No issue was more important to western intelligence analysts than trying to understand the capabilities of nuclear weapons and delivery systems that were being developed by the USSR. These warheads, missiles, and bombers (and in time, submarines) had unprecedented range and striking power. The USSR's strategic nuclear forces were difficult to assess in detail because they were carefully shielded by intense security measures, including denial and deception. Early efforts to anticipate developments in Soviet strategic weapons were based on limited collection and were not successful. In 1949, most U.S. intelligence agencies' views, except for the Air Force's more alarmist and more accurate estimate, were that it would take the Soviets two to five years before they had their first nuclear weapons. It came as a great shock, in September 1949, when patrol aircraft detected evidence of a successful test in the USSR.

In an effort to construct a more accurate picture of what was going on in the Soviet Union and to better anticipate developments there, analysts in the United States focused much of their efforts on what were known as National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs). These were strategic assessments of major, long-term trends in important issues, such as Soviet weapons. The estimates were based on all available reporting and were written periodically to provide updates on significant issues. Ad hoc estimates were also prepared on other issues, as needed.

During the cold war, the soviet union, and above all its arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons, was the top priority for intelligence analysts around the world, and especially in the United States. Over the years, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the many other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community had built up a vast system of satellites, listening posts, aircraft, ships, and other means to collect information in an effort to accurately assess the Soviet threat.

CIA analysis of the USSR in the 1980s tended to focus on military issues and generally saw the country as likely to be a major threat for some time to come. An April 1981 assessment, for example, considered a number of possible scenarios for the future, but postulated that it was most likely that the Soviet defense buildup of the 1960s and 1970s would continue:

Fortunately, there have been only a few examples of chemical and biological agents being used by terrorists. The impact after an attack using such agents could be readily envisioned and would be horrific. What indicators would analysts and law enforcement officials be looking for to provide warning before an incident took place? This problem would be especially difficult the first time an assault using weapons of mass destruction was carried out, when there were no precedents. Although they did not realize it at first, this was the challenge that Japanese police faced in the mid-1990s.

Shoko Asahara (1955–) was an ambitious, poor boy from rural Japan who was frustrated that society did not recognize his abilities. He became a practitioner of alternative medicine in Tokyo and, in 1984, founded Aum Shinrikyo. The first part of the name derived from the Sanskrit word that Hindu mystics used in meditation, and the second part is Japanese for “supreme truth.” Asahara spliced together fragments from Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and even the sixteenth-century French prophet Nostradamus into a new age doctrine that promised enlightenment and supernatural powers. Aum Shinrikyo quickly became a cult that found some resonance as an alternative to the prevailing Japanese culture and lifestyle. Within a decade, the group had approximately 10,000 members, including many well-educated professionals such as lawyers, engineers, and scientists, as well as government officials and members of the armed forces and police.

Like commanders for centuries before, general george Washington (1732–99) served as his own intelligence officer. Although he had no formal training in intelligence, Washington developed an impressive understanding of how to use information to assist decision making. Because he was the leader of the weaker force, it was in his interest to place a high value during the War of Independence on many aspects of intelligence, including espionage, counterintelligence, and analysis.

Assisted by only a few close aides, Washington personally organized the work of those who could bring him useful information. He employed the traditional uniformed scouts who operated more or less openly. He himself had performed this task during the French and Indian War. As commander, he also selected soldiers for short-term clandestine missions behind enemy lines, such Nathan Hale (1755–76), whose first mission ended in disaster. Finally, Washington recruited civilians to remain in place for long-term missions, such as the Culper Ring in New York City. When relaying to his agents what he needed to make decisions, he typically asked detailed questions and gave precise guidance.

Washington's correspondence has numerous references to intelligence matters, and, like many other commanders, he appreciated the importance of speed, accuracy, and secrecy in delivering reports.

Stopping proliferation of nuclear weapons, especially to unstable countries or terrorist groups, has been a major concern of governments. Because of their extreme danger, it is illegal under international treaties to sell or transport materials associated with nuclear weapons. However small the chance of misusing nuclear weapons, the potential damage is so great that the risk cannot be ignored. Therefore, how to understand and thwart anyone who would try to evade the restrictions on nuclear technology is a high priority for intelligence analysts.

In the early 1970s, Abdul Qadeer Khan (1936–), a metallurgist from Pakistan, was working in the Netherlands when the Pakistani government announced that it was determined to acquire nuclear weapons in an effort to achieve deterrence and strategic equality when dealing with its giant rival, India. Pakistan had just lost another war with India, which had led to the dismemberment of the country and the founding of the independent state of Bangladesh. As it turned out, the company for which Khan worked enriched uranium into fuel for reactors, a technology that could also be used to produce nuclear weapons.

In September 1974, Khan wrote a letter to the Pakistani government offering to help in the development of a nuclear weapon. Islamabad accepted his proposal, and before departing for home Khan stole or copied a large number of blueprints for equipment that could be used to enrich uranium.

President saddam hussein of iraq (1937–2006) was a brutal and aggressive tyrant in a volatile part of the world. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, decision makers in Washington and London were especially concerned that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, which he might use himself or give to terrorists. Saddam's record showed that there was cause for concern. In 1981, Israel had bombed the Osirak reactor at Tuwaitha out of concern that it could be used to produce materials for nuclear weapons. It was well documented that the Iraqi government had chemical weapons and that it had used them against the Kurdish minority in March 1988 and on numerous occasions during the war with Iran in the 1980s. Moreover, after the First Gulf War in 1991, investigators found that, because of successful denial and deception operations, Iraq had been able to conduct biological weapons programs of which the U.S. intelligence agencies had not been aware and to push forward a nuclear weapons program that was much further advanced than had been suspected. In the years that followed, United Nations (UN) teams caught Iraqi officials in the act of moving sensitive equipment, personnel, and documents around to avoid inspections.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, there was widespread concern that economic sanctions and UN inspections might not be enough to keep Iraq from pushing ahead with its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.

At 6:02 p.m. on wednesday, october 2, 2002, a 55-year-old white man who worked for the federal government was shot to death with a high-powered rifle in the parking lot of a grocery store in Glenmont, Maryland, just north of Washington, DC. A police station was just across the street from the scene of the crime, and an investigation began immediately. The police found a witness who remembered seeing two African-American males in a large, dark car leaving the scene, but there was no other information with enough detail to be useful.

The following day, the investigation became much more urgent when five more individuals were shot and killed in the Maryland suburbs north of the capital city using the same modus operandi – a high-powered rifle fired from a distant, unknown location. The victims were a mixture of age, gender, ethnicity, and occupation. All of the attacks took place outside, but they were at various types of locations including a car dealership, two gas stations, and a shopping mall. Witnesses provided no precise information about a possible perpetrator, but an individual did report seeing a white box truck speeding away from the scene shortly after one of the incidents. Again, there was no other evidence at the scene that was helpful.

What kinds of questions and analytic frameworks would help in catching the perpetrator as quickly as possible and preventing further killings?

Virtually every modern society, no matter how prosperous, structured, or even authoritarian, has organized crime. This is true in countries such as Britain and France, but also in Russia and China. There always seems to be individuals who for whatever reason – poverty, discrimination, lack of skills, or perhaps just a shortage of patience – cannot fit into normal organizations, relationships, and careers. They turn to crime. These individuals get money and power from the formal society, along with acceptance and respect from their criminal colleagues. The key to their success is to provide what is missing or forbidden, such as drugs, prostitutes, or gambling. They then protect themselves through corruption, deception, intimidation, and murder and become even more successful by organizing on a large scale.

In the Western world, one way that organized crime came about began in rural Sicily in the nineteenth century. With the Italian government distant, ineffective, and unresponsive, private organizations grew up to provide protection and settle disputes. A parallel, unofficial society emerged, which came to be known as the mafia. Mafia organizations were reinforced by family ties, and they provided honor and respect for their members. They also protected themselves through secrecy and violence. Over time, it was natural for the mafias to become involved in organized crime, which became extremely lucrative.

In twentieth-century United States the atmosphere was better, but immigrants were still subject to discrimination and often found it hard to achieve the American Dream through legitimate channels.

The rivalry between the united states and the ussr dominated the last half of the twentieth century, but there were other problems. The rest of the world had its own difficulties in dealing with issues such as modernization, as well as age-old disputes over land. Seeing such issues through a Cold War prism could sometimes lead to seriously misunderstanding them.

Many of these problems involved classic military issues of surprise and deception and the impact of new technology. Intelligence analysts also were grappling, however, with newer predicaments, such as limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and assuring the flow of energy to industrialized economies.

There was also a sense that history was speeding up – events were unfolding at an accelerating pace. The gap between developed countries and the rest of the world was widening, as was the potential for major revolutions, discontinuities, and changes in traditional trends and patterns. Islamic fundamentalists responded to these changes and were willing to use terrorism to promote their agenda.

One of the main characteristics of the contemporary world is globalization, or that things all over the planet are connected in ways that might not be obvious at first and that offer both danger and opportunity.

Effective analytic techniques are useful not only in national security and law enforcement. Medical diagnosis and deciding what to prescribe, for example, are based on hypotheses, multiple sources of information, and evaluation of data, as well as the physician's skill and experience. The risks of misdiagnosis, as well as inappropriate medicines and procedures, also have to be taken into account. Physicians readily admit that this process is as much art as science, with intuition playing a major role.

In the business world, reliable information and context about factors such as supply and demand in the present and the future have always been important for the bottom line. Business functions such as market research, risk analysis, and protecting against industrial espionage have parallels in national security analysis. The implications of technological change are also a major concern. Companies, it turns out, can be as susceptible to surprise and uncertainty as are political leaders or military commanders, as demonstrated in the global economic crisis of 2008.

Although analysts working in national security, law enforcement, medicine, and business have much to learn from each other, there are also important differences.

In the 1980s, analysts observing trends in the international drug trade began to see that cocaine from South America was replacing heroin from Europe (the famous French Connection) as the main type of narcotic imported into the United States. Coca plants, the source of cocaine, could grow in a variety of areas, but the climate and geography of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru provided the perfect conditions. The political and economic climate in this region, with weak, often corrupt governments and poor, small-scale farmers with few viable options for making a living, are also amenable to the coca plant. These circumstances have given rise to a trade in narcotics that, by the 1990s, was worth tens of billions of dollars a year, making it the largest, and most profitable, sector of global organized crime.

Taking on the formidable international trade in illegal drugs is a huge challenge for law enforcement. In addition to the resources of personnel, money, and equipment, effective countermeasures depend on an accurate and detailed understanding of not only the strengths, but also the vulnerabilities, of the process of producing and shipping drugs.

Colombia, which produces more than 75 percent of the world's cocaine, was one of the main centers of the illegal drug trade. Poor farmers in Colombia became interested in expanding the cultivation of coca in the 1980s and 1990s, after a decline in the price of coffee, which had previously been the country's largest export.

From march through april 2003, a u.s.-led coalition was involved in a large-scale conventional conflict with organized units of the Iraqi army, plus some irregular units. American military officers and civilian planners had been envisioning this kind of campaign for decades. Huge amounts of equipment, on land and in the air, would maneuver quickly over vast spaces. Forces would employ high volumes of accurate firepower using “smart” weapons that could be guided with precision directly to their targets. All of the vehicles, aircraft, artillery, and other machinery, as well as the people, would be tied together electronically by using the Internet and computers. Massive amounts of accurate information, constantly updated, would be made available to all levels of the chain of command, making it possible to respond rapidly to a fast-changing situation. This battle, and the intelligence that supported it, was at an entirely different level than what had been known previously.

Such an application of high-tech warfare quickly brought down Saddam Hussein's regime, but peace did not follow. Almost immediately, there was domestic resistance and terrorism, some of it supported by outsiders. During the spring and summer that followed the conventional military victory, some irregular pro-Saddam elements conducted direct attacks on coalition forces, especially in the Sunni areas of the country. They used a residual organizational structure based on Saddam's Baath Party, as well as weapons and funds that had been set aside in advance.

On august 6 and 9, 1945, the united states dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. Less than a month later, on September 2, Japan surrendered. The awesome power of atomic bombs had been decisive in bringing World War II to an end, and the fact that the United States was the only country that had atomic weapons was expected to be a decisive factor in shaping the postwar world.

A few days after the end of the war, on September 5, 1945, Igor Gouzenko (1919–82), a Chief Intelligence Directorate (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye; GRU) code clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada, defected. The documents that Gouzenko brought with him to support his story had the potential to undermine the U.S. monopoly of atomic weapons. He claimed that the intelligence agencies of the USSR, working through local communist parties, had built up an extensive network of informants in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Moreover, he alleged that Soviet intelligence had successfully targeted the Manhattan Project, which had produced atomic weapons. Gouzenko was able to provide the name of at least one Canadian who had worked on the Manhattan project and had reported to the Soviets. He also alleged that there were Soviet spies in the U.S. government, but he had no names.

The Canadian government began a series of investigations based on Gouzenko's information. One of the persons whose name emerged as a suspect was Klaus Fuchs (1911–88).

In 1978, the american government was preoccupied with trying to arrange peace in the Middle East, to negotiate an arms control agreement with the USSR, and to normalize relations with communist China, among other things. Washington was not concerned about Iran under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919–80), who had been on the throne since 1941, at least in part because of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-sponsored coup in 1953. At a time when the British were withdrawing their military and naval forces “east of Suez” and the United States was reluctant to take on more international commitments, Iran emerged as an important military ally of the United States. Among other things, a strong Iran would help to block Soviet expansion toward the oil-rich Middle East.

Energy was also an important issue, as prices had fluctuated widely, but usually in an upward direction, in the wake of the Arab oil embargo imposed after the Yom Kippur War. Iran exported approximately 5,000,000 barrels of oil a day (the second largest source in the world) at a time when U.S. demand for oil was outpacing domestic supply. The shah had pressed for higher prices, but he did not support Arab-inspired boycotts of exports to the West to punish support for Israel. Moreover, Iran spent much of its profits from oil on weapons from the United States. Arms sales went from just over $500 million in 1972 to almost $4 billion in 1974.

The automobile industry is a quintessentially american one, conjuring up images of prosperity, mobility, and technology. Although Americans did not invent the car, companies such as Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors mastered production and sales. These firms became huge and profitable leaders in the industry, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. In recent decades, however, Japanese automobile companies have steadily increased their share of sales in the U.S. domestic market, which was once dominated by the big three American companies. How have the Japanese managed to accomplish this?

As early as the 1950s, the Japanese car companies, working with analysts in their government, were studying a scenario for the future that would be shaped by likely trends in areas – such energy pricing, technology, and shipping – which they believed would be drivers of change over time. They also made an in-depth study of the car market in America. Their analysis convinced them that the American companies were unwilling to endanger their short-term profits by spending money on innovations or improvements in quality. Moreover, the Japanese believed that over the long term the price of oil would increase, leading American consumers to be more interested in vehicles that were more efficient, generated less pollution, and required less maintenance, while still selling for a reasonable price. The Japanese believed that there could be great opportunities for them in such a scenario and that greater efficiency would enable them to take advantage of those opportunities.

In 1950, communism was on the march around the world, and the Cold War was well underway. Between 1945 and 1948, Soviet-sponsored regimes had come to power throughout Eastern Europe. In Asia, Kim Il-Sung (1912–94) dominated politics in North Korea as early as 1946, and then proclaimed the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north in 1948. In October 1949, Mao Zedong (1893–1976) took over China. These developments were made even more ominous when the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb in August 1949, ending the brief U.S. monopoly on this destructive weapon. If the global communist offensive had brought war, there would have been a high probability that the conflict would be of unprecedented scope and destructiveness.

In response to the Pearl Harbor disaster and the start of the Cold War, the United States undertook a major reorganization of its security apparatus, in which intelligence played a new and prominent role. The National Security Act, signed by President Harry Truman on July 26, 1947, established a new structure that included the National Security Council (NSC), a unified Department of Defense (DoD), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The leaders of this new security establishment saw the contest with Communism as a global challenge. Their main concern was in Europe, an area of great economic potential; the response there centered around the Marshall Plan to provide economic aid and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance to provide a defensive shield.

Airline tragedies, with their sudden loss of a considerable number of lives, are a great concern to a public that travels a great deal, and these incidents garner a great deal of attention from the media. People quickly ask: What could cause such a shocking event? Typically, proving the cause is a demanding procedure, because witnesses rarely survive. In addition, there are usually a number of possible answers, as the aircraft are complex mechanisms and, sadly, there are any number of people who could wish them harm.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747 jet traveling from London to New York, exploded thirty-seven minutes after takeoff at 31,000 feet, as it passed over the village of Lockerbie, Scotland. A total of 270 people died as a result of the crash, including 189 passengers from the United States, and 11 British subjects on the ground. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) immediately sent a team to work with British authorities to collect the approximately 10,000 pieces of debris scattered over almost 900 square miles (2,340 square kilometers) so that they could reconstruct the aircraft and try to uncover how it had been destroyed.

It quickly became obvious that a bomb had destroyed the plane. There had been no distress call, nor any indications of mechanical trouble; and many pieces of wreckage had the tell-tale warping that indicated that an explosion had taken place.

By 1940, joseph stalin (1879–1953) sat atop a totalitarian system that gave him unchallenged control of the Soviet Union. The ideological fervor and effort to spread the communist faith around the world during the first years after the revolution of 1917 had given way to consolidation of power at home and a foreign policy in which protection of national interests was the main priority. Brutal purges of the late 1930s had demonstrated the price of disloyalty, or even suspicion of disloyalty, to Stalin. As recently as July 1940, the head of military intelligence had been removed (and was later shot) after disagreeing with Stalin.

All of this had implications for the bureaucratic structure of intelligence that supported Stalin's decision making. There were two main intelligence organizations. The civilian service was reorganized multiple times and had several different names, but from the mid-1930s through the mid-1940s, it was usually referred to as the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del; NKVD). The military service was the Chief Intelligence Directorate (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye; GRU) of the General Staff. Both used sympathy for Communism and effective tradecraft to forge a system that was one of the best collectors of information in the world at that time. There were Soviet spies in crucial positions in the United States, Britain, and even Nazi Germany (although at least one of the Germans would turn out to be a double agent).

The middle east is a region of intense global interest because it is a source of much of the world's oil, as well as the home of three of the world's major religions. Israel sits in the heart of this important and volatile region. Because it is small and is surrounded by hostile, much larger, and more populous Arab neighbors, Israel puts a high priority on having effective intelligence collection and analysis. In June 1967, when intelligence suggested that Israel faced imminent attack, it launched a preemptive strike against three of those neighbors: Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Using their excellent knowledge of where enemy forces were located, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) wiped out most of the Egyptian air force in just three hours and went on to defeat all three of the rival armies in six days. This feat made Israel the dominant military power in the region. As a result, Israeli civilian and military leaders assumed that they had little to fear from their Arab neighbors and that they would be able to detect and deal with any future threat.

This assessment did not change after Anwar al-Sadat (1918–81) became president of Egypt in 1970. Israeli analysts saw Sadat's threats to retake the Sinai Peninsula (which had been lost in 1967) and to proclaim 1971 the “Year of Decision” as empty rhetoric, especially when nothing happened.

In the 1970s, the situation that had prevailed for several decades, during which only the members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council – Britain, China, France, the United States, and the USSR – had nuclear weapons was beginning to erode. India tested a device in 1974; a number of other countries, including Israel, South Africa, and Taiwan, were suspected of having active programs; and even more countries were interested in eventually having this ultimate power to destroy or deter. A world in which many countries had nuclear weapons would be a markedly more dangerous one. As a result, there was intense interest at the senior levels of the American government in monitoring nuclear weapons programs so that, if a country showed signs of making serious progress toward having nuclear weapons, efforts could be made to stop it.

At 3:00 a.m., Washington time, on September 22, 1979, a U.S. satellite detected an intense double flash of light in the southern hemisphere. Such a double flash was characteristic of a nuclear explosion, so there were immediately questions to intelligence analysts about whether there had been a nuclear explosion and, if so, who had been responsible. The satellite, however, had been launched more than a decade before, and its capabilities had deteriorated. Not enough data were generated by the satellite to confirm that the flash actually had been a nuclear explosion.