Intelligence Analysis and Policy Relationship

Catalog description

Describes how relationships are forged and fostered between policymakers and intelligence analysts. Policymakers need support from intelligence to help deal with uncertainty. Thus, policy officials come to respect and rely on analysts and managers who appreciate this aspect of the decision process. Analysts are deemed most useful when they clarify what is known by laying out the evidence and pointing to cause-and-effect patterns; carefully structure assumptions and argumentation about what is unknown and unknowable; and bring expertise to planning and action on important threats and opportunities. The heavily engaged policymaker has little use for intelligence products that emphasize prediction over explanation and opinion over evidence by assessments that trivialize the challenge of uncertainty by burying honest debate in compromise language and by ignoring high-impact contingencies.