Intelligence Analysis is the process of taking known information about situations and entities of strategic, operational, or tactical importance, characterizing the known, and, with appropriate statements of probability, the future actions in those situations and by those entities. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of deliberately deceptive information; the analyst must correlate the similarities among deceptions and extract a common truth. Although its practice is found in its purest form inside intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States or the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, MI6) in the UK, its methods are also applicable in fields such as business intelligence or competitive intelligence.
(b) Policy analysis
Policy analysis can be defined as “determining which of various alternative policies will most achieve a given set of goals in light of the relations between the policies and the goals” [1]. However, policy analysis can be divided into two major fields. Analysis of policy is analytical and descriptive — i.e., it attempts to explain policies and their development. Analysis for policy is prescriptive — i.e., it is involved with formulating policies and proposals (e.g., to improve social welfare)[2]. The area of interest and the purpose of analysis determines what type of analysis is conducted. A combination of policy analysis together with program evaluation would be defined as Policy studies.[3]
