January 2003
Editor’s Note:
We live in what Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has called “a world defined by surprise
and uncertainty.” In this timely and thoughtful paper, first circulated in draft at a
workshop sponsored by the DI’s Global Futures Partnership in May 2002, Kent Center
Research Scholar Jack Davis reminds us that warning is an analytic discipline and that
strategic warning, in particular, is a unique analytic challenge that demands continued
reassessment and improvement. Indeed, DI guidance on ‘Best Warning Practices’
stresses the Directorate’s longstanding conviction that “every analyst is a warning
analyst” and that “sound analytic tradecraft is the best assurance of good warning
analysis.”
Jack Davis has been associated with CIA since 1956, first as an employee and since 1990
as an independent contractor. His main field of interest is analytic tradecraft. In this
essay, he calls for a disciplined approach not merely to dealing with uncertainty, but to
ensure that strategic warning is both persuasive and effective in helping decision makers
to prevent or mitigate the negative consequences of tactical surprise. In particular, he
argues for new, collaborative arrangements to make strategic warning a governmental
rather than merely an intelligence responsibility. Our hope is that the recommendations
suggested in this “think piece”--which has benefited from the insightful comments of
colleagues too numerous to mention here individually--will contribute to an ongoing,
constructive dialogue to improve the doctrine and practice of warning tradecraft.
Director
Sherman Kent Center
