Historical case studies in intelligence education: best practices, avoidable pitfalls

Abstract

This paper identifies best practices for the selection and delivery of historical cases for use in intelligence studies education. These pedagogical imperatives (and avoidable pitfalls) apply to different levels of instruction and are relevant both for public and classified instruction. Drawing upon relevant social science scholarship on the use of historical case studies, the authors propose methods to select appropriate cases tailoured to achieve desired learning outcomes, to promote active learning and to avoid common problems such as hindsight bias, oversimplified single-narrative interpretations and prepackaged ‘lessons learned’ devoid of historical context.

Acknowledgements

The authors would very much like to thank fellow scholars Jill Caddell, Nicholas Dujmovic, John Gentry, John Hoven, Carolyn Pumphrey, and John Sislin for their contributions and commentary.

Notes

1. Forerunner of the US Intelligence Community’s present-day National Intelligence University.

2. Full disclosure: this unnamed officer was one of the two authors. We leave it to the reader to guess which one.

3. ‘Intelligence studies’ programs are a growing field in undergraduate education; the Catholic University of America, for example, created such a curriculum in just the past year.

4. Lawrence, “The Preparation of Case Material,” 215; routinely quoted in works dealing with the teaching of case studies, including Barnes et al., Teaching and the Case Method, 44.

5. An interesting overview of case study development in the 20th century can be found in Tellis, “Introduction to Case Study.”

6. For further discussion, see Stake, The Art of the Case Study.

7. George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences.

8. Merriam, Qualitative Research and Case Study.

9. Simmons, Case Study Research in Practice.

10. Stake, The Art of the Case Study.

11. Yin, Case Study Research: Designs and Methods.

12. George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, 5.

13. Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation, “Case Studies.”

14. See, for example, Olson, Fair Play, which uses realistic (but fictional) intelligence ‘cases’ to illustrate moral quandaries encountered in the profession.

15. George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, 18.

16. Handel, “The Study of Intelligence,” 820–21.

17. Campbell, “The U.S. Market for Intelligence Education,” 317–23; further discussion of professional use within the IC can be found in Swenson, A Flourishing Craft: Teaching Intelligence Studies.

18. Goodman, “Studying and Teaching About Intelligence,” 62–3; Goodman goes so far as to state: ‘[in the US] there is less emphasis on historical case-studies and a greater attention paid to theoretical deliberations; in particular, there is a desire to place intelligence within broader – often agency-based – studies. In the [UK] the subject has a far more historical grounding, with the major emphasis on empirical case-studies.’ The authors question the extent to which this sweeping generalization accurately reflects the broad diversity of intelligence education in both countries.

19. George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, 21.

20. Walton, Challenges with Intelligence Analysis, xi.

21. Walton, Challenges with Intelligence Analysis, xii; indeed, in his The Purpose of the Past, Gordon Wood goes so far as to caution ‘history does not teach lots of little lessons … it teaches only one big one: that nothing ever works out quite the way its managers intended or expected. History is like experience and old age: wisdom is what learns from it.’ (Wood, 71)

22. Scott and Hughes, “Intelligence, Crises and Security: Lessons from History?” 659.

23. Though not a published quote, this is an oft-expressed sentiment for which the authors feel Professor Kohn will enthusiastically take ownership.

24. Scott and Hughes, “Intelligence, Crises and Security: Lessons from History?” 660.

25. Gavin, “Thinking Historically.”

26. Shreeve, Experiences to Go, 1.

27. Shreeve, Experiences to Go, 3, 4.

28. Shreeve, Experiences to Go, 5.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Dujmovic, “Getting Intelligence History Right,” 79.

32. While Professor Ropp may not have coined the phrase, he used it widely and to great effect; see Alex Roland’s introduction to the 2000 edition of Ropp’s, War in the Modern World, 10.

33. Richelson, A Century of Spies, 115–23.

34. Andrew, For The President’s Eyes Only, 102–22.

35. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor.

36. Prange, At Dawn We Slept.

37. George Washington University, “The National Security Archive.”

38. Central Intelligence Agency, “Center for the Study of Intelligence.”

39. Prior to January 2017, most of CREST’s 12 million documents were available only on a standalone network physically located at the NARA facility in College Park, MD; as of 17 January 2017, all CREST documents were made available as searchable PDF files on the CIA’s 25-Year Program Archivehttps://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/crest-25-year-program-archive.

40. George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, 6.

41. CMU, “Case Studies.”

42. Not to say it was not attempted by scholars and practitioners alike. Perhaps most famously, Kennedy’s, Thirteen Days claimed to offer a unique, insider account of the political, military, and intelligence elements of the crisis just seven years on; yet, today, we can see glaring omissions (such as no discussion of the deal to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey), self-serving rhetoric that sidesteps Administration complicity in limited intelligence collection that forestalled discovery of the missiles, and mis-remembrance of details regarding high seas showdowns related to the naval blockade that never actually took place. See Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight and Barrett and Holland’s Blind Over Cuba for a thorough reexamination of the omissions and errors of Thirteen Days.

43. Cohen, “‘Only Half the Battle’,” 145.

44. ‘Avoid stretching facts or tailoring conclusions to fit a theory’ is an admonishment shared by Dujmovic, who makes this cautionary guidance a section header in his 2010 work.

45. Macrakis, “Technophilic Hubris and Espionage Styles,” 378.

46. Macrakis, “Technophilic Hubris and Espionage Styles,” 380.

47. Scott, “Espionage and the Cold War,” 28–30.

48. Caddell, “Corona over Cuba,” 418.

49. Gladwell, “Open Secrets.”

50. Treverton, “Estimating beyond the Cold War.”

51. Gladwell, “Open Secrets.”

52. George, Propaganda Analysis.

53. For a particularly insightful dissection of Gladwell’s practices along these lines, see one scholarly review of What the Dog Saw: Pinker, “Malcolm Gladwell, Eclectic Detective.”

54. For further discussion of Allied intelligence on the German V-weapons see Jones, The Wizard War; Stanley, V Weapons Hunt; Babington-Smith, Evidence in Camera, 176–207; Williams, Operation Crossbow; and Keegan, Intelligence in War, 258–94.

55. Gladwell mistakenly implies this analysis was performed by U.S. analysts with the Foreign Broadcast Information System (FBIS); in reality, osint work on the V-weapons issue was performed by the British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring (BBCM) service; see George, Propaganda Analysis, and Williams, Operation Crossbow, for further discussion. (Gladwell also entirely omits any reference to the V-2 program in his discussion, referring only to the V-1 piece of the German programs.).