Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis

thinking about the crisis might have raised are included in table 2.
Applying Paul and Elder’s model reveals other considerations that
conceivably would have led to an earlier detection of the likelihood
of the deployed weapons being offensive.
Would this approach have allowed detection of what the Soviets
were doing in Cuba before mid-October 1962 One could argue
counterfactually that it might have enhanced analysis of collection
from other sources. 60 SIGINT assets capable of collecting Russian
communications were in place near the island. 61
Imagery assets might
have been tasked differently prior to 14 October. Sources less subject
to generating noise would have introduced inconsistencies to an
analysis of competing hypotheses that was solely HUMINT-based.
Between Dogmatism and Refutation
A systematic approach to directed collection also would have
moved analysts toward a disconfirmatory analytic approach.
By contrast, a confirmatory approach, often characterized as
confirmation bias, leads analysts to accept what they set out to
confirm. 62
A disconfirmatory approach aims to refute alternative
60 Counterfactual reasoning explores differing outcomes arising from
alternative causes. Counterfactuals are commonly used in whenever alternate
hypotheses are explored. They are essential for both post-mortem reviews and
futures scenario exercises. See Philip E. Tetlock, and Aaron Belkin, Counterfactual
Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 1–38. In the same volume,
Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein conduct a counterfactual review
of the Cuban missile crisis. See Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein,
“Back to the Past: Counterfactuals and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” in Philip E.
Tetlock, and Aaron Belkin, Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical,
Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1996), 119–148.
61 Johnson and Hatch, NSA. According to the authors, SIGINT played a key
role in determining the operational status of the SA-2 air defense missiles. However,
SIGINT failed to detect the delivery and installation of the nuclear missiles.
62 Wikipedia defines confirmation bias as “a type of cognitive bias toward
confirmation of the hypothesis under study.” (Wikipedia, entry under “confirmation
bias”).
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