Introduction to Intelligence Studies

Writing and Briefing for the Intelligence Community 239

In addition to condence levels, analysts also use estimative language

to convey the likelihood that something will happen. is is dierent from

condence levels because here the analyst is not saying how condent they

are in their sources or their information; rather, they are saying how likely

something is to happen or not. To illustrate this, consider an analyst who is

investigating whether a country’s leader is in good health and whether the

leader is likely to die within the next year. e analyst may have a human

intelligence (HUMINT) report from a source whose reliability is either not

good or has yet to be established; the HUMINT source may report that the

leader is in the nal sta ...