intelligence cycle — The steps by which information is convened into intelligence and made available to users. There are five steps in the cycle:
a. planning and direction — Determination of intelligence requirements, preparation of a collection plan, issuance of orders and requests to information collection agencies, and a continuous check on the productivity of collection agencies.
b. collection — Acquisition of information and the provision of this information to processing and/or production elements.
c. processing — Conversion of collected information into a form suitable to the production of intelligence.
d. production — Conversion of information into intelligence through the integration, analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of all source data and the preparation of intelligence products in support of known or anticipated user requirements.
e. dissemination — Conveyance of intelligence to users in a suitable form.
Joint Pub 1-02: DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms
US Department of Defense
23 March 1994
http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/joint_staff/jointStaff_jointOperations/913.pdf
Collection
Many of the most important facts are well known, or may be gathered from public sources. This form of information collection is known as open source intelligence. For example, the population, ethnic make-up and main industries of a region are extremely important to military commanders, and this information is usually public. It is however imperative that the collector of information understands that what he collected is “Information”, and does not become intelligence until after an analyst has evaluated and verified this information. Collection of read materials, composition of units or elements, dipostion of the same, strength, training, tactics, personalities (leaders) of these units and elements contribute to the overall intelligence value after careful analysis.
The tonnage and basic weaponry of most capital ships and aircraft are also public, and their speeds and ranges can often be reasonably estimated by experts, often just from photographs. Ordinary facts like the lunar phase on particular days, or the ballistic range of common military weapons are also very valuable to planning, and are habitually collected in an intelligence library.
A great deal of useful intelligence can be gathered from photointerpretation of detailed high-altitude pictures of a country. Photointerpreters generally maintain catalogs of munitions factories, military bases and crate designs, in order to interpret munition shipments and inventories.
Most intelligence services maintain or support groups whose only purpose is to keep maps. Since maps also have valuable civilian uses, these agencies are often publicly associated or identified as other parts of the government. Some historic counter-intelligence services, especially in Russia and China, have intentionally banned or placed disinformation in public maps; good intelligence can identify this disinformation.
It is commonplace for the intelligence services of large countries to read every published journal of the nations in which it is interested, and the main newspapers and journals of every nation. This is a basic source of intelligence.
It is also common for diplomatic and journalistic personnel to have a secondary goal of collecting military intelligence. For western democracies, it is extremely rare for journalists to be paid by an official intelligence service, but they may still patriotically pass on tidbits of information they gather as they carry on their legitimate business. Also, much public information in a nation may be unavailable from outside the country. This is why most intelligence services attach members to foreign service offices.
Some industrialized nations also eavesdrop continuously on the entire radio spectrum, interpreting it in real time. This includes not only broadcasts of national and local radio and television, but also local military traffic, radar emissions, and even microwaved telephone and telegraph traffic, including satellite traffic.
The U.S. in particular is known to maintain satellites able to intercept cell-phone and pager traffic, usually referred to as the ECHELON system. Analysis of bulk traffic is normally performed by complex computer programs that parse natural language and phone numbers looking for threatening conversations and correspondents. In some extraordinary cases, undersea or land-based cables have been tapped, as well.
More exotic secret information, such as encryption keys, diplomatic message traffic, policy and orders of battle are usually restricted to analysts on a need-to-know basis, in order to protect the sources and methods from foreign traffic analysis.
Analysis
Analysis consists of assessment of an adversary’s capabilities and vulnerabilities. In a real sense these are threats and opportunities. Analysts generally look for the least defended or most fragile resource that is necessary for important military capabilities. These are then flagged as critical vulnerabilities. For example, in modern mechanized warfare, the logistic train for a military unit’s fuel supply is often the most vulnerable part of a nation’s order of battle.
Human intelligence, gathered by spies, is usually carefully tested against unrelated sources. It is notoriously prone to inaccuracy: In some cases, sources will just make up imaginative stories for pay, or they may try to settle grudges by identifying personal enemies as enemies of the state that is paying for the intelligence. However, human intelligence is often the only form that provides information about an opponent’s intentions and rationales, and it is therefore often uniquely valuable to successful negotiation of diplomatic solutions.
In some intelligence organizations, analysis follows a procedure, screening general media and sources to locate items or groups of interest, and then systematically assessing their location, capabilities, inputs and environment for vulnerabilities, using a continuously-updated list of typical vulnerabilities.
Packaging
Critical vulnerabilities are then indexed in a way that makes them easily available to advisors and line intelligence personnel who package this information for policy-makers and war-fighters. Vulnerabilities are usually indexed by the nation and military unit, with a list of possible attack methods.
Critical threats are usually maintained in a prioritized file, with important enemy capabilities analyzed on a schedule set by an estimate of the enemy’s preparation time. For example, nuclear threats between the USSR and the U.S. were analyzed in real time by continuously on-duty staffs. In contrast, analysis of tank or army deployments are usually triggered by accumulations of fuel and munitions, which are monitored on slower, every-few-days cycles. In some cases, automated analysis is performed in real time on automated data traffic.
Packaging threats and vulnerabilities for decision makers is a crucial part of military intelligence. A good intelligence officer will stay very close to the policy-maker or war fighter, to anticipate their information requirements, and tailor the information needed. A good intelligence officer will ask a fairly large number of questions in order to help anticipate needs, perhaps even to the point of annoying the principal. For an important policy-maker, the intelligence officer will have a staff to which research projects can be assigned.
Developing a plan of attack is not the responsibility of intelligence, though it helps an analyst to know the capabilities of common types of military units. Generally, policy-makers are presented with a list of threats, and opportunities. They approve some basic action, and then professional military personnel plan the detailed act and carry it out. Once hostilities begin, target selection often moves into the upper end of the military chain of command. Once ready stocks of weapons and fuel are depleted, logistic concerns are often exported to civilian policy-makers.
Dissemination
The processed intelligence information is disseminated through database systems, intel bulletins and briefings to the different decision makers. The bulletins could also include consequently resulting information requirements and thus conclude the intelligence cycle