Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2016 | Page 14

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
professional model (Herbert 2013). To Herbert, such efforts are more connected
to academic compulsions and excesses around precise definitions than meaningful
avenues to improved intelligence analysis. John A. Gentry has observed
The concern about analyst professionalization seems related to the
reasonable perception that many contemporary analysts do in fact need
the basic training provided by entry courses on ‘tradecraft,’ including
SATs. My conclusion is that the professional credentials and tradecraft
skills of the analyst corps have deteriorated appreciably in recent years,
leading to a perceived need to address deficiencies with unorthodox
techniques of questionable utility. (Gentry 2015, 651)
As it stands, “No codified process for entry into the profession, standards in
terms of educational requirements, professional development processes, or ways to
accumulate and transfer knowledge from generation to generation currently exist”
(Marrin 2009, 139). Bruce and George similarly observe that the IC is only in the
most rudimentary stages of establishing intelligence analysis governing bodies,
institutionalizing robust education and training, developing certification requirements,
standardizing analytic methods, managing knowledge, and cataloguing best practices
(Bruce and George 2015).
Chang and Tetlock are critical of IC analytic training that they characterize as
focusing on certain analytic issues (at the expense of others) and the SATs intended
to address those issues (Chang and Tetlock 2016). They write, “The Psychology of
Intelligence Analysis was groundbreaking for its time, but revisions are now necessary”
(Chang and Tetlock 2016, 3). Contemporary IC training and tradecraft are seen
as overly concerned with countering analytic over-confidence and rigidity, while
essentially ignoring other biases, such as under-confidence and volatility.
As alluded to above, SATs are also seen as lacking scientific, empirical
demonstration, and likely to introduce new issues and problems (Chang and Tetlock
2016; Gentry 2015). John A. Gentry has suggested that SATs may have their best
application in helping junior, inexperienced analysts avoid basic mistakes, some of
which stem from a lack of social science foundations (Gentry 2015). To Gentry, SATs
are largely social science methods in disguise—a view our intelligence educators
reiterated below. In his view, SATs can be seen as a stealth effort to “address an antiintellectual
streak in the analyst corps that finds academics and academic methods
unattractive” (Gentry 2015, 651).
Chang and Tetlock also point to the limited evidence available relating to the
successful transfer of training to on-the-job performance (Chang and Tetlock 2016).
They conclude, “For too long the intelligence community has shackled itself to a system
of training that it never tested – and that almost certainly does not deliver promised
performance benefits” (Chang and Tetlock 2016, 14).
James Marchio has found that the IC has used many of the analytic standards
and tradecrafts set out by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
and the ODNI, including ICD 203, dating back to the early Cold War era (Marchio
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