by Denis Bukin
With this understanding of the intelligence service, data collection becomes an important auxiliary step in creating a reliable picture of a situation. You can collect primary data endlessly, but your report is due by a certain time. Basing decisions on a specific assignment and the availability of time, an analyst plans what data and what degree of reliability they need.
It is important to understand that data from different sources has various degrees of reliability. Usually, the intelligence officer balances between reliability and timeliness, and does not always prefer reliability. An analyst has to deal not only with the truth, but with probability.
What should you, an intelligence analyst, do, having received an assignment? First, estimate how much time you have. The timeliness of a task means a lot in the intelligence service. Information gets outdated quickly, and a full, verified report is almost too late.
Then familiarize yourself with the problem and define the boundaries of analysis. Identify primary and secondary data. Concentrate on what is important. Collecting all possible information without any plan can be too time-consuming and demanding.
Start collecting open-source material. Sometimes it will be repetitive. Different sources may conflict or disagree with each other. Do not worry. This could be caused by different methods of collecting and reporting information. Or the problem could lie in the reliability of your sources. Compare the data, evaluate it and find confirmation for it or refute it.
Analysis of indirect data can be infinitely useful. For example, the exact date of the launch of a manned spacecraft is strictly classified, and it is almost impossible to find it out directly. But, for example, and this has been practically tested, you know that food for astronauts is prepared within one or two weeks of their departure, so that it is fresh for a launch. Secrecy in food services is a much lower priority than in technical services. Monitoring the work of the food services associated with the spaceship, or of its workers’ contacts, can help to determine the launch date to within a week.
Once you have worked through the available open-source material, go back to the original plan. Specify what important information is still unknown. Make a plan for further research. Assess your resources and, if appropriate, submit a request to headquarters for classified information.
In a broader sense, the goal of the intelligence service is to create a reliable picture of the present and to make forecasts for the future in any field of public interest: military, politics, economics, science or technology. The intelligence service is interested in three types of information about foreign states: the present state of affairs (what they do), capabilities (what they can do) and intentions (what they are going to do).
Exercise
Forecast how some problem concerning you will be resolved. Will a road be built through the park near your house? Which of your colleagues will be promoted to be head of the department? Can your favourite sports team get into the play-offs this season? Determine what forces affect the outcome, who of the players is interested and who has a greater impact on the final result. Collect open-source information and assess its credibility. Answer three questions: (1) What is the present situation? (2) What are the capabilities of all the participants? (3) What are their intentions? The future will show whether you were right.
★ Train your brain – Crossword 7x7
At this level, the size of the matrix has almost reached the size of a chessboard: 7x7 cells. Group the dark cells in shapes, letters or numbers. This way, you reduce the number of objects to memorize.
Facts and pictures
In an analyst’s work, it is much more useful to compare facts than to analyse each fact separately. For example, the fact that the number of students from country X studying nuclear physics abroad has doubled, in itself doesn’t add up to much. Perhaps the growth corresponds with a general trend of young professionals leaving the country.
But if we compare this fact with others, then we may see a different picture:
• a factory in a remote province of country X buys a powerful industrial centrifuge;
• a railroad leading to this factory is being equipped with a modern video surveillance system;
• the largest railway company in country X places an order for the construction of special trains for transportation of hazardous materials;
• construction of an additional pool for cooling fuel elements is begun at a nuclear energy station in country X.
All these facts allow us to formulate a reasonable hypothesis: the government of X is developing technology for processing and enriching spent nuclear fuel. Monitoring the railroad and records of trains arriving to the plant allows us to make quantitative conclusions about the extent and pace of construction.
Note that this hypothesis does not require undercover penetration into the nuclear energy organizations of country X. It is enough to simply monitor the state’s commissions, to have a few conversations with seasonal construction workers and minor agents living near the railroad.
Sometimes an analyst needs to make a lot of observations. Comparing the most common data can lead to unexpected results. For example, this schedule shows the days counter-intelligence officer A, a forty-three-year-old man, works overtime: 2 March, 5 March, 6 March, 11 March, 15 March, 20 March, 21 March, 2 April, 4 April, 7 April, 11 April, 13 April, 20 April, 2 May, 15 May. By itself, it does not mean anything. Neither does the overtime schedule of officer B from another department, a twenty-eight-year-old woman: 27 February, 5 March, 7 March, 11 March, 15 March, 20 March, 2 April, 4 April, 6 April, 15 April, 24 April, 5 June. But when this information is compared:
A: 2.03, 5.03, 6.03, 11.03, 15.03, 20.03, 21.03,
2.04, 4.04, 7.04, 11.04, 13.04, 20.04, 2.05, 15.05.
B: 27.02, 5.03, 7.03, 11.03, 15.03, 20.03, 2.04,
4.04, 6.04, 15.04, 24.04, 5.06
We might guess that A has established a friendship with B, which either ended in early April, or moved on to another phase (and they meet outside of work). This is not a final conclusion, but an assumption, which is easy to verify.
Statistics give powerful data-mining tools to an intelligence officer. But they must be used carefully. Using statistical methods requires a sufficiently large amount of data, specialized training, and carefully formulated hypotheses that will be tested with the help of statistics. Injudicious use of statistics without reasonable justification of derived correlations can lead to useless or wrong conclusions: ‘All people who eat cucumbers die, therefore cucumbers are deadly.’
Exercise
Estimate the weekly earnings of your favourite cafe. Explain the method you used. Come up with several ways to make this estimation. Use all available information: the number of seats and tables, the menu, information from the bill, other people’s stories, your own observations and experiments.
Check your conclusions, making contact with someone from the staff: waiters are well aware of the earnings of a cafe, since their tips depend on it.
Crime and punishment – the scientific method
The work of an analyst is similar to the work of a scientist or an investigator. They need to collect unrelated facts and build a coherent picture on their basis. A comparison of all known facts in the hope of finding any regularity would take too long and does not guarantee results. To make this process consistent, analysts use the research model adopted by modern science, including criminology.
Stage 1: Facts. Gather basic known facts about the subject. Try to imagine them visually, making a scheme or a mind map. If possible, study existing theories, opinions and points of view. Keep in mind that some data may not be completely accurate and reliable, and theories can be incomplete or erroneous. At this stage, an investigator examines the crime scene and interviews witnesses.
Stage 2: Hypothesis. Formulate a hypothesis (an assumption that explains the facts in the best way). During an investigation, an investigator suggests who committed the crime and how, on the basis of evidence and the testimony of witnesses
. For example, the head of a large organization was shot. Crime scene investigation and interviews of colleagues allow us to hypothesize that the crime was committed by one of the subordinates of the victim and the motive could be the desire to take his job.
Stage 3: Conclusions. Think of what follows from your hypothesis and whether it is true. The consequences of the hypothesis must go beyond the limits of available facts, stating more than was known at first. Going on with the above example, the investigator may argue as follows. The body was found half an hour after the crime. According to the security guard, no staff left the office before the police arrived, therefore the instrument of the crime and the killer are still in the building.
Stage 4: Verification. Develop a hypothesis. Look for new facts that can confirm or refute conclusions drawn from the hypothesis you made in the previous stage. One way to obtain new facts is to conduct an experiment. If new facts refute your theory, exclude or modify the hypothesis and go back to stages 1 and 2. Formulate a new hypothesis based on additional facts. If you were able to confirm most of the consequences, the hypothesis can be conventionally considered proven. It is only conditionally proven, because some day you might find facts that refute it. Typically, scientists put more effort into disproving a hypothesis, whereas investigators, unfortunately, try to confirm it.
The hypothesis (murder by a subordinate) and the conclusion (the gun in the office) give a direction to further research. We know what to look for (a gun) and where (in the office). It’s better than looking for an unknown object in an unknown place. Finding the gun allows us to develop the original hypothesis. If the gun is not found, an investigator should figure out how it was carried out of the office or formulate another hypothesis.
Using the earlier example of the development of technology for the processing of spent nuclear fuel, we can construct the following chain of reasoning.
Stage 1. Facts
1. The number of students studying nuclear physics has doubled;
2. A major chemical company has purchased a powerful centrifuge;
3. The railroad branch that goes to the factory is equipped with a video surveillance system;
4. A special train for transportation of hazardous materials has been ordered;
5. An extra pool for cooling spent fuel elements is being built in a major nuclear power plant.
Stage 2. Hypothesis
Government X is developing technology for processing and enriching spent nuclear fuel. The construction of an additional cooling pool speaks to the intention of accumulating spent fuel elements. Safety measures on the railroad can mean a change in the direction and volume of transportation of critical goods. An increasing number of specialists shows that a new policy in the field of nuclear energy is being implemented seriously and for the long term. It also speaks to the special nature of the proposed work; otherwise the country would invite foreign specialists.
Stage 3. Conclusions
If the hypothesis is true, then:
• radiation levels in the area of the chemical plant will increase;
• contaminated airbursts will appear;
• the company will buy nitric acid, which is necessary to dissolve solid radioactive waste;
• the engineering infrastructure of the plant will become more sophisticated: cementation, vitrification and bituminization, all used in the disposal of nuclear waste, are very complex production processes;
• an armoured train with special containers will operate regularly from the nuclear power plant to the factory.
In order to be able to draw these conclusions, you don’t need to do any more than acquaint yourself with the technology used for processing nuclear waste, which can be done by using open sources, such as sites of international atomic agencies or conservation organizations.
Stage 4. Verification
Reports of increased radiation levels and emission of radioactive gases may appear in the mass media or on ‘green’ sites. It may be necessary to use a network of agents in country X to take water and air samples for chemical analysis and watch the movement of trains on the railroad.
If the conclusions and hypotheses are confirmed at the fourth stage, it is most likely that they are accurate, and then you need to act based on this. Otherwise you will need a new hypothesis as to what is going on.
Scientific research is a formal and creative procedure. It’s formal because proof or disproof of the hypothesis is based on the laws of logic. It’s creative because a hypothesis is born thanks to insight. Nevertheless, the scientific method saves a lot of time and resources. Information research becomes directional. We do not waste time on insignificant data extraction. As a result, decisions are made more quickly, reducing the risk for agents.
Using the scientific method, try to follow these well-tested guidelines:
1. Formulate a working hypothesis as soon as possible. Haphazard collection of facts delays the solution of the problem.
2. Treat the hypothesis critically. It’s easy to be misled by fitting facts to a hypothesis.
3. Be ready to start all over again. Refutation of a hypothesis is not defeat, but a step towards the truth.
4. Creating a good hypothesis takes time. If you are at an impasse, take a break.
Decisions should have time to ripen.
Exercise
Try to learn more about people you do not usually pay attention to. For example, watch the receptionist at your work. Does she have a family? If she knits bright socks, we can assume that she has grandchildren. Test this hypothesis by talking to her. Try to give her something for her grandchildren, she will accept the gift or refuse it, explaining her decision.
Find out the work schedule of the security staff in your office. Try to guess and check where your greengrocer is from.
Exercise
Try to understand the politics of your country to a greater depth than most people. Try to figure out what is not said openly. Gather facts, compare, formulate hypotheses and generate forecasts. Time will tell you whether you were right.
Test yourself
What facts allowed investigators to establish a connection between Bernstein and Alvarez? (You may pick more than one answer)
A) The fact that Alvarez knew Kovalev, a friend of Bernstein
B) Bernstein’s presence in pictures taken by Alvarez
C) The fact that Alvarez knew Bernstein, discovered during his meeting with Simonides in Buenos Aires
D) Operatives of Seventh Main Directorate of the KGB finding documents from the Archives of the RSHA during a search of Alvarez’s hotel room
E) Alvarez showing agent Simonides a photocopy of RSHA documents during a meeting in Moscow
F) The discovery of photocopies of documents missing from the Archives of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR that Bernstein was responsible for in Alvarez’s room after his arrest.
7
DOUBLE AGENT
Sometimes an agent or operative is found out, or compromised, as the intelligence service calls it. Then the intelligence service that uncovered the agent might offer them a ‘second job’. The compromised agent can agree and not report this to the intelligence service of their government. Or they can accept the job with the approval of their supervisors.
In the first case, the agent is a traitor. Sometimes it is advantageous, but it is always shameful. In the second case, they continue to serve their country under a different status, trying to mislead the new ‘employer’.
If an ordinary agent leads a double life, the double agent lives a triple life. They cannot lose their self-control even for a moment, nothing can ever be confused or forgotten.
Displacement
Freud believed that the human psyche consists of the conscious and subconscious. Each of these are governed by their own laws. To illustrate this, Freud used the metaphor of the iceberg: an outside observer sees only the small surface area of a mass of ice, but 90% of it is hidden under water. Similarly, most of the human psyche is beyond conscio
usness and affects human feelings, thoughts and behaviour covertly.
Freud argued that there are forbidden desires, feelings and thoughts in the subconscious mind. The circumstances that cause them are often also displaced. Thus, by ignoring and forgetting, a person solves inner conflicts and reaches a comfortable existence. Psychotherapists confirm many cases of psychogenic amnesia when patients forget the circumstances of extreme situations they have experienced. In cases where the emotions of the incident become unbearable, people sink into oblivion.
Debates about Freud’s theory have gone on for over a hundred years. Some psychologists accuse psychoanalysis of being unscientific and not having experimental confirmation. Others recognize its value and successfully use it in clinical practice.
According to Freud, the conflicts between consciousness and the displaced content of the subconscious mind can lead to mental disorders: anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Freud proposed to treat such disorders with psychoanalysis (special conversation with the psychoanalyst to help the person understand the causes of internal conflict). Freud asserted that the retrieval of the causes of painful symptoms from the subconscious is enough to relieve tension and lead to healing.
Freud developed several methods of analysing the subconscious. One of them is the free association method: a person says whatever comes into her or his head. At some point, the monologue is interrupted, as if the person has bumped into an obstacle. This means that they have reached important information that has been displaced from the consciousness and have recalled it. Another method is dream interpretation. The characters and plot of a dream indicate the content of the subconscious. By interpreting a dream, an analyst helps to realize displaced feelings, desires and memories.