Warning Analysis for the Information Age: Rethinking the Intelligence Process
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Joint Military Intelligence College December 2003 WARNING ANALYSIS FOR THE INFORMATION AGE: RETHINKING THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS TEL IN LIG Y E R N A C T E I L C I O M L L T E N G I E O J 1962 John W. Bodnar PCN 52518 ISBN 0-9656195-8-3 52518pref.fm Page 0 Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM Warning Analysis for the Information Age: Rethinking the Intelligence Process by John W. Bodnar c Int gi c el e g ll t ii a g e r e nn tt SS cc ee rr R R o o e e f f s s e e r r a a e e t r t r n c n Joint Military c e h e Intelligence College h C Intelligence College C WASHINGTON, DC December 2003 The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government 0 52518pref.fm Page ii Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM The Joint Military Intelligence College supports and encourages research on intelligence issues that distills lessons and improves support to policy-level and operational consumers Warning Analysis for the Information Age: Rethinking the Intelligence Process, by John W. Bodnar This book bequeaths to the Defense Intelligence Agency, and to the Intelligence Community at large, a substantiated vision, with examples, of how analysts can exploit already-available, massive databases to tackle many of the most vexing problems that we face. Dr. Bodnar builds on the earlier work and insight of Cynthia Grabo, whose book Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning was recently published by the Joint Military Intelligence College’s Center for Strategic Intelligence Research. The author also usefully integrates into this book the often-cited but rarely-seen original work of the USAF’s strategic and operational philosopher Colonel John Boyd. Together with the accompanying, classified case studies that are available to the Community on Intelink, this book reaches farther than any other toward the objective of bringing together substantive expertise with an accessible, methodologically sound analytical strategy in the service of the U.S. Intelligence Commu- nity. Those who go on to apply this method will not only derive fresh understanding from existing data, but will also be able to guide future intelligence collection in an appropriately frugal fashion. [email protected], Editor Library of Congress Control Number 2003114408 ISBN 0-9656195-8-3 ii 52518pref.fm Page iii Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author gratefully acknowledges the following individuals, who reviewed and commented on early drafts of this book. Jim Murphy and Kelcy Allwein of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Kim McVaney of the National Security Agency, Mike Maskelaris of MITRE Corpo- ration, and Frank Hughes, faculty member at the Joint Military Intelligence College. In addition, several individuals provided invaluable assistance or advice on the classified case studies. From the Defense Intelligence Agency: Dr. Eric Hehl, CW3 David Temby, Mary Highsmith, and CDR James van der Velde. From the Joint Military Intelligence College: LTC Jeffrey Johnson, JMIC stu- dent; Dr. William Williamson, faculty member; and Research Fellow colleague Rebecca Katz. iii 52518pref.fm Page iv Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM iv 52518pref.fm Page v Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM CONTENTS Acknowledgements. iii Commentaries on the Book. vii Chapter 1. Strategic Warning in a World of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism . 1 2. From Current Intelligence to Warning Analysis . 9 3. From Newtonian Thinking to Quantum Thinking . 17 4. Paradigm Shifts — When the Future Ain’t What It Used To Be . 21 5. From Newtonian Analog Models to Quantum Digital Models. 29 6. Toward Novel Intelligence from Massive Data . 45 7. From Current Intelligence to Strategic Warning. 55 8. Modeling the Decision Cycle . 73 9. Modeling the Target . 85 10. Modeling How We Model. 123 11. Modeling Ourselves . 147 12. Getting There from Here. 163 13. Toward an Information-Age IC: How Long Will It Take? . 167 14. Can We Shift A Paradigm in a Single Generation?. 175 Selected Bibliography. 181 Index . 182 About the Author . 183 v 52518pref.fm Page vi Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM 52518pref.fm Page vii Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM COMMENTARIES Warning Analysis For The Information Age: Rethinking The Intelligence Process JEFFREY R. COOPER* Looking toward the challenges posed to the Intelligence Community by the changed strategic circumstances of the Information Age, Dr. Bodnar, an experi- enced intelligence analyst with a deep technical background, weaves together four themes in addressing the emerging demands of warning intelligence. The important core theme is the utility of his Multidimensional Analysis (MDA) methodology in confronting the complexity of Information-Age warning chal- lenges, an analytic approach he developed while working on a variety of prob- lems posed by foreign development of weapons of mass destruction. The second theme builds on Cynthia Grabo’s recently republished classic Handbook of Warn- ing Intelligence and tunes those lessons for Information-Age rather than Indus- trial-Age conditions. Bodnar’s third theme is to highlight the utility of Col. John Boyd’s theory of the OODA-loop decision cycle and integrate it into the warning analysis framework. Finally, from his perspective as a working analyst, Bodnar provides, in a series of suggestions on fixing analytical and resource constraints, a strategy to improve intelligence analysis. To this interesting and useful work, I would offer several thoughts for additional emphases. OVERALL COMMENTS Properly in my view, Bodnar, in concert with many observers,1 sees the Infor- mation Age as signifying a fundamental shift away from a deterministic and lin- ear Newtonian paradigm to a complex adaptive systems perspective grounded in non-linearity and modern, quantum physics. Bodnar integrates this “paradigm shift” theme throughout his paper; however, perhaps in keeping with his scientific background and in focusing narrowly on the analytical issues, he fails to fully *Corporate1 Vice-President for Technology and Chief Scientist, Science Applications International Corporation Strategies Group. 1See, for example, David S. Alberts and Thomas J. Czerwinski, eds., Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, June 1997). vii 52518pref.fm Page viii Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM appreciate other distinctive elements of that Industrial-Age model, besides the deterministic Newtonian linearity, that are now also changing and contributing to our emerging warning problems. Industrial-Age powers drew their strength from three underlying and interre- lated roots: political, economic, and technological. First, building upon the post- Westphalian emergence of nationalism, these nation-states drew legitimacy and political strength from large cohesive publics, which could also provide sizable military forces. Second, industrialization and mass production fueled rapid eco- nomic growth that together allowed these nation-states to field and support very large military forces. Third, new technologies provided large-scale mobility and immensely lethal firepower for these forces, enabling offensive military opera- tions at a distance. The potency of scale dominated the sources of national power, but the Industrial Age required efficient organizations and processes to harness and exploit this power. Thus, the importance of Weber’s hierarchical bureaucra- cies that brought professionalization, specialization and routinization to manage- ment. Also, Taylor’s application of standardized and systematized processes to manufacturing cannot be overemphasized as key elements of the Industrial-Age paradigm that demanded the ability to predict and control these mass-scale enti- ties. Throughout the Industrial Age, these same factors—mass, standardization, and predictability—also underwrote the sources of military strength and shaped strat- egies and operational approaches to warfare. But those very qualities also enabled us to adopt and exploit a warning paradigm based on assumptions (such as mass and linearity) that danger would come from large-scale activities. These threats, almost by definition, would be visible—and deterministically predictable—if we could access their signatures. The Information Age has changed these comfort- able assumptions about the tractability of providing warning based on observable activities and predictable processes; new threats may come in very small pack- ages that are difficult to detect, or subtle activities with non-linear consequences that are hard to observe. While I might disagree with Bodnar as to the magnitude of the threat posed by many of these new challenges (especially as compared with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons wielded with deadly malice), I certainly agree that this new environment is more challenging, with respect to knowability (in the formal sense), observability, and predictability if we continue to rely on our inherited tools and practices. Exactly for this reason, I would strengthen Bod- nar’s implicit call to re-examine issues of analytic process. This will demand returning to first-order issues of both phenomenology and epistemology. A second area that I would emphasize is the diversity of the new warning chal- lenges. First, I would emend Bodnar’s definitions of warning. All intelligence viii 52518pref.fm Page ix Friday, December 19, 2003 11:57 AM informs decisionmakers; but warning intelligence is distinctive because it must be intended to trigger action by the decisionmaker. Strategic warning intelligence especially must concern itself not just that a nation (or other group) may hold hostile intentions and be acquiring appropriate capabilities to serve them, but also that other changes—such as new technologies, political institutions or dynamics, economic dislocations, or challenges to human security such as disease or envi- ronmental catastrophe, could pose fundamental challenges to U.S. interests or policies. I would also add Operational Warning to his categorization. Tactical Warning (TW) is an alert; it should denote that the activity of concern (such as a surprise attack) is immediately imminent or unfortunately underway.