he sees a place for stochastic analyses over a very long period, it “points to a fairly slow learning curve that also challenges the wisdom of making preemption a cornerstone of U.S. security strategy.” The reservations stated are significant: Mathematical and statistical analyses require a lot of work without rapid and necessarily commensurate gains in accuracy, speed or comprehension. Standardization The National Intelligence Council’s recommendations described the use of a WEP paradigm (Table 2) in combination with an assessment of confidence levels (“High, moderate, low”) based on the scope and quality supporting information: However, the NIC’s discussion of this paradigm seems to undercut its chances of being effective:Intelligence judgments about likelihood are intended to reflect the Community’s sense of the probability of a development or event. [...] We do not intend the term “unlikely” to imply an event will not happen. We use “probably” and “likely” to indicate there is a greater than even chance. We use words such as “we cannot dismiss,” “we cannot rule out,” and “we cannot discount” to reflect an unlikely—or even remote—event whose consequences are such it warrants mentioning. Words such as “may be” and “suggest” are used to reflect situations in which we are unable to assess the likelihood generally because relevant information is nonexistent, sketchy, or fragmented. This explanation is ‘a half-step forward, half-step backward.’ An agency-sponsored WEP paradigm is progress. However—an estimative statement that uses “maybe” , “suggest” , or other weasel words is vague and symptomatic of the problem at hand—not its solution. In 1964 Kent railed against the “restort to expressions of avoidance...which convey a definite meaning but at the same time either absolves us completely of the responsibility or makes the estimate enough removed ... as not to implicate ourselves.” Mercyhurst experience with standardized WEPs The Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies conducted several experiments investigating the IC’s interpretation of WEPs (results varied) their use of WEPs in NIEs over the past three decades] to determine the significant changes in the ways the NIC has been articulating its intelligence judgments over time. See Analysis of Competing Hypotheses Mercyhurst’s WEP paradigm reduces Kent’s schema to its least ambiguous words: Analytic Confidence and Source Reliability are expressed on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 high. IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has recommended some language for communicating likelihood. Weasel words Table 4 contains a non-exhaustive list of common terms