Written Threat Assessment: You are to assume the role of a US federal agency intelligence analyst who is putting together the agency's input (on your specific topic) for the DNI's Annual Threat Assessment, which will be presented to Congress. Therefore, your goal is to produce an "all-source, fused" intelligence assessment. I realize that the bulk of your sources will be OSINT, but you are required to use at least one additional intelligence source (i.e. HUMINT, IMINT, SIGINT and/or MASINT from unclassified sources). Are there commercial satellite images available regarding your topic? Can you find transcripts of telephone calls or other conversations? When it comes to OSINT sources, I want you to be creative as well.
Remember, as an intelligence analyst, you do not want to be guilty of "mirror imaging" so ensure that you take other leader's, State's and organization's motivations and goals into consideration. You are only limited by your imagination.
Also, remember your audience! Policymakers e.g., Congress or Cabinet members and President do not want an academic report. Do NOT include a great deal of background. A paragraph or two at most is sufficient for this policymaker audience. Write to inform and assume a certain amount of basic knowledge on the topic.
The following are recommended steps in developing your analytical threat assessment:
First step: Pick a topic that you believe would be of interest to the US intelligence community and is relevant to national security or US interests abroad.
Second step: Narrow your topic with respect to the actors, geographical locations or other pertinent, key issues.
Third step: Conduct some initial research on this topic to see if there is sufficient open source information available. Also, your initial research may provide insights into search terms and potential, relevant sources of information.
Fourth step: Develop a key intelligence question (KIQ).
Fifth step: Develop an outline - This is important! Please do not skip this step. I am glad to review your outlines with you.
Sixth step: Identify relevant, timely evidence to be used in your analysis.
Seventh step: Begin conducting your analysis.
Eighth step: Draft your paper. Revise, revise, revise.
Tenth step: Finalize your threat assessment based on your research.
You will need to properly document your sources. You may use APA's Parenthetical Citation Method or another citation style and you must have a Bibliography on a separate page at the end. This means that for any information that is not your own original ideas/work, you will need to cite the source and page number in parentheses at the end of the relevant sentences. You will also need to have a bibliography at the end with at least five different sources (including the two required above).
Let me know if you need guidance. Hope you enjoy this assignment. It is the kind of challenging and important tasks that intelligence analysts perform where their contribution can make a real difference.