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ABSTRACT
This article describes a major output of strategic intelligence: conceptual frameworks. Drawing on concepts from epistemology, ontology, and analytical methodology, it finds a philosophical foundation for conceptual frameworks in pragmatism and the ideas of Wittgenstein. Through the production and use of conceptual frameworks, strategic intelligence is revealed as both art and science, performing both creation and discovery. The use of such frameworks enables strategic intelligence to notice shifts as they begin to emerge. The article highlights Israeli theoretical perspectives, illustrates the practical utility of conceptual frameworks by applying them to Israeli cases, and suggests that using them contributes to strategy.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Brig. Gen. (ret.) Itai Brun, Dr. Amos Granit, and Col. D. from the Israeli Defense Intelligence (IDI) – for their helpful insights during the writing of this article. Special thanks are also due to Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kupperwasser and to David Simantov from the Center for Research of Intelligence Methodology.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Johnson, Preface to a Theory, 638–63; and Dexter et al., The What, Why, Who, 920–34.
2. Coulthart, “Why Do Analysts Use,” 933–48.
3. Lim, “Big Data,” 619–35.
4. Simantov and Alon, “Cyber Requires and Makes,” 67–82.
5. Gill et al., “Developing Intelligence Theory,” 467–71.
6. Gill et al., Intelligence Theory.
7. Warner, “Wanted,” 15–22.
8. Johnson and Wirtz, Strategic Intelligence.
9. Kuosa, Towards Strategic Intelligence.
10. Handel, War, Strategy and Intelligence, 81–104.
11. Johnson, “Sketches for a Theory,” 33–53.
12. For a more positive view, see Pascovich, “Security and Intelligence Studies,” 134–148.
13. Handel, “The Yom Kippur War,” 461–502.
14. Bar Joseph, “Forecasting a Hurricane,” 718–42.
15. Pascovich, “Military Intelligence and Controversial Political Issues,” 227–261.
16. Aldrich and Kasuku, “Escaping from American Intelligence,” 1009–28; and Johnson and Shelton, “Thoughts on the State,” 109–20.
17. Herbert, “The Intelligence Analyst,” 666–84; Rønn and Høffding, “Epistemic Status of Intelligence,” 694–716.
18. Granit, “Development of the Idea”; Bar Joseph, ‘Israel,’ in Dover et al, Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies; Lanir, The Basic Surprise; Harkabi, Intelligence as a State Institution; Ben-Israel, The Philosophy of Intelligence; and Brun, Intelligence Analysis.
19. For an interesting analysis of the link between the two theories see Goodman, “Wittgenstein and Pragmatism,” 91–105.
20. Treverton, “Theory and Practice,” 472–78.
21. Kent, Strategic Intelligence. This view has also been adopted in Israel. See Harkabi, Intelligence as a State Institution.
22. This is the traditional model for the intelligence process. In recent years much criticism has been directed at it: Granit, “Development of the Idea”; Simantov and G., 27–42; and Hulnick, “What’s wrong with the Intelligence,” 959–79.
23. Heazle, “Policy Lessons from Iraq,” 290–308.
24. Pillar, “Great Expectations,” 16–21.
25. Lanir, The Basic Surprise, 11.
26. Brun, Intelligence Analysis, 83–85. National intelligence is intended for use by the political echelon, and deals with formulation of grand strategy with respect to national security and national policy. Strategic intelligence is intended for use by the general staff of the military, and deals with formulating and implementing defense and military strategy. Operational-level intelligence is intended for use by the general staff and combatant headquarters, and deals with formulating operations for defeating a rival and reaching decisive victory. Tactical intelligence is intended for use by air, land, sea and cyber forces, and deals with the actual employment of military power. In this article, I refer to both national- and strategic-level intelligence as ‘strategic intelligence.’
27. For a comprehensive analysis of technological research, see Lorber, Technological Intelligence.
28. Granit, “Development of the Idea”.
29. Brun, Intelligence Analysis, 58; and Hulnick, Fixing the Spy Machine, 43–62.
30. Lanir, The Basic Surprise, 133.
31. Knorr, “Failures in National Intelligence Estimates,” 455–67.
32. Betts, “Intelligence Warning,” 26–34.
33. Lanir, The Basic Surprise, 136.
34. Ibid., 139.
35. Ibid., 145.
36. See note 28 above.
37. Matza, “Four Paths in the ‘Orchard’.”
38. Granit describes (2006) how the American intelligence community developed an aspiration to create a scientific basis for intelligence that would enable forecasts about the future.
39. Peres, “Advantages and Disadvantages,” 96–103.
40. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature.
41. Kent would probably call this ‘speculative-evaluative’ (Kent, Strategic Intelligence). But Kent’s approach – which was largely based on the social sciences, and regarded prediction as one of intelligence’s tasks – also drew much criticism. See Kendall, Function of Intelligence, 542–52.
42. See, for example, Fingar, Reducing Uncertainty. In this context, it should be noted that Fingar is a former head of the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC).
43. Brun, Intelligence Analysis, 119.
44. Barnea, This We Did Not Expect.
45. For some examples see: Wirtz, “Indications and Warning,” 550–62; Bar Joseph and McDermott, Intelligence Success and Failure; and Ben-Zvi, “Hindsight and Foresight,” 381–95.
46. Betts, “Analysis, War and Decision,” 61–89.
47. Chan, “Intelligence of Stupidity,” 171–80.
48. Wasserman, “Failure of Intelligence Prediction,” 156–69.
49. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Assessing Russian Activities.
50. Kravis, How Israel Intelligence Dealt.
51. Pascovich, “Intelligence Assessment,” 84–114.
52. Dvir, “Post Factum Clarity,” 576–94.
53. Harel, “Intelligence War.”
54. Betts, “Surprise Despite Warning,” 551–72.
55. Alon, In-Depth Study No. 4.
56. Ansoff, “Managing Strategic Surprise,” 21–33.
57. Ansoff, “Strategic Issue Management,” 131–48.
58. Dutton et al, “Toward Understanding Strategic,” 307–323.
59. Rossel, “Early detection, warnings,” 229–39.
60. Kim and Lee, “Novelty-focused weak signal,” 59–76.
61. Rathmell, “Towards Postmodern Intelligence,” 87–104.
62. Naveh, The Art of Campaign.
63. Brun, “Approaches to Intelligence Research.”
64. Kurki, “Critical Realism and Causal Analysis,” 361–78.
65. Brun, “Approaches to Intelligence Research,” 148.
66. Hulnick, “Intelligence Producer,” 212–33.
67. Jervis, “Why Intelligence and Policymakers,” 185–204.
68. Bar Joseph, “Politicization of Intelligence,” 347–69.
69. Lillbacka, “Outline of a Clausewitzian Theory,” 494–523.
70. Morrell, “Director of National Intelligence.”
71. Simantov and Hershkowitz, “‘Cooperative Approach’ to Relations,” 77–93; and Kerbel and Olcott, “Synthesizing with Clients.”
72. For a rather unique example see Ya’alon, Intelligence from the Standpoint.
73. Hilsman, Strategic Intelligence.
74. It seems that intelligence always has to ‘compete’ with national leaders’ direct access to open information. See Miller, “Open Source Intelligence,” 702–19.
75. Marrin, “Intelligence Analysis,” 529–45.
76. See note 63 above.
77. Brun turned my attention to the term ‘institution.’ It does not refer to the intelligence organization, but to the orderly social mechanism within which the intelligence officer operates.
78. Ben-Israel, The Philosophy of Intelligence.
79. Johnston, Analytic Culture.
80. Cooper, Curing Analytical Pathologies.
81. Marrin and Clemente, “Improving Intelligence Analysis,” 707–29.
82. For an article which maintains that intelligence is an art and not a science see Denece, “Revolution in Intelligence Affairs,” 27–41.
83. Additional functions of science are to produce universal theories inductively, and to produce forecasts of the future by using the same theories deductively. In the case of strategic intelligence, these roles are less relevant – and in general, in the social sciences and the humanities, which I view as domains strongly connected with intelligence research, the ability to produce forecasts about the future is relatively limited (because of the nature of human reality, which is not predictable). With regard to the distinction between the social sciences and exact sciences, see: Berlin, Sense of Reality. In the context of the logical invalidity of induction see Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature.
84. Leibovitz and Agasi, Conversations About the Philosophy.
85. See note 78 above.
86. Such as ACH (analysis of competing hypotheses), which Brun refers to quite often. It was also mentioned in the seminal work by Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis.
87. Walsh, “Improving Strategic Intelligence,” 548–62.
88. A well-known method in the social sciences for producing theories, though its scientific validity sometimes comes under criticism. For a description of its relevance to intelligence, see Zohar, “Intelligence Analysis,” 130–60.
89. An interesting example of the use of quantitative methods for military intelligence research can be found in Bang, “Pitfalls in Military Quantitative,” 49–73.
90. Charmaz, “Power of Constructivist,” 34–45.
91. Also see the way in which the US intelligence community defined its method for using such techniques: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Intelligence Community Directive 203.”
92. Lillbacka, “Realism, Constructivism and Intelligence Analysis,” 304–31.
93. Manjikian, “Positivism, Post-Positivism,” 563–82.
94. There were also those who pointed to the limitations of positivism with regard to strategic intelligence research, but proposed an alternative that is not constructivist. Ben-Haim, “Positivism and its Limitations,” 904–17.
95. Abduction is sometimes related to the pragmatic philosophy. It does not receive much attention in intelligence studies. In any case, on the different methods of reasoning, see: Behfar and Okhuysen, “Perspective,” 323–40; Staat, “On Abduction, Deduction, Induction,” 225–37.
96. Trevetron, “Theory and Practice,” 475.
97. It is interesting to look into the etymological aspects of the word ‘analysis,’ which is based on the idea of disassembly. The opposite of analysis is indeed synthesis, or formation. Hence there is apparently a contradiction between analytical research and holistic observation. For an interesting description of how phenomena are commonly perceived analytically in the West and holistically in the East, see Nisbett and Miyamoto, “Influence of Culture,” 467–73.
99. Brodie, “Strategy as an Art,” 26–38.
100. Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Introduction to ‘Operational Art’, 16. For a similar idea in the business context, see Hamel and Prahalad, “Competing for the Future.”
101. Brandenburger, “Strategy Needs Creativity,” 58–65.
102. Hintikka, “What Is Abduction?” 503–33.
103. Kant, Kant’s Prolegomena.
104. Lanir, The Basic Surprise, 174–75.
105. For an example from the field of business management, see Ansell and Boin, “Taming Deep Uncertainty,” 1–34.
106. Pragmatism is also identified with Dewey, Peirce, and Schiller, and Rorty.
107. James, Pragmatism.
108. For analysis of different theories of truth, see Foulkes, “Theories of Truth,” 63–72.
109. Porrovecchio, “F.C.S. Schiller’s,” 96.
110. James, Pragmatism, 44.
111. Ibid., 54.
112. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 24e.
113. Ibid., 2Ge.
114. Ibid., 33.
115. Ibid., 4i.
116. Ibid., 5.
117. These issues are formulated as research questions. In my view, strategic analysis cannot provide answers similar to those that tactical analysis does. Its importance lies, to a great extent, in the formulation and conceptualization of the questions themselves. Regardless, these issues were relevant at the time this article was written, during 2018.
118. Alexander, “Pragmatic Imagination,” 325–438.
119. Ya’alon and Friedman, “Historic Opportunity.”
120. Krasne, ‘Moderate Sunni Camp’.
121. Tharoor, “Persian Gulf Crisis.”
122. McElroy, “Mesa.”
123. Shine, “Sunni Axis,” 129–135.
124. Yadlin and Guzanky, Saudi Arabia.
125. Spyer, Israel.
126. The concepts of ‘strategic competitions’ and ‘competitive strategy’ are part of an entire strategic domain, and are very much present in the business world too. See another piece by the current author: Shapira, Security Strategy, 480–81.
129. Amidror, Iran’s Behavior in the Middle East. English version available at https://jiss.org.il/en/amidror-the-logic-of-israels-actions-to-contain-iran-in-syria-and-lebanon/.
130. Karam, “General Votel Visits.”
131. IDF, The IDF Strategy .
132. Useful here is the accepted US terminology of DIME: diplomatic, informational, military, or economic.
133. The term strategic culture refers to characteristics of behavior in the strategic context. Adamsky, Culture of Military Innovation.
134. Nye, “Get Smart.”
135. An example of this can be found in two recently published studies that illustrate the extent and intensity of the US occupation with creating deterrence toward China and Russia: Mazaar et al., What Deters and Why; and Hicks et al, Zone Defense.
136. IDF Chief of Staff’s Office, The IDF Strategy (April 2018), https://www.idf.il/media/34416/strategy.pdf (accessed 12 July 2019).
137. Votel et al., “Unconventional Warfare in the Grey Zone.”
138. Walton, Abductive Reasoning.
139. Marrin, “Evaluating CIA’s Analytical Performance,” 325–39.
140. Mandel and Barnes, “Accuracy of Forecasts,” 10,984–89.
141. Buytendijk, “Philosophy of Postmodern,” 51–55.
142. Haridimos and Chia, Philosophy.
143. For an interesting work that addresses these three perspectives see Cavelty and Mauer, “Postmodern Intelligence,” 123–44.
144. Lahneman, “Revolution in Intelligence Affairs,” 1–17; Barger, “Toward a Revolution.”
145. Kuperwasser, “Lessons.”
146. Derived from the notion of ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA(.
147. Tan, “Reflective Thinking,” 218–31.
148. Phythian, Framing the Challenges.
149. See, for example, Leslau, “Effect of Intelligence,” 426–48.
150. Marrin, “Strategic Intelligence Analysis,” 725–42.
151. For example, some claim that intelligence has trouble noticing cooperative opportunities because the main task of intelligence at the operative and tactical level is to notice threats. Barrett, “Role of the Intelligence,” 785–805.
152. Palacios, “Role of Strategic Intelligence,” 181–203.
153. Aldrich and Kasuku, “Escaping from American Intelligence.”
154. Gibson, “Future Roles,” 917–28.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Itai Shapira
Itai Shapira is an Israeli Colonel with more than 25 years of experience in the Israeli Defense Intelligence (IDI) - in roles of intelligence analysis and management on the tactical, operational and strategic levels. Itai holds a B.A and an MBA from Tel-Aviv University, and is a graduate of the Israeli National Defense College (INDC). He is a research fellow in The Center for Research of Intelligence Methodology in Ramat Hasharon, Israel.