How intelligence is born in war: HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, and OSINT

In war, it is not only important what you fight with, but also what you base your decisions on. Incorrect information leads to specific consequences: lost people, positions, and time. That is why there are different types of intelligence. Some collect information from people, others analyze radio emissions, images, or open data. Each of these methods has both strengths and limitations. Separately, they can be wrong, but together they allow you to verify data, better understand the situation, and have an advantage in war. What are the disciplines of intelligence, and why are they needed? Read in the article.

HUMINT: Agent Intelligence

HUMINT (Human Intelligence) is information from people: witnesses, informants, agents, prisoners, defectors, and locals in occupied areas. HUMINT is critically important when information is needed that technical means cannot provide: who exactly is in the building, which unit has entered the village, where the warehouse, communications, or command post is located, how the behavior of the occupation administration is changing, etc. Strategic intelligence analyzes trends in the policies, strategies, and armaments of countries or alliances. In Ukraine, it is carried out by the Foreign Intelligence Service (political intelligence) and the Military Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense (military intelligence).

Operational intelligence is primarily conducted during war or in the (probable) preparation for war. Agents learn and transmit information about preparations for an assault, changes in tactics, the appearance of new units, or increased control in the occupation. The main problem of discipline is the human factor. The enemy purposefully introduces agents into structures, volunteer environments, and even law enforcement agencies. Therefore, HUMINT can easily be “contaminated” by inserting half-truths or point-by-point fakes that look like inside information. In addition, the agent can confuse time, perceive the desired as real, exaggerate, and repeat rumors. In an occupation, any contacts are dangerous, and evidence can be extracted by force or formed under pressure.

Therefore, in real-world work, HUMINT needs to be verified by other disciplines: signals (SIGINT), imagery (IMINT), and open-source (OSINT).

SIGINT: Signals and Interception

SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) is intelligence obtained from electromagnetic signals and radiation. SIGINT helps determine from the air who is communicating with whom, on what frequencies, how often, and in what directions. And also: which systems are operating in the area, how signal density changes before an attack or during a retreat, etc. It is divided into ELINT (signals/radiation from electronic systems, particularly radars) and COMINT (interception of communications between people).

ELINT works with technical signals that are not communications: satellites, radar stations (RAL), NRLK (ground-based complexes), air defense systems, UAVs, and telemetry devices. Drones, military communications, navigation, and artillery alignments depend on working in the air. Understanding which signals are used and how they work helps you better defend against enemy jamming, interception, and interference.

Ukraine cooperates with the American defense company HawkEye360, which specializes in space-based radio frequency intelligence. Using a constellation of satellites, the company detects, tracks, and georeferences radio frequency signals from space, including GPS jammers, naval vessels, radars on enemy air defense/missile systems, and large-scale enemy electronic warfare. And then provides unique analytical data. It is impossible to defend against HawkEye360 and technical intelligence in general: if something is in the air, it will be visible. Although it is expensive and difficult, it significantly strengthens our intelligence from space, while the enemy has an advantage on the ground.

In contrast, COMINT intercepts and analyzes human communications, including radio conversations and radio station signals. It provides situational awareness. When the picture on the air changes sharply, it can be a marker of preparation for certain actions, movements, or changes in tactics.

COMINT has its vulnerabilities. Well-tuned communication and encryption greatly reduce the value of interception. On the air, you can create “noise”, simulate activity, and force the enemy to draw the wrong conclusions. And the signal itself does not explain motives and intentions. Two similar “pictures on the air” can mean different things, so it is best to confirm theories with the help of other intelligence disciplines.

IMINT: Imagery Intelligence

IMINT (Imagery Intelligence) is the analysis of visual data: satellite images, aerial photographs, sometimes thermal or radar images. Recently, IMINT has also begun to include images from photo flights (orthophotos) and data from drone cameras. Usually, the quality of these images is much higher than that of satellites, but the area covered is smaller. There are also SAR satellites. They do not “take pictures” in the classical sense; rather, they read how objects reflect radio waves. And metal, machinery, and engineering structures reflect them very well, although the picture is of poor quality.

IMINT tasks:

• to detect and identify objects - the location of troops, equipment, infrastructure, engineering structures, logistical facilities (even if the satellite shows traces of equipment movement, by the width of the distance between the wheels and their number, you can understand which equipment was passing);
  

• to monitor changes in time (movement, build-up or reduction of forces, construction of fortifications, preparation of offensive or defensive actions);
  

• to assess the results of strikes (analysis of the consequences of fire damage: damage or destruction of targets, the degree of functional loss of objects).
  

At the same time, IMINT has severe limitations. First, it is very expensive. Second, satellites do not always provide “real time”; there are problems with cloudiness (for optics), and even in the best images, it is easy to draw a false conclusion without context: what looks like a military object may not be; what looks like destruction from a strike needs to be confirmed by other data. In addition, IMINT depends on data providers, governments, or licensing rules.

OSINT: Open Source Intelligence

OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) is a type of intelligence that works with publicly available information. Usually, this is data from public registers and a digital trail: social networks and a multitude of leaks, from small online stores to large hacks that have leaked into the network.

OSINT helps identify Russian military personnel, track enemy units and their movements, and find agents using the data obtained. To do this, geolocation, time setting, comparison with satellite images, weather conditions, maps, and other independent data are used.

Ukraine is strong in this discipline because even before 2022, investigative journalism was actively developing in our country. Currently, this is one of the main methods, and many large intelligence organizations worldwide are developing a systematic approach to it. Some of them come to Ukraine to see how it can work.

Accumulating and scaling evidence is also important. A single photo or video rarely tells the whole story. But when hundreds or thousands of verified incidents are combined into a single picture, it becomes possible to analyze patterns: the frequency of strikes, the types of targets, the dynamics of destruction. This is how OSINT becomes useful for international investigations and human rights reporting.

Why doesn’t any discipline work on its own?

HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, and OSINT are often described separately, but they rarely operate in isolation. Each discipline answers its own part of the question and has its own blind spots: people can be mistaken or compromised, signals can be masked, images can be misleading without context, and open data can be incomplete or noisy. It’s best to compare types of information rather than trying to pull everything from a single source. This is precisely why the Common Intelligence Picture (CIP) exists — a consistent analytical picture of the situation, formed by integrating data from different intelligence disciplines (IMINT, SIGINT/COMINT/ELINT, OSINT, and others) and accessible to all levels of decision-making.

The main function of the CIP is to ensure that commanders, staffs, analysts, and political leadership work with the same verified picture of reality, and not with fragments of information taken out of context.

In intelligence, information is evaluated not only by its content, but also by the reliability of the source (reliability) and the authenticity of a specific message (credibility). This standardized assessment allows us to distinguish verified data from random or manipulative messages and is critical for forming the Common Intelligence Picture. Conventionally, A1 is a verified source + verified information, and C3 is a random source + unverified statement (the same comment in the telegram). The analyst does not reject C3, but he never bases his decision on it without confirmation.

Together, intelligence disciplines reinforce one another and reduce the risk of critical miscalculation. This directly impacts decisions that affect lives, operations, and resources.