Online education and the new literature of intelligence

We have recently become aware of a fledgling new journal that will offer its own contributions to the literature of intelligence, sponsored by Henley-Putnam University. This institution is one of the newer of the online intelligence studies programs currently growing to fill the gap in traditional university offerings. The new journal’s inaugural issue is to address “The Future of Intelligence Education”, a timely and relevant subject of great interest to ourselves – and we are certain, many of our readers. We look forward to its forthcoming publication.

It is fitting that this topic should be addressed by one of the newer distributed online programs. Virtual education has for too long been an ignored but game changing force in the professionalization of intelligence. The most significant of these efforts is without a doubt the unique Joint Intelligence Virtual University, but JIVU lacks the key outcome of credentialing (and is largely invisible to those outside of the core IC). We have long been aware of the other major such effort, American Military University, whose program relies heavily upon instructors formerly of the Joint Military Intelligence College (now National Defense Intelligence College). We confess a greater degree of familiarity with those efforts, if only due to their longer histories, but remain interested in new programs and the different approaches that other institutions may bring to the table. However, Henley-Putnam also deserves mention for having signed one of the few “star” intelligence professors currently in the game: Robert Clark, the author of the target-centric approach (which we would rate as one of the most consistently misunderstood and misused texts in intelligence education.)

The volume of students handled by these new institutions each year is absolutely transformative – in the order of multiple thousands per year. (By way of comparison, the longest running of the traditional civilian intelligence studies programs at Mercyhurst boasts a student body of a few hundred overall, with a score or so graduating each year.) One of the key distinctions between these academic programs and many traditional intelligence studies offerings can be found in the composition of their student populations. A significant percentage of those attending virtual courses are currently serving professionals, many deployed widely across the globe in support of ongoing missions. These students bring decades of practical experience to the classroom, and challenge educators to make theory relevant in ways that distinctly improve learning outcomes. This also keeps such courses far “fresher” and more closely in tune with the needs of the intelligence community, as many of these professional students are quite vocal when they feel that they are not receiving adequate value for their investment in time and money. (This unique blending could also go a long way to helping improve the research agenda of the intelligence studies academy, but that is a topic for discussion another day.)

The commitment required of such professionals to continue their education - despite the operational and logistical challenges brought on by the press of current operations – is quite impressive. Answering this commitment in kind is one area where we are certain many traditional intelligence studies programs have failed. Most schools are not friendly to the deployed, nor to those who wish to continue their studies through alternative formats – no matter how many times “independent study” options are thrown about during recruiting pitches. Frankly, this has been the great shame of the intelligence academy for too long. It is unconscionable to punish students academically who offer service in the Long War and other crisis missions, while their counterparts who have never served easily breeze through degree programs in the absence of other pressures. We – and many other employers – know which graduate we would prefer to hire, but it is not always easy to bring individuals onboard who have yet to complete their foundational degree. Online education options offer one of the few solutions we have yet seen to address this failing.

The new generation of virtual institutions we hope will also be a catalyst for the greater involvement of intelligence professions in the development of the literature in a form that can be shared more widely with the academia as a whole. We firmly believe that publication models such as Small Wars Journal will be the future of the literature. We have also already seen the impact of the virtual on the traditional, as the editorship of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence passed to Richard Valcourt of American Military University. No doubt we shall see other similar effects in the near future, and look forward to the improvement of the literature.

A new IC CAE and a new intelligence ethics conference

While the inimitable Dr. Jan Goldman will no doubt still retain his pre-eminence in the sub-discipline of intelligence ethics, we are pleased to see the discussion expanding outward throughout the academy. We note an upcoming conference at the newest of the IC CAE programs, University of Texas Pan American. The focus on border issues – no doubt a result of the proximity of the institution to the mission - we hope shall help to avoid some of the usual distractions of the endlessly rehashed arguments over interrogation methods that has significantly derailed much of the intellectual energies afforded the topic as of late.

If nothing else, we see with some amusement that this program takes the award for innovation in naming, being the first non-DOD program we are aware of to incorporate a superscript character in their acronym. (We look forward to future algorithmic naming permutations as time passes). More significantly however, the school’s program offers language instruction in Arabic, Chinese, and Portuguese – language families not always easily found in other institutions. We should have liked to see a greater emphasis on analytic tradecraft and intelligence professionalization in their program – a complaint we have regarding many of the IC CAE structures - but nonetheless we wish them well in their endeavors.

We repost below the call for papers issued by the conference organizers, for those that might be interested in the venue and feel unable to wait for the annual association’s event in February. (And while the timing of the events is nicely spaced, we do hope that the identical paper deadlines will not result in cannibalization of a limited scholarly output, but rather a greater flourishing of the area of inquiry. We hope next year that any similar efforts are better coordinated, as the intelligence studies discipline is frankly too small to long endure competing stovepipes.)

"Call for papers: “Ethics in Intelligence, Security, and Immigration: The Moral and Social Significance of Gathering and Managing Information and Borders in the Global Community”

The University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas will be hosting a conference on “Ethics in Intelligence and Immigration” November 20-22, 2008. We invite submission of papers on any subject related to ethical issues in the fields of intelligence gathering, global security and immigration. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words. Send electronic submissions to: pace [at] utpa.edu

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Ethical issues in global intelligence
• Ethical issues in competitive intelligence
• Ethical issues in immigration
• Ethical issues related to the collection, storage, and retrieval of intelligence
• Ethical issues in privacy and global and national security
• Codes of ethics in private and public intelligence
• Open vs. closed borders
• Ethical implications of a border wall

---Submission deadline: 1 October 2008---

Conference dates: 20-22 November 2008

There is a strong possibility that some or all conference papers will be published in a volume of conference proceedings.Sponsored by the Integrated Global Knowledge and Understanding Collaboration (IGkNU), the Pan American Collaboration for Ethics in the Professions (PACE), and the Office of International Programs at UTPA"

We look forward to the published volume, as well as the future scholarship of the IC CAE.

Correlation of academic performance to professional success in intelligence studies education

Courtesy of Trinity University’s Intelligence Center (a program which few may recall pre-dates the success brought by the more prominent IC CAE now hosted there) comes a piece which surfaces the fascinating history of the less distinguished of the graduates from one of the most elite institutions in the country, the US Naval Academy.

These are stories well worth the read, and we are grateful to the good doctor for recounting them. And while we remain strictly and professionally apolitical as to their import in the current election cycle, we however would ponder the perhaps unintended parallels one might draw regarding the students emerging from the intelligence studies academia itself. In this new enterprise, it has been all too easy to focus on the bright young things and rising stars. But is success in the cloistered ivory tower really a determinant of future excellence in a profession which has grown increasingly distant from the sterile models and dated theories too often propounded by those outside the walls of the vault?

This is a question which truly remains unanswered. There simply has not been a sufficient sample size across an adequate longitudinal depth given the emergent dynamics of the field. Further, the unsettled nature of the generally accepted unclassified curriculum has also worked against such observations. A number of institutions once focused tightly on producing graduates capable of answering the requirements of the working intelligence professional now seem to be increasingly at variance from the community’s needs, while a number of newer schools are simply untested. While we have great hope that from out of this current state the engine of creative destruction will drive new and better approaches, we have yet to see but faint indicators of regeneration.

However, while the plural of anecdote is not data, we do have a few observations that might be called out for future study against the fullness of time. For example, Trinity’s program itself has produced more than its share of intelligence scholars – including those recently minted undergraduates accepted directly into further academic studies at the National Defense Intelligence College, a singular and rare achievement which is clearly indicative of great potential. And the older program at Mercyhurst has produced a number of alumni who were brought into the community even in the leanest years of the hiring freeze by virtue of exemptions granted to those with exceptional academic records.

Yet the concept resonates with the experiences we have seen in others. There have been the equivalent of the anchormen and goats from those institutions (and others in the intelligence studies field) over the years, and many not by virtue of insufficient talent but rather the inevitable result of efforts focused more intently outward against real world objectives vice the acknowledged artificial standards of the classroom. The challenge, of course, lies in distinguishing between those individuals and their counterparts who truly lacked the preparation, initiative, and raw intellect to perform in this demanding field. At the same time, the task is not really easier for those who face the disappointment of having invested in a promising and high scoring young candidate only to find that the professors’ pet cannot perform under real world pressures where the right answer is not simply repeating a canned school solution.

We would daresay the best means of addressing this dilemma is to ensure that the intelligence studies academia always tests its candidates in conditions which mirror as closely as is possible stressors found in the professional intelligence environment. It is for this reason that we emphasize the need for an intelligence crucible when cultivating new professionals.

Regrettably, it appears that this is an idea which has not been popular as of late, especially as class sizes balloon and attrition rates shrink at many programs. While this may be profitable for the institutions concerned, it may prove to be a disservice not only to the agencies and firms which hire untested candidates but equally so to the candidates themselves. Failure in the classroom, even one which may cause an individual to re-assess the course of their future professional options, is far easier than dramatic self-destruction in the face of a burden the individual simply cannot carry. Unfortunately, this is a thing we have seen all too often – especially given the hiring surges of recent years.

While this is not a phenomenon unique to the intelligence profession, we think that it is indeed more pronounced. For this is a field of thinkers and of talkers, and therefore values these skills highly, as a result often seeing such competencies mirrored in the strong academic performers. Yet there is a greater gulf in this profession between the accomplishments of insight or communication, in contrast to the mimicry or sophistry which underlies some successful but otherwise hollow academics. The same can be said of some instructors in the field, as much as of the students. Indeed, one is often found at the root cause of the others.

Theory derived from lived experiences is all well and good, but validation is needed through more rigorous empirical research. That, we fear, will be a matter that must be left to the historians of the generation after next, for only then may the full measure of a cohort’s deeds be taken.

Unintended learning objectives

We have recently had several occasions to ponder the unintended higher order effects that seem to be cascading from academic intelligence studies programs. These chances have come as a new cohort of students inevitably begins to join the workforce from the ’08 classes (at least at those institutions where a graduating class is still measured primarily by spring year group), and as a number of the previous years’ students begin to emerge from the initially overwhelming stages of integration into the community, during which time they were typically near invisible amongst the press of current matters far more serious.

It is usually a good thing to meet a newly minted graduate from any of the intelligence studies programs across the country – and particularly from one’s own institution - as they tend towards an enthusiasm that inevitably and infectiously refreshes one’s own commitment to the mission at hand. In a small but distinct way, it is easy to see in many of these recently graduated students the echo of one’s own early entry into the profession. This is indeed a transferable thing, no matter how one came to the field, for we have seen the dynamic at work even in those for whom intelligence was (as it historically has been) the furthest from the first thing an individual considered as a career path. But intelligence as an activity and a profession has always tended to enmesh those suited for its demands, especially those that spent time as a square peg in other environments – and those individuals are often the first to recognize the same qualities in others. Upon such a dynamic is the entire mentorship structure built, and indeed, as is the nearly feudal system of career progression that marks the professional guilds of the community.

However, we have been disturbed by a marked trend observed in such recent encounters – observations which are reinforced by similar reporting from others of great insight and independent accomplishment in the field. A far too high percentage of these students seem now to be emerging from the sheltered cloister of their institutions bereft of key competencies that one would expect from an entry level intelligence professional, yet implacably infected with a degree of arrogance that is simply breathtaking in its scope and ignorance. And in a profession whose practitioners are not often noted for their humility, this is surely something indeed.

We thus take well Megan McArdle’s recent comments on the perils of graduate education. To her scope we would also add undergraduate education focused intensely on the same subjects. (For unfortunately, the great shame of too many intelligence studies graduate programs is that they offer little different from the same courses taught to undergraduates, compressed into a far shorter dwell time. And while graduate students may in some cases come to the task armed with better core skills – among them ordinary research and basic writing – as well as a presumed level of experience and maturity, the decline of the university system does not always assure this is true.)

“The new graduate student, bolstered by the opinions of their professors, tends to become extraordinarily indignant at the notion that anyone would challenge them. Since no one without a graduate degree could possibly have mastered the requisite knowledge, disagreement becomes a sign of willful malice. They stride forth confidently into arguments with professionals armed with the three books they have read on the topic, the opinions of their professors, and enough arrogance to power a high speed monorail between Moscow and Vladivostok. That's when they get their asses handed to them. Even worse, they are often too dumb to recognize this has happened; at the nadir of the disease, they are simply constitutionally incapable of recognizing that a slot at a good school is not the same thing as omniscience.”

We have struggled to characterize the conceits which plague more than a few particular members of these newer generations, in the hope of diagnosing the source. This has proven remarkably difficult to do, not least for the sheer variety of ways in which their hubris seems to manifest. Given that we are perhaps among the most non-denominational of participants in a number of the ongoing debates over current controversies in the community, it is nonetheless disturbing to see so many points in which new professionals deviate from the most basic principles of the craft, while at the same time proclaiming their genius loudly in a most unseemly and self aggrandizing fashion. Unfortunately, we suspect that this is in many cases largely the result of many of these students never having truly learned first principles. In a subset of these cases, the blame may not even lie entirely with the student, given that there is more than anecdotal evidence that many of the foundations of intelligence as a professional activity are simply not now being taught (although blame for lack of humility can certainly be fairly apportioned, even if it is to some degree an inherited trait).

This is perhaps a seasonal disorder, and we could merely wait in hope it shall soon pass. Certainly, it is a disorder in which seasonal changes highlight the observable impacts. But we fear that the symptoms worsen year after year in the nascent intelligence studies academia. There are undiagnosed tumors in the body, and the warning indicators are growing clearer. We do not yet despair, but fain would see the physicians soon attend to their own house.

Medical intelligence and the PRC Olympic gymnastic team

The controversy over the allegedly altered official age records for the PRC’s Olympic gymnastic team has provided an excellent teaching example for the benefits of medical intelligence. There are a number of indicators which have been surfaced through open source reporting, including missing baby teeth, biometric anomalies, and altered official records and state agency news stories. These are compelling evidence in their own right to support further inference.

Of course, more sophisticated techniques are available for intelligence professionals. Such techniques have long been a staple of leadership analysis, in which foreign figures are closely examined for potential medical anomalies. The importance of accurate assessments of the health of foreign leaders was driven home after the failure to understand the severity of the Shah of Iran’s illness, which directly led the United States to underestimate the revolutionary climate of the country in 1979.

The discipline has been covered repeatedly in the intelligence literature, first in a (now declassified) Studies in Intelligence article, Remote Medical Diagnosis. The history of the methodology and its use was also revisited in an article published in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, “CIA’s Medical and Psychological Analysis Center (MPAC) and the Health of Foreign Leaders”. There is a robust and well tested tradecraft available to help address these outstanding questions, even based solely on media recorded to date.

One particular analyst of our acquaintance leveraged practice honed in the far less rarified world of gossip magazines into an uncanny talent at spotting plastic surgery in handheld imagery. Needless to say, it is competency that one does not often find listed in human capital inventories – even in leadership analyst or medical intelligence vacancy postings - but yet one that has numerous uses in the intelligence profession. (Including, one might add, settling informal wagers taken over particular points of dispute that from time to time circulate through the vault.)

The application of these analytic methodologies is certainly not infallible, particularly when assessing the age of young females. A number of high profile mistakes have occurred in cases involving online pornography (albeit mistakes usually made by less well trained criminal investigators carrying with them a host of cognitive biases, rather than objective medical professionals focused on the art and science). However, the International Olympic Committee could certainly avail itself of far more robust diagnostic options than remote analysis alone might otherwise afford in order to reduce the potential error rate.

Regardless of the outcomes of further medical assessment, the controversy itself offers additional insight for political and leadership analysis. The insecurities of an authoritarian leadership - so desperate to prove itself on a world stage that it resorts to unsportsmanlike conduct and faked ceremony - demonstrate the impulses of the Communist government’s decision-making process as clearly as any other operational code yet documented. The reaction – or lack thereof - from a disconnected internationalist body mired in its own Utopian fantasy has also been instructive (and equally, could easily have been predicted by anyone who has spent any amount of time in the cloistered and anti-intellectual environment of Lausanne).

The truth will out. If nothing else, the case also demonstrates the value of intelligence to a wide variety of non-traditional consumers in this new millennium.

What’s in an intelligence professional curriculum

In the wake of the summer conference season, and in particular the recent events hosted by the International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE), we have been left to ponder one of the enduring challenges of the field’s ongoing professionalization: the widespread disagreement regarding what exactly prospective candidates and serving practitioners ought to be taught in an entry level and continuing education programs. (Note that we deliberately emphasize the need for an intelligence professional curriculum, vice entering into the debates over intelligence education versus intelligence studies. While such discussions have their place, we do not wish to address them here, and have chosen a third terminology as a proxy to encompass both the theory and application intended to serve the practitioners’ needs in order to address both training, education, and the meta- or comparative study of the field.)

One would think that this should be a largely uncontroversial matter. After all, there is widespread agreement regarding a number of the common skills and tasks required of intelligence professionals – particularly in the analytic side of the house (which admittedly has been better explored from the perspective of intelligence theory). There is even a growing consensus on the other qualities required by an intelligence professional, developed as part of a number of human capital competencies modeling efforts that are occurring both within the government and its private sector contractor and competitive intelligence counterparts.

This is not the first time the question has been raised. Several contemporary model curriculum efforts came out of the United Kingdom’s National Intelligence Model, translated in the United States under the Generic Intelligence Training Initiative to the law enforcement realm of the then dominant counterdrug mission circa 2000. Such efforts eventually culminated (through a fascinating pathway of memetic diffusion) in the now popular International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts’ Foundations of Intelligence Analysis Training standards. This has essentially displaced the previous standard curriculum model, at least in the criminal intelligence discipline, a defacto mix of the 1970’s era Anacapa training coupled with limited GEOINT and quantitative methodologies that grew out of the NYPD’s COMPSTAT. By default, this is also the dominant paradigm for the emerging discipline of homeland security intelligence, given the now overwhelming participation of state and local law enforcement in the new structures that have emerged in the strange evolutionary turns of the domestic mission and its capabilities.

Other models have been developed and presented from the academic perspective over the years since, involving separate deliberative efforts at four universities, the National Defense Intelligence College (formerly the Joint Military Intelligence College), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Yet none have been widely adopted, even in principle - and the debates over the topic remain exceptionally heated.

We should note that controversy is of course a matter of perspective. While the latest evolution of curriculum within one particular institution sparked such a degree of debate and dissent that upon the recent departure of one of the significant players involved in implementing these changes, it was joked that the traditional hail and farewell meal was held at an undisclosed offsite location in order to prevent a prominently vocal critic from arriving driving a VBIED. And although this little jest was made without the knowledge of any of the involved individuals that had participated in the debate, it would certainly not be the most contentious faculty meeting we had ever observed. For a real civil war level dispute, one must look to the tenured staff at in other disciplines.

Yet none of these differs markedly in content or kind from the first intelligence curriculum design attempt that we are aware of, a modest but nonetheless foundational study authored in 1965. Those unaware of the true history and impact of intelligence privatization might be scandalized to learn that this was a contractor led effort, explicitly designed to create the government curriculum for the then emerging Defense Intelligence College that resulted from a recommendation contained within the 1946 Gerow Report on officer’s education. The latter is widely considered to be the origin of current military professional education. We would like to see its role in establishing the concept of intelligence professional education likewise remembered, particularly given that it encompasses both education and training concepts.

To be sure, the profession has evolved since this time. Entire new disciplines within the field have emerged, and pedagogy likewise has come a long way. But somehow, practitioners are constantly confronted by those wishing to re-invent the wheel when it comes to implementing a new program. In no other field would it be possible to credibly ignore all antecedents when it came time to discuss program objectives and outcomes, especially when these are ignored in favour of long debates over first definitions. It should not be thus in the intelligence profession.

Likewise, we strongly object to the oft-heard statements that an intelligence curriculum ought to merely concern itself with teaching the basics of critical thinking, writing, and briefing. While these are indeed vital skills, and their mastery strongly correlated with success in the field, they are by no means the only things an entry level analyst needs. And despite the claims that the IC will provide all further necessary instruction on tradecraft topics, we would venture to guess that these claimants have not led a line unit for some time. Similarly, those that have never served outside of the cloistered confines of the most established of the big sixteen may not always appreciate how little training budget (and time) is available to those in other agencies and elements. Again, in few other professional endeavors does one anticipate that college educated entry level candidates are merely blank slates, waiting to be imprinted with the One True Way.

Lastly, we would offer one final consideration for those developing a new intelligence curriculum. Pay no heed to those that demand that the study of intelligence be the academic discipline that dare not speak its name, or that this name be somehow muted and altered to provide greater attraction for interdisciplinary students. Such programs are inevitably a confused pastiche, and fail in the most important function of the educational process: the cultivation of personal passion and the all consuming interest that drives the best professionals. A muted program under a politically sanctified name merely mutes its students, not critics. We cannot as a profession allow the prejudices of those critics to dictate the terms under which new generations come of into the field – particularly given the vital importance of the generation after next at this historic turning point in the community.

The literature of cryptologic intelligence, declassified

Whole volumes of the intelligence literature produced within one of the oldest of the nation’s organizations are too often ignored by academics and other practitioners outside of the narrow field of signals intelligence. The literature of the technical side of the house tends to be exceptionally arcane – even by the eccentric standards of the rest of the IC – littered with mathematics, circuit diagrams, and radio propagation sketches. Its historical materials assume a familiarity that many outsiders cannot broach. And above all, this literature remains exceptionally protected, often for decades longer than counterpart publications in other agencies.
But the reader would be remiss to ignore the recently declassified series of articles taken from the various in-house journals and historical studies of our friends at Fort Meade. While still a small collection, it is a remarkable aggregation of materials of great potential value for those engaged in the hard task of teaching intelligence to the next generation of budding young professionals.

We are particularly hopeful that this round of declassifications will also spark a new interest in the history and theory of this venerable discipline. The second wave of publications that result from such interest are often invaluable companions to the primary works authored by practitioners, as academics attempt to interpret and re-contextualize material which has often long ago passed into the domain of the unexamined assumptions of common knowledge.

So hie thee hence, dear readers, and we hope to see new life emerge in the commentary and discussion of these thoughts of those that came before, and who laid the foundation for the practice of the art and science as we now know it.

Insight problems, red cell mindsets and alternative analysis

We have long held mixed opinions regarding the computer security guru Bruce Schneier. While he often says interesting and provocative things, and has a distinct flair for memorably naming common phenomena (including introducing nomenclature such as security theatre, which even senior Transportation Security Administration officials have adopted in their own verbiage). At the same time, his off the cuff commentary frequently reaches far beyond his area of expertise into things of which he clearly has limited knowledge, but which he asserts with the same confidence – with less than useful results. It is a classic problem of the expert’s paradox, one frequently seen in those SME’s that spend a great deal of time in the media’s limelight.

Despite this caveat, we do commend to our readers a recent piece in which Schneier has brought to our attention an interesting course in computer security. The course attempts to inculcate the “attacker’s mindset” into new students, teaching them to view problems from the adversary’s perspective in what intelligence professionals will recognize as a classic red cell fashion. He notes that this kind of thinking is quite alien to most engineers. We concur, and to this category we would also add lawyers, most economists and political scientists, as well as others of like inclination which have been educated within the formal strictures of similar academic disciplines that do not value alternative models outside of their own recognized boundaries.

We are happy to see such matters being discussed in the otherwise normally disconnected halls of the academy. We feel it crystallizes an approach to addressing one of the core problems of the intelligence profession – that of teaching analysts about insight problems, and in particular the kind of insight problems that require experiential epiphanies to begin to understand. Much of the lack of creativity and loss of imagination in the intelligence field can be attributed to attempts to bound non-deterministic problems too tightly within the confines of a given methodological approach. While structured analytical techniques are vital to exploring the fleeting quicksilver of insight, those who try to squeeze too hard will find that quicksilver escapes their grasp. You cannot teach insight – you must inspire it, and teach the methods which can reliably generate such inspiration.

We view this as a vitally important and almost entirely neglected aspect of current intelligence education and training. Given that alternative analysis has been enshrined as a requirement to meet community standards, and that formal red cell efforts continue to proliferate throughout many agencies and organizations, cultivating the kind of analysts which can perform well in those environments is vital. And unfortunately, most current instruction falls woefully short of that which is needed to accomplish such a task.

Considering immunity

While there are those that believe the world of polite conversation and “good faith” in arms control and disarmament can trump the hard realities of proliferation, we see a world in which the technologies required to assemble and deploy a credible threat are increasingly within the reach of the most mundane of non-state actors. While we are rarely given to dwell exclusively on issues of threat, as threat is not always in fact the most interesting aspect of a particular problem account (despite what many outsiders may believe), there are a few areas in which our nightmares are never far from fruition in the hands of the wrong actors.

This is especially true in the areas of emerging biological threats. While we are very much aware of a particular academic effort that examined the matter recently, we found its results disappointing, to say the least, largely because its work focused far too much on an assessment of the present vice a truly predictive and forward looking estimate – one that would help to bound the future space of uncertainties, and would identify the drivers and forces moving on the horizon.

Nonetheless, we continue to see the faint indicators of these forces from time to time. These are best captured not in some formulaic collection of wiki pages dedicated to a highly geographic scope – as if disease somehow respected national borders. Rather, one looks for the trend lines, and those areas in which black swans may emerge without warning as sudden shocks to the unprepared perspective. And while there are those that will insist that a black swan event is inherently unpredictable by nature, we are reminded of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s original formulation of the turkey’s day. The black swan event of meeting the butcher is only a shock to the turkey after a thousand days of being fed and cared for by other humans; it is an entirely normal course of a day’s work for the butcher. Likewise, for those who shift their perspective to the edges where the future is not evenly distributed, there may one find the first seeds of those events sown.

The difficulty of course lies in winnowing the signals of true predictive value from the noise of the overwhelming range of possibilities and potentials. This is fundamentally an insight problem. And the difficulties faced in approaching these problems are the epitome of the danger of treating mysteries as if they were puzzles suited for deterministic approaches and linear solutions that can be tied up neatly in sections and a nice cover page.

We happened to glance today at just such a faint indicator in which the merest hint of future insight might be reflected. It comes to us by way of the scientific community – always fertile ground for an intelligence professional to mine when examining fundamental issues of the physical and the living (as opposed to our more usual domain of the virtual and the dead). We find the development of simple replica immune systems for rapid testing of vaccines quite interesting in its own right, with the prospect of accelerated (and more accurate) clinical trials as the first clear benefit.

But our darker minds also take hold of the concept, and ponder the dual use implications that such a technique might offer in the hands of an adversary seeking to accelerate testing of modified biological agents designed to defeat immune resistance - whether human or otherwise. The footprint of such a facility would not be large, and would pose a very different kind of challenge to the intelligence community of tomorrow than the classic concept of an offensive bioweapons program. Threats abound in most futures that are easily envisioned.

At the same time, the technology presents the potential hope of opportunities not yet conceived. Just the other day before the University of Maryland findings began circulating, we found ourselves listening to an interesting discussion of the value that captive wildlife populations might bring to large scale bio-surveillance programs, both for sentinel warning as well as novel agent detection. The potential for cultivating accelerated immune responses as test models by which we might know the signs of outbreaks through wildlife (or domestic animal) populations is quite intriguing, especially given the other utility brought by captive populations in the urban settings of major zoos.

We ponder this as case study not solely in pursuit of any account in its own right – as that is more properly the domain for the line analyst, but rather as a teaching example. The case illustrates well the difference between intelligence done off a checklist which presumes a puzzle to be assembled from some mythic collection of dots, vice the kinds of implicit linkages that can only be found through creative exploration driven by fruitful obsession. Whether that which has been sketched here has any true value is a matter for the more disciplined application of analytic tradecraft. However, if one is not preparing analysts to begin to find reflections in the endless stir of these echoes that they may seek to later crystallize through more formal methodology, all that they will have to work with will be checklists and formulaic incantations - which alone will not keep the dark at bay.

Applications in commercial overhead imagery for stability and support operations

We continue to be impressed with the uses for commercial overhead imagery which the private sector now increasingly relies upon in an astounding array of situations. While none of these applications are new from the perspective of an intelligence community which has been employing national technical means to similar ends for decades, their independent re-discovery in the outside world, and operationalization in support of crisis situations, remains fascinating from the perspective of intelligence studies scholarship.

The most recent example comes from the conflict in Chad - which provides an excellent and evolving unclassified teaching case to explore the issues involved in small wars and destabilizing countries, particularly for the unique kinds of intelligence support required in noncombatant evacuation operations and other stability and support missions. UNOSAT has recently released a series of products derived from commercial satellite data which attempt to estimate the scale of urban evacuation of the capital of N´Djamena.

In the long ago forgotten history of commercial satellite imagery in the 1990’s, many early papers were written describing the potential impact that the availability of these then futuristic capabilities would have on the international community’s attempts to assess these kind of crisis events – which were frankly the dominant mission of the day. While many crises have come and gone since then, we have seen only a few efforts truly utilize open source imagery analysis during such events to produce truly effective intelligence support. This is a fundamentally different order of thing than how most NGOs and press organizations have attempted to use imagery, and the team which generated it is to be commended for their work. It should also be held up as a model to be emulated in future crisis situations by both the NGO and the PMC sectors; and as such studied by future generations of analysts that may find themselves employed as intelligence professionals in those sectors.

h/t War and Health

Novel underground facilities revisited

We had previously covered the kind of unusual civil construction which makes for good unclassified teaching examples in consideration of the intelligence challenges posed by hard and deeply buried targets. Thus we thought it appropriate to also note the excellent example surfaced by the fine gentlemen over at Coming Anarchy, which appropriately notes the difference between the uses to which sophisticated underground construction techniques are put in an oil rich democracy versus its kleptocratic and autocratic counterparts in other places also graced with the geologic accident of such resources.

More importantly, the site also demonstrates the difference between construction at a true civil site – extensively documented, widely discussed, and exceptionally transparent – vice that of the kinds of subterfuge that can be observed at other suspected dual use or known bad actor facilities.

While we are not fond of the political purposes to which the seed vault itself has now been put – the issues of exceptionally long term climate change being the least of our worries in futures scenarios; we cannot argue with the idea of a genetic Ark as insurance against a future Black Swan event. However, our thinking on the matter trends much more towards concerns regarding the other high consequence / low probability events that may occur with far less warning, such as pandemic multi-crop agricultural disease.

We also note that this particular underground facility does indeed perhaps now truly merit our earlier erroneous application of an acronym drawn from the same convention as that of the Dining FACility (DFAC). Bon Appetite.

RAND views analytic tradecraft

The new RAND study “Assessing the Tradecraft of Intelligence Analysis” has been out for more than a few days now, but deserves an in depth look by those that may have merely given it a passing glance. It was brought to our attention by the Analyst’s Corner, which has become increasingly consistently interesting (although we knew it would be, given the earlier writings of its author.)

What is interesting is that the report is very much a snapshot of a transition period – one might even be temped to say one that was taken at the height of the revolution in intelligence affairs. We agree with our virtual colleague Michael Tanji in his statement that “The dominant pattern in the U.S. intelligence agencies has been not stasis but almost constant revision, even to the point of disruption.” It is for this reason we have tended to look upon the cottage industry of intelligence reform with great suspicion, as too often of late we have had more than our fill of academics and other outsiders writing in with inspiration from what those in forward deployed locations often call the good idea fairy.

However, RAND’s study brings to the debate a number of important concepts, that while not new, certainly need to be circulated more widely. In part, this is due to the commendable methodology chosen for the study, in conducting formalized interviews across the community, targeted against not merely the ever changing organization charts (which as RAND itself noted “names have been a moving target”, given reorganization), but against the National Intelligence Priorities Framework and the Analytic Resource Catalog.

Among these critical concepts are the emphasis that analytic tradecraft is about the management of tradeoffs. There are few other human endeavors where this is not true, but for too long the community has focused on the ideal state, rather than maximizing the best possible outcome from the existing states. The ideal picture approach is very much an academic conceit, and assumes a mythical power to create organizational change simply by redrawing organograms or renaming offices under some centralized directive from on high. The real community simply does not respond to such abstracts in the clean and dispassionate fashion that many reformists would wish for. These tradeoffs are also one of the reason initiatives which begin organically within the working level line analysis shops are the most successful, as they allow those with the greatest stake in the outcome to balance their tradeoffs to the best possible effect.

The RAND study addresses interesting aspects of the increasingly dominant focus on current intelligence at the expense of longer term deep analysis. It also touches upon the issues of compensation and human resources that we have so often mentioned in these pages. We are quite pleased to see an increasing recognition of the importance of targeting analysis as a distinct discipline within the field – and given the delay between the interviews and the release of the public paper – one that we feel has been increasingly internalized within the community.

Collaboration and data sharing issues are discussed, but fall far lower in the spectrum than discussions of intelligence quality and value – quite in line with our own experiences.

The need to strengthen analytic training and education throughout the community is likewise emphasized, with the idea of a standard curriculum model again surfacing. We are aware of at least one quite promising effort in that regard, that goes far beyond what is typical academic fare; and hope to see further aspects of the model developed for mid-level and journeyman class analysis audiences in future iterations.

All in all, the RAND study is an excellent contribution to the literature which we are grateful now sees the light of day. There is much food for thought, which we will no doubt revisit again in due course. We did initially give pause upon a day’s reflection, fearing our agreement with the paper stemmed too much from a potential echo chamber effect of seeing similar views reflected back at us. However, these are things that are rarely formally captured in discussions of reform or the future of intelligence (at least, those written by outsiders). It is important to get them onto the table in a more formal setting – for as much as we believe in the value of the blog, it is a different vehicle for inquiry and scholarship than that of a more rigorous study approach.

An alternative film for intelligence analysis exercises

We have been surprised at the level of discussion sparked by our previous consideration of the classic 12 Angry Men and other films, for teaching the fundamentals of intelligence analysis and writing to entry level candidates. Apparently, the technique is more widespread and popular among instructors than we knew. Frankly, we have found that it is something possible only in professional in service sessions, where there is usually enough contact time to permit such hands-on practical work. Typical academic environments rarely afford sufficient engagement to lose the several hours involved, and we have found that most students assigned to view the same film on their own will tend to present remarkably similar work product (although the assignment tends to be very popular with students, particularly prior to weekends and in coed classes.)

We have thus given the matter some consideration, seeking a better replacement for the now classic Joint Military Intelligence Training Center exercise which utilized the film The Hunt for Red October (briefly mentioned in our earlier post on the topic.) That film was an excellent choice for the time, insofar as the limitations of Hollywood typically permit – and was even used as a teaching aid at the submarine school in Groton for a time after its release (though albeit moreso for its counterexamples). Its utility was no doubt derived from the unique historical basis for Clancy’s original book – a composite of several real world cases of great strategic importance during the Cold War.

The purpose of the film exercise was to provide the analyst student with a chance to practically apply basic tradecraft dealing with ambiguity, and to create a collaborative analytical product using simplified unclassified material. Each student would be assigned to a smaller group, which would then be tasked with a specific intelligence component to focus on. The students would then seek to answer a key question regarding the factors which influenced the defection of the fictional Russian submarine captain in light of these larger strategic issues within the Cold War. The film material itself was treated as authoritative narrative – requiring a degree of suspension of disbelief, but not terribly so if the students were unfamiliar with actual undersea warfare. This typically led to some excellent discussions and more than a few unique analytic outcomes.

Replicating this exercise in a more modern context has proven to be no easy task. There simply have not been films which encapsulate the unique factors which made the Red October exercise such a good choice. But as much as we liked the case, its value is limited for students who will be engaged in the Long War for some time to come.

We considered – and rejected – quite a few other options. The 1996 film The Peacemaker was one possibility, but for most students the Balkans conflict is as remote as its World War I antecedents, and WMD terrorism and homeland security issues are now viewed through a far different lens in the post 9/11 world. The 2005 film The Great Raid could offer potential, but was a more limited tactical scenario in a far less ambiguous information environment, from which actual historical materials would be far better suited as a source of instruction. We briefly contemplated the film Spy Games, but it is far more suited for a history of intelligence class than an analysis course. Syriana too came under consideration, particularly given the involvement of a former case officer in its scripting, but the explicit politicalization of the film also ruled it out. The drug film Traffic was rejected for similar reasons. Most of the other contemporary drama or action films can be dismissed out of hand, being little more than flights of fancy – something that removed films such as Swordfish, the le Carre works, and all of the Bond pieces from our list.

This left us with few options. Thankfully, our dilemma appears to be solved – for the time being – by the 2007 release of The Kingdom. It is unsurprising the film’s early releases were trialed in the greater Washington DC metro area, and that a high number of community professionals were among those early audiences. While the work suffers from the usual Hollywood inaccuracies and the insufferable modern politicization, it does present a narrowly scoped case which is itself a composite mélange of historical incidents of ongoing relevance. While we hate to be seen promoting the Bureau – particularly through the fantasist version of that organization presented in the film – if one ignores those aspects, there is value in the sense of realism otherwise conveyed across the piece through a good application of the director’s art.

Again, the key to turning the film into a good analytic exercise – rather than just a several hour long break from lecture – is to encourage deeper discussion of the underlying factors that led to, and would result from, the incidents depicted. The students should be able to pull out a number of specific points that can be summarized and expanded with additional open source research into unique finished analytic papers. The film offers a variety of these springboards – from the tactical aspects of attack TTP, to terrorist propaganda operations, to the role of re-integration programs for former terrorist prisoners, to profiles of host nation CT capabilities, or to the issues of radicalization within specific industries, geographies, or societal segments. The instructor may need to assist the students in settling upon these aspects during post-screening discussions. This is less a group product, although a collaborative framework can be created in which individual papers support a larger work, especially using a wiki production environment.

Despite finding what we feel is a good solution for the time being, we will continue to seek out alternatives for use in other areas of the contemporary intelligence domain beyond the CT sphere – and will of course welcome any suggestions (along with reasoning in defense of the choice) that our wider audience might contribute for general circulation.

Another for the wall of dead terrorists

Once upon a time at a particular institution, new analysts were assigned to a simulation course which involved a model joint terrorism task force. Over the course of time, they built up quite a collection of handheld imagery of various prominent targets, many of which came out of historical case studies. This collection was for a time assembled into an infamous “wall”, in which the sole factor for inclusion was that the target has been serviced and resolved.

Via MESH –Middle East Strategy at Harvard – we learn that the infamous Lebanese Hezbollah leadership figure Imad Mughniyah is dead in a classic Beirut style car bomb. His brother was previously killed in the same fashion.

This one has been a long time coming. We are sure that many of those former junior analysts – now having progressed for quite a number of years in the field, and with many a now forgotten face having been posted to that wall since – may be quietly ordering a round as a toast to a small measure of victory. It does not matter, in that moment, whether this was merely red on red violence, or if some unknown covert action element of the international great game achieved the decisive checkmate. It only matters that the faces now change, and the benefits of Mughniyah’s long operational experience has been denied to the terrorist adversary.

In good Buenos Aires fashion, we think our drinks for celebration shall be the Bellini – perhaps accompanied by a fine bife de lomo.

The use of leaked documents in intelligence studies education

This issue has been weighing upon us for some time, and has sparked perhaps the most violent debate of any subject within a field already crowded with passionate viewpoints. It takes on new prominence this week with the actions of another intelligence studies professor (names are omitted to protect the guilty) at one of the more prominent institutions out there.

We are unabashed supporters of the use of declassified intelligence documents – including finished intelligence papers, raw cables and other message traffic, and any imagery that might be available. These are almost without exception historical in nature, and thus we also advocate the use of unclassified notional intelligence documents produced in the model of current approaches (differing only in those areas that classification requirements dictate). We admit that the latter requires a lot of hard work – both in finding the unclassified or declassified examples from which to build templates, as well as creating the notional products that the students will rely upon in class or in an exercise. Many academic programs simply forgo this altogether for this reason – understandably so, but frankly in our opinion to the detriment of students that need exposure to “real world” intelligence in a form that may be properly used in a classroom.

However, the use of leaked classified documents in education is another matter entirely. Too many prominent names in intelligence studies publishing pad out their books with leaked documents, many of which can be said to be exceptionally damaging to United States interests in the subject under discussion. We have over the years grudgingly assigned these texts, as the better authors still offer some value to students despite the damnable offense of perpetuating leaks. What is most unfortunate in these cases is that those authors – by virtue of unique analysis or concise presentation of complex topics – would be entirely compelling without the leaks, yet apparently do not have the confidence to stand on their own, or the intellectual integrity to present their own work unaided by stolen secrets.

Such matters have long troubled the field – and frankly, have done much damage to the establishment of a respected intelligence studies academia that interacts with its professional counterparts in a mutually beneficial fashion, instead of through parasitic and self-serving profiteering.

There is however a more disturbing recent trend, one abetted by the evolving issues that come hand in hand with widespread electronic dissemination of intelligence products, and the inevitable friction that occurs when attempting to cope with the proliferation of classified networks and channels under wartime conditions. This new issue is the unprecedented availability of still classified documents (and other media) in their original form; leaked from improper handling - or worse yet, deliberate disclosure - onto the public Internet. These are becoming distressingly common enough that there are even now sites dedicated to the propagation of such leaks.

Without commenting on any specific incident, it is understandable that some civilian academics might see these are rare opportunities to provide a window into current intelligence practices for their students. It is also entirely likely that the “cool” factor may have overwhelmed good judgment when dealing with these cases. But we are exceptionally concerned that these classified materials not be routinely incorporated into unclassified academic instruction. Nothing will do more damage to the discipline as quickly as such an outcome.

First, among those students in many unclassified classrooms there are those that hold current clearances or other professional affiliations that impose a proactive and affirmative burden on the individual to report the improper handling of classified materials. It is unconscionable for an instructor to impose through their own deliberate actions this burden of time, paperwork, and ethical dilemma on a professional student.

Secondly, for those students that do not hold current clearances, many will one day face the polygraph process – and the discussion of a half remembered document from a long ago professor is not the most productive way to encounter the less than tender mercies of that process. As it is, too small a percentage of those students will successfully pass vetting; the intelligence studies academia does not need to be encouraging additional obstacles that will further negatively impact those numbers.

Lastly, we fear the creation of perverse incentives for future leaks should this practice become more widespread. We could easily see such pressures being placed entirely inappropriately on serving professionals who are alumni of major intelligence studies programs by their former instructors, or anonymous leaks occurring at the end of a professional’s tour in anticipation of a future academic posting. We cannot condone any activities that would potentially create any similar incentives – especially when such pressures might well result in the end of meaningful professional and academic collaboration partnerships in the intelligence studies field.

We know the difficulties in crafting an intelligence curriculum to be taught a the unclassified level, but have long felt strongly that to do so forces a focus on the fundamentals of tradecraft unhindered by the restraints of specific organizational niches. While there are many things that simply cannot be taught at the lowest levels, most are frankly more appropriate to a professional in service training and education program as opposed to the outside academic environment in the first place.

It is in part due to these actions that many community professionals entirely discount the role of outside academics – and we fear that with each passing incident, this perception becomes harder to fight. Given the behavior of some academics, it is a perception that may not even be wrong. We recall one particular foreign born instructor who, prior to his dismissal with prejudice from a particularly prominent program, had set out to deliberately acquire as many leaked materials as he could lay hands upon. This created serious difficulties for other academics and students in the program – many of whom were employed in consulting capacities for various official institutions. This is an example that should never have been allowed to be repeated – and current incidents are a slippery slope on that road.

Let us be clear: we at Kent’s Imperative condemn leaks in all forms, and those that would find benefit from them, in the strongest possible terms. Each academic institution which hosts an intelligence studies program should address this issue through internal policy – preferably tied to its academic code, which should consider the improper use of classified information as damnable as the kindred crime of plagiarism. If there is any role for the International Association For Intelligence Education in the promulgation of best practices throughout the field, it is in such matters.

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.

Revisiting Twelve Angry Men and legalism in intelligence analysis

For a number of years, the classic black and white film Twelve Angry Men has been a frequent teaching aid in introductory analysis courses dealing with the basics of evidence and argumentation. The conventional use of the film is to provide an accessible means of deconstructing a fictionalized scenario for students with little prior experience with formal debate. Given the current decline in public education, this helps remedy a basic skills deficit that is unfortunately and increasingly all too common.

However, it is with interest that we observe the controversy that has erupted once again over this fifty-one year old movie. The criticisms that have been leveled against the underlying premise of the film deserve some additional consideration – not the least of which because they point out the serious problems in applying much of what is taught as legal logic to the unique problems of the intelligence domain.

The Spectator’s argument surfaces one of the reactions common among many students, but in a far more articulate fashion than any entry level professional might be expected to voice. In essence, this criticism is based on the need to focus on the external worldview, rather than the tactical maneuvering in the courtroom that such kinds of arguments inevitably devolve towards. It is a quite valid point, and among the reasons that we have long decried the trends towards creeping legalism that have lately come to dominate intelligence work. The bulk of a lawyer’s litigative activities – and therefore a disproportionate degree of their education and professional experiences – are dictated by entirely tactical considerations that apply nowhere else but within the limited framework of the legal system. Too often this is easily forgotten, to the detriment of the strategic picture – and the accuracy and veracity of analysis. We have written on these problems before, but to be frank we had rarely considered the myriad of ways in which – by borrowing from the older legal profession’s traditions in teaching basic logic and rhetoric – the intelligence academia may continue to contribute to these unhelpful trends of cognitive bias. Among these, of course, are the kinds of ludic fallacy identified by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

The folks at Volokh Conspiracy take a different tack, arguing for greater consideration of interdependencies within factors under examination in the film’s fictional trial. This is also a very useful approach for discussions with students, many who likewise tend to view evidence in isolation. It is particularly appropriate when covering structured analysis techniques such as ACH – and one that rarely touched upon, if only due to the frequently too shallow examples offered to illustrate the methodology, which are unable to support a more robust discussion.

Westminster Wisdom rises in defense of the film, and illustrates the more important but also often overlooked value to the piece in the intelligence studies classroom – the discussion of uncertainty. The intelligence professional will always work within a framework of ambiguity, doubt, and frequently, deception. However, the role of intelligence is not merely to reach a lower standard of proof than that used in a criminal trial (or even the lesser civil threshold), as is commonly taught (and in particular, a tenant of faith within law enforcement intelligence). Rather, intelligence’s purpose is to provide accurate insights despite such uncertainty; and where absolute accuracy is not possible, to bound the space of uncertainties for the policymaker in a manner that supports informed decision-making.

In light of all of the foregoing, we continue to search for good alternatives to the film for use in the classroom. Our search is also driven by the simple fact that to the Millennial generation, the black and white format is very nearly entirely alien. It creates such a visceral negative reaction that the first ten to twenty minutes of the film are simply an orientation to the unfamiliar environment. The pace of the thing is also glacial by modern standards, and particularly so to minds attuned to rapid multi-tasking and immersive information environments. While one can make all the arguments one likes about the need for sustained single focus attention, their native preferences are indeed more suited for the kind of world in which they operate as intelligence professionals than the Industrial era conventions that black and white film represents.

The single set format, and the emphasis on argumentation, has however made it exceptionally difficult to find a substitute. Our best – but admittedly still imperfect – alternative has lately been the 1999 film Deterrence, which offered a President’s decision-making process in a nuclear crisis while snowed in at a small diner. Unfortunately, the film’s scenario is constructed around a fictionalized Iraqi dictatorship – which in the modern politicized climate often steers debate too far astray of the real purpose and into the debate over Operation Iraqi Freedom. It also pre-supposes a certain level of student knowledge regarding nuclear warfighting and mutually assured destruction strategy: something not always guaranteed in the post-Cold War cohort. This sometimes makes for quite interesting discussions, to say the least. These are the same problems that incidentally also led us to abandon using the old JMITC exercise that relied on the film version of Hunt for Red October as a notional scenario from which the students would develop practice analytical pieces. While, as a friend recently reminded us, that particular film ages very well as such things go, we recognize that writing intelligence on Soviet era ballistic missile submarines is an anachronism to which few students will respond well –and one that does not serve their real and current professional needs.

All in all, teaching intelligence with films – for as engaging as the technique might be for students bored with lecture – remains a difficult proposition. We hope that in time the development of newer tools for digital animation – and the kinds of interactive scenarios that new gaming engines permit – will render the question entirely moot. But the cultivation of young professional minds remains a terribly stubborn business, and one that is not frequently improved by new technologies. We do wish to see such improvements become effective, and preferably in the near future. But given that the same promises have been made since around the time black and white films first graced the big screen, we remain skeptical.


h/t Overlawyered

The expanding intelligence studies web

We note today a few excellent resources for the intelligence professional newly brought to the online environment. The public internet presence of the community continues to expand apace as the value of Metcalf’s law is realized, and the protocols for an appropriate public discussion of the field slowly continue to evolve.

The National Defense Intelligence College (pronounced JMIC by those seeking to avoid confusion with the ill-starred Drug Intelligence Center by the same acronym) has dramatically expanded its public presence. Most importantly for the intelligence scholar, they are releasing in electronic form a whole selection of works from their press, with the promise of more to come. Many of the files are large, so the usual admonition regarding server courtesy is in order. However, we are exceptionally pleased to see these materials being made available more widely for use in other academic programs. This will do much to combat the problem of seeing the better recent unclassified intelligence literature circulating only as 5th generation samizdat photocopy from hand to hand, due to a limited print run. We hope to see at least a selection of their voluminous collection of theses likewise circulated. We also sincerely wish that the civilian academic programs around the country will take an example from the College and cease attempting to reinvent their own wheels, but rather pursue unique studies of lasting value to the field.

We also note, thanks to our friend Michael Tanji, the venerable and respected OSS Society has also expanded its online presence into something akin to a blog. We look forward to their contributions and stories, which have already gotten off to a good start with discussion regarding the potential rebirth of the Office of Strategic Services in the Long War. Regardless of the relative merits of the proposal itself, the idea does capture the imagination. We would love to see a modern version of the kind of stories told in the classic You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger for our new era.

The imperative of Sherman Kent’s original vision of an intelligence literature continues to call to professionals. We are grateful to see the benefits to the history and the appreciation of the field that have already resulted, and we look forward to future developments.

Revisiting primary sources – the Allen Dulles collection at Princeton

We have been recently quite frustrated by the continued reliance of those in the intelligence studies field on secondary and other derivative works for academic purposes – particularly when so much primary source material has been recently declassified and digitized. We feel there simply is no substitute in many of the great matters of controversy to a student actually reading the original documents themselves, with derivative works used to provide commentary and illumination. It does require one begin to acquire the skills of piecing together fragments of documents – never a bad thing for a prospective intelligence professional. But the technique also illustrates sharply the true nature of one’s limited knowledge when discussing these matters in an unclassified forum, even decades after the events – a lesson many students (and a good number of their less humble professors) would be well advised to internalize at an early date. There will always be pieces of the profession which any particular individual will not see, and the sooner a scholar learns to work within these constraints, the better off that student will be – and the less likely to make a fool of themselves through wild assumptions or arrogant airs.

It is thus with great interest we note that Princeton University has opened a digital archive of the private papers belonging to former DCI Allen Dulles. The variety and volume of materials is simply extraordinary, and although it is organized by librarians (rather than intelligence professionals or modern search engine experts) it is well worth the time to explore these virtual stacks. Given that the gentleman’s 1963 text The Craft of Intelligence, is still reprinted for use as a basic text at many university level programs, these further materials are both substantively illuminating and historically invaluable. Of particular interest are the French and German language items, which may never have been previously referenced in depth during intelligence studies research on the matter.

We of course would be remiss if we did not mention one of the more valuable secondary texts which would provide a framework to the scholar seeking to interpret these materials. James Srode’s text, Allen Dulles : Master of Spies, is a modern and accessible work that covers Dulles’ career and legacy, and can prove a valuable guide to the nearly undifferentiated mass of the digitized documents.

The entire collection is over 1.5 gigabytes of data. One day very soon we will no doubt laugh at this as a trivially small volume in the age of the exaflood – but for now, please do be kind to the university’s servers and stagger your requests over time if you choose to download sections for your perusal. They do run a pretty fast pipe, but we would not wish to see a tragedy of the commons deny this resource to other researchers.

We would love to see these kind of digitization efforts other libraries holding such vital collections of import to the intelligence studies field – and hopefully in conjunction with a good OCR and search capability such as Google Books or its counterparts now offer. We can think of few greater wartime contributions that the intellectuals of this country may offer than to assist in the rebuilding and expansion of its intelligence capabilities for the Long War.

We also hope to see a commensurate response from the intelligence studies academia itself. There is easily enough material for countless numbers of good journal articles and even a thesis or two, plus a large selection of case studies focusing on aspects operational and analytic tradecraft. Let us hope that the investment of the field’s thinkers will equal that of the library’s digitization program.

Further to the limited impact of university level intelligence scholarship

Our earlier comments decrying the essential irrelevance of much of the intelligence studies academy to the professional practitioner has provoked no small measure of reaction over the past month. Most comments have come from those still serving, with anecdotes – in truth, mostly horror stories – of the failure of numerous attempts to reach out to the scholars in the field. It seems there is a certain degree of stubbornness – one might even say a profound expression of anchoring bias – which ties the professoriat to lines of inquiry that contribute only marginally to the art and science, despite clear needs in other areas.

The esteemed Dr. Barton Whaley reflected upon this problem in a recent article, which in part examined the academic tendency to continually try to re-invent the wheel. (For those interested, it may be found in the Defense Intelligence Journal, Volume 15, Number 2, 2006.) His personal list of such wheels covered includes the “re-discovery” of the problems of strategic surprise. In this spirit, we might add our own list of those topics we think more than adequate attention has already been paid, given the other gaps in the literature. Among these are the continual attempt to revisit the foundational definition of intelligence, the endless rehashing of debates over words of estimative probability, and the needless attempts to impose a false and entirely arbitrary numeric precision in intelligence writing.

One of our colleagues put it best: the primary reason these sorts of academic wittering continue unabated has been the small number of professionals who have actually read such irrelevant stuff. And even fewer will have dwelt upon it long enough to respond, rather than laughing it off. Unfortunately, even those that have gone through the difficulties of finding time apart from the pressing business of current accounts, and fought through publication review in order to convey substantive examples from inside the vault, rarely make a dent in the external discussion, given how few pages emerge to compete with the growing corpus of distraction.

But we strongly suspect there are yet other intelligence studies academics that may indeed be well worth listening to, and we continue our discussions in the forlorn hope of surfacing their work more widely within the community. Thus we were most grateful for the insightful commentary regarding the same earlier post, provided by a learned individual whom we shall describe (with permission) only as a Western intelligence scholar, and full professor at a top tier university. The gentleman sought to enlighten your humble authors regarding the flipside of the equation of intelligence scholarship from the university’s perspective, and raised points well worth wider consideration. (Reproduced here with only minor editing to preserve the anonymity upon which all of our skunkworks relies). His response speaks to “two central factors which have inhibited not only the volume and quality of (ivory) tower scholarship on intelligence matters, but also the impact of scholarly work on the IC.”

“First—and this holds true for a variety of areas, and not just the IC—most scholars simply have no sense of how bureaucratic and government processes, let alone the military and IC, operate. It is not anything taught in graduate school, where the emphasis is very much on mastering the theoretical masters of the field. The majority of academics have fairly predictable career paths from undergraduate degree through to MA and PhD, with little outside-academia work experience (the exceptions being "professional" schools of diplomacy and foreign service, which place more emphasis on recruiting staff with professional experience, and also many scholars working in the aid and development field). I would register a disagreement with your observation that: "Lacking in-depth target knowledge, substantive understanding of applied analytical tradecraft, and relying on a too short tour (if even that) at a three letter organization or two, the result becomes a sort of punditry entirely divorced from the profession itself." More specifically, while I don't disagree with the broader point that you are making, I would argue that the quality of academic literature on intelligence, war, and diplomacy would be substantially improved by even relatively periods spent inside an agency, or foreign or defence ministry.”

Second, the professional reward system within academia neither rewards policy-relevant output, nor does it place much value on material published outside the regular scholarly channels. Indeed, even the latter are carefully weighted (formally or informally) by their academic prestige within a disciplinary field, with leading university presses and peer-reviewed journals coming first, lesser presses and journals second, and everything else a very scant third. In other words, the benefit that accrues to a scholar is almost in inverse proportion to the actual policy impact (or, in this case, impact on the intelligence community).

Although most scholars don't think directly in these terms, it is possible to put some numbers on this. Let us take the hypothetical example of an excellent scholar who forgoes publication in a top-ranked journal (say APSR or World Politics), and instead produces a online piece or occasional paper in easily disseminated and digestible form with direct IC implications. Come annual salary increment time, the former might well be worth $750 (or more) in annual pay increase… the latter perhaps $150 (or less). Lets also make them 34, with a thirty year career ahead of them. The lifetime loss from writing the latter is (ignoring inflationary effects, etc) a minimum of $18,000. If they did it every year--well, quite apart from the tenure and promotion consequences, you can see that the implicit disincentive is substantial. Equally important are the validation messages that fields send to themselves, and the prestige and value one is accorded within academic networks and other peer groups.

This is quite apart from other inhibiting factors.”

We confess that we had not properly considered the economic incentives in the equation – thinking primarily of the thing as an unambiguous good in its own right. Of course, this is also a product of our own cognitive biases – rarely in the IC do contributions to the literature translate directly into one’s pay packet in the same manner (perhaps one reason why the literature advances so slowly.) Neither should the currency of the reputation market be lightly discounted.

If the community is to encourage the kind of the scholarship in the intelligence studies field that will actually serve the profession’s interest, these factors need to be taken into account. The learned gentleman does offer a few potential solution pathways, which merit further discussion.

“How can this be addressed? The recent proliferation of peer-reviewed academic journals on intelligence and security matters certainly helps, although it doesn't necessarily contribute to scholarly output with IC impacts. Sporadic efforts to get scholars inside government for a year or two, whether as scholars-in-residence or in an actual functioning capacity, ought to be expanded upon, and designed to have benefits (such as in-built research funds) that offset the apparent career liabilities of "wasting" (to quote a departmental colleague) one's sabbatical in this way. Finally, the intelligence community needs to reflect on whether its frequent aversion to providing "visiting" scholars with high-level security clearances needs to be rethought. There are certainly substantial security issues involved, given that scholars might well be lecturing on a country in class shortly after reading highly sensitive COMINT or HUMINT on the same. On the other hand, its not clear how they can understand what is going on--let alone contribute to the betterment of IC functions--if they are entirely kept out of the loop. At this point (and at the risk of paraphrasing Donald Rumsfeld), most don't know what they don't know.”

Money can be found, but its application towards productive ends has been problematic. Unfortunately, too often research funds have done little to redirect a faculty to more relevant pursuits, being simply contracts which were serviced using largely student labour. (Again, as in many cases of suboptimal contract performance, the fault may lie as much with the contracting agencies management of the project, but the history is what it is.) While cleared scholarship is an interesting concept, this is typically also done through a contracting vehicle – which tends to take the work product out of the academic realm and into the community itself, greatly limiting distribution elsewhere in the intelligence studies field. Many academics – with some justified reason – are also reluctant to accept the kind of future publication constraints that a term of cleared service will inevitably impose.

These are matters that deserve greater consideration, and we no doubt will return to in future discussions. We are grateful as always to our readership, and in particular to our commentator, for helping advance this discussion in ways we never could have anticipated when this small effort was begun.