SUFFICIENCY AND RELATIVE VALUE OF INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION METHODS

Abstract

The study of intelligence tends to focus on failures, tradeoffs, and organizational structure issues within the intelligence community that lead to those failures. Though all important topics to investigate, it has left a void in research on the sufficiency and value of intelligence, more specifically, whether advancements in technology make technical intelligence collection a sufficient means of meeting objectives. Also left understudied is whether technological advancements impact the relative value of human intelligence and technical intelligence. The following research employs comparative case studies to explore these issues. An analysis of the Second World War, Cold War, and Operation Neptune Spear were inconclusive as sufficiency and value are determined on a situational basis and impacted by external factors.