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Intelligence is the subject of many myths and misunderstandings. It is not the same thing as "spying", but it may use information from spying. It is not even just about "secrets", but most of what it does will be secret.

So, if that's what intelligence is not, what is it? Perhaps the Duke of Wellington (left), famous for defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, put it best:

All of the business of war, and indeed all of the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called guessing what was on the other side of the hill.'
The dictionary defines intelligence as "information, news; collecting information, esp. that of military value". This, and Wellington's insight, get at the real meaning of intelligence. Intelligence is just the process for finding out what one needs to be know.

With that in mind, it is important to understand the distinction between intelligence and mere information.
INFORMATION is just that -- unprocessed material of every description that can be used to produce intelligence. It is, in essence, "raw data." INTELLIGENCE on the other hand, is the product that results from processing raw information.
These definitions can be found in online in the NATO glossary.

Why is this distinction important? There are many reasons, but two stand out:
 

• As anyone who has ever surfed the web surely knows, individual snippets of information are not necessarily reliable; and
• Even if the information is accurate, it may be irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Decision makers need knowledge that is focused on the decisions they have to make, accurate, and tells them what they need to know. That is what intelligence is all about - gathering information, sifting through the resulting raw data, piecing it together, drawing out the right conclusions, and feeding it to the leadership. To do all of those things, over the years intelligence professionals have developed what we call the intelligence cycle.

Intelligence is simply finding out what needs to be known.

Viewed that way, as the Duke of Wellington said, the concept of intelligence is applicable in most walks of life. Businesses want to know what their customers want. Governments want to know what other governments are doing. Even organizations like relief agencies want to know things like where their efforts will be required.

Everyone needs intelligence.

Courtesy of the Canadian Forces Intelligence Branch ( www.intbranch.org)

Reference Library

LINK	DESCRIPTION	STATUS
	What is Military Intelligence	Completed
	Intelligence Sources	Completed
	Intelligence Cycle	Completed
	Select Armies of the World Index	Content, but still under construction
	Ironsides Specific AFV Description Area	Content, but still under construction
	Armoured Fighting Vehicle - Virtual Recce Guide	Content, but still under construction
	Imagery Intelligence Centre	Completed
	Intelligence Links	Content, but still under construction

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