Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis

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How Can Intelligence Analysts Employ Critical Thinking The Poor Record Critical thinking is what consumers of intelligence appear to expect when they task producers to examine issues. Corporate consumers require analysts creating intelligence to “[evaluate] a situation, problem, or argument and [choose] a path of investigation that leads to finding the best possible answers.” 114 In the national security field, strategic intelligence pioneer Washington Platt notes that “[intelligence] is a meaningful statement derived from information which has been selected, evaluated, interpreted, and finally expressed so that its significance to a current national policy problem is clear.” 115 Derived from strategic intelligence, “best answers” should clearly express what is significant to national policy problems. They may also support warfighters with essential operational and tactical intelligence. Critical thinking leads to the best answers for the specific context at hand. Unfortunately, analysts’ biases and mindsets repeatedly obscure best questions and answers. From well before the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to the 2002 estimate on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a failure to think critically about potential crises contributed to repeated intelligence failures. 116 “Expert analysis” 114 Daniel Feldman, Critical Thinking: Strategies for Decision Making (Menlo Park, CA: Crisp Publications, Inc, 2002), 4. 115 Washington Platt, Strategic Intelligence Production: Basic Principles (New York, NY: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), 8. 116 George S. Pettee, The Future of American Secret Intelligence (Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1946). Chapter 1 provides a summary of U.S. intelligence failures during the first half of the 20 th Century. While hindsight is an imperfect mirror for reviewing the past, one conclusion to be drawn from a review of the evidence is that critical thinking could have minimized many of the ensuing crises. – 48 –
was not enough. 117 Biases and mindsets too often converted subjectmatter confidence into arrogance; false assumptions blinded analysts to their target’s true intentions. For example, at least one CIA Iraq analyst acknowledged that the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was an intelligence failure…We were guilty of a kind of mindset…The idea that a country [Iraq] would march up to the border, put 100,000 troops there, go in and do what they’ve done; I don’t think anybody thought they’d do it. 118 In 2002, Intelligence Community analysts failed to definitively assess whether the Iraqi government still possessed weapons of mass destruction. The Senate noted in its review of the failure that [rather] than thinking imaginatively, and considering seemingly unlikely and unpopular possibilities, the Intelligence Community instead found itself wedded to a set of assumptions about Iraq, focusing on intelligence reporting that appeared to confirm those assumptions. 119 The mistakes of 2002 also occurred in 1990 – and for that matter in 1941. Analysts failed to question assumptions widely held at the time. Instead they chose the first answer that satisfied the situation, a phenomenon known as “satisficing.” 120 Other means by which intelligence analysts and policymaking customers reasoned poorly are listed in table 5. According to Ephraim Kam, the problem is so great that the intelligence analysis process is “consistently biased, and…bias 117 Anthropologist Rob Johnston explores this paradox. See Dr. Rob Johnston, Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2005), 64–66. Cited hereafter as Johnston, Analytic Culture. 118 Anonymous CIA Analyst, 1990, in Don Oberdorfer, “Missed Signals in the Middle East,” Washington Post Magazine, 17 March 1991, 40. 119 The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, Report to the President of the United States, March 31, 2005, URL: , last accessed 28 July 2005, 155. Cited hereafter as WMD Commission, Report. 120 Morgan D. Jones, conversation with the author, 15 December 2003. – 49 –
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The National Defense Intelligence C
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Contents Figures and Tables........
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Figures and Tables Figure 1: A Comp
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As one would expect, the Intelligen
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quality by looking at the products
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Commentary Francis J. Hughes Profes
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That said, clever defense lawyers o
Page 22 and 23: Robert Heibel, Mercyhurst College;
Page 25 and 26: CRITICAL THINKING AND INTELLIGENCE
Page 27 and 28: CRITICAL THINKING AND INTELLIGENCE
Page 29 and 30: Figure 1 models analysts’ thinkin
Page 31 and 32: ecome better critical thinkers will
Page 33 and 34: - and consequences - things that do
Page 35 and 36: approach ensures that a topic or is
Page 37 and 38: Skill-Based Definitions Other appro
Page 39 and 40: A Disposition to Think Critically I
Page 41 and 42: The Role of Questions Greg Treverto
Page 43 and 44: problem solving and structured meth
Page 45 and 46: In fact, the Soviets were able to d
Page 47 and 48: It should be noted that the U.S. In
Page 49 and 50: thwarted What can be learned to adv
Page 51 and 52: Purpose · Determine what is going
Page 53 and 54: critical thinking could moderate th
Page 55 and 56: Cuba” that led to the tasking of
Page 57 and 58: A missile-launching complex is not
Page 59 and 60: (mapping), evaluate and adapt the i
Page 61 and 62: Winners and Losers: The Crisis in C
Page 63 and 64: as seen from Khrushchev’s Point o
Page 65 and 66: the Soviet Union’s communist agen
Page 67 and 68: supporting forces, an escalation of
Page 69 and 70: in the hands of the West. If, as Al
Page 71: most recent failure. Critical think
Page 75 and 76: asked, as they realized they had no
Page 77 and 78: person, the analysis was faulty bec
Page 79 and 80: undermines or supports the particul
Page 81 and 82: to meet short deadlines. However, a
Page 83 and 84: the FBI investigated a pond in west
Page 85 and 86: How can Analysts be Taught to Think
Page 87 and 88: young analysts were unable to do so
Page 89 and 90: it out on their own, encouraged by
Page 91 and 92: instructional models offer compleme
Page 93 and 94: Another means of critical thinking
Page 95 and 96: time constraints, multiple versions
Page 97 and 98: they were required to examine. 173
Page 99 and 100: As Denning points out, these strate
Page 101 and 102: of thinking. For example, two video
Page 103 and 104: intelligence agencies. 191 This was
Page 105 and 106: thinking, however, by providing str
Page 107 and 108: Cooper’s Analytic Pathology Negle
Page 109 and 110: substantially better judgments abou
Page 111 and 112: item limit is easily extended: peop
Page 113 and 114: Finally, it may be a fallacy that c
Page 115 and 116: partnerships between analysts and t
Page 117 and 118: 1990s and 2000s Emergence of comple
Page 119 and 120: Conclusion Never before in our peac
Page 121 and 122: Appendix NSA’s Critical Thinking
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Administration: Enrollment: Up to 2
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against which to apply/illustrate w
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mindsets impact analysis. • Defin
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• Describe what is needed to move
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Class 4 - Causes, Squares, and Shru
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Class 6 - Testing the Devil’s and
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Class 8 - And Now for Something Com
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Class 10 - Final Project Presentati
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Final Project Evaluation Worksheet
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Bibliography Ackerman, Robert K.
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Cheikes, Brant A., Mark J. Brown, P
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__________. Building Airplanes in F
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Grabo, Cynthia M. Anticipating Surp
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Kerbel, Josh. “Thinking Straight:
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Miller, Judith. “A Battle of Word
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Paul, Richard W., Linda Elder, and
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Stefik, Mark, and Barbara Stefik. B
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About the Author David T. Moore is
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