page_title: Cognitive traps for intelligence analysis
section_title: The "other side" makes different technological assumptions
hierarchical_section_title: Cognitive traps for intelligence analysis / The "other side" is different / The "other side" makes different technological assumptions
caption_attribution_description: The USS Cole after al-Qaeda suicide attack
context_page_description: Intelligence analysis is plagued by many of the cognitive traps also encountered in other disciplines. The first systematic study of the specific pitfalls lying between an intelligence analyst and clear thinking was carried out by Dick Heuer. According to Heuer, these "cognitive traps for intelligence analysis" may be rooted either in the analyst's organizational culture or his or her own personality.
context_section_description: An opponent's cultural framework affects its approach to technology. That complicates the task of one's own analysts in assessing the opponent's resources, how they may be used and defining intelligence targets accordingly. Mirror-imaging, committing to a set of common assumptions rather than challenging those assumptions, has figured in numerous intelligence failures.
  In the Pacific Theater of World War II, the Japanese seemed to believe that their language was so complex that even if their cryptosystems such as Type B Cipher Machine (Code Purple) were broken, outsiders would not really understand the content. That was not strictly true, but it was sufficiently that there were cases that even the intended recipients did not clearly understand the writer's intent.
  On the other side, the US Navy assumed that ships anchored in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor were safe from torpedo attack even though in 1940, at the Battle of Taranto, the British had made successful shallow-water torpedo attacks against Italian warships in harbor.
  Even if intelligence services had credited the September 11, 2001 attacks conspirators with the organizational capacity necessary to hijack four airliners simultaneously, no one would have suspected that the hijackers' weapon of choice would be the box cutter.
  Likewise, the US Navy underestimated the danger of suicide boats in harbor and set rules of engagement that allowed an unidentified boat to sail into the USS Cole without being warned off or fired on. A Burke-class destroyer is one of the most powerful{cn|date=May 2020}} warships ever built, but US security policies did not protect the docked USS Cole.
caption: Results of not considering unusual technologies: the USS Cole
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