Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on United States soil, the intelligence community has been scrutinized on how it performs its functions. Consequently, the 9/11 Commission made several recommendations on how to improve the quality of intelligence analysis. Those charges and the United States' involvement in a war in Iraq have spawned additional charges of the politicization of intelligence. All this is being played out as the Intelligence Community has reformed and reconfigured itself with newly created departments supported by an expanded and inexperienced workforce that was never envisioned when the intelligence community was formally established in 1947.

First published in the 1970s, the classic book An Introduction to Intelligence Research and Analysis was used by intelligence analysts to track and monitor the Communist threat. Although today's environment has changed considerably since the Cold War, intelligence analysts still need to understand the basics of intelligence analysis. The book focuses on how to do research, what qualities are needed to be an intelligence analyst, and what methods can be employed to help in producing products. To avoid politicization, intelligence analysts should strive to become more transparent in their methodology of how they arrived at their conclusions. Intelligence Research and Analysis provides several methods to assist in that end.