Introduction
Intelligence, at its most basic, is a delegation by decisionmakers of their senses and sense-making to an intelligence service in order to reduce uncertainty and deliver competitive advantage. It is the responsibility of intelligence officers to 1) collect information about (sense) the world and its dizzying array of potential partners and adversaries and 2) process that collection in ways that US policy, operational, and military customers do not have the capacity to do firsthand (sense-making). A US policymaker cannot personally be present for another country’s foreign policy deliberations, a military planner cannot observe an enemy’s missile systems firsthand, and law enforcement cannot be present with a terrorist group as they plot an attack. Instead, we deploy case officers to recruit sources who have access to foreign decision-making, we take satellite photos of missile placements, and we intercept the communications of attack plotters.