Counterfactual reasoning is the process of evaluating conditional claims about alternate possibilities and their consequences (i.e., "What If " statements). These alternatives can be either past possibilities (e.g., "If the United States had not abolished the Iraqi army in 2003, then the Iraqi insurgency would have been significantly smaller in 2005") or future possibilities (e.g., "If Iran had nuclear weapons, then it would provide this technology to Hezbollah"). Counterfactuals are essential to intelligence analysis because they are implicit in all strategic assessments. For, any proposal...