Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community (PDF) - CIA

COMBATING ETHNOCENTRISM
bered; it affects the ego and drives one to investigate errors and to adapt or
change behavior based on those investigations. Failure is a learning event and
results in a teachable moment. 8
There seems to be little reason to perform a postmortem when events unfold
as predicted. The natural assumption is that the mechanisms of analysis were
valid, because the results of the analysis were accurate. The obvious danger is
that this assumption discounts the possibility that one may be accurate purely
by accident. Moreover, by focusing only on failure, one risks sampling bias by
only choosing cases in which there was error. The risk of ignoring success is
that potential lessons may go undiscovered. An alternative to relying on failure
to challenge one’s assumptions is to create a standard practice of reviewing
each case regardless of outcome, principally through the use of a formal
After Action Review (AAR).
Case Study Two: The Red Team
Recently, I was asked to serve on a newly formed red team within the
Department of Defense. I agreed to participate, despite a number of serious
concerns having to do both with the nature and structure of red teams in general
and with my own experience with ethnocentrism and its effects on analysis.
These concerns are applicable not only to red teams, but also to any
analyst put in the position of trying to “think like them.” 9
This particular red team was part of a constructive/conceptual war game in
which there were 11 participants, seven of whom had doctorates. Of the seven
doctorates, three were psychologists, one was a historian, one was an economist,
one was a political scientist, and one was an anthropologist. The other
four participants had extensive military backgrounds. There were no physical
scientists or engineers. Nine of the 11 participants were white males, one was
a male born in the region of interest, and one was a white female. All were
middle class. Seven of the 11 were raised in nominally Christian homes and
three in nominally Jewish homes. (I say nominally because it was not possible
to determine their level of religious commitment during this exercise.)
I mention the demographics of the group because it was not representative
of the adversary we were intended to simulate. Although the group had
8
Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents.
9
Military red teams are meant to simulate the actions of an adversary in some type of war game or
crisis simulation, usually with the goal of generating scenarios for training and readiness or for
logistics and planning. These war games may be live, e.g., force-on-force simulations like those of
the US Army Combat Training Centers; virtual, as in flight simulators; or constructive, either digital
theater-level simulations or purely conceptual games centered on strategic, tactical, or operational
issues.
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