Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis

systemic failures. Such a meta-cognitive approach to the
analytic process helps keep it under active review at the
highest levels.
Policymakers Ignore Intelligence. 195 A critically thinking
analytic population cannot directly affect what a policymaker
can or will do – neither in fact, can a non-critically thinking
analytic population. What critically thinking analysts can
do, however, is present more effective assessments, perhaps
leading policymakers to question their own assumptions on
the issues. Additionally, thinking critically about how analysts
interact with policymakers can identify ways to restructure
the analysis dissemination process to involve policymakers
more effectively. Such a process might also encourage them
to adopt some of the attributes of critical thinking leading
to (it may be presumed) more effective policy. 196
Adversary Denies and Deceives. Critical thinking reduces
the effects of adversarial denial and deception by leading
analysts to consider alternative possibilities, to question biases
and assumptions, to examine systematically the validity of
evidence being considered, and to take seriously anomalies
in the evidence.
Adversary is More Capable. In any adversarial system,
there are winners and there are losers. While analysts can do
everything possible to ensure their work is correct, they rarely
work with all the evidence, and indeed may still be deceived.
In such cases, they may come to wrong conclusions. Critical
195 There is a “classic” argument as to whether this is or is not an
“intelligence” failure. In summary, the two sides condense as follows: On the
one hand, intelligence should have been so persuasively presented as to compel
the policymaker to pay attention. On the other hand, intelligence should not be
telling the policymaker what to do. The argument goes all the way to the roots
of the post-World War II strategic intelligence system currently in place. Former
CIA analyst Jack Davis summarizes the issue in “The Kent-Kendall Debate of
1949,” Studies in Intelligence 35, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 37–50.
196 Cooper, email to the author, 31 March 2006. Cited hereafter as Cooper,
email, 31 March 2006.
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