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(U) Estimative Language
(U) Estimative language consists of two elements: judgment about the likelihood of developments or events occurring and levels of confidence in the sources and analytic reasoning supporting the judgments. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.
(U) Judgments of Likelihood
(U) The chart below approximates how judgments of likelihood correlate with percentages. Unless otherwise stated, the Intelligence Community’s judgments are not derived via statistical analysis. Phrases such as “we judge” and “we assess” —and terms such as “probable” and “likely”—convey analytical assessments.
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(U) Confidence in our Judgments
(U) Confidence levels provide assessments of timeliness, consistency, and extent of intelligence and open source reporting that supports judgments. They also take into account the analytic argumentation, the depth of relevant expertise; the degree to which assumptions underlie analysis; and the scope of information gaps.
(U) We ascribe high, moderate, or low confidence to assessments:
- (U) High confidence generally indicates that judgments are based on sound analytic argumentation and high-quality consistent reporting from multiple sources, including clandestinely obtained documents; clandestine and open source reporting; and in-depth expertise; it also indicates we have few intelligence gaps; have few assumptions underlying the analytic line; have found potential for deception to be low; and we have examined long-standing analytic judgments held by the IC and considered alternatives. For most intelligence topics, it will not be appropriate to claim high confidence for judgments that forecast out a number of years. High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong even though we have a higher degree of certainty that they are accurate.
- (U) Moderate confidence generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence. There may, for example, be information that cuts in a different direction. We have in-depth expertise on the topic, but we may acknowledge assumptions that underlie our analysis and some information gaps; there may be minor analytic differences within the IC, as well as moderate potential for deception.
- (U) Low confidence generally means that the information’s credibility and/or plausibility is uncertain, that the information is fragmented, dated, or poorly corroborated, or that reliability of the sources is questionable. There may be analytic differences within the IC, several significant information gaps, high potential for deception or numerous assumptions that must be made to draw analytic conclusions. In the case of low confidence, we are forced to use current data to project out in time, making a higher level of confidence impossible.
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