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Basic intelligence

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Definition and purpose

Basic intelligence refers to reference documents that are produced by an intelligence organization about a foreign country, organization or issue by an intelligence organization. It contains information that is likely to be needed by many consumers for many purposes. Basic intelligence is one of the older intelligence types and predates the formal definition. It is encyclopedic in nature as opposed to being estimative or technical intelligence analysis. It is organized so that it can be readily used, such as country studies, wall charts of organizational structure, military capabilities, or country databases. Basic intelligence needs to be comprehensive, systematically organized, and updated periodically to account for changes. Consumers of basic intelligence include policy makers, the military and often authors of other intelligence types that require fundamental intelligence to make their assessments. Unclassified basic intelligence, such the CIA Factbook, is often used by the general public as reference material about foreign countries. Classified basic intelligence goes beyond what is available in the unclassified information and includes information about relationships with other countries or details about military capabilities that are not available in open-source intelligence.

"Basic intelligence" is also used as an adjective to describe introductory intelligence courses.

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