Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis

FROM THE AUTHOR: As a result of a number of analytic projects for different intelligence agencies, a major focus of my work during the past several years has involved examining the practice of analysis within the US Intelligence Community. This study was prompted by a growing conviction—shared by others, to be sure—that improving the analytic products delivered by Intelligence Community components had to begin with a critical and thorough appraisal of the way those products are created. A conversation with a physicist friend in 2002 had triggered thoughts on several basic differences between the practice of science and intelligence analysis. Shortly thereafter, an invitation to give a seminar on intelligence analysis at Stanford University led me to prepare a briefing entitled “Intelligence and Warning: Analytic Pathologies,” which focused on a diagnosis of the problems highlighted by recent intelligence failures. As Donald Stokes noted in his seminal book on science and technological innovation, Pasteur’s Quadrant, “Pathologies have proved to be both a continuing source of insight into the system’s normal functioning and a motive for extending basic knowledge.” The Analytic Pathologies framework yields four insights that are crucial both to accurate diagnosis and to developing effective remedies. First, the framework enables analysts to identify individual analytic impediments and determine their sources. Second, it prompts analysts to detect the systemic pathologies that result from closely-coupled networks and to find the linkages among the individual impediments. Third, it demonstrates that each of these networks, and thus each systemic pathology, usually spans multiple levels within the hierarchy of the Intelligence Community. Fourth, the framework highlights the need to treat both the systemic pathologies and the individual impediments by focusing effective remedial measures on the right target and at the appropriate level.

Jeffrey R. Cooper is Vice President for Technology, Chief Scientist of Strategies, and Director of the Center for Information Strategy and Policy at Science Applications International Corporation. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Johns Hopkins University, where he was later Professorial Lecturer in Arms Control and Defense Analysis at the School of Advanced International Studies. Mr. Cooper's core interest has been the use of information to improve intelligence analysis, decisionmaking, command and control, and operational effectiveness. During the past several years, Mr. Cooper has focused on analyzing intelligence failure and evaluating methods to improve all-source analysis. He was a professional staff member of the Presidential Commission on Future Intelligence Capabilities (The Silberman-Robb Commission). With a long-time focus on strategic analysis and military transformation, Mr. Cooper is a founding member of the Highlands Forum, a program sponsored by the Secretary of Defense to identify national security-related cutting-edge technology. He has also served on numerous Defense Science Board task forces and summer studies. He has held senior government positions in the White House and the Department of Energy.