Cognitive Biases In Intelligence

Cognitive biases within the intelligence community create difficulties in the analysis of intelligence since it creates a pattern of deviation susceptible to human error. These biases may act as enemies of intelligence due to the intelligence organization or analyst simplifying the intelligence process and not taking into account factors that may cloud their judgment. The intelligence community with time can minimize the effect of these biases by applying different methodologies that would determine where more awareness would be needed in order to prevent biases but even with new methods in place, cognitive biases will unconsciously effect the decision making process within the intelligence community. Within the intelligence field the problem

These effects may happen for several reasons. These could stem from failures to act or simply by misinterpretations or misunderstandings of facts by using tried and true methods, systems, or available information that parallels your thoughts about a particular matter. As illustrated in the previous paragraph, even when cognitive biases are taken into consideration it is still human nature to unconsciously make decisions based on other unknown biases. In the Yom Kippur War, we see many errors being committed by both intelligence analysts and decision makers due to biases of wishful thinking as well as framing and anchoring. Their early warning thought process as well as concepts greatly underestimated the will of the Arab Nations to attack Israel due to the biases in their reports. It can be said that much of the information that the Israeli intelligence community gave to decision makers was based on assumptions and theories based on what Israel perceived would be rational for the Arab Nations to do given their capabilities. In Early Warning versus Concept: The Case of the Yom Kippur War 1973, Ephraim Kahana addresses some of the shortcomings experienced by Israel because of the Aman Assessment. The two rational assumptions within the assessment stated that “Egypt would not embark on war against Israel unless it could first assure itself the capability of attacking Israel’s chief military airfields” and

Although these biases will not disappear completely and are difficult to overcome, it’s not to say that an effort should not be made to overcome this problem by looking at and understanding the history of intelligence failures. Cognitive biases will never disappear from the decision making process. The job of those within the intelligence community is to constantly improve ways and methods of giving an unbiased product to the consumer. The intelligence failures in predicting aggressive action in Cuba, the Iraq Gulf War, and with Israel illustrates the need to learn from past mistakes so that they are less likely to occur in the future. In Preventing Intelligence Failures by Learning from the Past, Stephen Marrin illustrates this point by quoting late scholar Michael Handel as