Intelligence And Surprise Attack

How can the United States avoid a future surprise attack on the scale of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, in an era when such devastating attacks can come not only from nation states, but also from terrorist groups or cyber enemies? Intelligence and Surprise Attack examines why surprise attacks often succeed even though, in most cases, warnings had been available beforehand. Erik J. Dahl challenges the conventional wisdom about intelligence failure, which holds that attacks succeed because important warnings get lost amid noise or because intelligence officials lack the imagination and collaboration to “connect the dots” of available information. Comparing cases of intelligence failure with intelligence success, Dahl finds that the key to success is not more imagination or better analysis, but better acquisition of precise, tactical-level intelligence combined with the presence of decision makers who are willing to listen to and act on the warnings they receive from their intelligence staff. The book offers a new understanding of classic cases of conventional and terrorist attacks such as Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, and the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The book also presents a comprehensive analysis of the intelligence picture before the 9/11 attacks, making use of new information available since the publication of the 9/11 Commission Report and challenging some of that report’s findings.

Surprise Attack explores sixty plus years of military and terror threats against the United States. It examines the intelligence tools and practices that provided warnings of those attacks and evaluates the United States' responses, both in preparedness – and most importantly – the effectiveness of our military and national command authority. Contrary to common claims, the historical record now shows that warnings, often very solid warnings, have preceded almost all such attacks, both domestic and international. Intelligence practices developed early in the Cold War, along with intelligence collection techniques have consistently produced accurate warnings for our national security decision makers. Surprise Attack traces the evolution and application of those practices and explores why such warnings have often failed to either interdict or intercept actual attacks. Going beyond warnings, Surprise Attack explores the real world performance of the nation's military and civilian command and control history – exposing disconnects in the chain of command, failures of command and control and fundamental performance issues with national command authority. America has faced an ongoing series of threats, from the attacks on Hawaii and the Philippines in 1941, through the crises and confrontations of the Cold War, global attacks on American personnel and facilities to the contemporary violence of jihadi terrorism. With a detailed study of those threats, the attacks related to them, and America's response, a picture of what works – and what doesn't – emerges. The attacks have been tragic and we see the defensive preparations and response often ineffective. Yet lessons can be learned from the experience; Surprise Attack represents a comprehensive effort to identify and document those lessons.

Ephraim Kam observes surprise attack through the eyes of its victim in order to understand the causes of the victim's failure to anticipate the coming of war. Emphasing the psychological aspect of warfare, Kam traces the behavior of the victim at various functional levels and from several points of view in order to examine the difficulties and mistakes that permit a nation to be taken by surprise. He argues that anticipation and prediction of a coming war are more complicated than any other issue of strategic estimation, involving such interdependent factors as analytical contradictions, judgemental biases, organizational obstacles, and political as well as military constraints. Surprise Attack: The Victim's Perspective offers implications based on the intelligence perspective, providing both historical background and scientific analysis that draws from the author's vast experience. The book is of utmost value to all those engaged in intelligence work, and to those whose operational or political responsibility brings them in touch with intelligence assessments and the need to authenticate and then adopt them or discount them. Similarly, the book will interest any reader intrigued by decision-making processes that influence individuals and nations at war, and sometimes even shape national destiny. --Ehud Barak, Former Prime Minister of Israel

Long before Germany's blitzkrieg swept the West, European leaders had received many signals of its imminence. Stalin, too, had abundant warning of German designs on Russia but believed that by avoiding "provocative" defensive measures he could avert the attack that finally came in June 1941. And the stories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Korean War, and three Arab-Israeli conflicts are replete with missed opportunities to react to unmistakable warnings. Richad K. Betts analyzes surprise attacks during the mid-twentieth century to illustrate his thesis: surprise attacks occur, not because intelligence services fail to warn, but because of the disbelief of political leaders. "Although the probability is low that the United States will fail to deter direct attack by the Soviet Union," Betts says, "the intensity of the threat warrants painstaking analysis of how to cope with it." His own investigation of the historical, psychological, political, diplomatic, and military aspects of his subject heightens understanding of why surprise attacks succeed and why victim nations fail to respond to warnings. In discussing current policy he focuses on the defense of Western Europe and applies the lessons of history to U.S. defense planning, offering detailed recommendations for changes in strategy. Obviously some of the potential dangers of military surprise cannot be prevented. The important thing, he emphasizes, is that "without forces that exceed requirements (the solution Moscow appears to have chosen), it is vital to ensure that what forces exist can be brought to bear when needed.

Posner discusses the utter futilty of this reform act in a searing critique of the 9/11 Commission, its recommendations, Congress's role in making law, and the law's inability to do what it is intended to do.

This collection, comprising key works by James J. Wirtz, explains how different threat perceptions can lead to strategic surprise attack, intelligence failure and the failure of deterrence. This volume adopts a strategist’s view of the issue of surprise and intelligence failure by placing these phenomena in the context of conflict between strong and weak actors in world affairs. A two-level theory explains the incentives and perceptions of both parties when significant imbalances of military power exist between potential combatants, and how this situation sets the stage for strategic surprise and intelligence failure to occur. The volume illustrates this theory by applying it to the Kargil Crisis, attacks launched by non-state actors, and by offering a comparison of Pearl Harbor and the September 11, 2001 attacks. It explores the phenomenon of deterrence failure; specifically, how weaker parties in an enduring or nascent conflict come to believe that deterrent threats posed by militarily stronger antagonists will be undermined by various constraints, increasing the attractiveness of utilising surprise attack to achieve their objectives. This work also offers strategies that could mitigate the occurrence of intelligence failure, strategic surprise and the failure of deterrence. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, strategic studies, security studies and IR in general.

This account of the Pearl Harbor attack denies that the lack of preparation resulted from military negligence or a political plot

The study of strategic surprise has long concentrated on important failures that resulted in catastrophes such as Pearl Harbor and the September 11th attacks, and the majority of previously published research in the field determines that such large-scale military failures often stem from defective information-processing systems. Intelligence Success and Failure challenges this common assertion that catastrophic surprise attacks are the unmistakable products of warning failure alone. Further, Uri Bar-Joseph and Rose McDermott approach this topic uniquely by highlighting the successful cases of strategic surprise, as well as the failures, from a psychological perspective. This book delineates the critical role of individual psychopathologies in precipitating failure by investigating important historical cases. Bar-Joseph and McDermott use six particular military attacks as examples for their analysis, including: "Barbarossa," the June 1941 German invasion of the USSR (failure); the fall-winter 1941 battle for Moscow (success); the Arab attack on Israel on Yom Kippur 1973 (failure); and the second Egyptian offensive in the war six days later (success). From these specific cases and others, they analyze the psychological mechanisms through which leaders assess their own fatal mistakes and use the intelligence available to them. Their research examines the factors that contribute to failure and success in responding to strategic surprise and identify the learning process that central decision makers use to facilitate subsequent successes. Intelligence Success and Failure presents a new theory in the study of strategic surprise that claims the key explanation for warning failure is not unintentional action, but rather, motivated biases in key intelligence and central leaders that null any sense of doubt prior to surprise attacks.