Sensemaking for 21^st century intelligence

ABSTRACT

The key to effective 21^st century intelligence is our sensemaking process. In this article, we present a case for why Cold War-era reductive intelligence models have become obsolete, and we show that sensemaking provides a better framework for the issues that intelligence agencies and their governments face in the 21^st century. To illustrate our argument, we apply the sensemaking paradigm to an increasingly prominent challenge: grey zone conflict.

KEYWORDS:

• Intelligence analysis
• sensemaking
• flexecution
• grey zone conflict
• wicked problems

Acknowledgments

This work is dedicated to one of its authors, David T. Moore, who passed away while the article was under production.

Disclosure statement

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NSA/CSS or the U.S. Department of Defense.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

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⁵ Russell L. Ackoff, Transforming the Systems Movement, proceedings, May 26, 2004, (accessed February 26, 2018).

⁶ For a discussion of wicked problems, and their antithesis, “tame” problems, see: Horst W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Policy Sciences 4, no. 2 (1973); and David T. Moore, Sensemaking: A Structure for an Intelligence Revolution (Washington D.C: National University Press, 2011) discusses them in the intelligence context.

⁷ Horst W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” Policy Sciences 4, no. 2 (1973); and Kelly Levin et al., “Overcoming the Tragedy of Super Wicked Problems: Constraining Our Future Selves to Ameliorate Global Climate Change,” Policy Sciences 45, no. 2 (2012).

⁸ The theme of this conference was “Intelligence Analysis in a Changing Environment.”

⁹ We note that this sidesteps whether it could have been employed. A number of factors conspired to prevent this from occurring and go beyond the bounds of this article. Briefly, in addition to the reductionist paradigm of Cold War intelligence practice confounding the use of another paradigm, we note that the essential nexus for sensemaking from cognitive science, information science, intelligence theory, organizational theory, and urban science had not yet formed.

¹⁰ Rittel and Webber, “Dilemmas in a General.”

¹¹ Levin et al., “Overcoming the Tragedy.”

¹² This paradigm is a product of continuous evolutionary developments in the social sciences, including international relations, cognitive psychology, anthropology, and others. Evolutionary changes have discredited the standard model, necessitating the sensemaking “revolution.”

¹³ Charles Sanders Peirce, “Lowell Lectures 1903,” in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 331–2.

¹⁴ David T. Moore, Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis, Occasional Paper 14, Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, National Defense Intelligence College, 2006, 4.

¹⁵ Rittel and Webber, “Dilemmas in a General.”

¹⁶ Karl E. Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2009).

¹⁷ Philippe Baumard, “From Noticing to Making Sense: The Use of Intelligence in Strategizing,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence 7, no. 1 (1994).

¹⁸ Brenda Dervin, Lois Foreman-Wernet, and Eric Lauterbach, Sense-making Methodology Reader: Selected Writings of Brenda Dervin (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2003).

¹⁹ David T. Moore, Sensemaking: A Structure; David T. Moore and Robert R. Hoffman, “Sensemaking: A Transformative Paradigm,” American Intelligence Journal 29, no. 1 (July 2011); and David T. Moore and Robert R. Hoffman, “Data-Frame Theory of Sensemaking as a Best Model for Intelligence,” American Intelligence Journal 29, no. 2 (December 2011).

²⁰ Pietro C. Cacciabue and Erik Hollnagel, “Simulation of Cognition: Applications,” in Expertise and Technology: Cognition and Human-Computer Cooperation, ed. Jean-Michel Hoc, Pietro C. Cacciabue, Erik Hollnagel (Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associate, 1995), 55–75; and Gary A. Klein et al., “A Data/Frame Theory of Sensemaking,” in Expertise out of Context: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making, ed. Robert Hoffman (Boca Raton, Fl: Taylor&Francis, 2007), 115–55.

²¹ Klein et al., “Data/Frame Theory.”

²² Laura A. McNamara, “Sensemaking in Organizations: Reflections on Karl Weick and Social Theory,” Epic, March 24, 2014, https://www.epicpeople.org/sensemaking-in-organizations/ (accessed February 13, 2018); and Peter Hayward Jones, “Sensemaking Methodology: A Liberation Theory of Communicative Agency,” Epic, April 6, 2015, https://www.epicpeople.org/sensemaking-methodology/ (accessed February 6, 2018).

²³ Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations.

²⁴ Klein et al., “Data/Frame Theory.”

²⁵ Moore and Hoffman, Sensemaking: A Structure; and Moore and Hoffman, “Sensemaking: A Transformative.”

²⁶ Sally Maitlis and Marlys Christianson, “Sensemaking in Organizations: Taking Stock and Moving Forward,” The Academy of Management Annals 8, no. 1 (2014): 70.

²⁷ Klein et al., “Data/Frame Theory.”

²⁸ Paul Slovic, Behavioral Problems of Adhering to a Decision Policy, Oregon Research Institute, May 1, 1973, https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/23607/928.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y.

²⁹ Richards J. Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 1999), 51–5.

³⁰ Moore, Sensemaking: A Structure.

³¹ Gary Klein, “Flexecution as a Paradigm for Replanning, Part 1,” IEEE Intelligent Systems 22, no. 5 (September 2007); and Gary Klein, “Flexecution, Part 2: Understanding and Supporting Flexible Execution,” IEEE Intelligent Systems 22, no. 6 (November/December 2007).

³² D. Snowden, Telephone interview by author, February 22, 2002.

³³ Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card, “The Sensemaking Process and Leverage Points for Analyst Technology as Identified Through Cognitive Task Analysis,” proceedings of International Conference on Intelligence Analysis, Palo Alto, January 2005, https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog885/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.geog885/files/geog885q/file/Lesson_02/Sense_Making_206_Camera_Ready_Paper.pdf.

³⁴ Klein, “Flexecution as a Paradigm”; and Klein, “Flexecution, Part 2: Understanding.”

³⁵ Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve” (speech, 1957), https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/ppotpus?key=title;page=browse;value=d.

³⁶ Klein, “Flexecution as a Paradigm”; and Klein, “Flexecution, Part 2: Understanding.”

³⁷ Baumard, “From Noticing to Making,” 29.

³⁸ Pirolli and Card, “Sensemaking Process and Leverage.”

³⁹ Moore, Sensemaking: A Structure.

⁴⁰ David W. Stephens and J. R. Krebs, Foraging Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987); and Eric L. Charnov, “Optimal Foraging: The Marginal Value Theorem,” Theoretical Population Biology 9, no. 2 (April 1976).

⁴¹ Robert R. Hoffman, “Metaphor in Science,” in Cognition and figurative language, ed. Richard P. Honeck and Robert R. Hoffman (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1980), 393–423.

⁴² Stephens and Krebs, “Sensemaking and Leverage”; and Charnov, “Optimal Foragin.”

⁴³ Pirolli and Card, “Sensemaking Process and Leverage.”

⁴⁴ Moore, Sensemaking: A structure.

⁴⁵ Gary Klein et al., “Why Expertise Matters: A Response to the Challenges,” IEEE Intelligent Systems 32, no. 6 (November/December 2017).

⁴⁶ Moore, Sensemaking: A Structure, 12.

⁴⁷ General Stanley McChrystal et al., Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (London: Portfolio Penguin, 2015).

⁴⁸ We focus on countries vice non-state actors because countries can bring a strategic, whole-of-government approach to grey zone tactics that non-state actors generally cannot. Additionally, it can be very difficult to distinguish state from non-state actors (e.g. Russian hackers).

⁴⁹ Michael J. Mazarr, Mastering the Gray Zone:: Understanding a Changing Era of Conflict (Carlisle Barracks: United States Army War College Press, 2015).

⁵⁰ James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, “Five Shades of Chinese Gray-Zone Strategy,” National Interest, May 2, 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/five-shades-chinese-gray-zone-strategy-20450.

⁵¹ Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Election, report, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Intelligence Council, January 6, 2017, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf (accessed March 16, 2018); and Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy In Russia And Europe: Implications For U.S. National Security, January 10, 2018, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FinalRR.pdf.

⁵² Karen Smith Stegen, “Deconstructing the ‘Energy Weapon’: Russia’s Threat to Europe as Case Study,” Energy Policy 39, no. 10 (October 2011); and Gabriel Collins, J.d., Russia’s Use of the “Energy Weapon” in Europe, issue brief, Baker’s Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, July 18, 2017, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/ac785a2b/BI-Brief-071817-CES_Russia1.pdf (accessed March 16, 2018).

⁵³ Weidong Liu, An Introduction to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, proceedings of Global Infrastructure Conference, Oxford, 2016, http://www.oxiic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Session-1_Weidong-Liu_Oxford_Belt-and-Road-Initiative.pdf; and Gal Luft, Silk Road 2.0: US Strategy toward China’s Belt and Road Initiative, technical paper no. 11, Atlantic Council, October 2017, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/AC_StrategyPapers_No11_FINAL_web3.pdf (accessed March 16, 2018).

⁵⁴ Nathan P. Freier, comp., Outplayer: Regaining Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone (A Report Sponsored by the Army Capabilities Integration Center in Coordination with Joint Staff J-39/Strategic Multi-Layer Assessment Branch), report, Strategic Studies Institute, June 2016, https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1325.

⁵⁵ Isaiah Wilson III and Scott Smitson, “Solving America’s Gray-Zone Puzzle,” Parameters 46, no. 4 (Winter, 2016–2017): 57.

⁵⁶ “It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model – gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions” (United States Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, 2018, https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf (accessed April 5, 2018)).

⁵⁷ A number of (open) sources point to Iran and North Korea as other key grey zone players, although their repertoire of tactics may be somewhat narrower.

⁵⁸ In the words of retired US Army General and now former National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, citing Conrad Crane, “There are two ways to fight the United States military: asymmetrically and stupid” (H.R. McMaster, “Continuity and Change: The Army Operating Concept and Clear Thinking About Future War,” Military Review 95, no. 2 (March/April 2015): 10; Conrad C. Crane, “The Lure of the Strike,” Parameters 43, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 6). This view is encapsulated more eloquently in the 1999 Chinese publication Unrestricted Warfare (David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “The Irrelevance of Traditional Warfare?” War on the Rocks, January 27, 2015, https://warontherocks.com/2015/01/the-irrelevance-of-traditional-warfare/ (accessed March 27, 2001). Crane elaborates on the idea using the United States as a case study.

⁵⁹ Nicholas M. Hermberg, “The Danger of the Gray Zone: Flawed Responses to Emerging Unconventional Threats,” Small Wars Journal, 2016, https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-danger-of-the-gray-zone-flawed-responses-to-emerging-unconventional-threats accessed March 27, 2018.

⁶⁰ Matthew Symonds, “The New Battlegrounds: The Future of War,” The Economist, January 25, 2018, https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/01/25/the-future-of-war (accessed March 27, 2018).

⁶¹ Klein et al., “Data/Frame Theory.”

⁶² National Intelligence Council, Global Trends: Paradox of Progress, January 2017, 20, 26, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/nic/GT-Full-Report.pdf.

⁶³ Perceiving Gray Zone Indications, White Paper, United States Army Special Operations Command, March 15, 2016, https://www.soc.mil/Files/PerceivingGrayZoneIndicationsWP.pdf (accessed March 16, 2018).

⁶⁴ Richards J. Heuer and Randolph H. Pherson, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2011).

⁶⁵ John A. Gentry, “Warning Analysis: Focusing on Perceptions of Vulnerability,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 28, no. 1 (2015).

⁶⁶ This is not a new development. For example, scientific intelligence (anticipating disruptive technologies and new applications of science to warfare) dates to World War II: R. V. Jones, The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence, 1939–1945 (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978).

⁶⁷ Jon Latimer, Deception in War: The Art of the Bluff, the Value of Deceit, and the Most Thrilling Episodes of Cunning in Military History, from the Trojan Horse to the Gulf War (New York: Overlook Press, 2001), 60–70.

⁶⁸ For instance Gary Klein, “Critical Thoughts about Critical Thinking,” Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science 12, no. 3 (2011).

⁶⁹ Moore, Critical Thinking and Intelligence; Moore and Hoffman, “Sensemaking: A Transformative”; and Robert Hoffman et al., “Reasoning Difficulty in Analytical Activity,” Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science 12, no. 3 (2011).

⁷⁰ Johnston, Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study, report, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 2005, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/analytic-culture-in-the-u-s-intelligence-community/analytic_culture_report.pdf.

⁷¹ Robert R. Hoffman et al., Accelerated Expertise: Training for High Proficiency in a Complex World (New York: Psychology Press, 2014).

⁷² David T. Moore and Robert R. Hoffman, “Cognition and Expert-Level Proficiency in Intelligence Analysis,” in The Oxford Handbook of Expertise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

⁷³ Gary A. Klein, Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009).

⁷⁴ Gary A. Klein, Intuition at Work: Why Developing Your Gut Instincts Will Make You Better At What You Do (New York: Random House, Inc., 2003); and Gary A. Klein, Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights (New York: Perseus Books Group, 2013).

⁷⁵ Moore, Critical Thinking and Intelligence.

⁷⁶ Hoffman et al., Accelerated Expertise.

⁷⁷ Klein, Intuition at Work, 48–50.

⁷⁸ Moore and Hoffman, “Cognition and Expert-Level Proficiency.”

⁷⁹ We note that mindfulness and meditation are not the same thing. While they complement each other and often overlap they are not synonymous in function or practice.

⁸⁰ Ellen J. Langer, Mindfulness (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1989).

⁸¹ B.K. Hölzel et al., “Mindfulness Practice Leads to Increases in Regional Brain Gray Matter Density,” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 191, no. 1 (2011); and B.K. Hölzel et al., “How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 6 (2011).

⁸² For instance, Bethany E. Kok and Tania Singer, “Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training,” Mindfulness 8, no. 1 (February 2017).

⁸³ Langer, Mindfulness, 65.

⁸⁴ Hölzel et al., “How Does Mindfulness Meditation,” 537.

⁸⁵ For instance, Deepak Sethi, “Mindful Leadership,” Leader to Leader 2009, no. 51 (Winter 2009); and Bonnie Rochman, “Samurai Mind Training for Modern American Warriors,” Time Magazine, September 6, 2009, http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1920753,00.html.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David T. Moore

David T. Moore (d. 2018) was a career senior intelligence analyst at the National Security Agency.

Elizabeth Moore

Elizabeth Moore is a career senior intelligence analyst at the National Security Agency.

Seth Cantey

Seth Cantey is Associate Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University.

Robert R. Hoffman

Robert R. Hoffman is Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.