How Do Psychological Mindsets Act as Enemies of Intelligence - Essay Example

? How Do Psychological Mindsets Act as Enemies of Intelligence? Total Number of Words 014 How do psychological mindsets act as enemies of intelligence? Psychological mindsets can act as enemies of intelligence each time the mind is unable to gather or interpret the right information which is supposed to be use in preventing the risks of disaster or the adverse consequences of terrorism or a war in general. Betts argued that the presence of major difficulties in the process of gathering, interpreting, and analyzing of gathered information is not an excuse for intelligence failure. However, each member of the intelligence group is prone to face “innocent enemies” while performing their pre-assigned tasks. It means that there will always be some cases wherein some members of the intelligence group can unconsciously destabilize the goal of being able to come up with a timely and accurate intelligence report (Betts, 2007, p. 264). Whether deliberately or not, the act of destablizing the goal of intelligence can happen each time the members of the intelligence group would manipulate or falsely interpretate the gathered information. Eventually, the use of distorted information can lead to inaccurate conclusions or wrong reactions. It means that each time a member of the intelligence community failed to identify misinterpreted data, there is a higher chance wherein the intelligence group can end up making wrong or inaccurate predictions (Betts, 2007, p. 6). How does psychological mindsets influence surprise or failure? There are cases wherein some members of the intelligence group tend to make use of their own biased personal judgment when making important decisions. Within this context, psychological mindset can pertain to a scenario wherein the human mind would considered some false information as something that is accurate and highly reliable. Therefore, aside from the risk of passing around some out-dated information in different agencies related to intelligence, one can argue that the use of a false mindset can distort the ability of the intelligence in terms of being able to accurately interpret or analyze the gathered information. Often times, the use of a false mindset can trigger the risk of intelligence failure. Each time intelligence failure happens, the members of the intelligence group can be caught up in a surprise because of the falsely predicted outcome. A good example of such case is the September 11 attack. Despite the number of agencies set out to protect the national security of the United States, the intelligence community ended up pretty much surprised by the attack (Betts, 2007, p. 4). Can the intelligence community overcome or optimize analysis despite these obstacles? To prevent the risks of national disaster, the main role of the intelligence community is to collect, correlate, and analyze information that are useful in terms of maintaining the national security (Betts, 2007, p. 1). However, intelligence group often faces obstacles which could prevent them from effectively fulfilling their goals. Among these obstacles include: (1) the outside enemies – which are referring to the main subject of intelligence such as a terrorist group or any groups or countries that are currently in conflict or are totally against the United States and are trying to mislead the intelligence community from performing their tasks in terms of preserving the national security; (2) the innocent enemies – which are referring to individuals who aim to destabilize the goal of being able to come up with a timely and accurate intelligence report; and/or (3) the inherent enemies – which are usually triggered by human intervention that can affect the overall function of the intelligence group (Betts, 2007, p. 9, 12, 264). Despite all these obstacles, it is possible for the intelligence community to overcome or optimize the analysis of the gathered information. However, it will never be easy on the part of the intelligence community to overcome the challenges associated with these obstacles. First of all, the intelligence community is composed of different agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Agency, Departments of State, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, and the Intelligence organizations of army, air force, coast guard, and the marine corps (Betts, 2007, p. 4). As part of the inherent enemies, the gathered information that passes around these agencies is prone to misrepresentation and/or misinterpretation of data. Once the data has been misinterpreted and passed on to another agency, it would be close to impossible for the intelligence community to accurately predict what could happen in the near future. Therefore, the only way for the intelligence community to minimize the risk of national disaster is to create an entirely new strategy that could counteract the adverse socio-economic consequences of a specific event. Another good example of inehernt enemies is when a political party starts to manipulate the outcome of the intelligence report (Betts, 2007, p. 1). Specifically the 2nd phase of the intelligence reform focused on further improvements in the main function of intelligence by allowing the intelligence organizations to impose disciplinary acts on people who are proven guilty of “political and legal wrongdoings” (Betts, 2007, p. 4). However, in reality, it would be very difficult on the part of the intelligence community to balance the personal interests of the political parties and the need to come up with an unbias judgment. Because of the strong desire of some political groups or any third parties to control the decisions made by the intelligence community, there will always be a risks wherein some members of the intelligence group can either consciously or unconsciously be persuaded or manipulated to think in a way that is in accordance to how other people think. Upon analyzing the issues with regards to the enemies of intelligence, it makes a lot of sense that the presence of inherent, innocent and outside enemies could trigger the development of a psychological mindset that will eventually act as one of the most serious enemies of intelligence. It is a common knowledge that the number of groups and countries that are against the U.S. policy is just so many. Therefore, it will forever be a challenge on the part of the intelligence community to avoid developing a false mindet. *** End *** References Betts, R. (2007). Enemies of intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security. 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