‹ Shelves / Intelligence analysis ■ Intelligence analysis methods — 2026The methods an analyst uses in 2026, from the ICD 203 standards and probabilistic language to ACH, indicators, red teaming, scenarios, calibrated forecasting and AI-assisted analysis. Every lesson has a quiz.
25 lessons · 38 min
The reading track 25 lessons All With quiz · 25 All authors US Government · 4 Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) · 2
01 Analysis is a mental process that runs through simplified models of reality; structure exists to bring the model into the open, where it can be checked. Psychology of Intelligence Analysis · Richards J. Heuer Jr. · 1999 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 02 ICD 203 asks five things of every analytic product — objectivity, independence from politics, timeliness, all sources and tradecraft — and independence protects the other four. Intelligence Community Directive 203: Analytic Standards · Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) · 2015 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 03 A probability word with no number behind it is read differently by every reader; the remedy is an agreed scale with numerical ranges. Words of Estimative Probability · Sherman Kent · 1964 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 04 Probability says how likely the event is; confidence says how solid the basis for saying so is. They are two axes and are written separately. Explaining Uncertainty in UK Intelligence Assessment · Professional Head of Intelligence Assessment (PHIA), Guvernul Regatului Unit · 2025 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 05 Every report gets two independent grades: a letter for the source, based on its track record, and a figure for the information, based on corroboration and logic. FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations · Headquarters, Department of the Army (SUA) · 2006 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 06 The quality of information check periodically tests whether the source base really supports the judgement; the number of sources is no substitute for their quality. A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis · US Government · 2009 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 07 Every assessment rests on premises accepted without discussion; the key assumptions check writes them down, challenges them and says in advance what would overturn them. A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis · US Government · 2009 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 08 Strategic intelligence failures cannot be removed by reorganisation: evidence is ambiguous, judgement ambivalent, and the great misses often happen at the decision-maker. Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable · Richard K. Betts · 1978 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 09 Analysis of competing hypotheses makes every reasonable explanation compete on the same evidence and keeps the one the evidence refutes least. Psychology of Intelligence Analysis · Richards J. Heuer Jr. (CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence) · 1999 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 10 Strategic surprise comes not from missing information but from faint signals buried in louder, more plausible noise. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision · Roberta Wohlstetter · 1962 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 11 Warning is not information you either have or lack but a judgement built from an indicator list prepared in advance. Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning · Cynthia M. Grabo (Joint Military Intelligence College) · 2002 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 12 Devil's advocacy tests a single dominant consensus; Team A/Team B sets two equally strong positions against each other. A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis · US Government · 2009 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 13 Red teaming is the independent, structured challenge of your own plan in service of a better decision — not a team playing the enemy. Red Teaming Handbook (3rd Edition) · UK Ministry of Defence — Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) · 2021 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 14 A premortem asks the team to assume the plan has already failed and explain why, so objections surface while there is still time. Performing a Project Premortem · Gary Klein (Harvard Business Review) · 2007 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 15 When everyone is sure something will not happen, it is worth writing down how it could happen after all and what you would see first. A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis · US Government · 2009 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 16 Scenarios do not guess the future: they separate what is already determined from what is truly uncertain and change the decision-maker's mental model. Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead · Pierre Wack (Harvard Business Review) · 1985 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 17 A forecast becomes measurable when it is a number on a question with a deadline, and the Brier score shows who was calibrated, not who sounded convincing. Identifying and Cultivating Superforecasters as a Method of Improving Probabilistic Predictions · Barbara Mellers, Philip E. Tetlock et al. · 2015 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 18 Before judging a case by its details, ask how similar cases ended: the base rate is the starting point, and the details only adjust it. Timid Choices and Bold Forecasts: A Cognitive Perspective on Risk Taking · Daniel Kahneman & Dan Lovallo · 1993 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 19 Bayes does not ask you to guess the truth, only to make one judgement per item of evidence: how many times more likely it is if the hypothesis is true than if it is false. Bayes' Theorem for Intelligence Analysis · Jack Zlotnick (CIA, Center for the Study of Intelligence) · 1972 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 20 A close, friendly group is in the greatest danger of no longer thinking critically, and the remedy is a procedure that makes objection a duty rather than a betrayal. Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes · Irving L. Janis · 1972 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 21 Effective deception does not change your belief, it confirms it; the most dangerous set of clues is the one that fits perfectly with what you already believed. Deception Maxims: Fact and Folklore · Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Research and Development · 1980 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 22 An adversary is not analysed in a vacuum: first the environment — political, military, economic, social, information and infrastructure systems — then what the adversary can do within it. Joint Publication 2-01.3: Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment · US Joint Chiefs of Staff · 2014 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 23 Open source material becomes evidence only when you can show where it came from, that it has not been altered, and what you did with it from the first search onwards. Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations · OHCHR & Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law · 2022 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 24 A wargame does not predict, it discovers: it shows what is plausible and where the plan gives way when someone genuinely opposes it. Wargaming Handbook · UK Ministry of Defence, Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) · 2017 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions › 25 A product written with the help of a model is still an intelligence product: the same standards and the same question — how do you know — and the answer must lead to real sources, not to the model. Artificial Intelligence Ethics Framework for the Intelligence Community (v1.0) · Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) · 2020 ✓ Quiz · 3 questions ›