Assessment of Cause and Effect
8.4 RED HAT ANALYSIS
I
ntelligence analysts frequently endeavor to forecast the actions of an adversary or a competitor. In doing so, they need to avoid the common error of mirror imaging, the natural tendency to assume that others think and perceive the world in the same way we do. Red Hat Analysis5 is a useful technique for trying to perceive threats and opportunities as others see them, but this technique alone is of limited value without significant cultural understanding of the other country and people involved.“To see the options faced by foreign leaders as these leaders see them, one must understand their values and assumptions and even their misperceptions and misunderstandings. Without such insight, interpreting foreign leaders’ decisions or forecasting future decisions is often little more than partially informed speculation. Too frequently, behavior of foreign leaders appears ‘irrational’ or ‘not in their own best interest.’ Such conclusions often indicate analysts have projected American values and conceptual frameworks onto the foreign leaders and societies, rather than understanding the logic of the situation as it appears to them.”
—Richards J. Heuer Jr., Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (1999).
When to Use It
The chances of a Red Hat Analysis being accurate are better when one is trying to foresee the
behavior of a specific person who has the authority to make decisions. Authoritarian leaders as well as small, cohesive groups, such as terrorist cells, are obvious candidates for this type of analysis. The chances of making an accurate forecast about an adversary’s or a competitor’s decision is
significantly lower when the decision is constrained by a legislature or influenced by conflicting interest groups. In law enforcement, Red Hat Analysis can be used effectively to simulate the likely behavior of a criminal or a drug lord.
Value Added
There is a great deal of truth to the maxim that “where you stand depends on where you sit.” Red Hat Analysis is a reframing technique6 that requires the analyst to adopt—and make decisions consonant with—the culture of a foreign leader, cohesive group, criminal, or competitor. This conscious effort to imagine the situation as the target perceives it helps the analyst gain a different and usually more accurate perspective on a problem or issue. Reframing the problem typically changes the analyst’s perspective from that of an analyst observing and forecasting an adversary’s behavior to that of a leader who must make a difficult decision within that operational culture. This reframing process often introduces new and different stimuli that might not have been factored into a traditional analysis.
For example, in a Red Hat exercise, participants might ask themselves these questions: “What are my supporters expecting from me?” “Do I really need to make this decision now?” What are the
consequences of making a wrong decision?” “How will the United States respond?”
Potential Pitfalls
Forecasting human decisions or the outcome of a complex organizational process is difficult in the best of circumstances. For example, how successful would you expect to be in forecasting the difficult decisions to be made by the U.S. president or even your local mayor? It is even more
difficult when dealing with a foreign culture and significant gaps in the available information. Mirror imaging is hard to avoid because, in the absence of a thorough understanding of the foreign situation and culture, your own perceptions appear to be the only reasonable way to look at the problem.
A common error in our perceptions of the behavior of other people, organizations, or
governments of all types is likely to be even more common when assessing the behavior of foreign leaders or groups. This is the tendency to attribute the behavior of people, organizations, or
governments to the nature of the actor and to underestimate the influence of situational factors. This error is especially easy to make when one assumes that the actor has malevolent intentions but our understanding of the pressures on that actor is limited. Conversely, people tend to see their own
behavior as conditioned almost entirely by the situation in which they find themselves. We seldom see ourselves as a bad person, but we often see malevolent intent in others. This is known to cognitive psychologists as the fundamental attribution error.7
Analysts should always try to see the situation from the other side’s perspective, but if a
sophisticated grounding in the culture and operating environment of their subject is lacking, they will often be wrong. Recognition of this uncertainty should prompt analysts to consider using wording such as “possibly” and “could happen” rather than “likely” or “probably” when reporting the results of Red Hat Analysis.
The Method
* Gather a group of experts with in-depth knowledge of the target, operating environment, and senior decision maker’s personality, motives, and style of thinking. If at all possible, try to include people who are well grounded in the adversary’s culture, who speak the same language, share the same ethnic background, or have lived extensively in the region.
* Present the experts with a situation or a stimulus and ask the experts to put themselves in the adversary’s or competitor’s shoes and simulate how they would respond. For example, you might ask for a response to this situation: “The United States has just imposed sanctions on your country.
Assume that you are the leader. What would you be thinking? What instructions would you issue?” Or this: “Your group wants to attack the U.S. Embassy to mark a special date. How would your group go about planning the attack? How would you go about simulating how the target would respond?” Or:
“We are about to launch a new product. How will our key competitors respond?”
* Emphasize the need to avoid mirror imaging. The question is not “What would you do if you were in their shoes?” but “How would this person or group in that particular culture and circumstance most likely think, behave, and respond to the stimulus?”
* If trying to foresee the actions of a group or an organization, consider using the Role Playing technique. To gain cultural expertise that might otherwise be lacking, consider using the Delphi
Method (chapter 9) to elicit the expertise of geographically distributed experts.
* In presenting the results, describe the alternatives that were considered and the rationale for selecting the path the person or group is most likely to take. Consider other less conventional means of presenting the results of your analysis, such as the following:
Describing a hypothetical conversation in which the leader and other players discuss the issue in the first person.
Drafting a document (set of instructions, military orders, policy paper, or directives) that the adversary or competitor would likely generate.
Figure 8.4 shows how one might use the Red Hat Technique to catch bank robbers.
Relationship to Other Techniques
Red Hat Analysis differs from a Red Team Analysis in that it can be done or organized by any analyst who needs to understand or forecast foreign behavior and who has, or can gain access to, the required cultural expertise. A Red Team Analysis is a challenge analysis technique, described in chapter 9. It is usually conducted by a permanent organizational unit or a temporary group staffed by individuals who are well qualified to think like or play the role of an adversary. The goal of Red Hat Analysis is to exploit the available resources to develop the best possible analysis of an adversary’s or
competitor’s behavior. The goal of Red Team Analysis is usually to challenge the conventional wisdom or an opposing team.
Figure 8.4 Using Red Hat Analysis to Catch Bank Robbers
Source: Eric Hess, Senior Biometric Product Manager, MorphoTrak, Inc. From an unpublished paper,
“Facial Recognition for Criminal Investigations,” delivered at the International Association of Law Enforcements Intelligence Analysts, Las Vegas, Nev., 2009. Reproduced with permission.
Origins of This Technique
Red Hat, Red Cell, and Red Team analysis became popular during the Cold War when “red”
symbolized the Soviet Union, and it continues to have broad applicability. This description of Red Hat Analysis is a modified version of that in Randy Pherson, Handbook of Analytic Tools and Techniques (Reston, Va.: Pherson Associates, 2008).