Reference no: EM131699647

It is a well-known axiom that the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) collects more data that it can possibly filter and digest in detail. Layman expectation in regard to this data organization issue is that newer facilities and bigger and better computer hardware and software will someday enable IC production to play catch-up to data gathering capabilities. However, this assertion may be flawed from a single perspective. That is, as electronic production capabilities improve, so will data gathering capabilities. IC production may never catch up to data collection in this regard. This paradigm and other considerations such as ever increasing international and domestic tactical and strategic intelligence distribution requirements will ultimately cause the IC to expand on known techniques for targeting relevant data while searching for better ways to efficiently flush out only the most important. The highlight of the article "Revisiting the Psychology of Intelligence Analysis" is where the concept of "Information Foraging" is summarized using a stage or phased approach.[2] The authors make a sound case for a need to understand the positive and negative attributes of this so called foraging in the context of intelligence analysis in order to avoid the pitfalls that create national security lapses.

Present day IC professionals are a more progressive assemblage. Driven by recent mandatory reforms, enlarged IC budgets, and the disparagement of recent devastating national security intelligence assessment blunders, they are much more willing to embrace new and improved analysis techniques than their predecessors. "Revisiting the Psychology of Intelligence Analysis" not only presents a fresh viewpoint in regard to intelligence tradecraft, it builds a comprehensive backdrop with which readers may better understand how the author's proposals apply to IC improvement. The authors took great pains to properly organize and build an overview blueprint for analysis technique enhancement from a psychological perspective. The authors additionally equate a viewpoint of the foraging mentality as a better understanding of the sometimes problematic intelligence analysis process.

"Revisiting the Psychology of Intelligence Analysis" reinforces a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of those engaged in information gathering from a psychological perspective. In particular, the psychological overview of intelligence foraging goes well beyond understanding the methodology behind techniques that filter unknown quantities from known intelligence information. This understanding of information gathering seeks to reveal an analysts place in the continuum of acquired knowledge during the analysis process. What better way for an analyst to understand the data that he or she is reviewing than for that analyst to pinpoint their position in regard to the complete process at any given time? The authors provide insight into the normal thresholds of understanding derived from various intelligence sources. For example, one common analysts pitfall revealed from this perspective is that a database with a higher degree of access difficulty is often more compelling in regard to lengthier research times notwithstanding whether or not the derived intelligence was more useful.[3] In other words, one may assert that it is human nature from a forager perspective to take greater stock in non-impactful information derived from a classified database than potentially actionable intelligence from open sources. Only a greater awareness and understanding of such vulnerabilities inherent in intelligence tradecraft will enable analysts to avoid falling into such traps which detract from intelligence assessment success.