Building a Better Strategic Analyst: A Critical Review of the U.S. Army's All Source Analyst Training Program
Abstract
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community saw a dark shadow cast across itself. Though the specific intelligence failures cannot yet be determined, there are some known pieces of information. The success of intelligence during the Cold War, a predictable bipolar war, resulted in a strategic intelligence system that supported the information requirements of that bi-polar world. Our intelligence analyst trained to use deductive skills to quantitatively determine the internal and external jostling of the bi-polar system. Since the end of the Cold War, America's adversaries have undergone significant transformation moving away from standing formation armies prepared for force on force battles. Rising from the ashes of the relatively predictable bi-polar global system are new networks and bands of ideologically and culturally motivated groups capable of exercising the power of globalization while taking advantage of both tacit and complicit state support. While US military analysts ardently constructed a mostly quantitative method of analysis to determine how former adversaries executed their game plan, the cultural complexities of the current global construct do not behave in manners friendly to this form of analysis beyond the local tactical level. Accordingly, senior intelligence analysts, in particular, now find themselves ill equipped to understand, much less predict, our nation's new real and potential adversaries.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 15, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA484775
Entities
People
- Daniel M. Allen
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College