How people notice and make sense of phenomena are core issues in assessing intelligence successes and failures. Members of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) became adept at responding to certain sets of phenomena and “analyzing” their significance (not always correctly) during the Cold War. The paradigm was one of “hard, formalized and centralized processes, involving planned searches, scrupulously sticking with a cycle of gathering, analyzing, estimating and disseminating supposed enriched information.” The paradigm did not stop within the IC, either. As Pierre Baumard notes, it was also imported, unchanged, by corporations. However, the range of phenomena noticed by intelligence professionals has broadened from a focus on largely static issues to encompass highly dynamic topics over the two decades since the end of the Cold War. Intelligence professionals are challenged to stay abreast. A growing professional literature by intelligence practitioners discusses these trends and their implications for advising and warning policymakers. Th e literature by practitioners embodies a trust that national intelligence producers can overcome the “inherent” enemies of intelligence to prevent strategic intelligence failure. Th e disparity between this approach and accepting the inevitability of intelligence failure has grown sharp enough to warrant the identification of separate camps or schools of “skeptics” and “meliorists.” As a leading skeptic, Richard Betts charitably plants the hopeful note that in ambiguous situations, “the intelligence officer may perform most usefully by not offering the answer sought by authorities but by forcing questions on them, acting as a Socratic agnostic.” However, he completes this thought by declaring, fatalistically, that most leaders will neither appreciate nor accept this approach. Robert Jervis resurrects a colorful quote from former President Lyndon Johnson, who epitomized the skeptical policymaker: Let me tell you about these intelligence guys. When I was growing up in Texas we had a cow named Bessie. I’d go out early and milk her. I’d get her in the stanchion, seat myself and squeeze out a pail of fresh milk. One day I’d worked hard and gotten a full pail of milk, but I wasn’t paying attention, and old Bessie swung her shit smeared tail through the bucket of milk. Now, you know that’s what these intelligence guys do. You work hard and get a good program or policy going, and they swing a shit-smeared tail through it. Jervis asserts that policymakers and decision makers “need confidence and political support, and honest intelligence unfortunately oft en diminishes rather than increases these goods by pointing to ambiguities, uncertainties, and the costs and risks of policies.” The antagonism is exacerbated when policy is revealed to be fl awed and to have ignored intelligence knowledge. For example, in the case of the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War, intelligence challenges to policy were seen as “being disloyal and furthering its own agenda.” Jervis adds that the Bush administration is only the most recent one to exhibit such behavior. He finds that the administrations of Presidents Clinton, Johnson, Kennedy, and Eisenhower also browbeat and ignored intelligence.

Sensemaking A Structure for an Intelligence Revolution

Politics & Social Sciences

National Defense Intelligence College

Politics & Government

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

<p>Sensemaking is the inaugural book in our new series, titled The A. Denis Clift Series on the Intelligence Profession. The Clift Series will present original research on intelligence analysis and the teaching of intelligence. In 2009, A. Denis Clift concluded a 50-year career with the federal government. Clift was president of the National Defense Intelligence College from 1994 to 2009 and was instrumental in creating the Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, which houses the NDIC Press.Sensemaking: A Structure for an Intelligence Revolution, by David T. MooreSensemaking, whereby intelligence professionals would work with executive decisionmakers to explain data that are "sparse, noisy, and uncertain," requires an interpreter and experienced champion to bring about a practicable understanding and acceptance of the concept among intelligence practitioners. David Moore has accomplished that feat. Further, he, along with collaborators in chapters 5 and 7, demonstrate how sensemaking can be accomplished as a collaborative enterprise.</p>

Sensemaking: A Structure for an Intelligence Revolution

<p>Analysts and analysts alone create intelligence. Although technological marvels assist analysts by cataloging and presenting data, information and evidence in new ways, they do not do analysis. To be most effective, analysts need an overarching, reflective framework to add structured reasoning to sound, intuitivethinking. "Critical thinking" provides such a framework and goes further, positively influencing the entire intelligence analysis process. Analysts who adopt critical thinking stand to improve their analysis. This paper defines critical thinking in the context of intelligence analysis, explains how it influences the entireintelligence process, explores how it toughens the art of intelligence analysis, suggests how it may be taught, and deduces how analysts can be persuaded to adopt this habit.</p>

Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis (Second Edition)

History

Moore, David T.

Military

www.Militarybookshop.Co.UK

Imperial Secrets: Remapping the Mind of Empire

In this work, Patrick Kelley interprets the intelligence environment of political, military and information empires. His contribution sheds light on the cause of enduring intelligence collection defi cits that affl ict the center of such empires, and that can coincide with their ebb and fl ow. Alert intelligence practitioners, present and future, can note here just how useful a fresh interpretation of the intelligence enterprise can be to a coherent understanding of the global stream of worrisome issues. Th e long-term value of this work will be realized as readers entertain the implications of Churchill's comment that "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

Kelley, Patrick A.

Military Bookshop

Attache Extraordinaire: Vernon A. Walters in Brazil

de Oliveira, Frank Márcio

Americas

Sensemaking is the inaugural book in our new series, titled The A. Denis Clift Series on the Intelligence Profession. The Clift Series will present original research on intelligence analysis and the teaching of intelligence. Sensemaking, whereby intelligence professionals would work with executive decisionmakers to explain data that are "sparse, noisy, and uncertain,"requires an interpreter and experienced champion to bring about a practicable understanding and acceptance of the concept among intelligence practitioners. David Moore has accomplished that feat. Further, he, along with collaborators in chapters 5 and 7, demonstrate how sensemaking can be accomplished as a collaborative enterprise.

Center for Strategic Intelligence Rsch

MilitaryBookshop.co.uk

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