Graduate Certificate in Intelligence Studies

RECOMMENDED AS FIRST PROGRAM COURSE. REQUIRED AS ONE OF FIRST THREE PROGRAM COURSES. Learn basic research methods skills for addressing security and intelligence studies problems and issues. You focus on the detailed procedures for conducting qualitative case studies, which is the foundation for most basic security and intelligence research conducted in academic, government, and business circles. You become well versed in research planning, secondary data collection, and qualitative data analysis methods and how these methods relate to the larger field of social science research. You will also learn the analysis of competing hypotheses approach to research design. You are also introduced to basic social theory which supports security and intelligence research. The course prepares you for later learning intermediate and advanced security and intelligence methods.

RECOMMENDED AS SECOND PROGRAM COURSE. Strategic Intelligence is an examination of the current structure, function, capabilities, and contributions of individual U.S. national intelligence community members. Students appraise the intelligence cycle, including an overview of the intelligence planning, collection, exploitation, analysis, production, and dissemination phases. A review is also made of intelligence oversight structures and restrictions on U.S. national intelligence community activities as prescribed by federal law, executive and agency directives, and the intelligence oversight system.

This course provides the student with a firm foundation in qualitative analysis and modeling techniques, including rational choice, utility, and game theories, in order to create and test hypotheses. Students will apply basic trend analysis techniques and forecasting methods such as probability tree analysis, analytic hierarchy process, alternative scenarios/futures, Delphi technique, and the Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP).

This course will aid the student in writing clear and concise intelligence related documentation. Through a series of practical intelligence related exercises, the student will learn to choose the appropriate writing style required to properly and effectively communicate their message to their simulated target audience, including proper formatting and citation styles, as well as the best use of tables, diagrams, graphics and charts.

The course focuses on both U.S. and foreign aspects of counterintelligence, including the history and evolution of counterintelligence, the differences between passive and active CI measures, principles and processes of counterintelligence and its relationship to covert action, the ethics of counterintelligence, and the evaluation of CI successes and an estimate of the damage caused by failures. The student will develop a comprehensive knowledge of the use and practices of counterintelligence, especially in protecting homeland security and national security interests against foreign adversaries. Additionally, the collection process and the changes for the future in the infusion of CI technology will be discussed.

Examines intelligence community responses to threats to the U.S. homeland from transnational and domestic terrorists, including the employment of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Threats to the U.S. borders, including illegal immigration, narcotics smuggling, money laundering, commercial smuggling, and other organized crime activities are also covered.

Students in this course evaluate the growing field of competitive intelligence also known outside the U.S. as business intelligence. Topics will include how to turn information into intelligence, and how that intelligence can be used to gain a competitive edge in the market place. Particular emphasis will be placed on the use of open source intelligence, as well as the use of competitive intelligence to analyze a business’s vulnerability to information operations that its competitors may use against it. Additional topics include state-sponsored economic intelligence gathering and covert and deceptive activities. Military students should not confuse the civilian business term of "competitive intelligence" with the military term of "competitive intelligence" which means a competing, independent analysis of the same source material.

This course provides the student with an introduction to the methods and techniques of criminal intelligence analysis and strategic organized crime. The rapid increase in multinational analysis and transnational organized crime, corporate drug trafficking organizations, and the impact of crime on national and international policy has created a critical need for law enforcement intelligence experts in the relatively new field of criminal intelligence. The course shows how to use criminal intelligence analysis to predict trends, weaknesses, capabilities, intentions, changes, and warnings needed to dismantle criminal organizations. This course provides knowledge needed by law enforcement professionals at the federal, state, and local level, by criminal intelligence analysts working in private industry, and by military intelligence personnel making a transition from a military to a law enforcement career. The course provides a background of the use of intelligence to dismantle criminal organizations and businesses. This course emphasizes criminal/law enforcement intelligence, as opposed to criminal investigation.

This course covers the role of intelligence in counterinsurgency, short-term interventions, and peace operations. Particular attention is given to how well the intelligence system has succeeded in using human intelligence in low intensity operations.

This course is an intensive study of the use of intelligence, particularly Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in the prosecution of the war on drugs. The history and geography of the struggle will be covered, with emphasis on "La Frontera," the Southwest border of the U.S.

Students in this course examine a top national intelligence priority, weapons of mass destruction, and some of the intelligence techniques used against them. Topics include scientific and technical intelligence and its emergence since World War II, sessions on each of the four dominant WMD (chemical warfare, biological warfare, nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles) and important issues related to monitoring and verification. Capabilities and outlook provided in the open literature will be employed to improve familiarity with issues and impact on national security strategies.