Words of estimative probability
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Words of estimative probability (WEP or WEPs) are terms used by
intelligence analysts Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of deliberate ...
in the production of analytic reports to convey the likelihood of a future event occurring. A well-chosen WEP gives a decision maker a clear and unambiguous estimate upon which to base a decision. Ineffective WEPs are vague or misleading about the likelihood of an event. An ineffective WEP places the decision maker in the role of the analyst, increasing the likelihood of poor or snap decision making. Some
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
and policy failures appear to be related to the imprecise use of estimative words.


History


Intelligence

In 1964
Sherman Kent Sherman Kent (December 6, 1903 – March 11, 1986), was a Yale University history professor who, during World War II and through 17 years of Cold War-era service in the Central Intelligence Agency, pioneered many of the methods of intelligence ...
, one of the first contributors to a formal discipline of intelligence analysis addressed the problem of misleading expressions of odds in
National Intelligence Estimate National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on intelligence related to a particular national security issue. NIEs are pr ...
s (NIE). In ''Words of Estimative Probability,'' Kent distinguished between ‘poets’ (those preferring wordy probabilistic statements) from ‘mathematicians’ (those preferring quantitative odds). To bridge the gap between them and decision makers, Kent developed a paradigm relating estimative terms to odds. His goal was to "... set forth the community's findings in such a way as to make clear to the reader what is certain knowledge and what is reasoned judgment, and within this large realm of judgment what varying degrees of certitude lie behind each key judgment." Kent’s initiative was not adopted although the idea was well received and remains compelling today.


Policy and intelligence failures related to WEPs

An example of the damage that missing or vague WEPs can do is to be found in the
President's Daily Brief The President's Daily Brief (PDB), sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced and given each morning to the president of the United States; it is also distributed ...
(PDB), entitled ''Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US''. The President’s Daily Brief is arguably the pinnacle of concise, relevant, actionable analytic writing in the
U.S. Intelligence Community The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
(IC). The PDB is intended to keep the President informed on a wide range of issues, the best analysts write it and senior leaders review it. This, the ''“August 6 PDB,” ''is at the center of much controversy for the USIC. The August 6 PDB began with not only a vague warning in the title, but also continued with vague warnings:
*“Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US” (CIA, 2001, para. 1); *“Bin Ladin implied...that his followers would ‘bring the fighting to America’” (CIA, 2001, para. 1); *Bin Ladin’s “attacks against...US embassies...in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks” (CIA, 2001, para. 6); *“FBI information...indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks” (CIA, 2001, para. 10); *“a call to
he US He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
Embassy in the UAE in May
aid In international relations, aid (also known as international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid, economic aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another. Ai ...
that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives” (CIA, 2001, para. 11).
The PDB described Bin Laden’s previous activities. It did not present the President with a critically important clear estimate of Bin Laden’s likely activities in the coming months:
Bush had specifically asked for an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas, sources said. But one source said the White House was disappointed because the analysis lacked focus and did not present fresh intelligence.
The lack of appropriate WEPs would lead to confusion about the likelihood of an attack and to guessing about the period in which it was likely to occur.
The language used in the memo lacks words of estimative probability that reduce uncertainty, thus preventing the President and his decisionmakers from implementing measures directed at stopping al Qaeda’s actions
The consequences of the 9/11 and the Iraq/WMD intelligence failures, the
9/11 Commission The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks", includin ...
and the
Iraq Intelligence Commission The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction is a panel created by Executive Order 13328, signed by U.S. President George W. Bush in February 2004. The impetus for the Commission lay ...
, were the movers of structural reform of the Intelligence Community. Although these reforms intended to improve the functioning of the IC, particularly concerning inter-agency cooperation and information sharing, ''they paid scant attention to improving the quality of analyses and intelligence writing''. There is a pervasive feeling that this improvement is needed. However, there seems to be resistance in the IC, due in part to habit and in part to the reality of politics and the understandable preference for the ‘plausible deniability’ that less precise jargon offers.


Medicine

Physicians and clinical scientists face a very similar problem in obtaining
informed consent Informed consent is a principle in medical ethics and medical law, that a patient must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about their medical care. Pertinent information may include risks and benefits of treatme ...
for patients, where words such as "rare" or "infrequent" do have actual probabilities defined. Numerical information of this type, however, is rarely presented to patients. A representative guide for obtaining
informed consent Informed consent is a principle in medical ethics and medical law, that a patient must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about their medical care. Pertinent information may include risks and benefits of treatme ...
from people participating in social science or behavioural research, or of the potential risks of a medical procedure, suggests giving typical numerical chances of an adverse event when words of estimative probability first are used. The guideline continues,
For studies involving investigational agents, or experimental doses or combinations of drugs and/or treatments, subjects should be warned that there may be as yet unknown risks associated with the drug/treatment but that they will be advised if any new information becomes available that may affect their desire to participate in the study.


Reforms to methodology

Estimative statements can be improved in four ways; either by: # Adding quantitative source reliability and confidence measures to estimative statements # Complementing estimative statements with stochastic analyses # Standardizing WEPs # Standardizing WEPs ''and'' complementing estimative statements with ratings of source reliability and
analytic confidence ''Analytic confidence'' is a rating employed by intelligence analysts to convey doubt to decision makers about a statement of estimative probability. The need for analytic confidence ratings arise from analysts' imperfect knowledge of a concept ...


Quantification of source reliability and analytic confidence

Michael Schrage, an advisor to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Security Studies Program, wrote in a Washington Post editorial that requiring analysts to produce and include quantitative measures of source reliability and confidence along with their findings would reduce ambiguity. Yet Schrage also reported that former Interim
Director of Central Intelligence The director of central intelligence (DCI) was the head of the American Central Intelligence Agency from 1946 to 2005, acting as the principal intelligence advisor to the president of the United States and the United States National Security C ...
John E. McLaughlin John Edward McLaughlin (born June 15, 1942) is an American intelligence official who served as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and briefly as acting Director of Central Intelligence. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow and Distinguish ...
’s attempted to enact this at the CIA, but, like Kent’s initiative, it was not adopted.
Former acting CIA director and longtime analyst John McLaughlin tried to promote greater internal efforts at assigning probabilities to intelligence assessments during the 1990s, but they never took. Intelligence analysts "would rather use words than numbers to describe how confident we are in our analysis," a senior CIA officer who's served for more than 20 years told me. Moreover, "most consumers of intelligence aren't particularly sophisticated when it comes to probabilistic analysis. They like words and pictures, too. My experience is that
hey Hey or Hey! may refer to: Music * Hey (band), a Polish rock band Albums * ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014 * ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980 * ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...
prefer briefings that don't center on numerical calculation. That's not to say we can't do it, but there's not that much demand for it."


Stochastic analysis

Since combining quantitative, probabilistic information with estimates is successful in business forecasting, marketing, medicine, and epidemiology it should be implemented by the intelligence community as well. These fields have used
probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...
and
Bayesian analysis Bayesian inference is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. Bayesian inference is an important technique in statistics, and ...
as forecasting tools. Using probability theory and other stochastic methods are appealing because they rely on rationality and mathematical rigor, are less subject to analytical bias, and such findings appear to be unambiguous. As an opposing argument, it is indisputable that few analysts or intelligence consumers have the stomach for numerical calculation. Additionally,
Bruce Blair Bruce Robert Blair (born 27 December 1957) is a New Zealand former cricketer who played first-class cricket for Otago and Northern Districts between 1977 and 1990.Center for Defense Information The Center for Defense Information (CDI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C. It specialized in analyzing and advising on military matters. History The Center for Defense Information was founded in 1971 by an indepen ...
, a proponent of quantitative methods for the IC, points out; intelligence information from secret sources is often murky, and the application of advanced math is not sufficient to make it more reliable. However, he sees a place for stochastic analyses over a very long period, it “points to a fairly slow learning curve that also challenges the wisdom of making preemption a cornerstone of U.S. security strategy.” The reservations stated are significant: Mathematical and statistical analyses require a lot of work without rapid and necessarily commensurate gains in accuracy, speed or comprehension.


Standardization

UK intelligence assessments use the PHIA "Probability Yardstick" fo
communicating probability


The National Intelligence Council’s recommendations described the use of a WEP paradigm (Table 2) in combination with an assessment of confidence levels (“High, moderate, low”) based on the scope and quality supporting information: However, the NIC’s discussion of this paradigm seems to undercut its chances of being effective:
Intelligence judgments about likelihood are intended to reflect the Community’s sense of the probability of a development or event. ..We do not intend the term “unlikely” to imply an event will not happen. We use “probably” and “likely” to indicate there is a greater than even chance. We use words such as “we cannot dismiss,” “we cannot rule out,” and “we cannot discount” to reflect an unlikely—or even remote—event whose consequences are such it warrants mentioning. Words such as “may be” and “suggest” are used to reflect situations in which we are unable to assess the likelihood generally because relevant information is nonexistent, sketchy, or fragmented.

This explanation is ‘a half-step forward, half-step backward.’ An agency-sponsored WEP paradigm ''is'' progress. However—an estimative statement that uses “maybe” , “suggest” , or other
weasel word A weasel word, or anonymous authority, is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. Examples ...
s is vague and symptomatic of the problem at hand—not its solution. In 1964 Kent railed against the “restort to expressions of avoidance...which convey a definite meaning but at the same time either absolves us completely of the responsibility or makes the estimate enough removed ... as not to implicate ourselves.”


Mercyhurst experience with standardized WEPs

The
Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies The Ridge College of Intelligence Studies and Applied Sciences at Mercyhurst University (RIAP), located on the campus of Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, offers undergraduate and graduate studies programs in intelligence analysis. The p ...
conducted several experiments investigating the IC’s interpretation of WEPs (results varied) their use of WEPs in NIEs over the past three decades] to determine the significant changes in the ways the NIC has been articulating its intelligence judgments over time. See
Analysis of Competing Hypotheses The analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH) is a methodology for evaluating multiple competing hypotheses for observed data. It was developed by Richards (Dick) J. Heuer, Jr., a 45-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, in the 1970s for ...
Mercyhurst’s WEP paradigm reduces Kent’s schema to its least ambiguous words:
Analytic Confidence and Source Reliability are expressed on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 high.


IPCC

The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
has recommendedIPCC (2005), Guidance Notes for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Addressing Uncertainties, July 2005
PDF version.
/ref> some language for communicating likelihood.


Weasel words

Table 4 contains a non-exhaustive list of common terms that are especially vague, known pejoratively as
Weasel Words A weasel word, or anonymous authority, is an slang, informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. Exa ...
. Their use in estimative statements is almost certain to confuse; they should be avoided at all costs.


References


Further reading

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