Aligning Forecasting Methods to Support Intelligence Community Analytic Tradecraft

Forecasting is hard. Accurate forecasting is harder still. But why forecasting? In support of policymakers dealing with uncertainty, intelligence analysts perform three principal functions: They form judgments, prepare forecasts, and generate insights. A key aim of this paper is to show how better alignment between forecasting methods and structured analytic techniques (SATs) will enhance analysts’ judgments about the future—thereby improving the decision-support advantage that policymakers expect from intelligence.

This paper was developed for U.S. government analysts, intelligence practitioners, and national security managers interested in learning how forecasting methods can leverage traditional analytic approaches and enhance tradecraft across the Intelligence Community (IC). The authors examine how forecasting approaches to probabilistic reasoning, uncertainty quantification, and structured question design complement the analytic principles established in IC Directives. Rather than introducing a new analytic paradigm in this paper, the authors emphasize interoperability: how forecasting can be integrated within existing IC analytical frameworks, such as scenario planning, Red team analysis, and other SATs. That is, the authors frame forecasting as a supporting discipline that can be integrated to complement and enhance, not replace, established tradecraft. It is thus positioned as an additive capability that enhances analytic rigor, strengthens the expression of uncertainty, and complements existing IC methodologies, such as scenario planning and related SATs with forecasting applicability.