Yardstick.

This is coolbert:

For Official Use Only but also as available to and can understood by the dabbler or just plain old ordinary average citizen.

"Defense Intelligence – communicating probability"

Have you ever wondered why Defense Intelligence uses terms like “unlikely” or “realistic possibility” when we assess Russia’s war in Ukraine?

From: https://www.gov.uk | Ministry of Defense | 17 February 2023.

"A common yardstick to convey the language of uncertainty was developed by Defense Intelligence in the early 2000s, and an updated form is now in use across the UK intelligence assessment community. This ensures that government officials understand how likely it is that an event will or did occur."

"The yardstick splits the probability scale into seven distinct numerical ranges. Terms are assigned to each probability range. The yardstick was informed by academic research and corresponds to the average reader’s understanding of each term. The scale is not continuous to avoid a false impression of accuracy."

Keep in mind the intelligence business is a difficult business. First your adversary whoever that be is constantly engaged in all sorts of measures to conceal what is deemed secret. Secondly your foe can and will employ a plan of deception to deceive you. Separating the wheat from the chaff and the true from the false difficult at best.

Probability of some event in the "almost certain" category only 5 % of the time!!

coolbert.