Abstract
The practical business of government intelligence and security communities exist, for the most part, in necessary secrecy. There has historically been a measure of ad-hoc interaction between the UK’s intelligence community with individual academics and universities. In this chapter we will explore some of the ways in which engagement between the UK’s intelligence community and with academia can best be utilised to serve intelligence requirements. In examining the potential benefits of engagement the similarities and differences between academic research and the process of intelligence analysis, and the potential obstacles to greater and more systematic engagement, we highlight how mutual benefit may be derived in terms of challenge analysis, corroboration, validation and the enrichment of knowledge.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
There is a clear dichotomy revealed in the competing definitions of intelligence between intelligence as an organisational entity or machinery and intelligence as an end product. These two perspectives can successfully be combined by analogy with the phases of and requirements of analysis as an activity. Analysis is a detailed examination of the elements or structure of an object or concept in order to provide knowledge or add to a previous body of knowledge. The perspective of intelligence as an organisation can be resolved as a machinery geared around the production of an analytical end product for the purpose of being action guiding. The most developed definition of intelligence analysis is by Rob Johnston (Johnson, 2005), from his ethnographic study into analytical culture in the US in 2005. Johnston (2005) defined intelligence analysis as the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. This definition focuses entirely on the process of intelligence analysis, but arguably does not provide any component that separates this definition of intelligence analysis from the definition of the process of analysis beyond the inclusion of secrecy.
- 2.
The ESRC is one of the national research councils, funded centrally but administered outside of government control.
- 3.
In February 2004, HMG announced the creation of a committee to investigate intelligence available to the UK’s intelligence community regarding WMD programmes in countries of concern, to investigate the accuracy of intelligence on Iraqi WMD leading up to March 2003, and to examine any discrepancies between this intelligence and information discovered by the Iraq survey group following the end of the Iraq war. Lord Butler published the findings of the review in July 2004.
- 4.
This conclusion needs to be tempered with the realities of university life, which are increasingly focussed around teaching requirements (even in research intensive institutions) and fluctuating workload requirements across the calendar and academic year. It is a strong misperception amongst those outside of academia that there is a uniform bandwidth and availability of faculty to engage in extraneous research tasks – the additional institutional pressures around funded research means that engagement with government, which is often poorly remunerated or unpaid, attracts a lower priority than might ordinarily be the case.
- 5.
The central analytic function within the Cabinet Office in regard to intelligence analysis is the Joint Intelligence Organisation.
- 6.
For the purposes of this essay we define ‘scholarship’ as research activity mostly occurring within higher education institutions. The division of scholarship into disciplinary communities is notable for the barriers it places upon the accumulation of knowledge, and the gaps it produces as bunkered solutions are preferred for a number of strategic and tactical reasons by aspiring and tenured academics.
- 7.
The Central Intelligence Agency (2009) recommend evaluating competing hypotheses by identifying and monitoring indicators that can be matched against the total set of competing hypotheses. The process involves an analyst identifying a list of observable events that would indicate if a particular hypothesis was true, and then monitoring for the occurrence of the list of events. This technique provides a way to match supporting evidence against a set of competing hypotheses, which will hopefully identify which hypotheses are in play, and which have the most supporting evidence.
- 8.
Subjective Bayesianism provides a framework based on inductive logic whereby an analyst can identify mathematical probability from subjective judgements about the likelihood of the occurrence of a single event or a set of events that have been identified by the analyst.
- 9.
Only two structured analytical techniques come close to providing a methodology for intelligence analysis. These are Rational Choice Theory and the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH). There is only one method proposed for intelligence analysis that involves both a structured technique for hypothesis generation and for hypothesis evaluation against available evidence. This method is known as the Assessment of Competing Hypotheses (ACH), and was developed by Richards Heuer. ACH requires the analyst to develop several hypotheses to explain a particular phenomenon, and then match every part of the available dataset against each hypothesis, looking to refute hypotheses, rather than to confirm them. The hypothesis that is most likely to be deemed true by ACH is the hypothesis that has the least evidence that counters it (Heuer and Pherson, 2010).
- 10.
Most formal scientific research is conducted according to the following research stages: observations and formulation of topic, including justification of importance of topic linked to existing body of knowledge; formulation of hypothesis (Where a ‘hypothesis’ is understood as a testable prediction that focuses on the relationship between two or more variables); conceptual definition (explanation of concept in relation to other concepts); operations definition (definition of variables and how they will be measured and assessed); data collection; analysis of data; interpretation of data; revision/testing of hypothesis; and conclusion.
- 11.
More ambitious forms of engagement are possible, but are more challenging. A pool of academics cleared to an appropriate level, working as research fellows, either inside the intelligence community or outside could offer a reliable ‘on-tap’ service to the intelligence community. The problem here is one of scale, and thus of cost. Scaling across a wide enough spread of disciplinary areas is expensive both in terms of the number of bodies, but also in terms of recruitment, vetting and counter-intelligence costs. However, making a case for the added value of this arrangement will be difficult, because it will necessarily be a prospective case and cautious managers are likely to prefer to recruit fully formed intelligence analysts than the slightly riskier proposition of academic fellowship holders. Asking universities to find the costs for these research fellows, when the knowledge they have acquired will be unpublishable will be a difficult task, particularly when university budgets are so pressed.
- 12.
Bibliography
Butler, R. (2004). Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, London: HMSO.
Cabinet Office. (2015). The Cross-Government Trial Advice Panel. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/451336/the_Cross-Government_Trial_Advice_Panel.pdf (accessed 6 November 2015).
Central Intelligence Agency. (2009). A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytical Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, United States Government.
Department of Defence, Defence Technical Information Centre. (2013). Joint Publication 2-0, Joint Intelligence.
Goodman, M.S. and Omand, D. (2008). ‘Teaching Intelligence Analysts in the UK’, CIA Studies in Intelligence 52: 4.
Heuer, R.J. Jr. and Pherson, R.H. (2010). Structured Analytical Techniques for Intelligence Analysis, California: CQ Press, Sage Publishing.
Johnson, R. (2005). Analytic Culture in the US Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study, Langley: Central Intelligence Agency, United States Government.
Kent, S. (1949). Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lowenthaal, M.M. (2000). Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Treverton G.F., Jones S.G., Boraz S., Lipscy P. (2005). Toward a Theory of Intelligence, RAND Cooperation.
UK Government. (2015a). Open Government Blog. Available at: https://openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/tools-and-techniques/ (accessed 6 November 2015).
UK Government. (August 2015b). The What Works Network. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-works-network (accessed 6 November 2015).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dover, R., Goodman, M.S., White, M. (2017). Two Worlds, One Common Pursuit: Why Greater Engagement with the Academic Community Could Benefit the UK’s National Security. In: Dover, R., Dylan, H., Goodman, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Security, Risk and Intelligence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53675-4_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53675-4_26
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53674-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53675-4
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)