Intelligence Analysis as decision-making: A case study of the 2002 Bali Bombings
By Charles Vandepeer | Mon 19 Jan 2009 at 17.15 GMT
Categories: Intelligence, Terrorism, theory | Tags: bali, bombings
On 12 October 2002, members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) detonated two bombs in Bali’s tourist district causing the deaths of 202 people including 88 Australians and 24 British citizens. The bombers employed suicide as a tactic using bombs made up of commercial chemicals and TNT assembled on the island. Following the bombings, the Australian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence conducted an inquiry to examine what Australian Government agencies knew about threats to Australian citizens in South East Asia in the lead up to the bombings.
This paper explores decision-making in intelligence analysis based on an examination of the Australian Senate Inquiry into the 2002 Bali bombings. The purpose is to draw lessons for decision-making and identify where current intelligence analysis approaches need to consider alternative concepts for decision-making about threats. The Inquiry provides a publicly accessible case study with which to critically examine how intelligence analysts identified, analysed and assessed terrorist threats in South East Asia prior to the 2002 Bali bombings. The testimony and submissions to the Inquiry makes it apparent that intelligence analysts make decisions on threat under conditions of uncertainty. Additionally, awareness of the existence of an organisation like JI does not provide analysts with everything they need to make sound decisions. Instead, intelligence analysts need concepts for decision-making about threats in the absence of specific information or knowledge of threats. This paper considers two potential approaches for judgements about threat that emerged during the Inquiry. The first approach is identifying factors indicating a potential for the unidentified existence or emergence of threats. The second approach is clearly defining national interests to specifically focus analytical efforts whilst drawing on information that is available.
The full version of the paper is available here.
See what's being said in the Sandbox on this post - (2) Posts Comments (3)
I very much enjoyed listening to this talk. I felt it nicely reminded us that we have to continue to think ‘horizontally’ (i.e. functionally/thematically) as well as ‘vertically’ (i.e. regionally/geographically) in intelligence analysis endeavours. Also underlines, as the UK ISC Report into the Bali Bombings findings suggested that this was an episode of ‘knowledge’ failure rather than so much a ‘failure’ of ‘intelligence’ per se…
Adam,
Thank you for coming and the comments. I thought that the failure of knowledge was a point well-made and provides a broader perspective with which to consider these types of attacks. I hope you are planning to be involved in our June videoconference.
Charles
I agree the point you make, and am so grateful that you didn’t advise “outside the box” thinking….. If you would like to continue examining the Bali report, making use of Charles Vandepeer’s paper as a reference, perhaps in the next months you might build up sufficient debate for us to set up an item (and a speaker?) for the June videoconf…
I'm looking forward to the talk tonight!