Handbook of Warning Intelligence: Assessing the Threat to National Security (Scarecrow Professional Intelligence Education)

327 Pages·2010·1.92 MB·English

by  Cynthia Grabo

Scarecrow Professional Intelligence Education Series
Series Editor: Jan Goldman
In this post–September 11, 2001, era there has been rapid growth in the num-
ber of professional intelligence training and educational programs across the
United States and abroad. Colleges and universities, as well as high schools,
are developing programs and courses in homeland security, intelligence
analysis, and law enforcement, in support of national security.
The Scarecrow Professional Intelligence Education Series (SPIES) was first
designed for individuals studying for careers in intelligence and to help im-
prove the skills of those already in the profession; however, it was also devel-
oped to educate the public in how intelligence work is conducted and should
be conducted in this important and vital profession.
1. Communicating with Intelligence: Writing and Briefing in the Intelligence
and National Security Communities, by James S. Major. 2008.
2. A Spy’s Résumé: Confessions of a Maverick Intelligence Professional and
Misadventure Capitalist, by Marc Anthony Viola. 2008.
3. An Introduction to Intelligence Research and Analysis, by Jerome Clauser,
revised and edited by Jan Goldman. 2008.
4. Writing Classified and Unclassified Papers for National Security: A Scare-
crow Professional Intelligence Educational Series Manual, by James S.
Major. 2009.
5. Strategic Intelligence: A Handbook for Practitioners, Managers, and Users,
revised edition by Don McDowell. 2009.
6. Partly Cloudy: Ethics in War, Espionage, Covert Action, and Interrogation,
by David L. Perry. 2009.
7. Tokyo Rose / An American Patriot: A Dual Biography, by Frederick P.
Close. 2010.
8. Ethics of Spying: A Reader for the Intelligence Professional, edited by Jan
Goldman. 2006.
9. Ethics of Spying: A Reader for the Intelligence Professional, Volume 2, ed-
ited by Jan Goldman. 2010.
10. A Woman’s War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy’s First
African American Female Intelligence Officer, by Gail Harris. 2010.
11. Handbook of Scientific Methods of Inquiry for Intelligence Analysis, by
Hank Prunckun. 2010.
12. Handbook of Warning Intelligence: Assessing the Threat to National Secu-
rity, by Cynthia Grabo. 2010.

H A N D B O O K O F
W A R N I N G I N T E L L I G E N C E
Assessing the Threat to National Security
Cynthia Grabo
Jan Goldman
Series Editor
Scarecrow Professional Intelligence Education Series, No. 12
THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
2010
Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.scarecrowpress.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2010 by Cynthia Grabo
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grabo, Cynthia M.
Handbook of warning intelligence : assessing the threat to national security / Cynthia
Grabo, Jan Goldman.
p. cm. — (Scarecrow professional intelligence education series ; no. 12)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8108-7190-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-7166-3 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-7095-6 (ebook)
1. Intelligence service—Methodology—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Intelligence
service—United States—Methodology—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Intelligence
service—United States—History—20th century. 4. Cold war. I. Goldman, Jan. II. Title.
JF1525.I6G73 2010
327.1273—dc22 2009043463
(cid:2) ™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Foreword Jan Goldman ix
Author’s Note to Original Edition xvii
BOOK I
Part I: Why Warning Intelligence and What Is It? Some Fundamentals
1 General Nature of the Problem 1
2 Definitions of Terms and Their Usage 9
3 What Warning Is and Is Not 14
4 Warning and Collection 30
5 Intentions versus Capabilities 41
Part II: Organization and Tools of the Trade
6 Problems of Organization and Management 49
7 Indicator Lists 59
8 The Compiling of Indications 66
9 Can Computers Help? 71
Part III: Introduction to the Analytical Method
10 Some Fundamentals of Indications Analysis 77
11 Some Specifics of the Analytical Method 91
12 What Makes a Good Warning Analyst? 102
— v —
vi Contents
Part IV: Specific Problems of Military Analysis
13 Importance of Military Indications 113
14 Order-of-Battle Analysis in Crisis Situations 119
15 Analysis of Mobilization 129
16 Logistics Is the Queen of Battles 143
17 Other Factors in Combat Preparations 155
18 Coping with Extraordinary Military Developments 163
BOOK II
Part V: Specific Problems of Political, Civil and Economic Analysis
19 Importance of Political Factors for Warning 169
20 Basic Political Warning—A Problem of Perception 177
21 Some Specific Factors in Political Warning 188
22 Economic Indicators 199
23 Civil Defense 207
24 Security, Counter-Intelligence and Agent Preparations 217
Part VI: Some Major Analytical Problems
25 Warning from the Totality of Evidence 227
26 The Impact on Warning of Circumstances Leading to War 238
27 Reconstructing the Enemy’s Decision-Making Process 247
28 Assessing the Timing of Attack 266
29 Deception: Can We Cope with It? 280
The following chapters remain classified and pending review. It is hoped these
chapters will be published in a future edition.
BOOK III
Part VII: Problems of Particular Types of Warfare
30 Analysis with Hostilities Already in Progress
31 Problems Peculiar to Guerrilla Warfare and “Wars of Liberation”
32 Hypothetical Problems of the Coming of World War III
Part VIII: Reaching and Reporting the Warning Judgment
33 Vital Importance of the Judgment
34 What Does the Policy Maker Need, and Want, to Know?
Contents vii
35 How to Write Indications or Warning Items
36 Assessing Probabilities
37 Some Major Factors Influencing Judgments and Reporting
38 Most Frequent Errors in the Judgment and Reporting Process
39 Some Tactics of the Opposition
Part IX: Conclusions
40 Some Dos and Don’ts for Analysts and Supervisors

Foreword
The story behind this book began 40 years ago, and it is still incom-
plete. This is an unbelievable chronicle of perseverance and patience,
which is both amazing and true.
The last time the author had seen her manuscript was in 1972. At the time,
she was working as an intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency
in Washington, DC. As required by her agency, and all U.S. government
employees in the intelligence community, she submitted the manuscript
for approval before it could be published. Typically, government officials
review manuscripts to make sure any information released cannot harm
United States national security. Sometimes it is a matter of deleting a word
or sentence throughout a manuscript before it can be publicly released. But
not on this day. Cynthia Grabo’s entire manuscript was stamped SECRET
and confiscated, and just like that it became classified and the property of
the U.S. government. Then, after 27 years, Cynthia decided it was time to
retrieve her manuscript. She made numerous phone calls in an attempt to
find her manuscript, but it was proving to be an almost impossible task. It
was toward the end of her list on that April day in 1999 that she called the
National Defense Intelligence College. The school receptionist transferred
her call to me—because I happened to be the only faculty member still in his
office eating lunch.
Although, we had never met, I admired Cynthia Grabo. I considered her
one of the first intelligence analysts to understand the art and science of stra-
tegic warning, and I used many of her classified reports in my class. These re-
ports taught students how to perform the methodology known as “indications
— ix —