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94-841: The National Assessments Bureau ( NAB ), previously known as the External Assessments Bureau ( EAB ), is a New Zealand intelligence analysis agency within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC). The NAB along with the Government Communications Security Bureau and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service is one of the three core members of New Zealand's intelligence community . It provides assessments to

188-435: A standard code for the presumed reliability of the source and of the information. The U.S. Intelligence Community uses some formal definition of the kinds of information. Collation describes the process of organizing raw data, interpolating known data, evaluating the value of data, putting in working hypotheses. The simplest approaches often are an excellent start. With due regard for protecting documents and information,

282-464: A (possibly asymmetric) zero-sum game by adding a dummy player (often called "the board") whose losses compensate the players' net winnings. Simultaneous games are games where both players move simultaneously, or instead the later players are unaware of the earlier players' actions (making them effectively simultaneous). Sequential games (or dynamic games) are games where players do not make decisions simultaneously, and player's earlier actions affect

376-537: A Zen-like state in which they allow the data to "speak" to them. Others may meditate, or even seek insight in dreams, hoping for an insight such as that given to August Kekulé in a daydream that resolved one of the fundamental structural problems of organic chemistry. Krizan took criteria from. Regardless of its form or setting, an effective collation method will have the following attributes: Semantic maps are related to mind maps, but are more amenable to computer discovery of relationships. The more interactive that

470-781: A basis for decision-making in other branches of government. Unlike the SIS and GCSB, the NAB is not subject to the oversight of the Intelligence and Security Committee or the jurisdiction of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security . The NAB is part of the Security and Intelligence Group within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet . The current Director of the National Assessments Bureau

564-558: A central element of this plan. Our tradecraft enables analysts to provide "value-added" to consumers of intelligence by ensuring: Analytic tradecraft skills also serve as " force multipliers ", helping us provide top-quality analysis: On January 2, 2015, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 203, which "establishe[d] Intelligence Community (IC) Analytic Standards that govern

658-439: A collection of characteristics relevant to the player such as their preferences and details about them. There must be a state for every set of features that some player believes may exist. For example, where Player 1 is unsure whether Player 2 would rather date her or get away from her, while Player 2 understands Player 1's preferences as before. To be specific, supposing that Player 1 believes that Player 2 wants to date her under

752-420: A college team together, or are simply aware that the team they oppose today might be the team to which they might be traded tomorrow. If a technique is personal, rather than a proprietary idea of a coach, one professional might be quite willing to show a nominal opponent how he does some maneuver. Watanabe observed If you are examining a problem and there is no intelligence available, or the available intelligence

846-412: A discounted differential game over an infinite time interval. Evolutionary game theory studies players who adjust their strategies over time according to rules that are not necessarily rational or farsighted. In general, the evolution of strategies over time according to such rules is modeled as a Markov chain with a state variable such as the current strategy profile or how the game has been played in

940-495: A game many times within their lifetime and, consciously or unconsciously, occasionally adjust their strategies. Individual decision problems with stochastic outcomes are sometimes considered "one-player games". They may be modeled using similar tools within the related disciplines of decision theory , operations research , and areas of artificial intelligence , particularly AI planning (with uncertainty) and multi-agent system . Although these fields may have different motivators,

1034-403: A great deal can be done with pieces of paper, a whiteboard, a table, and perhaps a corkboard. Maps often are vital adjuncts, maps that can be written upon. There are automated equivalents of all of these functions, and each analyst will have a personal balance between manual and machine-assisted methods. Unquestionably, when quantitative methods such as modeling and simulation are appropriate,

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1128-426: A high-level approach as it describes only the structure and payoffs of coalitions, whereas non-cooperative game theory also looks at how strategic interaction will affect the distribution of payoffs. As non-cooperative game theory is more general, cooperative games can be analyzed through the approach of non-cooperative game theory (the converse does not hold) provided that sufficient assumptions are made to encompass all

1222-563: A letter attributed to Charles Waldegrave, an active Jacobite and uncle to British diplomat James Waldegrave , analyzed a game called " le her ". Waldegrave provided a minimax mixed strategy solution to a two-person version of the card game, and the problem is now known as the Waldegrave problem . In 1838, Antoine Augustin Cournot provided a model of competition in oligopolies . Though he did not refer to it as such, he presented

1316-515: A perspective on the Soviet strategy, which was not available from photography. As the White House requested more CIA and Navy support for photography, it simultaneously searched for HUMINT and SIGINT from Cuba, as well as diplomatic HUMINT. Until John F. Kennedy was briefed by excellent briefers, such as Dino Brugioni , he probably did not understand the capabilities of IMINT. Frequently,

1410-416: A player benefits only at the equal expense of others). Poker exemplifies a zero-sum game (ignoring the possibility of the house's cut), because one wins exactly the amount one's opponents lose. Other zero-sum games include matching pennies and most classical board games including Go and chess . Many games studied by game theorists (including the famed prisoner's dilemma) are non-zero-sum games, because

1504-578: A policy official he never read ... analytic papers. Why? "Because they were nonadhesive." As Blackwill explained, they were written by people who did not know what he was trying to do and, so, could not help him get it done: "When I was working at State on European affairs, for example, on certain issues I was the Secretary of State. DI analysts did not know that—that I was one of a handful of key decision makers on some very important matters." More charitably, he now characterizes his early periods of service at

1598-422: A potential problem situation at an early and unclear stage is at a disadvantage as compared with others, such as policymakers, whose first exposure may come at a later stage when more and better information is available." The receipt of information in small increments over time also facilitates assimilation of this information into the analyst's existing views. One item of information may not be sufficient to prompt

1692-466: A probability of 1/2 and get away from her under a probability of 1/2 (this evaluation comes from Player 1's experience probably: she faces players who want to date her half of the time in such a case and players who want to avoid her half of the time). Due to the probability involved, the analysis of this situation requires to understand the player's preference for the draw, even though people are only interested in pure strategic equilibrium. Games in which

1786-438: A psychological context. Johnston suggests the three major components of that context are: Devlin observes that while traditional logical work does not consider socialization, work on extending logic into the real world of intelligence requires it. "The first thing to note, and this is crucial, is that the process by which an agent attaches meaning to a symbol always takes place in a context, indeed generally several contexts, and

1880-512: A range of public and confidential sources including the Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS), Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), New Zealand diplomatic posts , academic discourse, the media, and other publicly available sources . The NAB itself does not undertake intelligence-gathering operations. Its role is to interpret and process information from other sources, producing reports which may be used as

1974-722: A solution that is the Nash equilibrium of the game in his Recherches sur les principes mathématiques de la théorie des richesses ( Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth ). In 1883, Joseph Bertrand critiqued Cournot's model as unrealistic, providing an alternative model of price competition which would later be formalized by Francis Ysidro Edgeworth . In 1913, Ernst Zermelo published Über eine Anwendung der Mengenlehre auf die Theorie des Schachspiels ( On an Application of Set Theory to

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2068-416: A standard method in game theory and mathematical economics . Von Neumann's work in game theory culminated in his 1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior , co-authored with Oskar Morgenstern . The second edition of this book provided an axiomatic theory of utility , which reincarnated Daniel Bernoulli's old theory of utility (of money) as an independent discipline. This foundational work contains

2162-427: A wider variety of games than the criterion proposed by von Neumann and Morgenstern. Nash proved that every finite n-player, non-zero-sum (not just two-player zero-sum) non-cooperative game has what is now known as a Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies. Game theory experienced a flurry of activity in the 1950s, during which the concepts of the core , the extensive form game , fictitious play , repeated games , and

2256-677: Is Hex . A related field of study, drawing from computational complexity theory , is game complexity , which is concerned with estimating the computational difficulty of finding optimal strategies. Research in artificial intelligence has addressed both perfect and imperfect information games that have very complex combinatorial structures (like chess, go, or backgammon) for which no provable optimal strategies have been found. The practical solutions involve computational heuristics, like alpha–beta pruning or use of artificial neural networks trained by reinforcement learning , which make games more tractable in computing practice. Much of game theory

2350-547: Is non-cooperative if players cannot form alliances or if all agreements need to be self-enforcing (e.g. through credible threats ). Cooperative games are often analyzed through the framework of cooperative game theory , which focuses on predicting which coalitions will form, the joint actions that groups take, and the resulting collective payoffs. It is different from non-cooperative game theory which focuses on predicting individual players' actions and payoffs by analyzing Nash equilibria . Cooperative game theory provides

2444-687: Is Cecile Hillyer. The NAB has thirty staff, with most being assessment analysts specializing on regional or topical issues. The Director of the NAB also chairs the National Intelligence Coordination Committee, which coordinates the efforts of the New Zealand intelligence community . Together with the NZSIS and GCSB, the NAB forms one of the three core members of New Zealand's intelligence community . The National Assessments Bureau's origins can be traced back to

2538-446: Is also used to refer to a practical approach developed by Nigel Howard, whereby a situation is framed as a strategic game in which stakeholders try to realize their objectives by means of the options available to them. Subsequent developments have led to the formulation of confrontation analysis . Mean field game theory is the study of strategic decision making in very large populations of small interacting agents. This class of problems

2632-550: Is always dependent on those contexts. An analytic study of the way that people interpret symbols comes down to an investigation of the mechanism captured by the diagram: [agent] + [symbol] + [context] +. . . + [context] → [interpretation] Things that are true about contexts include: The discipline of critical discourse analysis will help organize the context. Michael Crichton , in giving examples of physicians communicating with other physicians, points out that laymen have trouble following such discourses not only because there

2726-575: Is approved, policymakers are alerted and a crisis team is often convened, with the mission of providing time-sensitive intelligence on the situation to all relevant customers. Experienced analysts recommend seeing oneself as a specialist on a team, with 5–10 key players. Learn something about each of them, both in terms of how they express themselves, and how you can reinforce their strengths and support their weaknesses. The analyst must constantly ask himself, "what do they want/need to know? How do they prefer to have it presented? Are they still trying to select

2820-498: Is best understood. While a good analyst must be able to consider, thoughtfully, alternative viewpoints, an analyst must be willing to stand by his or her position. This is especially important in specialized areas, when the analyst may be the only one that reads every field report, every technical observation on a subject. "Believe in your own professional judgments. Always be willing to listen to alternative conclusions or other points of view, but stand your ground if you really believe

2914-475: Is captured in the different representations discussed above. Often, normal form is used to represent simultaneous games, while extensive form is used to represent sequential ones. The transformation of extensive to normal form is one way, meaning that multiple extensive form games correspond to the same normal form. Consequently, notions of equilibrium for simultaneous games are insufficient for reasoning about sequential games; see subgame perfection . In short,

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3008-413: Is concerned with finite, discrete games that have a finite number of players, moves, events, outcomes, etc. Many concepts can be extended, however. Continuous games allow players to choose a strategy from a continuous strategy set. For instance, Cournot competition is typically modeled with players' strategies being any non-negative quantities, including fractional quantities. Differential games such as

3102-481: Is considered to be partially observable stochastic game (POSG), but few realistic problems are computationally feasible in POSG representation. These are games the play of which is the development of the rules for another game, the target or subject game. Metagames seek to maximize the utility value of the rule set developed. The theory of metagames is related to mechanism design theory. The term metagame analysis

3196-605: Is insufficient, be aggressive in pursuing collection and in energizing collectors. ... As an analyst, you have the advantage of knowing both what the consumer needs to know (sometimes better than the consumer knows himself) and which collectors can obtain the needed intelligence. Aggressively pursue collection of information you need. In the Intelligence Community, we have the unique ability to bring substantial collection resources to bear in order to collect information on important issues. An analyst needs to understand

3290-503: Is now an umbrella term for the science of rational decision making in humans, animals, and computers. Modern game theory began with the idea of mixed-strategy equilibria in two-person zero-sum games and its proof by John von Neumann . Von Neumann's original proof used the Brouwer fixed-point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets , which became a standard method in game theory and mathematical economics . His paper

3384-400: Is specialized vocabulary in use, but the discourse takes place in an extremely high context. One physician may ask a question about some diagnostic test, and the other will respond with a result from an apparently unrelated test. The shared context was that the first test looked for evidence of a specific disease, while the answer cited a test result that ruled out the disease. The disease itself

3478-400: Is used extensively in economics , logic , systems science and computer science . Initially, game theory addressed two-person zero-sum games , in which a participant's gains or losses are exactly balanced by the losses and gains of the other participant. In the 1950s, it was extended to the study of non zero-sum games, and was eventually applied to a wide range of behavioral relations . It

3572-450: The payoffs for each outcome. (Eric Rasmusen refers to these four "essential elements" by the acronym "PAPI".) A game theorist typically uses these elements, along with a solution concept of their choosing, to deduce a set of equilibrium strategies for each player such that, when these strategies are employed, no player can profit by unilaterally deviating from their strategy. These equilibrium strategies determine an equilibrium to

3666-703: The Joint Military Intelligence College , University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (Security and Intelligence Studies major), and Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies . The goal of the Analytic Tradecraft Notes of the Central Intelligence Agency 's Directorate of Intelligence (DI) include the Pursuit of expertise in analytic tradecraft is

3760-490: The Prime Minister , other Ministers , senior officials and New Zealand 's diplomatic missions abroad, on events and developments that bear on New Zealand 's interests, especially in regard to matters of national security . The NAB is responsible for collecting and analysing information on external matters which may affect New Zealand, including foreign states, individuals, and events. It draws its information from

3854-748: The Shapley value were developed. The 1950s also saw the first applications of game theory to philosophy and political science . The first mathematical discussion of the prisoner's dilemma appeared, and an experiment was undertaken by mathematicians Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher , as part of the RAND Corporation 's investigations into game theory. RAND pursued the studies because of possible applications to global nuclear strategy . In 1965, Reinhard Selten introduced his solution concept of subgame perfect equilibria , which further refined

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3948-404: The outcome has net results greater or less than zero. Informally, in non-zero-sum games, a gain by one player does not necessarily correspond with a loss by another. Furthermore, constant-sum games correspond to activities like theft and gambling, but not to the fundamental economic situation in which there are potential gains from trade . It is possible to transform any constant-sum game into

4042-542: The 1970s, although similar developments go back at least as far as the 1930s. Game theory has been widely recognized as an important tool in many fields. John Maynard Smith was awarded the Crafoord Prize for his application of evolutionary game theory in 1999, and fifteen game theorists have won the Nobel Prize in economics as of 2020, including most recently Paul Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson . In 1713,

4136-508: The Allies launched an air offensive against a target system that they really did not understand: the V-1 cruise missile. Their rationale to attack ("if the enemy apparently valued it, then it must be worth attacking") may have been rational when there were large numbers of aircraft and pilots, but it might not be applicable to current situations, at least not until analysts rule out the possibility of

4230-513: The CIA, of his office, and of himself. He stood his ground, however; the Agency supported him, and eventually he was proven right. He did not make a lot of friends, but he did his job. Intelligence analysts are expected to give policymakers' opinions both support and reality checks. The most effective products have several common features: Reality checking is not to be underestimated. In World War II,

4324-486: The German word for counterintelligence art was Funkspiel , or radio game—not a game in the sense of playing fields, but something that draws from game theory and seeks to confuse one's opponents. A set of problem-solving talents are essential for analysts. Since the other side may be hiding their intention, the analyst must be tolerant of ambiguity, of false leads, and of partial information far more fragmentary than faces

4418-871: The Joint Intelligence Office (JIO), which was established in 1949. In 1953, it was renamed the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB). In 1975, the JIB was renamed the External Intelligence Bureau (EIB). In 1988, the EIB was renamed the External Assessments Bureau (EAB). By 1990, the EAB had been incorporated into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC). In March 2010 the EAB was renamed

4512-755: The NSC Staff and in State Department bureaus as ones of "mutual ignorance" "DI analysts did not have the foggiest notion of what I did; and I did not have a clue as to what they could or should do." Blackwill explained how he used his time efficiently, which rarely involved reading general CIA reports. "I read a lot. Much of it was press. You have to know how issues are coming across politically to get your job done. Also, cables from overseas for preparing agendas for meetings and sending and receiving messages from my counterparts in foreign governments. Countless versions of policy drafts from those competing for

4606-576: The Nash equilibrium. Later he would introduce trembling hand perfection as well. In 1994 Nash, Selten and Harsanyi became Economics Nobel Laureates for their contributions to economic game theory. In the 1970s, game theory was extensively applied in biology , largely as a result of the work of John Maynard Smith and his evolutionarily stable strategy . In addition, the concepts of correlated equilibrium , trembling hand perfection and common knowledge were introduced and analyzed. In 1994, John Nash

4700-423: The National Assessments Bureau (NAB) and given a domestic security focus as well. Intelligence analysis Intelligence analysis is a way of reducing the ambiguity of highly ambiguous situations. Many analysts prefer the middle-of-the-road explanation, rejecting high or low probability explanations. Analysts may use their own standard of proportionality as to the risk acceptance of the opponent, rejecting that

4794-497: The President's blessing. And dozens of phone calls. Many are a waste of time but have to be answered, again, for policy and political reasons. "One more minute, please, on what I did not find useful. This is important. My job description called for me to help prepare the President for making policy decisions, including at meetings with foreign counterparts and other officials...Do you think that after I have spent long weeks shaping

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4888-495: The Theory of the Game of Chess ), which proved that the optimal chess strategy is strictly determined . The work of John von Neumann established game theory as its own independent field in the early-to-mid 20th century, with von Neumann publishing his paper On the Theory of Games of Strategy in 1928. Von Neumann's original proof used Brouwer's fixed-point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets , which became

4982-436: The actions of the other players. However, there are many situations in game theory where participants do not fully understand the characteristics of their opponents. Negotiators may be unaware of their opponent's valuation of the object of negotiation, companies may be unaware of their opponent's cost functions, combatants may be unaware of their opponent's strengths, and jurors may be unaware of their colleague's interpretation of

5076-404: The agenda, I have to be told a day or two before the German foreign minister visits Washington why he is coming?" Weasel-wording is problematic in intelligence analysis; still, some things truly are uncertain. Arguably, when uncertainties are given with probabilities or at least some quantification of likelihood, they become less a case of weasel wording and more a case of reflecting reality as it

5170-439: The analyst to change a previous view. The cumulative message inherent in many pieces of information may be significant but is attenuated when this information is not examined as a whole. The Intelligence Community's review of its performance before the 1973 Yom Kippur War noted [in the only declassified paragraph]. The problem of incremental analysis—especially as it applies to the current intelligence process—was also at work in

5264-651: The analyst will want computer assistance, and possibly consultation from experts in methodology. When combining maps and imagery, especially different kinds of imagery, a geographic information system is usually needed to normalize coordinate systems, scale and magnification , and the ability to suppress certain details and add others. Outlining, possibly in a word processing program, or using visualization tools such as mind maps can give structure, as can file folders and index cards. Data bases, with statistical techniques such as correlation , factor analysis , and time series analysis can give insight. Some analysts speak of

5358-476: The best course of action, or have they committed and now need to know the obstacles and vulnerabilities on their chosen path?" Others on the team may know, how to handle the likely challenges. The analyst's contribution is in recognizing the unlikely, or providing connections that are not obvious. Consumers must get information in a timely manner, not after they commit to a decision they might not have made having rougher information available sooner. Sometimes, when

5452-433: The closed-loop strategies are found using Bellman's Dynamic Programming method. A particular case of differential games are the games with a random time horizon . In such games, the terminal time is a random variable with a given probability distribution function. Therefore, the players maximize the mathematical expectation of the cost function. It was shown that the modified optimization problem can be reformulated as

5546-568: The concept of incentive compatibility . In 2012, Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design". In 2014, the Nobel went to game theorist Jean Tirole . A game is cooperative if the players are able to form binding commitments externally enforced (e.g. through contract law ). A game

5640-463: The continuous pursuit and evasion game are continuous games where the evolution of the players' state variables is governed by differential equations . The problem of finding an optimal strategy in a differential game is closely related to the optimal control theory. In particular, there are two types of strategies: the open-loop strategies are found using the Pontryagin maximum principle while

5734-425: The current, estimative, operational, research, science and technology, or warning context. Serendipity plays a role here, because the collected and analyzed information may meet any or all of these criteria. A good example is warning intelligence. Military and political analysts are always watching for predefined indication that an emergency, such as outbreak of war, or a political coup, is imminent. When an indicator

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5828-425: The differences between sequential and simultaneous games are as follows: An important subset of sequential games consists of games of perfect information. A game with perfect information means that all players, at every move in the game, know the previous history of the game and the moves previously made by all other players. An imperfect information game is played when the players do not know all moves already made by

5922-1000: The difficulty of finding an optimal strategy stems from the multiplicity of possible moves are called combinatorial games. Examples include chess and Go . Games that involve imperfect information may also have a strong combinatorial character, for instance backgammon . There is no unified theory addressing combinatorial elements in games. There are, however, mathematical tools that can solve some particular problems and answer some general questions. Games of perfect information have been studied in combinatorial game theory , which has developed novel representations, e.g. surreal numbers , as well as combinatorial and algebraic (and sometimes non-constructive ) proof methods to solve games of certain types, including "loopy" games that may result in infinitely long sequences of moves. These methods address games with higher combinatorial complexity than those usually considered in traditional (or "economic") game theory. A typical game that has been solved this way

6016-534: The equilibrium school, introducing equilibrium coarsening and correlated equilibria, and developing an extensive formal analysis of the assumption of common knowledge and of its consequences. In 2007, Leonid Hurwicz , Eric Maskin , and Roger Myerson were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory". Myerson's contributions include the notion of proper equilibrium , and an important graduate text: Game Theory, Analysis of Conflict . Hurwicz introduced and formalized

6110-443: The evidence at trial. In some cases, participants may know the character of their opponent well, but may not know how well their opponent knows his or her own character. Bayesian game means a strategic game with incomplete information. For a strategic game, decision makers are players, and every player has a group of actions. A core part of the imperfect information specification is the set of states. Every state completely describes

6204-406: The experimental scientist. According to Dick Heuer , in an experiment in which analyst behavior was studied, the process is one of incremental refinement: "with test subjects in the experiment demonstrating that initial exposure to blurred stimuli interferes with accurate perception even after more and better information becomes available...the experiment suggests that an analyst who starts observing

6298-412: The game pictured in this section's graphic is asymmetric despite having identical strategy sets for both players. Zero-sum games (more generally, constant-sum games) are games in which choices by players can neither increase nor decrease the available resources. In zero-sum games, the total benefit goes to all players in a game, for every combination of strategies, and always adds to zero (more informally,

6392-559: The game. For some problems, different approaches to modeling stochastic outcomes may lead to different solutions. For example, the difference in approach between MDPs and the minimax solution is that the latter considers the worst-case over a set of adversarial moves, rather than reasoning in expectation about these moves given a fixed probability distribution. The minimax approach may be advantageous where stochastic models of uncertainty are not available, but may also be overestimating extremely unlikely (but costly) events, dramatically swaying

6486-406: The general capabilities and limitations of collection systems...If the analyst is in a technical discipline, the analyst might have an insight about a collection system that the operators have not considered ... If you are not frequently tasking collectors and giving them feedback on their reporting, you are failing to do an important part of your job. Peers, both consumer and analyst, also have

6580-426: The highest policymaker levels, and why there needs to be a delicately balanced relationship, built of trust, between a policymaker and his closest intelligence advisors. "Being an intelligence analyst is not a popularity contest...But your job is to pursue the truth. I recall a colleague who forwarded an analysis that called into question the wisdom behind several new US weapon systems. This analysis caused criticism of

6674-472: The intelligence service will organize the production process and its output to mirror the customer organization. Government production by the single-source intelligence agencies is largely organized geographically or topically, to meet the needs of all-source country, region, or topic analysts in the finished-intelligence producing agencies. In terms of intended use by the customer, both business and government producers may generate intelligence to be applied in

6768-404: The intelligence supports a certain conclusion. Just because someone is your boss, is a higher grade, or has been around longer than you does not mean he or she knows more about your account than you do. You are the one who reads the traffic every day and who studies the issue". At the same time, Watanabe observes, "It is better to be mistaken than wrong". Not willing to be wrong is also a disease of

6862-410: The mathematics involved are substantially the same, e.g. using Markov decision processes (MDP). Stochastic outcomes can also be modeled in terms of game theory by adding a randomly acting player who makes "chance moves" (" moves by nature "). This player is not typically considered a third player in what is otherwise a two-player game, but merely serves to provide a roll of the dice where required by

6956-454: The method for finding mutually consistent solutions for two-person zero-sum games. Subsequent work focused primarily on cooperative game theory, which analyzes optimal strategies for groups of individuals, presuming that they can enforce agreements between them about proper strategies. In his 1938 book Applications aux Jeux de Hasard and earlier notes, Émile Borel proved a minimax theorem for two-person zero-sum matrix games only when

7050-477: The opponent may take an extreme risk to achieve what the analyst regards as a minor gain. The analyst must avoid the special cognitive traps for intelligence analysis projecting what she or he wants the opponent to think, and using available information to justify that conclusion. Being aware that one's enemies may try to confuse is a relevant factor, especially in the areas of intelligence cycle security and its subdiscipline counterintelligence . During World War II,

7144-482: The opponent such as a simultaneous move game. Examples of perfect-information games include tic-tac-toe , checkers , chess , and Go . Many card games are games of imperfect information, such as poker and bridge . Perfect information is often confused with complete information , which is a similar concept pertaining to the common knowledge of each player's sequence, strategies, and payoffs throughout gameplay. Complete information requires that every player know

7238-407: The outcome and decisions of other players. This need not be perfect information about every action of earlier players; it might be very little knowledge. For instance, a player may know that an earlier player did not perform one particular action, while they do not know which of the other available actions the first player actually performed. The difference between simultaneous and sequential games

7332-472: The pay-off matrix is symmetric and provided a solution to a non-trivial infinite game (known in English as Blotto game ). Borel conjectured the non-existence of mixed-strategy equilibria in finite two-person zero-sum games , a conjecture that was proved false by von Neumann. In 1950, John Nash developed a criterion for mutual consistency of players' strategies known as the Nash equilibrium , applicable to

7426-567: The period preceding hostilities. Analysts, according to their own accounts, were often proceeding on the basis of the day's take, hastily comparing it with material received the previous day. They then produced in 'assembly line fashion' items which may have reflected perceptive intuition but which [did not] accrue from a systematic consideration of an accumulated body of integrated evidence. Writers on analysis have suggested reasons why analysts come to incorrect conclusions, by falling into cognitive traps for intelligence analysis. Without falling into

7520-406: The possible strategies available to players due to the possibility of external enforcement of cooperation. A symmetric game is a game where each player earns the same payoff when making the same choice. In other words, the identity of the player does not change the resulting game facing the other player. Many of the commonly studied 2×2 games are symmetric. The standard representations of chicken ,

7614-412: The prisoner's dilemma, and the stag hunt are all symmetric games. The most commonly studied asymmetric games are games where there are not identical strategy sets for both players. For instance, the ultimatum game and similarly the dictator game have different strategies for each player. It is possible, however, for a game to have identical strategies for both players, yet be asymmetric. For example,

7708-675: The producer is struggling with how to meet the needs of both internal and external customers, the solution is to create two different types of products, one for each type of customer. An internal product might contain detail of sources, collection methods, and analytic techniques, while an external product is more like journalism. Remember that journalists always address: "How" is often relevant to journalists, but, in intelligence, may wander into that delicate area of sources and methods, appropriate only for internal audiences. The external consumer needs to know more of potential actions. Actions exist in three phases: Internal products contain details about

7802-448: The production and evaluation of analytic products; articulates the responsibility of intelligence analysts to strive for excellence, integrity, and rigor in their analytic thinking and work practices..." Stating the objective from the consumer's standpoint is an excellent starting point for goal-setting: Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill ... seized the attention of the class of some 30 [intelligence community managers] by asserting that as

7896-416: The recent past. Such rules may feature imitation, optimization, or survival of the fittest. In biology, such models can represent evolution , in which offspring adopt their parents' strategies and parents who play more successful strategies (i.e. corresponding to higher payoffs) have a greater number of offspring. In the social sciences, such models typically represent strategic adjustment by players who play

7990-517: The relationship between producer and consumer becomes, the more important will be tools: An analysis should have a summary of the key characteristics of the topic, followed by the key variables and choices. Increasingly deep analysis can explain the internal dynamics of the matter being studied, and eventually to prediction, known as estimation. Game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science , and

8084-421: The sources and methods used to generate the intelligence, while external products emphasize actionable target information. Similarly, the producer adjusts the product content and tone to the customer's level of expertise. Even in professional sports, where there are strict anti-fraternization rules on the playing field, players often have deep friendships with counterparts on opposing teams. They might have been on

8178-404: The strategies and payoffs available to the other players but not necessarily the actions taken, whereas perfect information is knowledge of all aspects of the game and players. Games of incomplete information can be reduced, however, to games of imperfect information by introducing " moves by nature ". One of the assumptions of the Nash equilibrium is that every player has correct beliefs about

8272-452: The strategy in such scenarios if it is assumed that an adversary can force such an event to happen. (See Black swan theory for more discussion on this kind of modeling issue, particularly as it relates to predicting and limiting losses in investment banking.) General models that include all elements of stochastic outcomes, adversaries, and partial or noisy observability (of moves by other players) have also been studied. The " gold standard "

8366-521: The target system being a decoy. If the threat is real, then it might be warranted to defer attack until a massive one can be delivered. The analytic process must be interactive with the customer to succeed. For example, the first IMINT of Soviet missiles during the Cuban Missile Crisis was verified and quickly taken to the President and Secretary of Defense. The highest level of authority immediately requested more detail, but also wanted

8460-430: The trap of avoiding decisions by wanting more information, analysts also need to recognize that they always can learn more about the opponent. The body of specific methods for intelligence analysis is generally referred to as analytic tradecraft . The academic disciplines examining the art and science of intelligence analysis are most routinely referred to as "Intelligence Studies", and exemplified by institutions such as

8554-762: Was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in the Economic Sciences for his contribution to game theory. Nash's most famous contribution to game theory is the concept of the Nash equilibrium, which is a solution concept for non-cooperative games . A Nash equilibrium is a set of strategies, one for each player, such that no player can improve their payoff by unilaterally changing their strategy. In 2005, game theorists Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann followed Nash, Selten, and Harsanyi as Nobel Laureates. Schelling worked on dynamic models, early examples of evolutionary game theory . Aumann contributed more to

8648-459: Was considered in the economics literature by Boyan Jovanovic and Robert W. Rosenthal , in the engineering literature by Peter E. Caines , and by mathematicians Pierre-Louis Lions and Jean-Michel Lasry. The games studied in game theory are well-defined mathematical objects. To be fully defined, a game must specify the following elements: the players of the game, the information and actions available to each player at each decision point, and

8742-433: Was followed by Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944), co-written with Oskar Morgenstern , which considered cooperative games of several players. The second edition provided an axiomatic theory of expected utility , which allowed mathematical statisticians and economists to treat decision-making under uncertainty. Game theory was developed extensively in the 1950s, and was explicitly applied to evolution in

8836-702: Was never named, but, in the trained context, perfectly obvious to the participants in the discourse. Intelligence analysis is also extremely high context. Whether the subject is political behavior or weapons capabilities, the analysts and consumers share a great deal of context. Intelligence consumers express great frustration with generic papers that waste their time by giving them context they already have internalized. Collection processes provide analysts with assorted kinds of information, some important and some irrelevant, some true and some false (with many shades in between), and some requiring further preprocessing before they can be used in analysis. Raw information reports use

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