Introduction
The late Richards Heuer, an authority on intelligence analysis theory, whose work remains widely influential today, stated that his understanding of intelligence analysis is based on a review of “cognitive psychology literature” concerning “how people process information to make judgments on incomplete and ambiguous information.” While Heuer admitted that this approach “may not be wholly satisfactory to either psychologists or intelligence analysts,” I think that Heuer fundamentally misunderstood the essence of intelligence analysis by reducing it to a psychological enterprise. Better intelligence analysis cannot be derived simply from understanding “mental processes” and “mistakes in thinking” if analysis is about producing knowledge.
To read the case for abductive reasoning, download PDF. 14 pages.