Information Is Not Intelligence
I was watching C-Span2 yesterday morning and Dr. Conrad Crane, Director of the U. S. Army’s Military History Institute, was discussing counterinsurgency. One of his reflections in a response to a question concerning the data our military is getting from various sources was that “information is not intelligence”. He also stated that, in order to decide is the information was valid, the source had to be confirmed and the information had to be verified by other sources before it was considered good intelligence. These statements made me pause.
Further research of Military History Institute publications revealed the following judgements: “(One of the) critical characteristics of the new national intelligence community follow: It will demand the rapid transfer of the proven process of intelligence requirements (such as) definition, collection management, source discovery and validation, multisource fusion, and compelling presentation, to … (the) constituent elements of our nation.” 1
“The challenge within the intelligence community … is to determine ‘what to share’ and ‘how to share. Sharing intelligence raises … key issues: … (we) must determine what information is relevant.”2
The point of citing these quotations is to emphasize there are processes, mindsets and skills that are extremely important to anyone seeking good intelligence (in non-military terms, the truth):
--- Finding information
--- Distinguishing it’s relevance to the problem
--- Determining it’s validity and reliability
--- Rearranging and reorganizing the information based upon the expressed problem
--- Making conclusions
--- Composing compelling communications of these findings
These are the same processes, mindsets and skills that are essential for our students to be successful as they compete in a flat world.3
Citations:
1 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College
2 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College
3 The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Thomas L. Friedman
2005
I was watching C-Span2 yesterday morning and Dr. Conrad Crane, Director of the U. S. Army’s Military History Institute, was discussing counterinsurgency. One of his reflections in a response to a question concerning the data our military is getting from various sources was that “information is not intelligence”. He also stated that, in order to decide is the information was valid, the source had to be confirmed and the information had to be verified by other sources before it was considered good intelligence. These statements made me pause.
Further research of Military History Institute publications revealed the following judgements: “(One of the) critical characteristics of the new national intelligence community follow: It will demand the rapid transfer of the proven process of intelligence requirements (such as) definition, collection management, source discovery and validation, multisource fusion, and compelling presentation, to … (the) constituent elements of our nation.” 1
“The challenge within the intelligence community … is to determine ‘what to share’ and ‘how to share. Sharing intelligence raises … key issues: … (we) must determine what information is relevant.”2
The point of citing these quotations is to emphasize there are processes, mindsets and skills that are extremely important to anyone seeking good intelligence (in non-military terms, the truth):
--- Finding information
--- Distinguishing it’s relevance to the problem
--- Determining it’s validity and reliability
--- Rearranging and reorganizing the information based upon the expressed problem
--- Making conclusions
--- Composing compelling communications of these findings
These are the same processes, mindsets and skills that are essential for our students to be successful as they compete in a flat world.3
Citations:
1 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College
2 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College
3 The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Thomas L. Friedman
2005
Labels: information, process
posted by Rich Levine | 11:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home