Red Team Analysis: Brainstorming, Outside In Thinking

If you had that one piece of the puzzle that would have prevented the bombings of the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon on September 11 2001 would you know it? If you saw someone do something weird or suspicious before the attack on September 11 2001, would you have called the police? If someone had walked into a United States Embassy in a foreign country and said that they know someone was going to use a plane to destroy New York in two days, could this have stopped the attack? Intelligence Analysis puts the raw sources of information together, make predictions based on the data, and finally publish the results.

IPL has little universal consensus of its definition. To fully and comprehensively define IPL there are some considerations to account for as well as an understanding of its history. The core component of IPL is ‘intelligence and Warner claims ‘intelligence’ definitions are deficient because they often do not consider the interchangeability of intelligence within the field, it is used because ‘intelligence’ not only covers what intelligence personnel do but also the product of their work. ‘Intelligence’ and

Thus, intelligence cycle process as an integral part of the Intelligence System has intrinsic weaknesses within the “process” itself due to the interplay of different pathologies within the system. It may emanate in every phase of the process from Planning and Direction, Collection, Processing, Analysis and Production, and Dissemination. Julian Richards in his book “The art and science of intelligence analysis” discussed the problems associated with intelligence cycle. The sources of failures in the intelligence arena: Cognitive and analytical processes undertaken by the analyst when they assess the material available to them, and the organisational structure and flow process of the intelligence machinery itself (Richards, 2010). In which

What rating would you give the team out of 10 (10 being the highest level of success)? What factors do you think contributed to the level of success your team achieved when success is defined as the creation of a resource that has authority and is user-friendly and the degree to which you worked effectively as a team. Provide specific examples from your experience to illustrate these factors.

After World War II American intelligence had the need to be transformed. The inexperience along with bureaucracy and poor coordination among American intelligence officers obligated the United States intelligence community to change dramatically in order to confront the new challenges that emerged after the end of WWII. From Early America through WWI the intelligence system of the United States of America was involved in operations in which they had to construct intelligence systems virtually from scratch (Andrew 1995). Human intelligence was already developed, but with certain limitations and other intelligence disciplines were underdeveloped and very seldom sophisticated. After WWI America recessed and settled in a period of peace. The

With this process, is where one can start to see the issue and conflict of interest. Human error is an issue that has always been a factor in the intelligence field and will continue to be a problem until there are no longer humans doing the jobs of the CIA and NCS. An example of human error are described in Richard Betts’, “Surprise Despite Warning: Why Sudden Attacks Succeed”. He goes on to say “doubts of certainty between leaders of intelligence and policymakers which can cause demands for more research and cancellation of declared

In Chapter 3, there were 12 areas of bias spread across the 3 areas of heuristics. The main theme of the text was to prove that we are predisposed to certain outcomes. As we make important decisions we rely on our memory, or a number of past events, or even ignoring facts. Overall, we are biased in many ways when it comes to making decisions, or predicting outcomes of a particular event.

Charles Spearman’s theory (1904) also takes the psychometric approach that there is a general intelligence. Spearman maintains that intelligence is hereditary and an individual is born with their maximum mental ability. This suggests that intelligence cannot be changed or strengthened. The concept of ‘general intelligence’ suggests that an individual has an underlying intelligence, in which their performance in one type of cognitive task is often similar to their performance in another (Boundless 2013). Spearman demonstrated this through the correlations between tests, where individuals who performed well in one test, often performed well in others. This led Spearman to the conclusion that intelligence is defined as a single factor. However, critics refute Spearman’s conclusions, as they argue that one cannot reduce all factors of intelligence to an indefinable “g” (Neisser et al. 1996).

Counterintelligence (CI) is a unique and challenging field in the United States government and within the United States Army. Thinking of what we see in the movies or what we read in spy books, we all want to think that a federal agent is portrayed as a James Bond or Jason Bourne. We imagine someone who jumps from rooftop to rooftop or out of helicopters to catch the bad guy. It may not be what we see in theaters, but we can paint a picture of who may be an individual within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or any other federal agency. These entities are tasked to protect the country with utmost importance to national security. What characterizes someone

Using their deep knowledge of psychological concepts, behavioral analysts are able to assess whether a terroristic threat is substantive of merely the product of an individual's psychological problems. They’re also able to analyze whether gathered intelligence is accurate or was given under duress, which can make it easier to differentiate between real and imaginary threats to the American population. This position has been represented in all kinds of media and popular culture, from "Law & Order" to "Criminal Minds" and beyond. The importance of this role at the Department of Homeland security is hard to overstate. Furthermore, the exciting nature of this position often makes it one of the most highly competitive jobs in any field at the

The United States Intelligence community draws on advanced technology and analytical techniques. An intelligence process that sets objectives, collects, analyzes, and report findings, with feedback loops integrated throughout. Explicitly, the intelligence community advantages technology and tradecraft within a proscribed process. However, estimation of threats and decision-making are outcomes of human thinking. Analysts and policymakers create mental models, or short cuts to manage complex, changing environments. In other words, to make sense of ambiguous or uncertain situations, humans form cognitive biases. Informed because of personal experience, education, and specifically applied to intelligence analysis, Davis

The challenge to an intelligence analyst, as mentioned by Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff, is the lack of experimental, independent testing within a controlled environment. That does not necessarily mean that the intelligence analysis process lacks a formal process or is absent scientific methodologies. Based on Knight (2010), intelligence research identifies patterns through observation so that an analyst can develop a hypothesis to predict future events the very premise of the scientific method. However, the IC has acknowledged a scientific gap and has been migrating towards a more ?coherent scientific discipline? based on the need to improve performance of intelligence analysis (Johnston, ). Furthermore, intelligence analysts are provided with scientific methodologies at their disposal that they can use to strengthen their estimates. In the analyst?s toolkit there are a variety of techniques that can be used to strengthen processes and conform to more valid scientific methods. Heuer (1999), the author of Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH), use ACH as an eight-step procedure using basic insights from cognitive psychology, decision analysis, and the scientific method. According to Bruce, ACH attempts to eliminate cognitive bias and provide other explanations with possible outcomes through testing hypotheses in an attempt to refute or ?disconfirm? them (Bruce, 2008, p. 175). After all, the challenge to inductive inference is not in supporting a study?s conclusions, but refuting them through scientific means. Heuer?s ACH methodology attempts to reconcile this weakness and has become a recognized advancement towards this goal. In Bruce?s essay (2008), he acknowledges that had the 2002 Iraq NIE utilized this methodology, the estimate?s weighty findings should have exposed the

Central to threat assessment is intelligence to help develop our own targets to deter or punish state sponsors.  In this regard, the development of long-term human source intelligence [HUMINT] is often cited as a vital component in building our ability to preempt attacks. Critical to threat assessment is the need to get smarter, not just in protecting against the threat from outsiders, but smarter about the threat posed by people with legitimate access.  This includes acts of carelessness by insiders.  A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  We need to continue our efforts to enhance our vigilance to minimize any potential threats posed by third country nationals- for example, threats posed by outsiders working at U.S. embassies and military installations overseas.

Discuss epistemology and its relevance to intelligence analysis. Select at least two principal “ways of knowing,” and describe their respective characteristics/attributes, strengths, weaknesses, and potential for improving the quality of intelligence analysis.

In most cases these INTs community compete among each other to provide needed intelligence information to policy makers to justify their budgetary allocations (Lowenthal, 2014). However, intelligence collection can be divided into five main categories referred to as “intelligence collection disciplines” or the “INTs”. These include Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Signals Intelligence