As of late I have been reading and enjoying Kent’s Imperative, a blog about “the art & science of intelligence analysis.” One of my favourite “thinking blogs” Zenpundit turned me on to them and I must say these guys produce high quality posts every day.

The title of the blog is a reference to Sherman Kent, “the father of intelligence analysis”. I have mentioned Kent before on Coming Anarchy. Analytical rigor is the holy grail for paper-pushing spooks. Kent’s Imperative discusses many of the difficulties facing analysts in their quest; for example problems with visual tools, working environment and defining the problem. Many of the same problems were tackled in my regional analysis class at RMC. I don’t know who these guys are, but their posts are well-written and very informative. If you are at all interested in the nuts and bolts of how intelligence analysis is done, this blog is highly recommended.

Added to the CA blogroll.

ADDENDUM: The Danger Room on the IC hemorrhaging talent to contractors. KI also has more on the failing HR processes of the IC.


COMMENTS / 4 COMMENTS

[...] to echo Coming Anarchy’s call to read the consistently good work authored by the KI [...]

On Kent’s Imperative | shloky.com added these pithy words on May 11 07 at 8:07 pm

[...] Curzon’s interesting post on the historicity of the heart symbol my blog of recent discovery — Kent’s Imperative — calls for new insights and interpretations on historical [...]

ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » “Trust in the Gods But Verify” added these pithy words on May 14 07 at 4:16 am

I wrote a post on intelligence and covert action today, check it out.

http://a517dogg.blogspot.com/2007/05/congress-not-told-of-covert-action-why.html

a517dogg added these pithy words on 11 May 07 at 3:28 am

Hi YH,

KI is a worthy addition !

I like their analytical methodology posts best. So few ppl take the time – introspection and metacognition require practice but they are the tools to get our thinking off ” automatic pilot”.

zenpundit added these pithy words on 11 May 07 at 4:48 am

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Towards more rigorous analysis

Posted on 11 May 07 by Younghusband. Subscribe to follow comments on this post. 4 comments. Add your thoughts or trackback from your own site.

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