Strategic intelligence

The method, which is the research method over a shorter horizon

Every claim carries its source, every source carries the date it was read, and what is not known is written as not known instead of being filled in with an estimate presented as a fact.

On OSINT this means the original of every source is kept with its collection date, because a web page changes and an analysis that can no longer show what it rested on is an opinion. The same holds for defence, security, space and dual-use technologies, where the open literature is abundant and provenance is almost always the weak part.

What the client is left holding

The analysis, the sources kept with their dates, and an explicit separation between what is established, what is contested and what is unknown. Three categories kept apart, because mixing them is the most effective way to make a competent person decide wrongly.