Talk:Cognitive traps for intelligence analysis

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[edit] Grammatical Error

I found myself on this page in pure Wikipedian style, from a link on a page that I found through a link on a (you get the picture). Was reading through the intro to the page and I encountered a very confusing error. As I found myself unable to determine what the structure of the sentence was supposed to be from context and having no familiarity with the subject matter (or the time to become familiar as I am at work), I figured I would just raise a flag on it here, for anyone who is familiar and watches this page. As I said, the sentence was in the opening paragraph and reads as follows:

"The traps may be facets of the analyst's own personality, or of the analyst's organizational culture. ther than experts by the group, or even in their self-image, and being unwilling to examine variants of what has been, is, will be, or should be." (Italics mine.)

Sorry I couldn't be of more help in getting that patched up!Warhorus (talk) 17:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed, I think.

I'd like to include an example that speaks to the value of peer review, but I don't have the physical book for an exact quote or page reference -- perhaps someone else has it. In David Kahn's The Codebreakers, the Japanese linguists working on a decrypted text, former missionaries in Japan, were utterly confounded by what, phonetically, was something like "Baru et Sutarudo Reinji Fuanda". Eventually, a Japanese linguist, who was a regular naval officer as well, rotated back from sea duty, took one look, and said "that's their way of referring to our Barr & Stroud range finder."

Anyone have a copy of Kahn handy?

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cognitive and other traps in other cultures?

Heuer's work is the definitive study for the US, but it is dealing with true cognitive traps. There is a blurry spectrum from cultural ways of thinking up to, and including, political control.

For example, the fUSSR appears to have valued HUMINT more than other sources. Assuming one can really define MASINT, there are suggestions it's not of strong interest to the Chinese.

What about economic intelligence for the benefit of industry (true private, or, for example, PLA-controlled)? Is that diversion of effort something that belongs here, or in intelligence cycle management?Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project Assessment

An excellent start, with some excellent examples, ranging from 9/11 to Purple to the USS Cole. But it all seems a bit disorganized. You talk about forgetting the familiar and inappropriate analogies in the intro, but then don't give further explanations or examples of these elements in the main body of the article. You provide a picture of the USS Cole event without describing its relevance directly in the text (what happened to the Cole? what was done wrong on the US side? why does this represent an intelligence failure?). The article is simply too disorganized, though its content for the most part is solid. LordAmeth (talk) 23:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)