Staying ahead of adversaries requires a new approach to intelligence systems

The world is a dangerous and increasingly complex place. As peer adversaries such as China and Russia and developing entities such as North Korea mature strategically and technologically, it is the intelligence community’s job to keep track of and assess any potential threats. This process is not as straightforward as it used to be because of the inherently complicated nature of world affairs and an explosion of new data in many different forms and from many different sources. At the same time, as the intelligence community strives to collect and interpret this data to drive more informed decision-making, our adversaries are making use of it as well. The pressure to analyze data more quickly than the enemy is significant.

Often, it is the job of young analysts just entering the workplace to make sense of it all. For these new analysts, understanding a plethora of data and the complicated circumstances it is gathered from can be very difficult.  This challenge is compounded by the legacy technology rampant throughout the intelligence community. Already under a lot of stress to perform and contribute, new analysts must first learn how to use the technology their employer operates. Unfortunately, the tools that analysts are introduced to are not as modern as the threats they aim to study.

For a junior analyst just starting their career who grew up with and around technology and has learned how to use new tools and tech from the private sector, gathering an understanding of legacy systems can be quite difficult. Because they have been in place for years, and may not be as technologically capable as the intelligence community needs, often veteran analysts will use personal tricks or work-arounds in order to get the system to do what they need it to. Or perhaps, the system only makes sense if the analyst knows where to look. In either case, success and efficiency is dependent on institutional knowledge that a new analyst simply won’t have.

Intelligence systems must work for new and veteran analysts alike. They need to be simple enough to learn and understand swiftly, but also able to complete complicated tasks. Most importantly, they must have the ability to present any information gathered in ways that someone who is not a data expert can comprehend. Their primary function is to empower individual analysts with the capability to make informed decisions faster than adversaries — no matter how long the analyst has been on the job.

Esri’s Intelligence Configuration for ArcGIS Pro (ICAP), a workstation for intelligence analysts within Esri’s ArcGIS platform, helps mitigate those concerns. ArcGIS Pro, with its ability to perform analysis and present information in 2D and 3D maps, is a natural enabler in data literacy. With ICAP, which was specifically designed with the intelligence community in mind, analysts can skip the steep learning curve that comes with legacy systems and start contributing to the mission right away. ICAP’s configuration only exposes analysts to the features they need, meaning they can learn and support the mission rapidly without having to learn the entire platform right away.

Powerful tools such as batch imports, alerts and link charts also cut down on the amount of time it takes to analyze patterns, view trends of past activity and assess future likelihoods. The ability to customize dashboards and ribbons within ICAP means that each team, and each individual member on that team, can select an interface that compliments the specific type of intelligence they are examining and make the tool work for them, even in disconnected, intermittent and limited-bandwidth environments.

The nature and intricacy of threats today require a new, different approach to intelligence. The key isn’t taking powerful tools away from the analysts, or dumbing them down so that they are not as effective as they can be. Rather, ICAP aims to provide analysts with a system they will be able to follow and utilize from day one, and give them the option to customize and ramp up the complexity of their tools as their needs and skill sets see fit. For the intelligence community, it means realizing the full potential of new, younger analysts more quickly.