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1. AMERICAN
INTELLIGENCE
JOURNAL THE MAGAZINE FOR INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS
__NMIA__________________________
Vol. 32, No. 1, 2015
New Paradigms in Intelligence Analysis

2. American Intelligence Journal Page 55 Vol 32, No 1
ACounterintelligenceAnalysis Typology
by CDR (USNR, Ret) Kevin P. Riehle
This article proposes a typology of CI
analysistodefinethedisciplinemoreclearly,
differentiating it by the customers it serves,
the targets it pursues, and the nature of the
resulting analysis.
C
ounterintelligence (CI) analysts serve a wide variety
of customers across a spectrum from national-level
policymakers to tactical commanders. That variety,
however, is at the core of confusion, even among CI
analysts themselves, surrounding the nature and purpose of
CI analysis. This article proposes a typology of CI analysis
to define the discipline more clearly, differentiating it by the
customers it serves, the targets it pursues, and the nature of
the resulting analysis. This typology divides CI analysis
into four distinct but related types:
(1)Foreignintelligencethreatanalysis: assessments
of the threat posed to friendly interests by foreign
intelligenceactivities.
(2)Counter-counterintelligenceanalysis: analytic
adviceanddirectiontopositiveintelligencecollectors
to help them avoid foreign counterintelligence
activities.
(3)CIoperationalandinvestigativeanalysis: analytic
input directly facilitating counterintelligence
investigative,operational,andinformationassurance
activities.
(4)Strategicforeignintelligenceanalysis: exploring
and explaining the relationship between foreign
intelligence activities and the foreign strategic
decision-making that directs them.
By distinguishing CI analysis types and their associated
customer sets, this typology can inform intelligence
transformation initiatives by identifying the required skills
and organizational settings where the different types can
have the greatest impact on the full spectrum of decision-
makers that they serve. A lack of understanding of these
types is at the root of an identity crisis that CI analysts
constantly face: Am I a CI specialist first but assigned as an
analyst; or am I a professional analyst first, but one who
focuses on CI topics? This unanswered question permeates
the career planning and training of CI analysts; if the
foundational skill is as a CI specialist, then professionals
would first obtain CI specialization training and some of
them would apply that training to analytic tasks. However, if
the foundational skill is as an analyst, then training in
analytical tradecraft would predominate, with foreign
intelligence activities being the topic against which an
analyst applies those skills. This same division of focus also
determines the optimum organizational placement of these
analysts, with some more effectively placed organizationally
proximate to their specific customers, while others, with a
much broader customer set, would be better aligned together
in a regionally-focused strategic CI analytic organization.
Figure 1 summarizes the profile of each CI analytic type and
posits the dominant skill that analysts should employ in
each type to be successful:
Target Customer Organizational
Proximity
Dominant
Skill
Type 1, FI
Threat
Analysis
Hard targets,
plus any country
that poses a
threat to U.S.
interests
Non-intelligence
audience across
a wide spectrum
from strategic to
tactical
Close proximity to
customer not
necessary
Analytic
tradecraft,
with
specialization
on the threat
equation
Type 2,
Investigative/
Operational
Analysis
Hard targets CI/IA
practitioners
Benefits from close
proximity to
customer
Operational,
with
specialization
on CI methods
Type 3,
Counter-CI
Analysis
Hard targets,
plus any country
that poses a
threat to U.S.
collection
operations
Collectors Benefits from close
proximity to
customer
Operational,
with
specialization
on collection
methods
Type 4,
Strategic FI
Analysis
Hard targets
primarily, but
can be applied
to intelligence
systems of any
country
Policymakers
and fellow
analysts
Close proximity to
customer not
necessary
Analytic
tradecraft,
with
specialization
on foreign
intelligence
systems
analysis
Figure 1: Summary of the Four CI Analytic Types
This article will describe each of these types and elaborate
on how they impact the training and organization of CI
analysts.

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Page 56
Vol 32, No 1
Type One: Foreign Intelligence Threat Analysis
The first and most common type of CI analysis is foreign
intelligence (FI) threat analysis. This type strives to
answer the question, “Where and how is a foreign
intelligence system operating against U.S. interests?” FI
threat analysts emphasize the portion of the U.S. Executive
Order 12333 definition of CI that reads, “…protect against
espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or
assassinations....”1
Customers for FI threat analysis span
the spectrum from tactical to strategic actors, but most are
located outside the Intelligence Community (IC). They
include military decision-makers concerned about threats to
their operations, facilities, or personnel; government seniors
who need information to protect themselves while traveling
abroad; government establishments protecting their
personnel against foreign espionage attempts; and the
research, development and acquisition community, which is
concerned about protecting critical technologies.
Consequently, foreign intelligence threat products are often
the face of CI to the non-intelligence world.
This type of analysis ideally follows the
equation threat = intent x capability x
opportunity,todeterminethelevelofthreat
thataforeignintelligence/clandestineactor
poses.
This type of analysis ideally follows the equation threat =
intentxcapabilityxopportunity,todeterminethelevelof
threat that a foreign intelligence/clandestine actor poses.
The intent factor in the equation describes the actor’s
willingness to conduct threatening actions; in the
intelligence context, it is an intelligence actor’s willingness
to employ clandestine methods to collect secured
information. Capability describes the quantitative and
qualitative factors that facilitate a foreign intelligence actor’s
success, such as expertise, freedom of movement, and
communications mechanisms, along with the amount of
resources aligned with a particular task. Opportunity
describes the spatial-temporal relationships between the
intelligence actor and the target, and is impacted by physical
proximity of intelligence officers to a desired item, as well as
by virtual proximity through electronic connectivity.2
The
level of intent, capability, and opportunity are unique to
each foreign intelligence/clandestine service, making it
necessary to weigh each factor for each individual service to
come to a reliable measurement of that service’s threat.
Increasing in importance over the past decade are
assessments of an adversary’s ability to collect intelligence
by penetrating computer networks. “Cyber threat”
assessments use the same threat equation, measuring an
adversary’s capability combined with intent, although global
access to information networks opens opportunities to
anyone who has the capability to exploit them.
The subjects of this type of analysis can be any country or
entity that poses a threat. Hence, FI threat analysts are
often generalists in broad regions of the world, seldom
having the luxury of concentrating on the threat from one
particular country. Rather than expertise in one country,
threat analysts are better served by a general understanding
of how intelligence services work, how clandestine activities
are conducted, and how to apply the threat equation, which
allows them to overlay that knowledge against any foreign
intelligence/clandestine actor. Added to this general
understanding of foreign intelligence tradecraft must also
come a firm grasp on analytic standards to clearly and
persuasively articulate threats in analytic products.
Type Two: Counter-Counterintelligence Analysis
The second type of CI analysis, which can be labeled
counter-counterintelligence analysis, is related to but
different from the first. It strives to answer the question,
“Where and how is a foreign CI service trying to neutralize
our intelligence operations?” The customer for this type of
analysis is our own intelligence collector. This type of
analysis identifies foreign CI activities directed against
friendly intelligence collection operations, identifying
friendly vulnerabilities and hostile capabilities to exploit
those vulnerabilities; provides CI reviews of HUMINT
activities; conducts CI damage assessments; and supports
asset validation. In this way, Type Two analysis is similar to
operations security analysis, which identifies the aspects of
friendly operations that make them vulnerable to foreign
observation and potential neutralization.3
This type of analysis uses the traditional threat equation
similarly to Type One, but differs from Type One analysis by
serving a narrow audience inside the IC, rather than a non-
intelligence audience. Consequently, this analysis is closely
tied to individual collection operations and is often done in
immediateorganizationalproximitytocustomersthemselves.
The foreign targets of this type of analysis can include
nearly any country worldwide in which friendly collection
platforms are located, since most countries have a CI
capability that monitors foreign activities within their
borders. Targets also include the most capable CI threats
emanating from countries with worldwide reach, since they
have the potential to pose a third-country threat even
outside their own borders. However, unlike Type One CI
analysis, Type Two analysis does not always result in a
finished analytic product, but is often communicated
through less formal analytic output nodes directly to a
customer.

4. American Intelligence Journal Page 57 Vol 32, No 1
In HUMINT, this type of analysis seeks specific information
about a source’s authenticity and reliability, plus the level of
control a handler exercises over the source. Authenticity
indicates whether the source is genuinely and truthfully
representing placement and access; i.e., is the source telling
the truth about the information that he/she is capable of
providing? Reliability, or veracity, determines the
truthfulness of the source’s information itself. Control
determines whether the source complies with instructions
and follows operational security procedures. The U.S. DoD
instruction that governs CI analysis and production
identifies “collection source evaluations” as analytic
products that determine if a source’s information is valuable
and credible and to ascertain the reliability and veracity of
the source.4
These products support HUMINT collectors’
efforts to “understand and assess the intentions and
motivations of their assets, as well as the authenticity of the
intelligence they provide.”5
Similar to operational and investigative
analysis,cyberCIanalysisdirectlysupports
friendly actions to counter and disrupt
foreign clandestine activities.
The term “counterintelligence threat” applies to this type of
analysis, as it assesses the threat from foreign CI entities.
However, because both Type One and Type Two analysis
are usually conducted by CI analytic organizations, threat
assessments often contain a combination of FI threat
information (Type One) and CI threat information (Type
Two), sometimes confusing or conflating the two. In reality,
because the customers represent such different interests,
analytic products in these two types would best be
separated or clearly distinguished to avoid that confusion.
Type Three: Operational and Investigative Analysis
The third type of CI analysis,CI operational and
investigative analysis, strives to answer the question, “How
can our CI efforts neutralize foreign intelligence threats?”
This type of analysis emphasizes the portion of the U.S.
ExecutiveOrder12333definitionofCIthatreads,
“…activities conducted to identify, deceive, exploit,
disrupt…” It is focused more than any other CI analytic
type on opportunity analysis, seeking to identify the right
venue, asset, scenario, target, or passage material that would
facilitate a friendly CI operation, or to develop evidence that
would support a CI investigation. As could be expected, the
customers for this analysis are inside the CI community,
essentially serving as the inverse of Type Two, which
supports actions to prevent the foreign equivalents from
neutralizing friendly intelligence operations. The foreign
targets that dominate this type of analysis tend to be those
that pose the most severe foreign intelligence threats, since
it is those entities that require the greatest amount of
resources to counter.
Into this analytical type also falls analysis of the methods
required to defend the information infrastructures from
foreign penetration, manipulation, or denial. An Internet
search for the phrase “cyber counterintelligence analysis”
yields hundreds of job openings for individuals to support
computer security efforts. Recognizing the computerized
nature of critical information and the increased defensive
efforts to protect it, these analysts merge counterintelligence
with information security to provide analytic input to
protective activities. Similar to operational and investigative
analysis, cyber CI analysis directly supports friendly actions
to counter and disrupt foreign clandestine activities. Its
customers are primarily information assurance specialists
whose job is to protect friendly networks.
The results of Type Three CI analysis are usually
communicated directly to the operational or investigative
customer, and are seldom compiled into finished analytic
products. Although analytic tradecraft standards are
required to fully document and support any analytic
conclusions, including those in Type Three analytic output,
Type Three analysis may sometimes omit analyst
assessments, simply articulating facts in support of
prosecutorial activities.
PRIMARYFOCUSOFCI
I
t is in Type Three analysis where the CI analyst’s identity
crisis is most pronounced. This type is where the
majority of U.S. DoD CI analysts aspire to work, as the
DoD CI community views this as the most important type.
This aspiration is based on a perception that there is little
value or purpose for CI analytical efforts that do not directly
prompt some kind of CI action. Some CI analysts go as far
as misidentifying “strategic CI analysis” (see Type Four
below) as analysis that provides tactical support to CI
operations and investigations. Consequently, much of the
analytical training available for CI analysts focuses on this
type of analysis, prioritizing the active countering nature of
the work over the analytical nature.
The vast majority of academic and government studies of CI
focus on the first three types of CI analysis, emphasizing the
threat and mitigation aspects of CI. For example, the WMD
Commission Report concluded that the U.S. government
should strengthen CI “to stanch the hemorrhaging of our
secrets and take the fight to our adversaries.”6
Michelle Van
Cleave,theformerU.S.NationalCIExecutive,similarly
stated, “The signature purpose of counterintelligence is to
confront and engage the adversary.”7
Similarly, in a 2007

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speech to the American Bar Association, then-National CI
Executive Dr. Joel F. Brenner (Van Cleave’s successor)
summarized the mission of CI as “the business of identifying
and dealing with foreign intelligence threats to the United
States.” Dr. Brenner enumerated the losses of technological
and national security information caused by spies, and
emphasized the responsibility of U.S. CI to mitigate those
losses.8
In light of these national-level statements, it is not
surprising that the majority of CI analytic resources are
devoted to these types.
Type Four: Strategic Foreign Intelligence Analysis
The fourth and least common type of CI analysis is strategic
FI analysis. It is closely related to strategic political/military
analysis, answering the questions, “To what missions does
an adversary assign its intelligence resources?” and “What
are an adversary’s intelligence priorities and what do those
priorities tell us about the adversary’s overall strategic
thinking?” Through this type of analysis, CI analysts
should be able to offer answers to the critical “why”
questions that provide insights into an adversary’s
decision-making: Why does a country direct its foreign
intelligence/clandestine activities toward certain targets and
what does that indicate about the country’s policies; why is
a country’s intelligence system increasing or decreasing its
collection against a certain target; etc.? This type of
analysis uses much of the same information that all the other
CI analytic types use, including the information derived from
investigations and operations, but for a different purpose:
to draw a rough picture of the strategic thinking that goes
into the adversary’s intelligence activities, focusing on the
intent side of the threat equation. It essentially reverse-
engineers another country’s National Intelligence Priorities
Framework(NIPF)-likedecision-makingprocessbyanalyzing
the visible intelligence activities and tracing them back to the
priorities at their core. Targets of this type of analysis are
typically adversarial countries, since their decision-making is
the most opaque to friendly intelligence, and the reflections
of strategic thinking that come from analyzing their foreign
intelligence activities could be among the few windows we
have into their internal thought processes. Similar to Type
One CI analysis, customers for Type Four are often outside
the IC, using the analysis for policy-level decisions.
Consequently, this type of analysis leads to formal finished
analytic products, requiring high analytic tradecraft
standards.
This author explored this CI analysis type in-depth as a
research fellow in the Director of National Intelligence
Exceptional Analyst Program. The research project sought
to identify the strategic insights that could be derived from
looking closely at foreign intelligence collection, using early
Cold War Soviet intelligence collection as a case study. The
study applied four screening questions to a set of data
describing Soviet intelligence activities from the end of
World War II to Stalin’s death in 1953. These questions
were:
• WhatquestionswereSovietintelligenceservices
tryingtoanswer? WhatweretheSovietessential
elementsofinformation(EEIs)?
• What type of sources were Soviet intelligence
services targeting for information? What
placementandaccessweretheytryingtodevelop:
military,political,economic,scientific,internal
security, etc.?
• WhatliaisonrelationshipsdidSovietintelligence
servicesestablishandhowdidtheyexploitthose
relationships?
• HowwereSovietintelligenceservicesstructured
andwhatdidthestructurerevealaboutpriorities?
Answers to these questions revealed specific areas where
Soviet intelligence services focused their effort, reflecting
the USSR’s national security interests at the time.9
Fused CI
information painted a rich picture of Soviet national security
priorities and the evolution in priorities over time, yielding
valuable insights into Soviet strategic thinking in the early
Cold War period. While the Soviet case study used
historical, publicly available data, applying this same
methodology to current data about foreign intelligence
activities yields similar insights.
The customer for this type of analysis is the same as the
customer for other strategic intelligence analysis—primarily
the national security policymaker. However, because this
analysis relies on CI-derived data, it offers a second opinion
that can be weighed against analysis based on non-CI
sources. Currently, there are few places in the U.S. CI
community where this type of analysis is performed.
Nevertheless, a few CI analysts with a truly strategic
perspective could add significant insights to the IC’s
knowledge base, yielding, as Sherman Kent, the director of
CIA’sOfficeofNationalEstimatesfrom1952to1967,
described as “information which the positive intelligence
people have wanted for a long time and which they could get
from no other source.”10
This type of CI analysis is not simply a redefinition of
political/military analysis, nor does it replace traditional
positive intelligence analysis with strategic FI analysis.
Rather it identifies the broader value of CI-derived
information and provides a venue to make full use of what is
already being collected and analyzed for more tactical
purposes (particularly Types Two and Three), mining it, as
Vincent Bridgeman states, for the “insights gained by
accessing the competitor’s intelligence cycle.”11
Similarly,

6. American Intelligence Journal Page 59 Vol 32, No 1
John Ehrman in his 2009 Studies in Intelligence article on CI
theory asserts that:
CI analyses can help fill gaps in analysts’
understanding of the political processes in other
countries… [and] can provide valuable information
for use in policy deliberations, especially in issues
involvingauthoritarianortotalitarianstates. Because
those regimes, unlike democratic governments, do
not debate their policies in public, understanding the
intelligence services and their practices can help
analysts infer how their political leaders view the
outside world.12
The common knowledge baseline in all of
these analytic types is an understanding of
how foreign actors conduct intelligence
and CI activities.
Strategic FI analysis builds on Ehrman’s foundation,
showing how “the study of the organization and behavior of
the intelligence services of foreign states and entities” can
be applied more broadly across the Intelligence Community.
ImpactonTrainingandOrganizationofCIAnalysts
The common knowledge baseline in all of these analytic
types is an understanding of how foreign actors conduct
intelligence and CI activities. A general understanding of
foreign intelligence activities informs all four CI analysis
types. Consequently, training in how foreign intelligence
and counterintelligence services conduct their activities is a
baseline requirement for all four types. It is needed to
develop well-informed threat analysis, which assesses
whether a particular FI activity threatens friendly interests.
It is needed to successfully support intelligence collectors
by recognizing the tradecraft and methods that a foreign CI
service might use against them. It is needed to inform CI
investigations and operations about an adversary’s
weaknesses and vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
Moreover, it is needed in informing policymakers of the
connections between intelligence and an adversary’s
broader strategic interests.
The four types of CI analysis differ, however, in the
audience they serve and their most appropriate
organizational alignment. Type One and Four analysts
typically serve a non-IC audience and, while analysts
involved in Types One and Four need to understand the
decision- makers they serve, they are usually not collocated
with them. The skill to recognize these customers’ needs
can be taught in analytical tradecraft training, similar to the
training that non-CI analysts receive. Analysts who began
their career outside the CI community and transferred into an
element which produces threat analysis products or strategic
FI analysis products can usually apply the analytical skills
they obtained before becoming an analyst conducting
Types One or Four. However, both Types One and Four
also require distinct specialized training to be successful:
Type One analysts need to be trained in applying the threat
equation; Type Four analysts need to understand how to
define and articulate the link between foreign intelligence
and foreign decision-making. Of all the types, Type Four
analysis also requires the deepest collaborative relationship
with other intelligence analysts outside the CI community, to
compare, contrast, and augment assessments of an
adversary’s strategic thinking.
On the other hand, Type Two and Three analysts require a
deeper understanding of friendly operational and
investigative tradecraft, and place less emphasis on finished
analytic production skills. Both of these types must have a
closer understanding of friendly courses of action, applying
their knowledge of an adversary’s activities directly to the
friendly operational decision-making process. Type Two
analysts need to understand friendly collection tradecraft as
well as specific ongoing collection operations to tailor
analysis to the specific threats that the collector customer
may face. A Type Three analyst needs to understand CI
functional capabilities to penetrate, neutralize, or manipulate
foreign intelligence activities in order to make analytic
products actionable and applicable. Organizationally, these
analysts are often embedded directly with their supported
customer, resulting in fewer formally published analytic
products and more face-to-face, direct support. To be fully
successful, an analyst responsible for Types Two and Three
requires specialized training in HUMINT and CI methods to
gain credibility with the customer and to fully understand
the customer’s needs. A former CI operator, investigator, or
collector who has training and experience in these fields and
transfers to an analytic job can feel more comfortable in
these types of analysis than in either of the other two.
CONCLUSION
Regardless of which type of CI analysis an analyst is
performing, all types have their root is a common baseline of
knowledge about foreign intelligence/clandestine activities.
While the four CI analysis types use CI-derived information
for different purposes and serve different customers, they
are all CI analysts at their core, with a distinct career path
and set of expectations. Their output can support a variety
of decision-making frameworks, from tactical to strategic,
within the Intelligence Community or outside it.
Consequently, CI analysts need to recognize which
customer they are serving, how that customer uses
information, and what information will best fill the specific

7. American Intelligence Journal
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Vol 32, No 1
customer’s need. With this knowledge, CI analysts can better
understand how to develop skills and customer relationships
thatwillservethemwellinaCIanalyticcareer.
[Author’s Note: The views expressed in this article are those of
the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the
Department of Defense or any U.S. government agency.]
Notes
1
Executive Order 12333,United States Intelligence Activities(as
amended by Executive Orders 13284 (2003), 13355 (2004), and 13470
(2008)), 30 July 2008.
2
For a detailed application of this threat equation to foreign
intelligence threat analysis, see Kevin P. Riehle, “Assessing Foreign
IntelligenceThreats,”AmericanIntelligenceJournal (Vol.31,No.,1,
2013), pp. 96-101.
3
U.S. Marine Corps, Intelligence Training and Readiness Manual,
NAVMC 3500.100, 18 March 2011, pp. 11-45; Department of
Defense, DoD OPSEC Program Manual, DoD Instruction 5305.02-
M, 3 November 2008.
4
U.S. Department of Defense, Counterintelligence (CI) Analysis and
Production, DoD Instruction 5240.18, 17 November 2009.
5
CentralIntelligenceAgency,“INTelligence:HumanIntelligence,”
News and Information, 2010 Featured Story Archive, https://
www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured-
story-archive/intelligence-human-intelligence.html(accessed5July
2013).
6
Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the
United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government, 2005), p. 495.
7
Michelle Van Cleave, “Strategic Counterintelligence: What Is It, and
What Should We Do About It?” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 51, No. 2,
p. 2.
8
Dr. Joel F. Brenner, “Strategic Counterintelligence,” Speech to the
American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Law and National
Security, Washington, DC, 29 March 2007.
9
The methodology used in this study was described in a paper by
this author titled “Counterspies Helping Spies: Counterintelligence
Contributions to the Strategic Intelligence Picture,” which was selected
as a finalist in the 2012 Director of National Intelligence-sponsored
Galileo Award, recognizing innovative and creative solutions to U.S.
intelligencechallenges.
10
Sherman Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949), p. 217.
11
Vincent H. Bridgeman, “Defense Counterintelligence,
Reconceptualized,” in Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber, eds.,
Vaults, Mirrors and Masks: Rediscovering U.S. Counterintelligence
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009), p. 128.
12
John Ehrman, “What are We Talking About When We Talk about
Counterintelligence?”StudiesinIntelligence,Vol.53,No.2
(unclassified edition), June 2009, p. 9.
Kevin Riehle is a retired Navy Reservist serving as an adjunct
faculty member at the National Intelligence University and
teaching counterintelligence analysis at NIU’s new Quantico
Academic Center. He has worked for over 20 years as a
civilian counterintelligence analyst at the national,
departmental, combatant command, and joint task force levels.
As a civilian he serves as the Defense Intelligence Integration
Officer for Counterintelligence. He was an ODNI Exceptional
Analyst research fellow in 2011-12, a 2012 Galileo Award
finalist, and the author of a paper of interest for the 2013
Galileo Award.