Essay Question

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Essay Question

1: There are various intelligence functions but some of the important ones are collection, analysis and also a narrow one which is called decision making. The collection is one of the most important and straight forward functions of intelligence. By using various means the intelligence agencies gather information about foreign persons and places which are needed by the government but they are not obtained through the publicly available resources. The analytical functions raise same practical issues, in case of analysis, the information analysts take information that was collected and then combine it with the information that is readily available in the public platforms and then all source analysis is produced for the public. In this case basically, the gathered secret information is compared with already available information and the gap is filled, which further helps to go into the depth of a specific situation. Covert action is then used to influence the political, military or even economic conditions without showing the role of the given government. Among all the functions analysis is the most important function because once the information is collected then to take a further step in the right direction it is important to critically analyze the information obtained and if the gaps are filled properly then it will become easy to take decisive action.

2: There are various federal agencies which are engaged in the intelligence functions, the first one is CIA or central intelligence agency, which is responsible for providing national security intelligence to the policy makers who are senior. Its primary mission is to collect, analyze, assess and distribute the foreign intelligence to assist the President and other policymakers in making decisions that are related to national security, as the process is quite complicated therefore it requires various steps. The Air Force Intelligence is another federal organization, this particular organization provides intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance products, applications and resources along with cyber and geospatial forces and expertize. The primary mission of the military intelligence is to give timely, accurate and also coordinated intelligence and also warfare support to the strategic level commanders, the purpose of this organization is to make sure the security. The mission of Coast Guard Intelligence is to provide relevant and timely and also actionable naval information to motivate operations by enabling missions and also by fulfilling the national security requirements. The defense intelligence agency gives the nation’s most commanding evaluations of foreign military purposes and also their capabilities, in that sense the mission of DIA is distinct because no other intelligence agency matches with its expertise. The Department of Energy also plays a vital role in the security of the US by addressing its energy, atmospheric and nuclear issues through technological solutions.

3: The purpose of intelligence in terms of national security is to find out the elements that might be a threat for the security of the people therefore through intelligence those sources and their plans are found and then actions are taken both against the elements and also for the security of the people. Although gathering information is important but having said that there are various limitations in it and the NSA is an example of the limitations of intelligence. This intelligence agency measures its success by the quantity of data collected not by the knowledge that it gained through it. The belief of NSA is that gaining more information is good but doing anything to collect is wrong. Just like the CIA was failed to predict the Cold War which means that more data is not always good and information does not make the government capable of doing something.

4: Operational intelligence is the available data that can tell you about the daily decision making, resource distribution and also task arrangement. Examples include warnings or alerts from the Department of Homeland Security about a new threat. Strategic intelligence is the identification of the information that will help them to know the type of threat they are trying to defend against and also the impact of the threat. This helps, teams, to plan for resources in order to reduce the risks. In the case of strategic cyber intelligence, a briefing given to a C-suite executive can be an example. Tactical intelligence is the information that has the ability to influence the tactical decision. An example includes information from intelligence providers which shows which areas have been taken over by the adversaries.