Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences (2011) / Chapter Skim
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3 Analysis
3 Analysis
Pages 33-48
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From page 33... ...
Those neglected approaches include probability theory, decision analysis, statistics and data analysis, signal detection theory, game theory, operations research, and qualitative analysis. This chapter begins by characterizing the cognitive challenges that analysts face, then provides brief descriptions of approaches designed to meet these challenges.
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. A cornerstone of the behavioral and social sciences is a suite of analytical methods designed to address these conditions by structuring tasks, reducing their ambiguity, and providing evaluative criteria.
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. They have been included in introductory classes in intelligence analysis offered in the IC,1 in recently created intelligence studies programs,2 and in IC intelligence analysis tradecraft primers (Defense Intelligence Agency, 2008; U.S.
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The remainder of this chapter briefly reviews that science; the companion volume provides further details on the research. PROBABILITY THEORY Although analysts routinely entertain hypotheses that might explain particular observations and are trained to seek alternative explanations (see previous section)
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Although this particular example is easily solved by providing a percentage of known historical events, the implications for national security become clear if an analyst does not clarify the historical certainty and follow it with additional verbal quantifiers of an expected future event on which a decision maker may act. For example, "Because the president announced he will attend next week's exercise, it is likely an offensive provocation rather than a routine exercise." By assigning a numerical value to historically known events, an analyst can more easily apply numeric probability to future events and thus improve clarity and value of assessments provided to decision makers (see discussion about communication in Chapter 6)
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is regularly taught to master's degree students in applied programs in business administration, public health, and other fields, as well as being required for undergraduates in economics, political science, psychology, and other behavioral and social sciences. That is, students with intellectual talents like those of intelligence analysts routinely develop skills at the level the committee recommends.
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As with probability theory, decision analysis is regularly taught as a core subject in professional programs to students with no prior exposure and even modest analytical aptitude. Readily available computer software 3 See http://www.intrade.com [November 2010]
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These programs are often compatible with common spreadsheet programs, such as Excel, which makes it possible for students with minimal mathematical training to use standard decision analysis tools, such as decision trees and influence diagrams. As with the other methods in this chapter, the committee concludes that familiarity with these basic concepts of decision analysis is essential to intelligence analysis.
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GAME THEORY Of all social science methods, game theory best captures many of the arenas in which intelligence analysis take place. Game theory is a formal structure to anticipate decisions, taking into account each decision maker's expectations about how others will respond to alternative choices and always picking the action expected to yield the greatest net return.
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, the distribution and routing of people or materiel across transportation networks, and the procedures that bank tellers, phone operators, or Internet help desk advisers use in serving customers. The main methods include optimization models used to determine how to minimize costs, maximize profits, maximize lives saved, or minimize the time required to complete a project; stochastic processes, which build on basic probability theory to address situations where randomness and uncertainty dominate; and decision analysis (e.g., Hillier and Lieberman, 2010)
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, which requires analysts to consider what might have happened had different events and decisions occurred, providing a more complete understanding of the challenges and constraints that decision makers face. Thus, structured qualitative research incorporates elements of the quantitative intellectual tool kit (e.g., game theory, decision theory)
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, analysts would likely benefit from the application of basic scientific research methods to the identification and use of public domain data including: • ollowing open sources routinely, developing the mastery needed to f compare their practices and detect changes in their reporting; • earching for observable implications of hypotheses derived from s secret sources that can be tested in open sources, and vice versa; • eriving hypotheses from open sources, then cross-checking them d with "trusted" secret sources, and vice versa; and • xplicitly reporting open sources in assessments provided to policy e makers, so as to reveal their provenance. Following these methods would subject qualitative intelligence analyses to the discipline imposed on scholarly research, but without the irrelevant encumbrances of academic research (see Skinner, 2011)
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. Analytic Methodologies: A Tradecraft Primer: Basic Structured Analytic Techniques.
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In National Research Council, Intelli gence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security, B
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In National Research Council, Intelligence Analysis: Behavioral and Social Scientific Foundations. Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security, B
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. A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis, Washington, DC.
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