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Why IDF Intelligence Needs to Be Better — And How to Improve It
Troops from the IDF’s 98th Division operating in Jabalia, the northern Gaza Strip, May 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces.
The IDF’s current mechanism for determining and providing intelligence assessments rigidifies the thinking of intelligence analysts, and increases the risk that they will not recognize changes in the behavioral patterns of the adversary that affect the predictive ability and relevance of the forecast. Providing assessments should be the beginning of the process, not the end. A structured, open, and ongoing discussion of an assessment can make both the process and the product more dynamic in the face of changing conditions.
The current intelligence assessment process increases the risk of forecast error
At the core of intelligence assessment stands the forecast. If the adversary’s behavioral dynamics form a linear regression — that is, they adhere to familiar patterns — then it is possible to draw a straight line from the present to the future and score high prediction levels (90% or better). This applies to most current and tactical engagements of intelligence. Assessment based on familiar patterns, combined with reasonable risk analysis, makes intelligence an effective support tool for political and operational decision-making.
Difficulties arise when the adversary’s behavior diverges from the expected. In this situation, the ability to predict decreases significantly; and the risk grows that the intelligence forecast will lead to decisions that do not correspond to reality. In such a situation, decision-makers must rely to a greater degree on risk management.
It is a serious problem when familiar patterns are disrupted and can no longer serve as a basis for assessment. To make matters worse, limitations on human thinking make it difficult for analysts to identify this problem when it arises. This increases the risk that intelligence predictions will actually serve the enemy, because our side will make decisions based on those predictions that the enemy is prepared to disrupt, circumvent, or even exploit.
Once an intelligence assessment has been formulated, it becomes an inflexible entity. Predictions about the future become a fixed reality (a “concept”) about the present. After the assessment is given to the client (the decision-maker, the commander), it becomes even more fixed among intelligence analysts. This is in order to prevent situations that are perceived as unprofessional, including changing the assessment as a result of dynamics with the client or frequently updating the assessment in a way that makes it difficult for the decision-maker to form policy decisions.
Because intelligence assessments tend to set like concrete after they have been turned over to the client, intelligence analysts generally shift their focus to the implications of the assessment for intelligence gathering, assimilating the assessment among the clients, and providing recommendations for policy and action stemming from it. All this activity diverts focus away from the implications of the assessment for the intelligence assessment process itself.
The problem can be summarized as follows: The mechanism for determining and providing intelligence assessments rigidifies the thinking of intelligence analysts, and increases the risk that they will not recognize changes in the behavioral patterns of the adversary that affect the predictive ability and relevance of the forecast.
A solution: Assessment as an ongoing process
To overcome this problem, the providing of an assessment should be viewed as the beginning of the process, not the end. To paraphrase Eisenhower on military planning, “Assessment is everything and nothing”. Intelligence analysts should remain within the assessment process even after providing it to the client.
What would this mean in practice? It would mean examining the assessment against many parameters and continuing to do so systematically, even after the assessment has been submitted. Discussions about the assessment should be open, transparent, and structured for the participation of both the intelligence analysts and the clients so that gaps in the forecast can be identified early.
Parameters for the ongoing review of an assessment can include:
- Verification and validity: These are recognized existing parameters within which the analyst examines whether developments with the subject strengthen or weaken the assessment. As we have seen many times, these criteria are the first victims of cognitive biases that make it difficult for the analyst to detach himself from the assessment.
- Evaluation context: What circumstances underlying the prediction are connected not to the adversary but to other circles, like the adversary’s partners, regional factors, international factors, and the internal context? Variations in the broader circumstances can affect the validity of the evaluation, even if no apparent change is identified in the subject.
- Assessment levels: If a strategic early warning has been issued, what are its implications for operational and tactical early warnings, and how does the sequence of forecasting change between levels? Does a sequence of tactical early warnings indicate a strategic early warning? Are the actions of the adversary consistent with its policy? What is the meaning of continuity or lack of continuity in the approach between different levels?
- Projection: This refers to the projection of an assessment of a particular issue onto assessments of other issues and topics. For example, is the predicted behavior of an adversary likely to affect the behavior of one of his allies? Is the predicted weakening of an adversary likely to lead to a deeper and broader change in other circles?
- Impact of responding to opportunities and risks: If the assessment indicates an opportunity, what are the implications of acting or not acting in response to it? Does inaction in response to the opportunity influence the forecast? And conversely, with regard to risks: If the assessment indicates a risk, is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? In other words, would caution in the face of the risk lead to its realization?
- Meaning of continuity or change: If the forecast indicates continuity, what are the indications if change in fact occurs? If the forecast indicates change, what needs to happen so that change does not materialize?
- The price of error: How does the cost of a prediction error affect the validity of the assessment? Isn’t the validity of a prediction that excludes extreme scenarios (military attack, nuclear weapons proliferation, regime collapse) weakened by the heavy cost of an error?
- Use of the assessment: What is the intelligence assessment being used for? If it is not used, or if, in the intelligence analysts’ view, its use is contrary to its content, what does that say about the assessment itself and its logic and clarity?
- Realization: If the prediction comes to pass, why did it do so? Did this show that the estimate was correct, or was it merely a coincidence? Conversely, does the failure of a prediction necessarily indicate that the estimate was incorrect?
Continuous engagement in the assessment process will improve its quality
A structured, open, and ongoing discussion of an assessment during and after its construction can free intelligence analysts from fixations, create more dynamism in the process and product, and improve and refine the product over time and in the face of changing conditions. This takes broader contexts than the adversary himself into account. It is not about changing estimates due to external influences. Rather, it is about developing a more comprehensive, broad, and rich view of the act of intelligence assessment.
The products of such an improvement could be more accurate and nuanced assessments, constant examination of the validity of assessments, continuous engagement with lower probability scenarios and not neglecting them after an assessment has been submitted, and expanding the potential for identifying problems in assessments as a result of more time spent on them.
Col. (res.) Shay Shabtai is a senior researcher at the BESA Center and an expert in national security, strategic planning, and strategic communication. He is a cyber security strategist and a consultant to leading companies in Israel. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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UK, France, Germany Urge Gaza Ceasefire, Ask Israel to Restore Humanitarian Access
People walk among destroyed buildings in Gaza, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
The governments of Germany, France and Britain called for an immediate return to a ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement on Friday that also called on Israel to restore humanitarian access.
“We call on Israel to restore humanitarian access, including water and electricity, and ensure access to medical care and temporary medical evacuations in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the foreign ministers of the three countries, known as the E3, said in a statement.
The ministers said they were “appalled by the civilian casualties,” and also called on Palestinian Hamas terrorists to release Israeli hostages.
They said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could not be resolved through military means, and that a long-lasting ceasefire was the only credible pathway to peace.
The ministers added that they were “deeply shocked” by the incident that affected the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) building in Gaza, and called for an investigation into the incident.
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Israeli Military Says It Intercepted Missile Fired from Yemen; Houthis Claim Responsibility
FILE PHOTO: Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released November 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen on Friday, one day after shooting down two projectiles launched by Houthi terrorists.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it fired a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the group’s military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a televised statement in the early hours of Saturday.
Saree said the attack against Israel was the group’s third in 48 hours.
He issued a warning to airlines that the Israeli airport was “no longer safe for air travel and would continue to be so until the Israeli aggression against Gaza ends and the blockade is lifted.”
However, the airport’s website seemed to be operating normally and showed a list of scheduled flights.
The group’s military spokesman has also said without providing evidence that the Houthis had launched attacks against the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
The group recently vowed to escalate attacks, including those targeting Israel, in response to US strikes earlier this month, which amount to the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January. The US attacks have killed at least 50 people.
The Houthis’ fresh attacks come under a pledge to expand their range of targets in Israel in retaliation for renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza that have killed hundreds after weeks of relative calm.
The Houthis have carried out over 100 attacks on shipping since Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.
The attacks have disrupted global commerce and prompted the US military to launch a costly campaign to intercept missiles.
The Houthis are part of what has been dubbed the “Axis of Resistance” – an anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance of regional militias including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq, all backed by Iran.
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Columbia University Agrees to Some Trump Demands in Attempt to Restore Funding
A pro-Palestine protester holds a sign that reads: “Faculty for justice in Palestine” during a protest urging Columbia University to cut ties with Israel. November 15, 2023 in New York City. Photo: Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Columbia University agreed to some changes demanded by US President Donald Trump’s administration before it can negotiate to regain federal funding that was pulled this month over allegations the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.
The Ivy League university in New York City acquiesced to several demands in a 4,000-word message from its interim president released on Friday. It laid out plans to reform its disciplinary process, hire security officers with arrest powers and appoint a new official with a broad remit to review departments that offer courses on the Middle East.
Columbia’s dramatic concessions to the government’s extraordinary demands, which stem from protests that convulsed the Manhattan campus over the Israel-Gaza war, immediately prompted criticism. The outcome could have broad ramifications as the Trump administration has warned at least 60 other universities of similar action.
What Columbia would do with its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department was among the biggest questions facing the university as it confronted the cancellation, called unconstitutional by legal and civil groups, of hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and contracts. The Trump administration had told the school to place the department under academic receivership for at least five years, taking control away from its faculty.
Academic receivership is a rare step taken by a university’s administrators to fix a dysfunctional department by appointing a professor or administrator outside the department to take over.
Columbia did not refer to receivership in Friday’s message. The university said it would appoint a new senior administrator to review leadership and to ensure programs are balanced at MESAAS, the Middle East Institute, the Center for Palestine Studies, the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and other departments with Middle East programs, along with Columbia’s satellite hubs in Tel Aviv and Amman.
‘TERRIBLE PRECEDENT’
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, a historian of education at the University of Pennsylvania and a “proud” graduate of Columbia, called it a sad day for the university.
“Historically, there is no precedent for this,” Zimmerman said. “The government is using the money as a cudgel to micromanage a university.”
Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers University professor and president of the American Association of University Professors, called the Trump administration’s demands “arguably the greatest incursion into academic freedom, freedom of speech and institutional autonomy that we’ve seen since the McCarthy era.”
“It sets a terrible precedent,” Wolfson said. “I know every academic faculty member in this country is angry about Columbia University’s inability to stand up to a bully.”
In a campus-wide email, Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, wrote that the her priorities were “to advance our mission, ensure uninterrupted academic activities, and make every student, faculty, and staff member safe and welcome on our campus.”
Mohammad Hemeida, an undergraduate who chairs Columbia’s Student Governing Board, said the school should have sought more student and faculty input.
“It’s incredibly disappointing Columbia gave in to government pressure instead of standing firm on the commitments to students and to academic freedom, which they emphasized to us in almost daily emails,” he said.
The White House did not respond to Columbia’s memo on Friday. The Trump administration said its demands, laid out in a letter to Armstrong eight days ago, were a precondition before Columbia could enter “formal negotiations” with the government to have federal funding.
ARREST POWERS
Columbia’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has targeted as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.
Private companies, law firms and other organizations have also faced threatened cuts in government funding and business unless they agree to adhere more closely to Trump’s priorities. Powerful Wall Street law firm Paul Weiss came under heavy criticism on Friday over a deal it struck with the White House to escape an executive order imperiling its business.
Columbia has come under particular scrutiny for the anti-Israel student protest movement that roiled its campus last year, when its lawns filled with tent encampments and noisy rallies against the US government’s support of the Jewish state.
To some of the Trump administration’s demands, such as having “time, place and manner” rules around protests, the school suggested they had already been met.
Columbia said it had already sought to hire peace officers with arrest powers before the Trump administration’s demand last week, saying 36 new officers had nearly completed the lengthy training and certification process under New York law.
The university said no one was allowed to wear face masks on campus if they were doing so intending to break rules or laws. The ban does not apply to face masks worn for medical or religious purposes, and the university did not say it was adopting the Trump administration’s demand that Columbia ID be worn visibly on clothing.
The sudden shutdown of millions of dollars in federal funding to Columbia this month was already disrupting medical and scientific research at the school, researchers said.
Canceled projects included the development of an AI-based tool that helps nurses detect the deterioration of a patient’s health in hospital and research on uterine fibroids, non-cancerous tumors that can cause pain and affect women’s fertility.
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