Content area
Full text
The role of the Intelligence Community in policymaking is often misunderstood or overlooked when analyzing states behavior. This article introduces a framework that clarifies the roles of each actor in the relationship between intelligence analysts and policymakers, and how the interactions of the two synthesize to produce actionable policy. There are many obstacles for both parties in reaching valid, fact-based conclusions from intelligence. Understanding these obstacles will allow for greater opportunities to avoid them and produce better, sounder intelligence analysis and policy creation.
Introduction
What role do intelligence assessments play in the making of policy? In today's world, this question must be answered. Doing so requires an assessment of the relevant literature on intelligence, and the development of a framework that accurately describes the influence of intelligence analysis on the policymaking process-and in turn, on the behavior of states in the international system. In the United States, the intelligence process is challenged in several respects: by the policymaking community, by the Intelligence Community (IC), and by deficiencies in communication between the two.
From the contemporary academic literature on intelligence, three major challenges can be identified regarding the analytic function of intelligence. The first is the problem of the information age, which has expanded the body of information that must be examined, thus making this analysis more difficult. The second is the problem of mindsets, in which one's biases in turn distort the production or consumption of intelligence. The third is the problem of politicization of intelligence, either "top down" from the policymaker, or from the "bottom up" by the intelligence professional, which poses a similar danger.
Role of the Intelligence Community
The IC exists to support the policymaker. More specifically, the IC is a service community whose sole purpose is to assist policymakers with na tional security issues.1 Members of the Intelligence Community work as advisors who provide expert analysis of relevant information.2 However, while information is anything that can be known, intelligence is a refined subset that responds to specific policy requirements and stated needs. The intelligence analyst turns information into intelligence by connecting data to issues of national security, thereby giving it value. These products fill gaps in the knowledge set required to accomplish national objectives, from the tactical to the strategic...