User talk:Hcberkowitz/Analysis
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Intelligence analysis is the process of producing formal descriptions of situations and entities of strategic importance. Although its practice is found in its purest form inside intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States or the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, MI6) in the UK, its methods are also applicable in fields such as business intelligence or competitive intelligence.
Intelligence analysis is a way of reducing the ambiguity of highly ambiguous situations, with the ambiguity often very deliberately created by highly intelligent people with mindsets very different from the analyst's. Albert Einstein said "God is subtle, but he is not malicious," but the opponents of intelligence agencies may be monsters in human form -- and of demonic cunning. Obviously, a set of problem-solving talents are essential for analysts. Since the other side may be hiding their intention, the analyst must be tolerant of ambiguity, of false leads, and of partial information far more fragmentary than faces the experimental scientist. According to Dick Heuer [1],"The analyst then follows a problem as additional increments of evidence are received and the picture gradually clarifies--as happened with test subjects in the experiment demonstrating that initial exposure to blurred stimuli interferes with accurate perception even after more and better information becomes available...the experiment suggests that an analyst who starts observing a potential problem situation at an early and unclear stage is at a disadvantage as compared with others, such as policymakers, whose first exposure may come at a later stage when more and better information is available.
"The receipt of information in small increments over time also facilitates assimilation of this information into the analyst's existing views. No one item of information may be sufficient to prompt the analyst to change a previous view. The cumulative message inherent in many pieces of information may be significant but is attenuated when this information is not examined as a whole. The Intelligence Community's review of its performance before the 1973 Arab-Israeli War noted [in the only declassified paragraph](Heuer 1999-2) harv error: no target: CITEREFHeuer_1999-2 (help).
- The problem of incremental analysis--especially as it applies to the current intelligence process--was also at work in the period preceding hostilities. Analysts, according to their own accounts, were often proceeding on the basis of the day's take, hastily comparing it with material received the previous day. They then produced in 'assembly line fashion' items which may have reflected perceptive intuition but which [did not] accrue from a systematic consideration of an accumulated body of integrated evidence
Writers on analysis [2] [3] have suggested reasons why analysts come to incorrect conclusions, by falling into cognitive traps. Without falling into the trap of avoiding decisions by wanting more information, analysts also need to recognize that they always can learn more about the opponent.
This article will consider some of the ways in which intelligence analysts produce generally successful analyses. No intelligence analyst is perfect, but the best ones learn from their own mistakes and positive experience, as well as the mistakes and experiences of others. Even if the top authorities are fully ethical and effective, just as generals don't succeed without great privates, the environment needs to encourage the junior analyst, and encourage growth in what is a profession, but sometimes seemingly a black art where intuition must be cherished.
Probability can be seductive, when not used as a tool. Many analysts prefer the middle-of-the-road explanation, rejecting high or low probability explanations. Analysts may use their own standard of proportionality as to the risk acceptance of the opponent, rejecting that the opponent may take an extreme risk to achieve what the analyst regards as a minor gain. Above all, the analyst must avoid the cognitive trap projecting what she or he wants the opponent to think, and using available information to justify that conclusion.