Intelligence Analysis and National Security Decisionmaking

In this course we will examine the public record on how US policymakers incorporate intelligence into their national security decisionmaking, including assigning readings from books and news articles. We will discuss challenges of basing national security decisions on incomplete information and the perils of politicizing intelligence to support desired policy outcomes. We will also examine publicly available sources on the intelligence analysis process, including resources such as The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Heuer). Students will engage in assignments to identify a potential policy decision, craft a key intelligence question relevant to the decision, apply publicly available information on how to craft an analytic story, and then use publicly available information on how to brief the intelligence analysis during a mock policy meeting.



Phillip Consentino '00 recently retired from the Central Intelligence Agency after more than 25 years in the Directorate of Analysis. Phillip served as a counterterrorism analyst, managed analysis on extremist radicalization, South America, and China, and as the managing editor of the President's Daily Brief.