Book
Joint Publication 2-0, Joint Intelligence
by US Joint Chiefs of Staff · 2013 · 2 reading cards · public domain
2 cards
Joint Publication 2-0, Joint Intelligence · 2013
The judgement with probability and confidence in the first sentence; every figure with its source; at the end, what would change the judgement.
Doctrine lists the attributes of a good product — anticipatory, timely, accurate, usable, complete, relevant, objective, available — and draws a rule of form from them: the decision-maker has no time to reconstruct the reasoning, so the conclusion goes first. The format is called BLUF (bottom line up front) and has a fixed structure: the first sentence is the judgement, with the probability term from lesson 3 and the confidence from lesson 4 ("we assess it is probable (55–70%) that X…; moderate confidence"); then the key evidence, each item with its source and quality (lessons 5–6); then the alternative hypotheses rejected and why; finally, the indicators that would change the judgement (lesson 11) and the collection gaps. The US community's sourcing standard, ICD 206, requires that every statement of fact be traceable to its source — not a bibliography at the end, but a link on every sentence that carries a figure or a quotation. olivLaw applies the same rule through the gate that refuses to publish a number without a source. The difference between a report and an essay is that in a report the reader can check any sentence without asking the author. Three recurring mistakes. The judgement buried at the end, after "context" — the reader gives up first. Mixed probability words ("possible, but probable") — lesson 3 forbids them. Confidence confused with probability — "high confidence that it is unlikely" is a correct sentence and must be writable. A simple test: if someone reads only the first sentence, do they make the same decision as after the whole report? If not, the first sentence is wrong.
“They must be able to quickly apply intelligence to the task, and may not have sufficient time to analyze complex intelligence reports. Therefore the “bottom line” must be up front and understandable”
Joint Publication 2-0, Joint Intelligence · 2013
Write the requirement as a question tied to a decision and a deadline, then collect.
Doctrine describes the cycle as six overlapping categories of operations: planning and direction (what we must learn and for which decision), collection (from which sources), processing and exploitation (from raw signal into something readable — translation, decryption, extraction), analysis and production (the judgement), dissemination and integration (it reaches the decision-maker, in time) and evaluation and feedback (was it any use?). JP 2-0 insists it is not a conveyor belt: the steps run in parallel, get skipped (an image already collected answers directly), and new requirements emerge from analysis. The piece analysts most often treat as "given" is the requirement. A priority intelligence requirement (PIR) is a question the commander needs answered for a specific decision — not "what is X doing", but "will X do Y before Z, so that we know whether to activate plan W". A question phrased that way dictates what is collected, which indicators are watched (lesson 11), and when the answer "we do not know yet" is itself useful. For anyone outside the military system the cycle holds just as well: a firm that asks "what is happening in the market" gets noise; one that asks "will competitor X enter segment Y by Q2, which would change our pricing decision" gets a list of sources, indicators and a deadline. The trap: skipping planning because "we know what we are looking for". Feedback closes the loop — without it, the same requirement keeps being collected long after the decision was made.
“The six categories of intelligence operations are: planning and direction; collection; processing and exploitation; analysis and production; dissemination and integration; and evaluation and feedback.”