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Suggested Citation:"Part I: Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
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Part I
Introduction

In Chapter 1, Thomas Fingar provides an overview of the structure, missions, and characteristics of the intelligence community (IC), and describes the role of analysis in reducing uncertainty, providing warning, and identifying opportunities for national security decision makers. Fingar argues that analysts’ primary mission is to provide timely information and insights that help decision makers understand developments with potentially consequential implications for American interests.

Fingar’s detailed description of what analysts do, in supporting both the general national security enterprise and specific missions, agencies, and decision makers, shows how intelligence analysts play critical roles that share properties with analysts in other organizations. He describes the intelligence analyst’s job as enhancing decision makers’ understanding of complex situations, often with scant and problematic information. Timely input is often more important than precise estimates, as long as analysts communicate clearly what they do and do not know, what assumptions they have made in closing information gaps, how confident they are in their sources and judgments, and which alternatives they have set aside as less likely.

Fingar also describes challenges in the current operating environment. Those challenges include a shift from threats against the nation to threats against individual Americans anywhere, any time; expansion of national security to include such threats as infectious disease and transnational crime; dramatic increases in demand for precision and “actionable” intelligence;

Suggested Citation:"Part I: Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
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compression of timelines for collecting, evaluating, and interpreting intelligence on increasingly complex issues; and exponential increases in the amount of information of potential value.

Fingar’s introductory chapter demonstrates why IC analysts need the insights and tools of the behavioral and social sciences, as discussed in Parts IIIV of this volume.

Suggested Citation:"Part I: Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
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Page 1
Suggested Citation:"Part I: Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13062.
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The U.S. intelligence community (IC) is a complex human enterprise whose success depends on how well the people in it perform their work. Although often aided by sophisticated technologies, these people ultimately rely on their own intellect to identify, synthesize, and communicate the information on which the nation's security depends. The IC's success depends on having trained, motivated, and thoughtful people working within organizations able to understand, value, and coordinate their capabilities.

Intelligence Analysis provides up-to-date scientific guidance for the intelligence community (IC) so that it might improve individual and group judgments, communication between analysts, and analytic processes. The papers in this volume provide the detailed evidentiary base for the National Research Council's report, Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences. The opening chapter focuses on the structure, missions, operations, and characteristics of the IC while the following 12 papers provide in-depth reviews of key topics in three areas: analytic methods, analysts, and organizations.

Informed by the IC's unique missions and constraints, each paper documents the latest advancements of the relevant science and is a stand-alone resource for the IC's leadership and workforce. The collection allows readers to focus on one area of interest (analytic methods, analysts, or organizations) or even one particular aspect of a category. As a collection, the volume provides a broad perspective of the issues involved in making difficult decisions, which is at the heart of intelligence analysis.

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