It's not about winning wars or even predicting crime. It's about having the knowledge to control events to your advantage.

Intelligence agencies are tasked with questions like "If Russia invades the rest of Ukraine, how will Germany react?" That can be answered with data from tapping the leadership's phones, or by how often the words "putin" and "despot" appear together in emails from German citizens.

Will the current German government fall if they do not react? How about if Russia moves the day after an important German election? How much does Russia know about German public opinion? Is there a greater chance that they will invade after/during/before the election?

Replace "German election" with "the Winter Olympics" and you have a very realworld question.