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Sort raw facts, rumors, and context into “information” versus “intelligence” by asking whether they help a real decision-maker reduce uncertainty. Practice naming the decision that makes a fact useful instead of merely interesting.
Use what you learned in the previous lesson to solve real-world problems.
Compare a hidden fact with a useful assessment, and see why secrets are not automatically intelligence. Reason through cases where public information can be more valuable than a classified detail.
Check what you understood with a short quiz.
Separate a news claim, the evidence behind it, and the conclusion someone draws from it. Practice asking what would actually support or weaken a claim without diving into collection methods.
Distinguish facts that can be directly established from judgments that interpret patterns, motives, or likely futures. Use careful wording to keep “what we know” separate from “what we assess.”
Read phrases like “likely,” “almost certainly,” and “low confidence” as signals of uncertainty rather than hedging. Practice matching confidence to the strength, consistency, and gaps in the evidence.
Draw the line between intelligence and policy advocacy: analysts can clarify risks, likely effects, and tradeoffs, but they should not sell a preferred policy. Practice rewriting a biased sentence into neutral intelligence language.
Identify the decision, deadline, and stakes hiding inside a broad concern such as “Is this crisis getting worse?” Turn vague curiosity into a question that could guide action.
Break a messy news story into confirmed facts, disputed reports, assumptions, and unknowns. Use that map to avoid treating headlines, official statements, and social media claims as equal evidence.
Write intelligence questions with a clear actor, action, place, timeframe, and decision relevance. Practice replacing broad prompts like “What is happening?” with answerable questions analysts can actually work on.
Classify questions as descriptive, explanatory, predictive, or warning-focused so the expected answer is clear. See how each type asks for a different kind of judgment without yet getting into the full intelligence cycle.
Spot questions that ask analysts to confirm a preferred answer, assume facts not in evidence, or mix several questions at once. Rewrite them so they invite honest assessment instead of steering the outcome.
Connect intelligence value to timeliness, relevance, accuracy, and clarity. Reason through why a perfect answer delivered too late, or a detailed answer to the wrong question, can fail the policymaker who needs it.
Review this chapter with practice based on your mistakes.
