Revisiting analytic rigour

The research currently being done at Ohio State University into the problems of intelligence analysis – including information overload, cognitive processes, and other aspects of the methodology – has from time to time caught our interest. Among the more interesting of these items now in circulation is an excellent lecture that we most highly recommend to our readers, recorded last year during the too often overlooked Google Talks series. The discussion focuses on the evaluation of analytic rigor, and means by which analysis may be strengthened.

We particularly favour the philosophy that Dr. Woods presents, which seeks to avoid dictating a single best methodology or process. We are more than willing to listen to the methodologists, but too often we find a dictatorial approach significantly at odds with the realities of line analysis. We think that the observed case study technique used in the Ohio State team’s research – something too infrequently done by many academics – is key to the validity of their findings. One cannot discuss analytic ideals without involving those who are actually involved in applying tradecraft to real problems. It is also not enough to conduct such research in artificial environments within student populations – real line analysis is too different.

We certainly cannot agree with the apparent off-hand condemnation of “folk” psychology of intelligence analysis – clearly aimed at taking on Heuer’s “bible”. While we think that there is a clear role for the methodologists and their research into strengthen analytic tradecraft, there is also a very real need for interdisciplinary adaptation from other areas of social science, as well as the kind of internal discussions that make up a key part of the maintenance of those oft-criticized, but entirely vital, guilds that are the backbone of the community.

We do however find several key concepts of great interest that deserve wider attention, including the concept of the Supervisor’s Dilemma – the balance of customer outcomes requirements and analytic resource opportunity costs against the relative depth of analytic rigour. We also find the study techniques themselves of interest, especially the concept of elicitation through critique – something we feel will likely have a far greater applicability in capturing the kind of intergenerational knowledge that the community is in danger of losing. We see the technique as one means of making more formal – and scalable - some of the kinds of subtle interactions that characterized the experiences of apprentice and journeyman analysts under the mentorship of a master.

We also find great merit in the good professor’s comments regarding the overconfidence of new analysts, and the satisificing biases that result. We definitely have observed a level of arrogance in too many new hires – and especially those coming out of the intelligence studies programs. The first lesson that an analyst student should learn is the fear of God – and of their own error. Too many programs of instruction are not affording the student the chance to learn that fear from the visceral experiences of their own mistakes, and to take away from the experience a humility that will cause them to productively question their future work toward its improvement. Such experiences are far better gained when the consequences are not fatal, in line with the lessons taught by Red Flag.

There is much food for thought in this lecture, as well as the contributions to the literature that the Ohio State program has generated. We will no doubt have further commentary on the subject in the near future.

Antecedent to the Chief Intelligence Officer

Given the apparent interest in the historical examples of the roles played by the most senior intelligence professionals now carrying the title of Chief Intelligence Officer, we thought it appropriate to mention one of the designations which preceded the more common “modern” appellation.

Sir Francis Drake’s English fleet, constituted to resist the Spanish Armada in 1588, did not lack for its own intelligence. The fleet sailed with an intelligence department under an individual who carried the title “Master of the Discoveries”, which an 1898 reference (repeated by another source in 1902) likened to modern post of the Chief Intelligence Officer. This individual was given command as “Lieutenant-Colonel of the pinnaces”, these being a sort of light boat used for communications and scouting duties – a quite logical platform from which to build out an intelligence capability.

The title itself may have originated from the time of Prince Henry the Navigator, of Portugal, and passed into naval tradition by way of his school founded at Sagres in 1419. However, this is uncertain due to contemporary dispute as to the true nature of that gathering of cartographers and sailing masters. There is also some reference to the title in such use which may support this hypothesis, found a 1938 volume, but this may well be built upon the foundation of later local legends rather than true history.

The concepts underlying the idea of discovery were at the time a critical national security concern – offering grand strategic advantage to any government which could maintain such secret knowledge. The major fleets of the day were in fact nearly the entirety of a country’s military force projection, and thus the senior commanders the de facto heads of the defense establishment. The intelligence leadership of the day may have thus stood as one of the more influential figures in all of the profession’s history. One can also easily see how the post migrated from the fleet, to the Company, to the Admiralty (and in the US, the Office of Naval Intelligence - at least until 1911), and thence to the national intelligence establishment and its privatized counterparts.

While we do not think we shall see the more archaic form of address come back into fashion any time soon, it does extend the timeline for the formalized role back quite a bit. Throughout history, the position may have existed in informal practice for generations, but the dawn of the profession itself can be traced to the recognition of these functions in a manner distinct from other specialties.

Questions of legality of intelligence in the commercial world

We frequently encounter those in the academic and business world which have little grasp of the applications of intelligence to the commercial world. These problems have not been helped by the distractions of discussion regarding economic espionage, directed by nation-states against particular industries. While the latter crimes do occur, and frankly have since the days of the first corporate entities of the East India Companies (Honorable or Dutch, take your pick), modern competitive intelligence is however a far different animal. And while any corporate entity may itself also commit a crime, there is quite a gulf between the examples that detractors might point to, and the standards which a profession establishes for itself in order to inculcate in its practitioners. Herein lies the heart of the frequent disconnect between intelligence professionals and their counterparts on the other side of the boardroom table.

This is not a new phenomenon, by any means. It has been our contention that the entire practice of commercial intelligence has a long and storied history that has been given short shrift, largely due to the influences of consultants and others seeking to brand their names onto this “new” thing that the re-discovered. While this may be a good way to sell books, and to organize conferences, we feel that it has greatly hurt the profession’s development and legitimization. Like national intelligence in the interwar years, it is too easy to wrap up a “new” experimental function like a business intelligence / competitive intelligence unit, particularly when budget cuts come rolling around. The taint of controversy has too often provided convenient ammunition as cover in such situations. Unfortunately, the very defense against these largely manufactured controversies is the same history that has been so deliberately discarded in favour of the branding of novelty.

Thus it seems we are doomed to watch that fight replayed over and again in the gulf of ignorance that has been the result. Yet the legitimacy of these units has long been settled law, among the oldest questions in the profession of intelligence to come before the bar. We cite a 1916 publication by the United States Bureau of Corporations, Trust Laws & Unfair Competition. (courtesy of the Government Printing Office), which references the matter (for American law) thusly:

Before entering the final decree in United States r. American Tobacco Co. et al the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York considered a request to enjoin the defendants "from espionage on the business of any competitor, from bribery of employees of such competitor, and from obtaining information from any United States revenue official." Lacombe, J., denied the request, saying: “Why any one Individual or corporation engaged in this business may not acquire such information as he or it can legitimately obtain from private or public sources as to the business of a competitor we fall to see. When illegitimate methods are proved, they may be dealt with.”

We would wish to see that opinion more widely promulgated and discussed, in order to defeat the pseudo-legalistic arguments that have lately come into fashion to justify short sighted decisions that managers are unwilling to take responsibility for themselves. We think that such a changed calculus may actually alter those decisions in a marked way – or perhaps at least prove the unsuitability of certain ill informed individuals for the roles given to them in the complex decision-making environment of the modern corporation.

The loss of the history of the intelligence profession has had terrible consequences to its practice and evolution. It is long past time serious scholars begin to address these failings, in a manner that advances the literature of the field in areas of direct relevance to the practitioner.

Further to the Google prediction market

We were surprised to note the widespread discussion throughout the blogsphere regarding the Google prediction market paper. Something there clearly captures the imagination in a way that the art and science of forecasting rarely otherwise can.

Today’s discussions have also surfaced a fascinating item not included in the original paper itself: an influence diagram of successful and unsuccessful forecasters. Surprisingly, represented as a heat map, one clearly sees an unprecedented proximity effect in clusters of both winners and losers. There is also a strong temporal correlation to these trades on the prediction market, further reinforcing the idea of action from a shared information base.

The representation also reminds us of other recent comments regarding geographic impact on social networks at the esteemed Network Weaving blog.

We have long been proponents of virtual distributed intelligence production – especially given the realities of life in the DC metro. And given the personalities of most intelligence analysts (stereotyped or otherwise), the prevalence of VTCs and telcons for interactions even within the national capital region, and the highly asynchronous schedules of so many professionals working in 24 / 7 environments such as watch desks or fusion centers, we had frankly thought little lost when virtual teams were properly organized and managed.

Now the ‘plex no doubt has a very different organizational culture than the IC, and we are uncertain that these findings may be applied more generally within our field. We would particularly question cross-domain validity given the number of critical interactions already mediated by networks even in the most physically cohesive of teams, such as the requirements and evaluation process, or almost every element of coordination and review.

Yet still we find our gaze retuning time and again to the heat map. There is clearly an aspect of information contagion at work – for both good and ill. Bad ideas seem to have the same stickiness and spread as did accurate analysis. And despite the high levels of reorganization and mobility within specific offices, the contagion seems to have persisted. While in the IC we might immediately recognize the office as a “sick shop” with poor management or destructive internal dynamics, we cannot so blithely make the same statements regarding a corporation with which we are nowhere near so familiar.

Overall, and irrespective of specific elements of the discussion, we find ourselves wondering at this glimpse of what production management and consumer outcomes could look like in a transformed IC. For those that have advocated tracking more closely metrics for assessing analytic performance, this is perhaps the best model of the potential utility of such efforts we have ever seen. One could imagine similar representational overlays charting production output, consumer feedback, citation, or even employee retention / satisfaction.

This is definitely something to ponder at length.

Chief Intelligence Officer, reporting

The recent resurgence in the use of the title of Chief Intelligence Officer has been hotly debated amongst many intelligence professionals. In properly elevated station, and applied narrowly to those of highest achievement and echelon, it is a dignified appellation that carries its proper weight without self-aggrandizement. However, like the term director, there is always the pressure of devolution which drives the title to ever lower ranks within the profession. It has also provoked a bit of a backlash by those that feel the title a modern influence from the CXO conventions that mark the corporate environment, and feel this to be improper in government. This is however a misperception – albeit a common one – as the title was given frequently in military organizations and other governmental structures in years past. The first reference which we are aware of originates when discussing the intelligence apparat in Malayia in 1811 – although it is caveatted by the potential that this may be a later appellation retroactively granted, given the publication’s date of 1907. A more explicit reference may be found in an 1871 volume, The soldiers pocket book for field service.

On the other hand, the commercial side of the house often rejects the title in order to keep intelligence away from a seat at the Board table along the other C-level officers. The private sector has long sought to free itself from the organizational structures of dead Germans, something the ever more baroque organograms of senior management posts amply attests. However, the role of a Chief Intelligence Officer dates back to the earliest successful commercial ventures, at the dawn of the first real trend of globalization. We are fortunate that a scholar of history at Florida State University, Dr. Marla Chancey, chose to examine the role of intelligence in the East India Company at the close of the 18th century for her thesis. The work - In The Company's Secret Service: Neil Benjamin Edmonstone and the First Indian Imperialists, 1780-1820 - conclusively documents a fascinating career and biography.

One can argue over the relative degree of actual privatization of the East India Company, given its role as an extension of British foreign policy. However, we can likewise point to any number of modern para-state entities which are perhaps even less “commercial” in nature, given a high degree of government involvement, but nonetheless merit consideration as privatized intelligence.

We should think Edmonstone’s example – assuming a seat on the board himself in later life - also speaks to the true potential of advancement after a long career in intelligence, despite many contemporary complaints regarding the supposed “dead-end” nature of the profession within the private sector. We think it far more likely that personality, and the nature of today’s employment environment – where a lifetime’s service to one institution is very likely something akin to a myth – will have greater impact the eventual summit of one’s career than in the discipline one pursues, especially for knowledge workers.

Differential problem solving

Business and competitive intelligence practitioners are one of those often overlooked sources of insight into analytical tradecraft in situations, and with individuals, very different from those typically encountered on the normal pol sci / national security track. Many of those insights have surprising cross domain relevance to the intelligence community proper.

Thus it is with the following item examining the behaviors of various (non-intelligence) technical minded types when confronted with an analytical problem. The differences in mind-sets, approaches, and even processes employed by the two groups make for a fascinating little vignette regarding comparative styles of critical thinking. (While we may object to the conclusions drawn in many other items on this particular blog, we do occasionally find an item or two of interest. And of course, given that the author resides in Kent in the UK, we could not help but notice the blog.)

We recall a similar little thought experiment that was routinely conducted during a strategic intelligence analytic tradecraft class once commonly offered around the community. The exercise involved a group of practitioners and managers, usually from very different organizations and entities, trying to tackle a new “emerging” target account from soup to nuts – requirements definition, collection management, and analysis and production planning. We likewise recall the very differing approaches and styles that surfaced during those discussions. At the time, common wisdom tended to chalk this up to institutional culture – and in particularly, the reinforcing power of organizational stereotypes (and expectations of those stereotypes). A more subtle interpretation would be to examine the extent to which individuals came to those organizations, and to succeed within them, that were more likely to embrace those cultural norms and even stereotypical responses.

The benefits of this kind of cross domain discussion (if you can keep the participants from killing each other) is perhaps one of the strongest arguments we have heard voiced regarding the need to break the old ivory tower model, and to integrate collectors, analysts, and operators throughout key accounts – in close proximity to the policymakers.

Stratfor blogging

George Friedman, Chief Intelligence Officer for the private intelligence firm Stratfor, is now blogging. We view this development, like much of Stratfor’s work, with mixed sentiments. On the one hand, Stratfor as an entity has done much to legitimize to concept of the privatization of intelligence – not merely in terms of government contracting, but also in terms of serving clients outside of the traditional community’s consumer list. Many multinational firms have much the same needs for robust geopolitical FINTEL as any government department, and Stratfor helps fill that niche.

Stratfor also one of the few private sector intelligence shops that has been in business long enough that it might perhaps be a profitable enterprise (although of this we are uncertain, as we have no inside information regarding its financial status). There are only a few other shops that may even attempt such a claim, however, many are affiliated with larger institutions – such as Oxford Analytica, or the Economist Intelligence Unit. The other major private sector intel concerns - the travel intelligence shops such as Control Risks, iJet, and International SOS - have faced quite varying balance sheets over the years, and much of their revenue comes from services outside of the core intelligence lines – K&R, due diligence, corporate overseas medical support, or continuous injection of new investor’s capital. In previous years (before their acquisition by Verisign) we might also have included the old iDefense shop in the list of profitable private sector intelligence efforts, but rumours of the shop’s troubles in its newest incarnation give us pause – including key indicators such as their recent loss of a number of key people, the complete loss of its branding into its parent corporate identity, and now the potential sale of the unit as part of Verisign’s divesture of its managed security services portfolio.

Stratfor thus stands somewhat apart from the rest, as an independent shop in continuous operation for over a decade. But in that decade, its track record has been exceptionally unsteady. It first made its bones during the Kosovo crisis, with unique new information sources (in an area where few shops had anything at all) and the occasional innovative but solid analytic line. Its attempt to act as a “global” shop in the mould – and even, boastfully, claiming competition with – CIA, did not fare so well over subsequent years. Occasionally, they have a good piece. But often their analysis reflects their hiring strategies, which Friedman himself proudly holds up as an ideal model – the selection of young students, fresh from university, with no prior intelligence experience. Stratfor claims this allows them to build new analysts with no “bad habits” that might have been learned in the intelligence community. However, it ensures that they have a workforce that will always lack substantive experience, creating a shallow bench on accounts. This can be quickly and professionally fatal on hard targets, or when they step into areas in which existing analysis is a career long affair for an entire analytical sub-specialty (such as oil market dynamics). While we are great believers in the value of the beginner’s mind, and of the importance of Smoking Mirror, we thinkStratfor’s approach goes a bit too far.

Their analysts also reportedly face a brutal gauntlet of forced predictions for quarterly and annual forecasts on their accounts, which are tracked and if found to be repeatedly inaccurate over time, results in their dismissal. While in theory an exercise in accountability, one of the enduring lessons one should learn when managing analysts is put forth by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In any given population of forecasters – NNT chooses Wall Street traders as an example, due to his experiences and interests – there are a certain percentage that will be accurate each year simply due to pure chance. Year over year, this will result in a small number of “successful” forecasters, who at the end of any given evaluation period will appear disproportionately better than their peers. Again, while we are strong believers in analytic accountability, and continuous improvement in analytic tradecraft and accuracy, we are acutely aware of the limitations of intelligence as an activity, and the impact of random chance.

We will be interested to observe the development of Stratfor’s enterprise blogging over time. We would be most glad also to see its line analysts surface from behind the curtain, and have their occasional chance in the limelight that is typically dominated by a few senior faces. And we hope to see more than just a reposting of its public products – though it is an interesting experiment in feedback on those products, and one that takes no small amount of courage (for which they should be rightfully commended).

But in the blogsphere, it is not enough to rest upon one’s reputation, and to treat shallowly across wide fields of inquiry. There are real subject matter experts that may emerge unexpectedly in this medium, and these can pose both a challenge to the unwary or arrogant, but a tremendous opportunity to those willing to change and adapt to the new environment. For example, their latest piece on Blackwater could well have been far better informed with the cooperation of established bloggers that have long discussed the impact of PMCs (first in our minds is of course Mountainrunner, but also the boys at Coming Anarchy, and Shloky). Let us hope that Stratfor learns from their example, and involves such SME’s in their future products.

All in all, we wish Stratfor the best in their new approach into the blogsphere. It is rare to see such a conversation begin with a private sector intel shop, and we would see it continue. Of course, we hope they will discuss their tradecraft and forecasting methodologies in more detail – perhaps even proving our impressions wrong. But either way, we hope they will further contribute to the literature of intelligence from the basis of their unique experiences.

Backlash against conference season

Former Spook has an interesting item regarding political backlash against the long established tradition of the conference season.

While we are no defender of government waste and abuse, and can list a few dozen conferences which are nothing more than the fig leaf over vacations for senior managers with no real responsibilities of their own, we find ourselves troubled by the implications of this exercise – not of legitimate oversight, but of the continuing game of political “gotcha” that has so bedeviled DOD and the IC in recent years.

At the same time we are attempting to revolutionize both military affairs and the intelligence community through information sharing, and break stovepipes and fiefdoms through collaboration, we are not supposed to spend funds on travel and convention rooms to do it?

To be sure, VTCs have brought us a lot of benefits, as have more persistent collaborative environments such as Groove/Jabber, Intellipedia, and many of the various account specific portals created within the several classified and SBU networks. We have high hopes for similar benefits from virtual worlds such as Second Life. But we have found that collaboration in those environments works best when individuals periodically have a chance to meet face to face, and especially when they can have discussions on informal ground in less than official contexts.

The conference season for has some time been for us a time of renewal, in which we are energized by exposure to other issues and accounts, and through these exchanges find new ways of thinking and new players in the professional space. In many cases, it may be the first time that introductions are made that will later be of immeasurable import in a crisis – because the first time you exchange business cards shouldn’t be during or immediately after a major terrorist attack or other intelligence failure.

We know a number of good young analysts which count on a single conference a year (if they are lucky, and mission requirements do not suddenly interrupt) as a rare chance to get out of the office and meet others, both working similar accounts as well as those in unrelated but intellectually stimulating fields. Several may even use their limited leave time (and personal funds) to attend – or volunteer to perform administrative scut work far beneath their normal responsibilities simply for a chance to be in the room. We have seen firsthand the benefits to moral and productivity that these occasions create, and the damage over time that is caused to shops which do not encourage such interactions.

Frankly, the typical DC venues used in the conference season are one of the primary arguments in favour of the “centralized” community in the greater Metro area. But we have found that we greatly favour the offsites out of town, where other players from dispersed geographies can also come out to play, and where the temptation to head back to the office in the middle of the day to deal with “pressing demands” are reduced – and where participants are more likely to hit the bar after a long day, allowing for far better networking, than to head home and maintain their pockets of splendid isolation.

Nothing good comes for free, but the higher order effects of the conference season are well worth the investment required to bring it about. And after all, cramped economy class seating, less than favourable flight times, sub-economy class rental cars from off brand chains, dingy “government rate” hotel rooms, and a per diem that barely buys a decent steak dinner are hardly the luxuries of say a typical Congressional junket, let alone a normal function in corporate America.

Thinking in the dark

You’d figure after having been expeditionary so often in the Long War, the intelligence community would have figured out how to avoid sitting around with Tikkas and Surefires in a blacked-out vault. Because grease pencil sure beats geospatial visualization displays....

And physical discomfort should be nothing, given that there are fighting men and women suffering in the heat, freezing in the mountains, or rotting in the jungles elsewhere. Why, the austerity campaign is really about solidarity – not about a failing infrastructure that cannot even keep a consistent environment for the machinery (people, as always being barely an afterthought.)

This is not the first time the issue has been raised, along with all of the other problems caused by the excessive push to build more, right here, right now, and fast that have come to light. If our scorn comes through, it is because of the absolute lack of vision displayed at so many levels of senior management within the community. For a culture in which warning is enshrined as such a key mission, we seem to do very badly at forecasting our own internal I&W problem sets – and even worse at heeding those that might have been concerned.

Well, there are a whole lot of civil affairs and reconstruction staff which would no doubt be very happy to come back and spend a little time adding capacity to a nice wooded location in Maryland. It sure beats yet another well, power line, or generator out in the Gap. That is, unless something else catches fire….

If nothing else, information assurance is made easier under such conditions. A box that is turned off entirely cannot be compromised…

Update: New link for the new Haft of the Spear site. Also, more at Former Spook.

The politics of the (old) NDIC

We are surprised to see that our post regarding the old National Drug Intelligence Center has apparently struck such a deep nerve in at least one of our readers. We knew it was a popular item in the Department of Justice – having been visited hundreds of times by quite a range of individuals there (as well as our usual wide range of readership). We did not realize it would provoke such venom – nor somehow create an assumption that our writing was for the political purposes of the Republican administration. (We are strictly and professionally apolitical, and amongst the various elements of our skunkworks you will find no greater variance than in personal political opinions… while this is likely hard to believe in the age where the personal is nearly always political, there you have it.)

We are also fascinated to see the interpretation of our writing posed by the new “intelligencer”. Needless to say, we shall not quibble details of traffic, fight over the method of counting billets, nor discuss how and why our opinions of the place were formed. Our intent was not to add to the clamor of the budget fight over the earmarks that fund the place – as we note, this is very small beer indeed in the real intelligence community. (We have spent more in a fiscal quarter in some programs than their entire annual budget; and frankly even on the same sized programs elsewhere seen performance and quality to better effect - routinely exceeding their total annual production volume on a monthly basis on almost any account with a far smaller staffs. But editing hell does tends to kill a shop’s production…)

We do not wish to see the place closed entirely but rather reformed and revitalized to its as yet unfulfilled existing purpose and missions. Our primary motivation for critique is that we were, and remain, appalled at the suggestion that some of the most critical programs in the counterterrorism community might be shifted in the political winds, particularly to a shop with such a poor performance record when compared to the ground breaking work done at places such as National Counterterrorism Center.

Our reactions to the old NDIC are not driven by envy, as our newfound critic might suggest (such envy as we might harbor is reserved for those with nice European or island postings assigned to small, out of the way accounts), but rather by disappointment in its failure to live up to its potential. There are few times when intelligence functions move outside the Beltway, and we have long encouraged the process in order to start the sea change required to make that happen as a realistic career option rather than the exile that it most certainly is now.

And for the record, we think this sort of debate is exactly what Sherman Kent had in mind when he first called for a literature of intelligence. A profession which cannot reflect upon itself and its activities in a robust and spirited debate - be they good or ill - is no profession at all.

For this reason, we welcome our new virtual colleague, and hope to see him/her contribute more to the literature beyond the narrow discussion of a transient politicized fight. Perhaps he/she can use this opportunity as a better chance to illuminate the discussion of new methodologies in counter-drug analysis, highlight new analytical software (but please, something other than the Microsoft driven abortion that is RAID or the utterly unused Orion packages), or debate DOCEX processes. If nothing else, we always appreciate new perspectives on future transformation of the community – and even if we might disagree on where NDIC currently stands, we might find common ground as to where it, and other decentralized components of the larger community, should be headed.

So, to our new counterpart, we offer the traditional benediction handed down to us from the days of SOE - merde alors.

Conference season

Our thoughts lately turn towards the perennial summer institution of the intelligence community conference – the time to travel (perhaps if only across town, and even to that most rare of luxuries - the world outside of the vault, the one with windows...), sit lightly (if long), and reflect upon the art and science rather than on the press of day to day events.

Our business side / competitive intelligence colleagues kicked off the season in the late spring, but then again vendors are always hungry for Q3 leads during the long doldrums of executive vacations and budget uncertainties.

The educator’s annual conference is currently going on, with a most interesting collection of heavyweights displaying great interest in the generation to which the Long War will be given.

A few of the more established intel schools are also hosting a small function of their own, as usual out in the boondocks of the Great Lakes.

And of course, there is the event everyone is waiting for: the DNI OSINT conference, where we hope to see something new, interesting, and definitive emerging from the movements within the open source side of the community. (Standing room only, already, we note.)

Let’s hope the powerpoint rangers practice better OPSEC for the remainder of the summer, based on the recent news.

We would also love to see a bigger push for paper submissions at these events. While it is nice to have a good lunch, and (hopefully) engaging speakers; these functions represent a unique chance to spur contributions to the literature in a manner that the longer production cycle journals do not. There are few other fields where conferences do not routinely include papers, and it has been a long time since the 2005 analysis conference.

Alas, in the meantime those seeking further reading from the conference literature must content themselves with the (sometimes overly) academic offerings from the International Studies Association’s past meetings.

We also await the emergence into the public light of the various indicators - which will (no doubt) manifest the trends of the ever-shifting currents of politics within the IC. These are troubled days, and much more will out before the season ends, we should think.

The continuing debate over climate intelligence

Weather intelligence (Wx) is one of the oldest continuously practiced forms of analytic prediction and forecasting. It has morphed over the years from something deeply and firmly entrenched “behind the green door” to an integral part of operations planning (an interesting evolution that may mirror future shifts coming in other forms of embedded intelligence support to the warfighter.) Wx forecasting is of course also a famously inexact blend of the art & the science, despite significant advances in sensor technology, modeling and simulation tools, and distributed real-time reporting sources.

Wx has also provided a fascinating comparative look into the evolution of analysis across cultural and organizational contexts, as US weather products (at least those available to the civilian world) are more timely and accurate than their European counterparts. The reference has escaped us, but we recall one research study that attributed this in part to the difference in meteorological publications processes between the peer-reviewed journal – preferred in the US - and the edited volume – preferred in Europe.

It is equally fascinating to see that the continuing debate over Wx in the form of the assessment of the potential for long term climate change has not yet abated. We have weighed in on this matter ourselves, but we continue to find new material surfacing throughout the community, mirroring a number of internal discussions. It seems that the prospect of institutionalizing this account has struck a nerve amongst practitioners. Additional references can be found at Politics & Soccer (the blog of a Georgetown University student) and at the Weekly Standard (where one can find a longer variant piece by the author usually featuring at Haft of the Spear.)

To this end, we note that there has been an apparent divide in the reactions between newly minted professionals (and their aspirant counterparts of equal age and similar experiences) versus the veterans and those that have been substantively engaged in the Long War for some time. Interesting enough, the younger generation is frequently eager to pursue such studies.

Whether our initial impression dismissing this difference as coming from a mindset imprinted by the media-generated cognitive biases (the results of decades of politically correct environmentalism targeted at the younger generation in the schools) will prove correct over time, we cannot say. There may also be more balanced and apolitical reasons for the interest of the younger set, perhaps even including the desire to find new accounts not yet dominated by the gray beards and talking heads of the community – and conveniently, one that does not require extended deployments but rather travel to the nicer places of the world for conferences, etc. (No one should ever think the new kids are stupid when it comes to angling for the right travel opportunities. One of our long ago bosses once noted that even the most inexperienced analysts could be divided into groups based on their native inclination towards cunning and self-interest in selecting assignments. The best and brightest would surge to the most difficult account of the day, and commit themselves utterly to it with no regard to personal sacrifice. The smarter, and usually quieter, ones would select the accounts most likely to bring them to the “chocolate” countries – nice European posts in places renowned for their confectionary and other cuisine.)

Once again, Wx provides a truly unique window into the practice of the craft, and the professionals' perspectives of the craft, cutting across the generations. It is however now become an entirely too political debate for our taste - and one that is being explicitly politicized by many of the participants.

When everything is intelligence, nothing is intelligence

The now famous essay from the Sherman Kent School comes to mind as one watches the debate over the intelligence community’s role in studying potential global warming issues play out in the media-legislative complex.

Both Haft of the Spear and In From the Cold have further insight and commentary into the role played by the political considerations in this equation, and are well worth reading.

One is also reminded that the intelligence implications of the issue has already been well covered by the National Intelligence Council’s Mapping the Global Future series, and to a lesser extent with the Proteus project’s scenarios.

However, a very wise (but very cynical) senior analyst once told us that the best account one could be assigned to is a futures study with a horizon long after your own retirement. That way, one could spend an entire career in intelligence and never be proven wrong…

Given the flux of other more frequently addressed geopolitical and transnational issues accounts, longer term futures are more and more being rendered irrelevant by the radical shifts of today. Thus, moving out to a geological timescale accomplishes the same objectives in a far more certain manner for those seeking a profitable retirement.

We ourselves feel that there are far more pressing and more immediate issues that demand the application of the talent and insight of trained intelligence professionals, and there are better target accounts in which the community can explore the integration of outside experts and academics with much more immediate, and much more reproducible, results.

As long as Americans are dying in the Long War, this kind of peacetime fantasy exercise is not just irrelevant but offensive. We are sure that there are many serving officers outside the wire that would love a chance to come back in, work in an air-conditioned office somewhere in the Beltway on a 9 to 5 schedule, see their families at night, and spend their time in the intellectual equivalent of wanking. But there is a real war to fight, and real intelligence to do first.

Incompatibility with the vault

We have written before regarding the challenges the next generation of intelligence professionals will pose to traditional management structures – particularly when those young minds have become accomplished experts in their own right. The following interview with a young technologist, Aaron Swartz, is quite revealing in what it says about those coming management challenges. (He is profiled further here.) For where today goes the hyper-mobile, highly creative innovators of the wired world, tomorrow will be your average everyday sort of knowledge worker.

The money quotes, in our opinion, for understanding the future of the disconnect between talent and management:
“Heh,” I joked. “I bet the first time my boss finds out where I am is when he sees my photo on the front page of his own website.”
and
But the best punch line was that … he didn’t find out when it was on the front-page of his website – he found out when I posted that fact to my blog!

Organizations cannot afford to continually lose talent through the profound mismatch of employee expectations to organizational norms – which will be an increasing problem as two very divergent cultures collide in the coming years. And while we do not know any specific details regarding the case above, it is not uncommon for many in the community to accrue significant amounts of vacation (and comp time) – only to lose it rapidly due to human resources imposed caps and organizational culture which discourages extended (week or more long) absences. Of course, for overseas travel – especially involving any significant personal interest (or increasingly professional interests simply not funded by the organization) such as a conference or class – a week is hardly any time at all.

In fact, in today’s constantly connected, extreme op-tempo environment, a week is barely enough time to get used to being disconnected enough to relax. And given the increasing prevalence of 14, 18, or even 20 hour days many young community professionals are putting in, five to six days a week, when they are switched on and engaged, it’s hardly much time at all in comparison to the typical range of uncompensated overtime which has been an assumed part of many shop’s baseline activities.

These issues are key elements of the profound shift in the nature of work that are part and parcel of the revolution in intelligence affairs. The managers and seniors that will tomorrow be responsible for running shops composed of people accustomed to this dynamic are going to have to spend serious time, attention, and thought on how to deal with the “incompatibility with an office environment” that many of the best and brightest of the next generation will face – particularly when that environment is the hermetic confines of the vault.

As an interesting aside from the issues of management and talent, the interview also surfaces a fascinating potential thread of dissent regarding the conventional wisdom on how Wikipedia has been assembled. Hopefully, Swartz will soon publish more of his research findings on the more widely based nature of small contributions by a large number of low-volume participants (versus the conventional understanding of a small pool of high-volume contributors which are said to be the backbone of the encyclopedia effort.) This has the potential to have profound implications for how the intelligence community understands the actual performance of Wikipedia (as opposed to the mythos it has built around its activities and philosophy) – with the potential for understanding parallel behaviors in Intellipedia and other new wiki applications in the IC.

Spare cycles and private wars

We are not sure which is worse – the fact that a Sandia National Labs employee, at the height of the Long War, had such poor discretion and ethical baseline as to become a cyber-stalker, or had enough free time to do so without impact to professional performance.

We however generally view the hitherto unexamined excess capacity identified by Mr. Anderson with great interest. It is the primum mobile driving the Imperative to pursue the art and science of intelligence, and to document it in a robust and shared body of literature. Without those “spare cycles”, much of what craft which is currently passed along from master to journeyman would not exist, or be lost with retirement and re-assignment.

We are just as fascinated by the means by which such energies may be focused across the profession, through participatory architectures, new organizational structures, or new processes. Unfortunately, for the most part those that have spare cycles in the Long War are those that have the least to contribute – else they generally would have found themselves another home and a more engaging mission. Those with the best potential for insight and imagination are too heavily tasked already – driven by the relentless demands of current production and of mission critical needs.

We are nonetheless reminded that there are entire classes of individuals whose true contribution potential remains untapped by virtue of failing HR processes, inefficient bureaucratic structures, or the simple lack of the right inspiration and management. These individuals offer the potential to provide the kind of energy envisioned by Mr. Anderson, given the right conditions.

There are also those who have reached temporary professional plateaus, in which the often near vertical learning curve of the craft has given way to the kind of autonomic “servicing” of targets with little demand for innovation or growth. These analysts are often at greatest risk of burnout, but may lack other options for greater engagement on new issues demanding higher levels of intellectual intensity. This also represents untapped sources of potential energy for new cross boundary and cross functional efforts.

The community needs better mechanisms for utilizing these spare cycles. In many ways, this problem is closely linked to the sacrifice of human lifetimes caused by the bureaucratic and technological constraints under which the profession as a whole labors. Solving many of those pointless sacrifices would enable additional spare capacity to feed new functional uses for the right minds, including encouragement of time spent on analysts’ own “private wars” – the accounts of greatest professional interest to them on an individual level, even if those issues may not be the most pressing requirements currently faced by the community (or the target to which they are currently assigned.)

We have seen initial options for this sort of encouragement and channeling of these energies presented in the growth of new collaborative and communication environments, including wikis and blogs, that substantially mirror other mechanisms found in the outside world. But there are a number of other Web 2.0 innovations that could prove of value to the community, and other new tools specific to the profession that have yet to be developed. We would greatly wish to see more efforts directed at establishing the first principals which will enable their creation and adoption in the same manner as Intellipedia and other radical emerging innovations. It is from such striving that we feel the greatest advancements in the field may yet emerge, as the community transforms from the industrial age legacy to its as yet unknown future.

Cascading accounts of information industry failure

We remain as always amazed by manner in which the interweb can surface the most fascinating indicators to enrich analysis and observation.

The “New Coke” mistake involving the much beloved Lileks has continued to spark the most interesting commentary, and is no doubt sapping what little remains of the Star-Tribune’s positive branding. To dive into the rest of that particular furball, it is best to start with Haft of the Spear’s list of citations.

Also, we have found through that longer chain of blogospheric isnad a most interesting reaction from an industry insider at Gold Plated Witch on Wheels. We recognize far too many similar management dynamics in the community to those examples she lists – regretfully further confirmation of our contentions regarding the parallels between these information industries. We particularly liked, and empathize with, her assertion that she...

“...loved (and still do) newspapers with the irrationality of a college girl sleeping with her professor. It doesn't matter how much they hurt you or that you know it will end badly, you just love 'em anyway.”

The love of the intelligence profession is just as irrational – but just the same, not something we are likely to give up.

We also note that there may be something in the air leading to the autodarwination of information industry institutions, given other recent examples of the misuse of human capital we have regrettably observed.

One of our own is currently out in the cold (and now entertaining offers from appropriate US entities and academics, should any reader of relevant distinction have a need for a senior intelligence officer / analyst with unique transnational issues and related overseas operational experience) - having very recently departed a once innovative program that was run into the ground in less than a year by bad management, politicization, bureaucratic ossification, and terminal short-sightedness. We wish our friend, and our virtual colleague James, the best as they both attempt to create for themselves new professional options. We are hopeful for them both, given the way things have worked out for others going through recent metamorphosis.

Intelligence professionals and their civilian counterparts in other information industries both vote with their feet. The public side just happens to be a lot more visible than what occurs within the community. It will no doubt take a generation for the academics to piece together the implications of recent events, and the pathways of evolution to the next iteration of those industries.

Teaching man to fish…

Among our recent struggles has been the increasingly difficult problem of cultivating a wider systems and strategic level viewpoint in intelligence professionals, not only regarding target accounts and substantive analysis efforts, but also in terms of how their contribution supports the intelligence community as a whole.

This is not an easy task. Strategic thinking remains one of the more difficult subjects to effectively convey in any classroom or on the job setting. True application of strategic level insights requires both a body of subject matter expertise but also experiential epiphanies of meaning and interactions across traditionally stove-piped domains and separated vaults.

It is a task also not made easier by many of the traditional means by which intelligence professionals are taught to perform, particularly those which demand adherence to specific methodology or a set series of templates for production. These include the entire academic model used as a template, in which production merely mirrors common styles used for journal articles or research papers in international affairs, political science, or other common disciplines within the ivory tower – a practice which may produce more readable material but often fails to address key aspects of utility and consumer outcomes. The academic model, however, remains all too prevalent within the intelligence community due to the emphasis on transcripts in hiring and promotion. Other templates may be derived from military reporting formats, used more generally across other disciplines due to individual or organizational familiarity; or even journalistic styles, adopted for current intelligence reporting but which pose their own unique problems in an increasingly mediated age.

We as a community are faced with increasing numbers of individuals which approach their profession as a series of set piece problems to be dealt with using processes and techniques set forth in manuals or in customary usage. This is all very well and good when those individuals are working in established functions and on target accounts with which the community has historic interest and experience; as those practices have been evolved from the collective experience and unique strategic thought of many a veteran practitioner. These practices as a body are often revisited over time through both formal and informal mechanisms of discussion and validation, as accounts pass from hand to hand and as new case studies are developed to help capture and pass along core tradecraft useful to those accounts.

However, when those same professionals who perform well in such existing assignments are placed into new roles in functions which previously did not exist (or were not codified and collected into a formal position), they frequently founder. Many are unable to articulate the reasons behind the success of previous practice, nor identify other applicable examples of tradecraft which might be applied to new types of target problems. Instead, they are often frustrated by repeated and futile attempts to pound their square peg templates into holes whose shape has not yet even been charted. Accidental successes of timing and interest are held up as proof of success of inadequate models, and when such successes prove fleeting individual analysts are often castigated for what are perceived as personal mistakes despite the clear failings of management dictates.

There are those that can see above the daily grind of production and coordination, but they are often unable to express or ill-positioned to correct the course of the model. Indeed, these are the professionals most likely to burn out fast as they struggle both to overcome specific problems and issues in order to perform to the best standard possible, but also to take on entire systems and personalities to ensure others around them can also succeed. The departure of these rare individuals from units can have devastating effects on the value of functional teams, but unfortunately this is only usually recognized too late (if at all).

Now, we do not expect junior analysts or collectors to both master the art and science of their trade, the substantive aspects of their target account, and still have the bandwidth to look beyond their individual role to see systems as a whole. But frankly, we wish to see them better equipped to do so as they progress through the brutal learning curves of this profession; and ironically we are finding that older approaches to professional induction appear to have been actually better at accomplishing that task in the medium to long term. We strongly believe one of the keys to the older approaches (now fallen out of favour) is the delegation of significant early responsibility for design, execution, and management of specific encapsulated assignments; supported by available references and mentoring – but otherwise essentially on their own.

This philosophy does risk the successful outcome of initial products. In reality, it usually only risks a “re-do” of the task, typically by a more experienced veteran – something that happens frequently in assignments handed to developing juniors anyway, but with less potential for learning and growth. It is understandably difficult for senior professionals and line managers to watch junior staff make their own mistakes, and stumble through things their superiors so long ago internalized as to make them baseline assumptions of worldview. But there is a kind of value to that experience (especially when gently guided from the outside) that expresses itself down the road in better more systems oriented and strategic thinking, particularly if after action review and lessons learned processes are institutionalized within a unit.

These factors are one of the reasons the case study method is so successful, and why exercise environments can be rewarding far out of proportion to the resource investment required to bring them about. However, it takes a certain level of strategic perspective on the part of management to create conditions to cultivate their staff, including a deliberate suppression of the “old hand expert” mythos (itself quite damaging in the absence of smoking mirror), and a willingness to invest in internal development – things not easily found in the current climate which characterizes many GS-15 and SES offices.

There is hope on the horizon, though. The issues surrounding strategic thinking are receiving increasing attention in community circles, as are the questions of how it can be taught and otherwise cultivated. One of the key reasons we remain optimistic is the recent shift in emphasis within the community from the kind of broad and sweeping reform proposals which are the domain of agency heads and legislative / executive interaction toward a more narrowly constructed approach, which take core principals of the revolution in intelligence affairs and applies them not toward shuffling organograms and budget lines but in the pursuit of small, achievable changes that can have immediate impact on units and the consumers they serve.

In a way, this shift mirrors a similar dynamic observed by technologist Clay Shirky in the software development world, in which general mass programming solutions were seen to be supplanted by smaller and more tailored applications designed for specific niche roles within defined groups of users. Shirky refers to these new approaches as “situated software”, and we believe they are a natural reflection of the increasing demand pressures of customization by software consumers.

These same pressures are a work in the intelligence community, but without cultivating new strategic perspective they will not be satisfied.