Intelligence Analysis: How to Think in Complex Environments (Praeger Security International)

Description

The operational -- The problem -- Solutions -- Setting the stage for advanced analysis -- Decomposition -- Critical thinking -- Link analysis -- Pattern analysis -- Trend analysis -- Anticipatory analysis -- Technical analysis -- Tendency analysis -- Anomaly analysis -- Cultural analysis -- Semiotics analysis -- Aggregation analysis -- Recomposition -- Synthesis -- Technology for advanced analysis -- On a system of thought -- Closing thoughts.;Advanced analysis is a critically important aspect of winning engagements, battles, and campaigns against insurgents, irregulars, and terrorists. These adversaries are formidable, and they will purposefully engage U.S. forces from dense urban settings. They will hide in the noise and activities of the city and blend with the population and its normal activities, interactions, and transactions. The enemy the U.S. military faces will constantly become better, smarter, more adaptive, and they will learn to hide and blend with the populace better than they do today. This fact of life implies we must learn and adapt so as to be ahead of them. Both sides race to the future to outwit the other and to seek, find, and sustain the initiative and the advantages its possession enables. These urban OEs will always make it challenging to plan, conduct, and assess outcomes of intelligence operations. Regardless, the urban OE is what our military will face over the next 100 years; therefore, we must adapt and excel. Through advanced analysis the U.S. intelligence analyst learns to know the enemy and his objectives, will, intent, and motives. Through advanced analysis the obscurity and invisibility of the OE become clear and visible. Through the aggressive employment of advanced analysis, analysts know where, how, and when to collect. Through advanced analysis, resultant collection-produced data become usable information, knowledge, and eventually understanding, in time to make a difference in decision-making. Through advanced analysis, U.S. commanders possess the constant wherewithal to win the struggle for the initiative across all domains-- air, ground, sea, space, cyberspace, cognition, and information.;Intelligence Analysis: How to Think in Complex Environments fills a void in the existing literature on contemporary warfare by examining the theoretical and conceptual foundations of effective modern intelligence analysis?the type of analysis needed to support military operations in modern, complex operational environments. This volume is an expert guide for rethinking intelligence analysis and understanding the true nature of the operational environment, adversaries, and most importantly, the populace. 305F PROFESSIONAL READING LIST. The operational -- The problem -- Solutions -- Setting the stage for advanced analysis -- Decomposition -- Critical thinking -- Link analysis -- Pattern analysis -- Trend analysis -- Anticipatory analysis -- Technical analysis -- Tendency analysis -- Anomaly analysis -- Cultural analysis -- Semiotics analysis -- Aggregation analysis -- Recomposition -- Synthesis -- Technology for advanced analysis -- On a system of thought -- Closing thoughts.