude South and Operation Mincemeat, without which WWII could have taken a very different course. Finally, the way I see it intelligence gathering is most easily divided into information taken from open sources (such as newspapers and other publicly available sources) and covert intelligence gathering (espionage and other methods that intrude on privacy and can involve some deception) as the two raise very different questions of ethics, privacy and national sovereignty.

06/02/06


 * I think this article should be kept a a level that covers governments and organizations in general and not make extensive use of U.S. terminology (xxxINT, etc.). Perhaps there should be a general article on strategic deception. Operation Fortitude and Operation Mincemeat both have articles, which could be linked. I'm not sure the open/covert distinction is so clear. Is satellite imagery open or covert? What about data mining commercial transaction records? Extensive use of video cameras in public areas a la UK? License plate number readers? --agr 15:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Within 'intelligence' operations, e.g. military or state, Intelligence Assessment has a rather more narrow part to play and sits outside direction, collection and dissemination (see intelligence cycle) and is part of processing. Information, however sourced or gathered, is put into context e.g. through link, temporal and/or spatial analysis in order to give 'understanding' of what is going on, i.e. insight. A degree of judgement is then added to this comprehension to provide some foresight, i.e. an Intelligence Assessment to inform an organisation which can then decide to act or inform as appropriate. Action is not part of Intelligence Assessment, it is an optional result from it. Deception could be retained in the article as this acts to provide an adversary with an incorrect assessment as per the examples cited above, e.g. Op Mincemeat. As far as xxxINT terminology is concerned this is not exclusive to the US and is used across NATO and those countries with links to NATO. As for imagery, data mining, etc this is all Intelligence Collection and should be treated separately from Assessment. If a rewrite is planned then I am happy to help and can contribute with reference. User GregoryJHolmes 22 August 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by GregoryJHolmes (talk • contribs) 02:45, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Intelligence vs Espionage
I would suggest that "intelligence" can refer to "intelligence officers" or "intelligence agencies", as well as "collection" or "product". I was surprised to visit Category:Intelligence and find it dealing only with IQ matters and the brain. Everything about intelligence operations, organizations, etc, seemed to be under Category:Espionage. I was then surprised to see ELINT as a subcategory of espionage. I have long been under the impression that espionage deals with spies and spying, including those recruited and those who recruit. I think it is a useful description. Counter-espionage is typically an internal (domestic) affair and tends to deal specifically with ferreting out spies for another country from within domestic government agencies and government contract firms handling classified materials. Intelligence personnel handling communications inside an embassy aren't committing espionage. They aren't necessarily handling an espionage operation, but that could be one of their functions. You might say they have an intelligence function, or that they work in intelligence operations, or that they are simply labeled as intelligence. Couldn't you say, "See that guy over there in the black coat? He's intelligence."? Any thoughts? Pat 07:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Not actually intelligence agency
well 1 I think that non of these have any intelligence but seriously there are some mentioned that i don't think are actually intelligence agencies; Department of the Treasury,Coast Guard, Department of Energy, BAnanasdoom (talk) 05:05, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge? New series of intelligence articles
As suggested in "intelligence vs. espionage", "intelligence" may need a disambiguation page. A new hierarchy of articles, starting with Intelligence cycle management, has an extensive discussion of managing the intelligence process, collection techniques from HUMINT to MASINT, and intelligence dissemination. This set of article also contains a branch starting with Intelligence cycle security, with a subordinate article on Counterintelligence. Both counterintelligence and Clandestine HUMINT point to further subordinate articles on Clandestine HUMINT operational techniques. The main HUMINT article also has an article on Special reconnaissance below it.

Could we discuss where this article's material belongs, given the ambiguity and the new articles? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move, but a more general article on intelligence is desirable. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Intelligence assessment → Intelligence (information gathering) — This article appears to be about "Intelligence", in the sense used in espionage etc (ie not the sense used in the article Intelligence, which is about biological intelligence). Because there is another article at that title, this one needs to be disambiguated. Before August 2010 it was Active intelligence and then briefly Intelligence (information gathering). The title Intelligence assessment seems to have been created so that it fits into a hierarchy of articles shown in the template, but from the wider encyclopedic viewpoint I suggest that the article title should reflect the content better: it's about "Intelligence" in a particular sense. There are 500+ incoming links to "Intelligence (information gathering)", all currently being redirected to this article. The dab page at Intelligence (disambiguation) currently leads to this page via a redirect, because a link to "Intelligence assessment" could be called a "partial match" and justifiably removed from that disambiguation page, which would be unhelpful. (To clarify: if this page is not called "Intelligence", with or without a disambiguator, it should not appear on the disambiguation page Intelligence (disambiguation). I think from the content that this page should be accessible from that dab page.)

''I previously suggested moving it to Intelligence (information) before discovering how many existing links there are to "..(information gathering)". I have struck out that previous suggestion. ''

--PamD (talk) 12:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Intelligence and information are different things, inasmuch as information contributes to intelligence and intelligence directs the collection of information.
 * The "active intelligence" period didn't actually make sense as it's not a term used in the profession. Equally "information gathering" isn't correct either as the assessment process is assessment and not collection.
 * ALR (talk) 12:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * So what do you think the article should be called? From its wording it does seem to be about "Intelligence", rather than "Intelligence assessment".PamD (talk) 12:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I note that the first occurrence of the word "Assessment" is in one of the references! And the opening sentence is the classic WP style for an article whose title is "Intelligence (something)". PamD (talk) 12:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Personally I think Intelligence Assessment is the appropriate title, but if one wishes to change it then intelligence analysis would work as well.
 * The content is pretty opaque, and it needs a pretty thorough rewrite. The initial author was pretty prolific and the whole suite of articles need a pretty rigorous re-write to make them easier to understand and read less like guidance.
 * ALR (talk) 13:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Something that could be done is a redirect to the Military intelligence article, although that's not entirely appropriate either a Military activities are only part of the whole national intelligence piece.
 * ALR (talk) 13:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Support given that the article rarely uses the word "assessment". –CWenger (talk) 03:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: User:ALR has now edited the article to make it match its title better. But that leaves open the question: "Where is the article on "Intelligence" in this sense, to which we can make a reasonable link from Intelligence (disambiguation)?" It looks as if this article used to be that one: now it's been made less suitable. Perhaps it should be split to an overview article Intelligence (information gathering) and an article called Intelligence assessment? PamD (talk) 09:15, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Howard Berkowitz was very prolific and created a large number of self referential "how to" articles. I've tinkered with several of them for a long time to try to make it work better, notwithstanding my own disagreement with his assessments.  His work is also very opaque, I understand this stuff and I find it hard work to read, so I'm not really convinced that they help anyone who doesn't understand the subject already.
 * Bluntly, Intelligence is the targeted assessment of information to meet the requirements of the customer. To support that assessment process some information collection can be conducted.
 * There is an article on military intelligence but intelligence in this sense is much wider than just the military dimension.
 * ALR (talk) 09:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Surely "Intelligence" is wider than "Intelligence assessment", and it must be possible to create an article, some sort of overview perhaps, which is about "Intelligence" in this sense. The reader looking to find something about the whole area of "Intelligence" will be disconcerted if they arrive at an article called "Intelligence assessment". PamD (talk) 08:23, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh I'd be happy to call an article about "intelligence", "intelligence" but I there is some claim to that already, as you highlight above...
 * So we end up with a need to find something that feeds the Wikipedia beast, rather than reflects the topic. In practice all intelligence related activities exist to contribute to the assessment process, that's the point at which the customers questions are answered.  One doesn't just go out and collect for the sake of it.
 * My gut instinct is to completely rewrite this, and a number of the other related articles, from scratch. The question is finding the time to do it, and finding a place to start.  I have a feeling that some of the Military Intelligence article could probably be ported to this article.  I also need to spend a bit of time and come up with a diagram of the management processes; CCIRM and F3E to support that.
 * ALR (talk) 08:57, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Nomination of Indigo Publications for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Indigo Publications is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Indigo Publications until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.
 * Indigo Publications publishes Intelligence Online as well as other intelligence-related newsletters. The question is not whether Intelligence Online or other Indigo Publications properties can be used as sources, but whether they are notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Mnnlaxer (talk) 15:56, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Redirect?
It's doubtful whether this article adds a lot of value. We might better redirect it to Intelligence (disambiguation) and move the "Further reading" section to Espionage. Marcocapelle (talk) 07:48, 21 August 2016 (UTC)