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ABSTRACT
This article suggests a framework analytic methodology for Scientific & Technical Intelligence (S&TI) that is geared towards finding adversarial accelerated, or ‘crash’ weapon development programs. First, the nature of historic accelerated weapon programs is studied, so that common elements and indicators can be developed. An analytical framework based upon the generalized way in which all ‘crash’ programs are run is then constructed. With this analytical framework, when some aspect of a program are uncovered, inferences to aspects which have not yet been observed can be drawn. Using this approach for uncovering ‘crash’ programs implies however a new partnership between collectors and analysts. A strategy to search for ‘crash’ programs is constructed in order to focus the collection and analytical energy on the problem of looking for such a program. This approach is three-stepped. The strategy uses an initial step of understanding the adversary’s perceptions to guide the search to the industrial sectors most likely to harbor such a program. A second step uses a search of that industrial sector for change which would point to specific activities and locations. And finally, detailed analysis and collection focused against the specific facilities uncover details that lead to the truth.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (London: Penguin Books, 1954); and Christopher Andrew, The Secret World: A History of Intelligence (London: Allen Lane, 2018), 27–39.
2 Reginald V. Jones, “Scientific Intelligence,” Studies in Intelligence 6, no. 3 (1962): 76. For a wider treatment, see Gordon Hartcup, The Effect of Science on the Second World War (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003).
3 Reginald V. Jones, Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence, 1939–1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978), 74.
4 John Hughes-Wilson, On Intelligence: The History of Espionage and the Secret World (London: Constable, 2016), 162–6.
5 While the ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ has received enormous attention, the so-called ‘Revolution in Intelligence Affairs’ has received far less treatment, though there is a small corpus of work available. See, for instance, Michael Herman, Intelligence Services in the Information Age (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 49–66.
6 Scientific & Technical Intelligence (S&TI) is the product resulting from the collection, evaluation, analysis, and interpretation of foreign scientific and technical information that covers: (a.) foreign developments in basic and applied research and in applied engineering techniques; and (b.) scientific and technical characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of all foreign military systems, weapons, weapon systems, and materiel; the research and development related thereto; and the production methods employed for their manufacture. Definition from: Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, report, United States Department of Defense, 2010, https://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp1_02.pdf.
7 Robert M. Clark, “Scientific and Technical Intelligence Analysis,” Studies in Intelligence 19, no. 2 (Spring 1975): 48. As a result of this connection the principles of S&TI have also been applied to the world of business. See John P. Herring, “Scientific and Technical Intelligence: the Key to R&D,” Journal of Business Strategy 14, no. 3 (May–June 1993): 10–12.
8 The September 2009 report of the Defense Science Board 2008 summer study on capability surprise argued that today’s fast pace of global technology advances creates an environment in which the potential for surprise has reached new levels. Capability surprise can spring from many sources: scientific breakthrough in the laboratory, new operational use of an existing capability or technology, or rapid fielding of a known technology: Capability Surprise Volume I: Main Report, report, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, September 2009, https://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2000s/ADA506396.pdf. See also Michael Handel, “Intelligence and the Problem of Strategic Surprise,” Journal of Strategic Studies 7, no. 3 (1984): 233; “Surprise: The Technological Factors,” in Intelligence Policy and National Security, ed. Robert Pfaltzgraff, Uri Ra’anan, and Warren Millbert (London: MacMillan Press, 1981), 161–84; and James G. Ostensoe, “The Problem of Scientific Surprise,” Studies in Intelligence 5, no. 4 (1961).
9 Matthew Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age (London: Holt Paperbacks, 2008), 268–79; James Harford, Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), 246–75; Azriel Lorber, Misguided Weapons: Technological Failure and Surprise on the Battlefield (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2003), 81–82, 196–202, 203–6.
10 Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising, 142–60.
11 Figure adapted from two figures in Richard K. Betts and Thomas G. Mahnken, Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 7, 11.
12 These indicators are derived from Thomas G. Mahnken, Uncovering Ways of War: U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918–1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 5–17, 170.
13 See for some excellent treatments of this particular topic: Reginald V. Jones, “Intelligence and Deception,” in Intelligence Policy and National Security, ed. Robert Pfaltzgraff, Uri Ra’anan, and Warren Millbert (London: MacMillan Press, 1981); and Roberta Wohlstetter, “Slow Pearl Harbors and the Pleasures of Deception,” in Intelligence Policy and National Security, ed. Robert Pfaltzgraff, Uri Ra’anan, and Warren Millbert (London: MacMillan Press, 1981), 3–34.
14 Robert M. Clark, Intelligence Analysis: A Target-Centric Approach (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2013), 31–43.
15 Ibid., 62–88.
16 Ibid., 279–305.
17 Ibid., 147–66.
18 Richards J. Heuer and Randolph H. Pherson, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2011), 132–9.
19 Cynthia M. Grabo, Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning (Lanham: University Press of America, 2004), 119–32.
20 Clark, Intelligence Analysis, 167–82.
21 On this “missing link” see Robert Clark, Intelligence Collection (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2014); and Roger Z. George and James B. Bruce, Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008), 191–212.
22 This phrase was originally used by Michael Herman in his work on military intelligence: “Intelligence and the Assessment of Military Capabilities: Reasonable Sufficiency or the Worst Case?” Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 4 (October 1989): 796.
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Danny Pronk
Danny Pronk is a Senior Research Fellow at the Security Unit of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’. As Director of the Strategic Foresight Program at the institute his research focuses on geopolitical trend analysis, alternative futures development, and horizon scanning. Prior to joining the institute, he held several senior analytical and operational leadership positions at both the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (GISS/AIVD) and Defense Intelligence and Security Service (DISS/MIVD), particularly in the field of Scientific & Technical Intelligence (S&TI). He has lectured at the Universities of Amsterdam and Leiden, and at the Netherlands Defense Academy on the topic of intelligence analysis and strategic warning. Danny holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Leiden University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Military Arts and Sciences from the Royal Military Academy in Breda.