Inside Intelligence: The Art of Analyzing 'Hard Target' Countries
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Join MS in Intelligence Analysis Program Director Michael Ard, as he hosts his colleague Kathryn Wiseman for a discussion on how governments, intelligence agencies, researchers, and policy analysts gather and interpret information, including misinformation, about countries that are especially difficult to study because of limited access, secrecy, or political constraints.
Wiseman’s career as an intelligence analyst and as an instructor at the Sherman Kent School of Intelligence Analysis in the Central Intelligence Agency spanned more than 35 years. As a political analyst, she focused on hard-target adversaries in East Asia, developed methodologies for anticipating discontinuities in authoritarian regimes, and shaped interagency consensus on terminology and frameworks for evaluating foreign malign influence campaigns. She also mapped information flows in controlled media ecosystems and developed tradecraft to identify geostrategic risks emerging within closed societies.
Wiseman continues to focus on analytic tradecraft innovation, with current interests in the application of artificial intelligence tools to enhance human judgment and structured reasoning and is committed to advancing the craft of strategic analysis and production of long-range, high-consequence assessments that inform national security decision-making.
Wiseman earned her MA in East Asian Studies (China concentration) from the University of Michigan and her BA in East Asian Studies with a minor in History from Wittenberg University.
Learn about Johns Hopkins’ MS in Intelligence Analysis program.