mistakes in intelligence
Feb. 16th, 2005 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerI'm finishing a midterm this evening, part of the coursework for a master's degree in strategic intelligence I embarked on last year (and I've got a loooong way to go yet). I was rereading one of the assignments for the class in prepping for one of the questions, and it struck me this is an interesting piece to read in light of the failure of intelligence over Iraq's WMD.
If you have the time and inclination, read this essay, A Crucial Estimate Relived. This is an essay written by Sherman Kent, at the time (1964) head of the CIA's Office of National Estimates, the forerunner of today's National Intelligence Council. As such, Kent had supervised Special National Intelligence Estimate 85-3-62, The Military Buildup in Cuba, which on its publication in September of 1962 had stated the Intelligence Community's estimate that the Soviet Union would not place intermediate range offensive missiles in Cuba. In October, photgraphic evidence proved this estimate conculsively wrong, and the US and the USSR launched themselves into the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Kent took this crucial error and examined it for what it could reveal about the nature of the intelligence estimate process, where he and his colleagues might be able to learn from this mistake, and how it might shape such estimation in the future. It's an interesting piece of writing. I'd go into it more, but I need to finish my own writing and go to bed. I'll try to post some of my own observations another time. Meanwhile, have a read, if you're so inclined.
And if you find this interesting, it's part of a collection of Kent's essays, which is in turn one of many documents published by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. For immediate reading, I'd suggest one of Kent's other essays: Estimates and Influence
If you have the time and inclination, read this essay, A Crucial Estimate Relived. This is an essay written by Sherman Kent, at the time (1964) head of the CIA's Office of National Estimates, the forerunner of today's National Intelligence Council. As such, Kent had supervised Special National Intelligence Estimate 85-3-62, The Military Buildup in Cuba, which on its publication in September of 1962 had stated the Intelligence Community's estimate that the Soviet Union would not place intermediate range offensive missiles in Cuba. In October, photgraphic evidence proved this estimate conculsively wrong, and the US and the USSR launched themselves into the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Kent took this crucial error and examined it for what it could reveal about the nature of the intelligence estimate process, where he and his colleagues might be able to learn from this mistake, and how it might shape such estimation in the future. It's an interesting piece of writing. I'd go into it more, but I need to finish my own writing and go to bed. I'll try to post some of my own observations another time. Meanwhile, have a read, if you're so inclined.
And if you find this interesting, it's part of a collection of Kent's essays, which is in turn one of many documents published by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. For immediate reading, I'd suggest one of Kent's other essays: Estimates and Influence
