Understanding Intelligence Failure

Warning, Response and Deterrence

James Wirtz

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317375722
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Thema: Geheimdienst & Spionage

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.

1
Theory of Surprise

Why do states, non-state actors or individuals attempt to surprise their opponents? Why do they often succeed? How does surprise affect strategic interactions, competitions in which the behavior of both sides determine the outcome? Why do some surprise initiatives succeed spectacularly, only to end in disaster for the side that initially benefited from surprise? If we can explain surprise, can we prevent it from occurring?

To answer these questions, one would have to develop a theory of surprise—a unifying explanation of why states, for example, attempt to surprise their opponents with diplomatic or military initiatives, why they succeed and how surprise helps them to achieve their objectives. Some might protest, however, that such a powerful (in the sense that it would apply to people, businesses, bureaucracies and states) and parsimonious (thrifty in the number of causal factors it highlights) explanation would be impossible to construct because of the many challenges that often bedevil those wishing to avoid surprise.¹ At the heart of the problem are the limits to human cognition that constrain our ability to anticipate the unexpected or novel, especially if the future fails to match our existing analytical concepts, beliefs or assumptions.² Idiosyncratic factors—the “Ultra syndrome,” the “cry-wolf syndrome,” denial and deception or an unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio—complicate institutional efforts at intelligence analysis and the production of finished estimates.³ Compartmentalization, hierarchy, “group think,” a deference to organizational preferences or an organizational culture that creates “intelligence to please,” in other words, bureaucracy itself, can impede efforts to avoid surprise.⁴ Historians also might note that each instance of surprise is wedded to a unique set of circumstances, institutions and personalities. They would suggest that efforts to surprise an opponent have been present throughout history, but attaining and benefiting from surprise really is embedded in a specific technical, political or military context.

Given this Pandora’s Box of cognitive weaknesses, intelligence pathologies and bureaucratic nightmares, it is impossible to say exactly which combination of shortcomings will conspire to assist cunning opponents in surprising their victims. Nevertheless, it is possible to predict when and why that Pandora’s Box opens and why its consequences can be devastating for the victim. It also is possible to explain why the side that achieved surprise can suffer a devastating setback when the box snaps shut. Additionally, the key role played by surprise in asymmetric attacks and special operations can be identified. There are discernible patterns in the history of surprise in warfare and diplomacy, suggesting that surprise is a general phenomenon that can be explained with a general theory.⁵

To the best of my knowledge, the theory of surprise has never been fully articulated elsewhere. The theory is derived largely from Michael Handel’s writings, especially his early philosophical musings about the nature of intelligence and surprise. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the theory of surprise is based on Clausewitz’s concept of strategy and war—Handel was a devoted student of Clausewitz’s On War. The theory relies on this Clausewitzian vision of war to explain why surprise is attractive to a specific party in a conflict, although it diverges sharply from the great Prussian philosopher’s judgment that surprise was overrated as a strategic instrument in war. It then turns to Handel’s insights about actors’ incentives to base their strategy on the element of surprise and how this inherently risky enterprise increases the likelihood that efforts to achieve surprise will succeed. These insights, what I call “Handel’s risk paradox,” provide an important link between the structure of conflict and the psychology of surprise. The theory then explains why those who rely on surprise might win a battle, but rarely achieve overall victory in war. The theory also identifies a way at least to mitigate the threat of being victimized by surprise in the future.

War as administration

Surprise is often described as a force multiplier, something that increases the effectiveness of one’s forces in combat. Across cultures and history, military doctrines have encouraged soldiers to incorporate surprise, along with other force multipliers such as the use of cover or maneuver, into their military operations because they increase the prospects for success and reduce casualties. In 1984, Handel summarized the battlefield advantages derived from surprise:

A successful unanticipated attack will facilitate the destruction of a sizable portion of the enemy’s forces at a lower cost to the attacker by throwing the inherently stronger defense psychologically off balance, and hence temporarily reducing his resistance … the numerically inferior side is able to take the initiative by concentrating superior forces at the time and place of its choosing, thereby vastly improving the likelihood of achieving a decisive victory.⁶

Clearly, surprise serves as a force multiplier or, as Handel notes, it allows one side to achieve the temporary numerical superiority needed to launch offensive operations. Nevertheless, Handel only alludes to how surprise produces this force multiplier effect. Upon reflection, the impact of surprise can be explained succinctly. Surprise temporarily suspends the dialectical nature of warfare (or any other strategic contest) by eliminating an active opponent from the battlefield. Surprise turns war into a stochastic exercise in which the probability of some event can be determined with a degree of certainty or, more rarely, an event in which the outcome can be not only known in advance, but also controlled by one side in the conflict.

Surprise literally transforms war from a strategic interaction into a matter of accounting and logistics. Probability and chance still influence administrative matters and friction still can bedevil any evolution, whether it is conducted in peace time or in war. But surprise eliminates war’s dialectic: achieving a military objective no longer is impeded by an opponent who can be expected to do everything in their power to make one’s life miserable. This has a profound effect on military operations.⁷ For example, the amount of time it might take to arrive at and seize a destination can be derived from simple calculations about how fast a unit can drive down some autobahn. (Of course, those gifted in mathematics might use more elegant algorithms to determine the effects of equipment breakdowns, road conditions or crew fatigue to estimate probabilities of likely arrival times.) No account need be made for delays caused by roadblocks, blown bridges, pre-registered artillery or major enemy units astride one’s path. “Without a reacting enemy,” according to Edward Luttwak, “or rather to the extent and degree that surprise is achieved, the conduct of war becomes mere administration.”⁸

Doctrine and planning guides universally encourage officers to incorporate surprise and other force multipliers into military operations. Even when surprise is virtually nonexistent, military planners appear compelled to explain that they have attained a degree of surprise. US planners, for example, prior to the start of air strikes against Iraq in 1991 and Afghanistan in 2001, claimed they surprised their opponents, even though the attacks were preceded by very public force deployments and diplomacy.⁹ But all of the lip service paid to the desirability of utilizing force multipliers hides the fact that surprise really offers a “silver bullet” in war. Whether it occurs at the tactical, theater, or strategic level of operations, surprise allows weak adversaries to contemplate operations that are simply beyond their capability in wartime.¹⁰ Although surprise usually is a matter of degree,¹¹ when it approximates its ideal type, surprise literally makes war go away.

For a theory that is avowedly based on Clausewitz’s work, it might at first appear a bit odd to reach a conclusion about the potential utility of surprise that diverges completely from the judgment of the great philosopher of war.¹² From a dialectical perspective, there is a cost to everything in war: operational security can prevent proper planning and briefing; diversionary attacks and deception operations can take on a life of their own or draw resources away from the main battle. Even spectacular successes like the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center operate on the narrowest margins of success. For instance, there simply were too few Al-Qaeda operatives aboard hijacked aircraft to maintain control in the face of determined opposition from the passengers and crew. Increasing the number of hijackers assigned to each aircraft would create a different set of liabilities—inserting more operatives into the United States only would have increased the chances of detection and overall failure of the terrorist attacks.¹³ Clausewitz estimated that the costs of obtaining surprise generally outweighed the benefits that surprise provided. Clausewitz, however, was more concerned with explaining war’s dialectic and the way it shaped the nature, course and outcome of battle. What the theory of surprise posits is that, under ideal circumstances that occasionally can be achieved in practice, war’s dialectic can be eliminated. In other words, it identifies a way to eliminate one’s opposition by pre-empting the “dual” that is war. When surprise occurs at the onset of hostilities it can produce a strategic effect by delivering a strategic defeat to an opponent by destroying deterrence strategies intended to prevent the eruption of war itself.

Surprise makes extraordinary kinds of military activity in warfare possible because it eliminates an active opponent from the battlefield. Special Operations or commando raids, for instance, are a good example of a type of activity that is made possible by the element of surprise. Despite their cultivated reputation for ferocity, combat skill and daring, commandos and other types of Special Forces are lightly armed, poorly supplied and generally outnumbered by their adversaries. In a pitched battle against competent conventional units, they would be quickly surrounded and outgunned. To achieve their objectives, they have become experts in unconventional modes of transportation and operations to enable them to appear and disappear in unexpected ways and at unanticipated times and places. Surprise is the key enabler of all types of unconventional operations because it allows commandos to achieve some objective or attack some target without significant opposition or no opposition at all. Surprise also creates the opportunity for special operations to produce strategic effects. A dozen or so operatives appearing at a crucial command center deep behind enemy lines can affect the course of some battle. Yet, the same commandos would have no discernible impact on the course of a conflict if they joined a divisional engagement on the front line.¹⁴

Unless it produces complete victory, the ability of surprise to transform conflict is fleeting. Enjoying the benefits of complete surprise, the first wave of Japanese aircraft that attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 apparently suffered few casualties. Nevertheless, by the time the second wave left the airspace over Oahu about two hours later, twenty-nine aircraft had been lost, even though the island’s defenses had been damaged by the first wave of attacks.¹⁵ When the Japanese returned in June 1942 to ambush the US Navy near Midway, it had become extremely difficult to surprise Americans with a carrier air strike in the waters around Hawaii. After all, the concept was no longer novel after the attack on Pearl Harbor. An outstanding American intelligence effort denied Japan the element of surprise that was crucial to their success in the engagement. The US Navy then delivered a stunning defeat to the Japanese, making Midway the beginning of the end for Imperial Japan. Similarly, surprise was the crucial element in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. When passengers aboard a fourth hijacked airliner learned of their probable fate in cell phone conversations with loved ones, they stopped the terrorists from completing their mission. Without the surprise needed to prevent the passengers from realizing that they were engaged in a conflict, the terrorists lacked the forces necessary to maintain control of the aircraft.

Surprise is extraordinarily attractive because it allows actors to achieve objectives that would normally be well beyond their reach if they faced an alert and determined opponent. Surprise allows one side to operate with virtually no opposition. Relying on the element of surprise, however, is extraordinarily risky. It is impossible ex ante to guarantee that surprise will occur, or for that matter, exactly when the effects of surprise will begin to wear off, and the inability to achieve surprise will doom the operation to failure. Stronger adversaries always can rely on more predictable attrition strategies to wear down weaker opponents.¹⁶ In fact, stronger adversaries generally do not want to surprise their opponents. They prefer to intimidate them into surrender by announcing clearly their intention to fight if the adversary does not comply with their demands or to use their superior strength to deter potential adversaries in the first place. US officials for example, made clear their intention to attack Afghanistan if the Taliban did not hand over the Al-Qaeda ringleaders responsible for the September 11 attacks. The Taliban might have been surprised by the way the US campaign unfolded and by the speed with which their forces collapsed, but they were not really surprised by the war itself.

The risk paradox and surprise

Surprise is attractive to the weaker party in a conflict because it allows it to contemplate decisive actions against a stronger adversary.¹⁷ Because achieving surprise is a risky proposition and because it allows actors to consider initiatives that are beyond their capabilities, however, the victim of surprise often will dismiss potential surprise scenarios as harebrained. In other words, even if the victims of surprise detect the beginnings of an initiative, they will have to overcome their existing assumption that the unfolding initiative is beyond the capability of their adversary or will prove to be suicidal. This asymmetry in the perception of what is prudent and what is reckless creates a paradox, identified by Handel, which lies at the heart of the theory of surprise: “The greater the risk, the less likely it seems, and the less risky it becomes. In fact, the greater the risk, the smaller it becomes.”¹⁸

Handel is suggesting that there is a direct link between the weaker party’s incentive to use surprise and the stronger party’s propensity actually to be surprised by the initiative. He offered this insight, however, without fully outlining the causal linkages he was suggesting. Elsewhere, for example, he wrote: “The powerful stronger side conversely lacks the incentive to resort to surprise and thus not only sacrifices an important military advantage but also plays into his enemy’s hands.”¹⁹ From this passage it w...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Theory of surprise
• PART I The theory of surprise applied
• PART II Surprise and deterrence failure
• PART III Avoiding surprise: toward a new intelligence doctrine
• Index