Indicator analysis as a way for the Second Department of Polish General Staff to counter the risk of chemical warfare being unleashed by Germany in the 1920s

Abstract

After regaining its independence in 1918, Poland faced a number
of security challenges. The most important of these was survival
in the face of revisionist steps taken by aggressive neighbours,
including Germany and the USSR. One important aspect of this
threat was to determine the risk of the Weimar Republic unleashing
chemical warfare against the Second Republic. In order to cope with
this intelligence task, the Second Department of Polish General Staff
developed a number of instructions whose structure and internal
logic is comparable to the indicator analysis technique developed
only 60 years later by the American Intelligence Community.
On the basis of material preserved in the State Archive in Gdańsk
and contemporary textbooks on information analysis techniques,
it is shown how officers of Polish military intelligence, decades
before the method of indicator analysis was formalised, developed
their own way, which is essentially identical to it. This demonstrates
the remarkable innovation and organisational capacity of the newly
forming intelligence service of the reborn state.