The Optimal Analyst: Balancing the Width and Depth in Strategic Intelligence

Abstract

While much-discussed desired qualities of an intelligence analyst count for a big part of their professional skills, the development of the analyst, their professional profile (general analyst profile [GAP]), during their career is often overlooked in academic discussions. As part of professional experiences, tasking has an important effect on development. The level of intelligence synthesis, informative and advisory nature of the Intelligence Community, and available human resources are three organizational factors that can be used to study the requirements and career-spanning effects tasking has for an analyst and their manager. Ultimately, human resources do have a big part to play, but should not be the only guiding factor. Tasking should consider the lifetime development of an analyst. Comfort zones should be breached, with a plan and a goal-oriented approach. It also benefits the analyst via wider understanding of the operational or strategic environment they are tasked to analyze. This also helps the analyst and the organization as a whole to advance from situational awareness to the more desired situational understanding.

Notes

1 Sherman Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951).

2 Adda B. Bozeman, Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1992).

3 David Omand, Securing the State (London: Hurst & Company, 2010).

4 Thomas Juneau (ed.), Strategic Analysis in Support of International Policy Making. Case Studies in Achieving Analytical Relevance (London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017).

5 Richards J. Heuer, Jr., Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999).

6 Richards J. Heuer and Randolph H. Pherson, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2011).

7 Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy, pp. 104–110 and 69–77.

8 Michael M. Andregg, “How ‘Wisdom’ Differs from Intelligence and Knowledge in the Context of National Intelligence Agencies. University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy (February 2003), https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/208759 (accessed 16 August 2022).

9 Tim Walton, “How Intelligence Analysis Education Tries To Improve Strategic Analysis,” in Strategic Analysis in Support of International Policy Making. Case Studies in Achieving Analytical Relevance, edited by Thomas Juneau (London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017), pp. 37–56.

10 John C. Gannon, “Managing Analysis in the Information Age,” in Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations, edited by Roger Z. George and James B. Bruce (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008), p. 214.

11 John A. Gentry, “Intelligence Analyst/Manager Relations at the CIA,” in Intelligence Analysis and Assessment, edited by David A. Charters, A. Stuart Farson, and Glenn P. Hastedt (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1996), pp. 133–148.

12 Ibid.

13 Bozeman, Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft.

14 Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy, p. 105.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olli J. Teirilä

Olli Teirilä is a part-time Ph.D. Candidate at the Finnish National Defence University (FNDU) in Helsinki, studying the media–intelligence relationship and intelligence-related discourses. He is a 2004 FNDU graduate, majoring in Strategic and Defence Studies. Since graduating, he has served, among others, as a lecturer at the Army Academy and at the FNDU. During his tenure there, his tasks also included supporting the media, including live television interviews with specialist analysis on request. The author can be contacted at [email protected].