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The study of surprise attacks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Abraham Ben-Zvi
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Extract

During the years following the Second World War, intensive research was undertaken on the subject of response to threat. Confronted with the baffling yet recurrent inability of nations to respond adequately to warnings of an impending attack, many scholars concentrated on such events as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the outbreak of the Korean War, and produced a voluminous empirical literature, as well as a considerably meagre body of theoretically oriented works. Thus alongside the plethora of works that sought explanations solely in terms of certain specific conditions operating at the time of the event analyzed, a few other inquiries attempted to integrate the case under scrutiny into a broader theoretical context in order to better elucidate the patterns by which nations cope with situations of crisis and threat.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , July 1979 , pp. 129 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1979

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References

page 129 note 1 See, for example, Wohlstetter, Roberta, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford, 1962)Google Scholar; Ben-Zvi, Abraham, ‘Hindsight and Foresight: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Surprise Attacks,’ World Politics, xxviii (1976), pp. 381–395CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 129 note 2 Horelick, A. L., Johnson, A. Ross and Steinbruner, John D., The Study of Soviet Foreign Policy: Decision-Theory-Related Approaches (Beverly Hill, 1975), p. 10Google Scholar.

page 129 note 3 Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, 1971), p. 13Google Scholar. See also Knorr's, Klaus article, ‘Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Cuban Missiles,’ World Politics, xvi (1964), p. 459Google Scholar; and Verba, Sidney, “Assumptions of Rationality and Non-Rationality in Models of the International System,” World Politics, xxv (1961), pp. 93–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 130 note 1 Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, 1976), p. 321Google Scholar. See also, in this connection, Hofstadter, Richard, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (New York, 1966), p. 36Google Scholar; and Holsti, Ole R., ‘The Study of International Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: Theories of the Radical Right and the Radical Left’ American Political Science Review, lxviii (1974), pp. 219–222Google Scholar.

page 130 note 2 See, for example, Wohlstetter, op. cit.; Hoist, J. J., ‘Surprise, Signals and Reaction: The Attack on Norway, April 9, 1940 – Some Observations,’ Co-operation and Conflict (1966), pp. 31–45Google Scholar; Whaley, Barton, Codeword Barbarossa (Cambridge, Mass., 1973)Google Scholar; and Handel, Michael I., Perception, Deception and Surprise: The Case of the Tom Kippur War (Jerusalem, 1976)Google Scholar For an earlier review of cognitive research, see Ben-Zvi, Abraham, ‘Misperceiving the Role of F'erception,’ Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, ii (1977), pp. 76–93Google Scholar.

page 130 note 3 Wohlstetter, op. cit. p. 397.

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page 132 note 2 Ibid., pp. 42–43; Gupta, K., ‘How did the Korean War Begin?’ China Quarterly, xii (1972), p. 709Google Scholar.

page 132 note 3 Stone, op. cit. p. 42.

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page 133 note 1 Klein, Z., ‘The Yom Kippur War,’ State and Government, vi (1974), pp. 127–141Google Scholar (Hebrew).

page 133 note 2 Ibid., p. 129.

page 134 note 1 See, for example, Hoist, op. cit.; Whaley, op. cit.; Handel, op. cit., and Shlaim, Avi, ‘Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Yom Kippur War,’ World Politics, xxviii (1976), pp. 348–380CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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page 134 note 3 Ibid.

page 134 note 4 George, Alexander L. and Smoke, Richard, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (New York, 1974), p. 160Google Scholar.

page 135 note 1 Ibid., pp. 171–172.

page 135 note 2 Handel, op. cit. pp. 11–28, passim,

page 135 note 3 See in this connection, Knorr, op. cit. pp. 450–463; Allison, op. cit. passim.

page 136 note 1 See in this connection, Fisher, David H., Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York, 1970), pp. 167Google Scholar, 182.

page 136 note 2 Kubek, op. cit. and Fehrenbach, op. cit.

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page 137 note 4 The policies pursued by Japan during 1940 and 1941 were aimed primarily at (a) a southward expansion towards French Indo-China, Thailand and the Dutch East Indies; (b) the conclusion of the Chinese conflict on Japan's terms; and (c) the isolation of the United States through the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.

page 138 note 1 George and Smoke, op. cit. pp. 145–179; DeWeerd, H. A., ‘Strategic Surprise in the Korean War,’ Orbis, vi (1962), p. 437Google Scholar; and May, Ernest R., ‘Lessons’ of the Past: The Use Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (New York, 1973), p. 71Google Scholar.

page 139 note 1 Stone, op. cit. p. 21.

page 139 note 2 See, for example, ibid. pp. 9, 11, 15.

page 139 note 3 Ibid. p. 56.

page 139 note 4 See, for example, Stueck, W., ‘Gold War Revisionism and the Origins of the Korean Conflict,’ Pacific Historical Review, 42 (1973), pp. 544–545CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lee, C., Skillend, W. E., and Simons, R. R., ‘Comments,’ China Quarterly, xiv (1973), pp. 354–363Google Scholar; and George and Smoke, op. cit. p. 173.

page 139 note 5 Kolko and Kolko, op. cit. pp. 586–588.

page 140 note 1 Ibid. p. 586.

page 140 note 2 George and Smoke, op. cit. p. 176.

page 140 note 3 See, for example, Ibid. pp. 157–162; Willoughby, C A. and Chamberlain, I., MacArthur: 1941–1951 (New York, 1954), p. 351Google Scholar; Ulam, Adam B., Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1967 (New York, 1968), p. 518Google Scholar; Simmons, R. R., The Strained Alliance: Peking, Pyongyang, Moscow and the Politics of the Korean Civil War (New York, 1975), pp. 103Google Scholar, 119–125.

page 140 note 4 See, for example, Stueck, W., ‘The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Korean War’ World Politics, xxviii (1976), p. 629Google Scholar.

page 141 note 1 Ghaim Herzog, The War of Atonement (Tel Aviv, 1975), p. 53.

page 141 note 2 Klein, op. cit. p. 130.

page 141 note 3 Quoted fromTime, 23 July, 1973. For additional examples see Ben-Zvi, ‘Hindsight and Foresight,’ op. cit. p. 387; and Shlaim, op. cit. p. 362.

page 141 note 4 Klein, op. cit. p. 132.

page 141 note 5 Herzog, op. cit. p. 53.

page 142 note 1 See, for example, Schroeder, H. M., Driver, M. J., and Streufert, S., Human Information Processing (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Jervis, Robert, ‘Hypotheses on Misperception,’ World Politics, xx (1968), pp. 454–479CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holsti, O. R., ‘Time, Alternatives and Communications: The 1914 and Cuban Missile Crises’ in Hermann, G. F. (ed.), International Crises: Insights from Behavioral Research (New York, 1972), pp. 58–80Google Scholar, and Suedfeld, P. and Tetlock, P., ‘Integrative Complexity of Communications in International Crises,’ Journal of Conflict Resolution, xxiGoogle Scholar

page 142 note 2 Suedfeld and Tetlock, op, cit. p. 112. See also Stein, J. G., ‘Freud and Descartes: The Paradoxes of Psychological Logic,’ International Journal, xxxii (1977), pp. 444–445Google Scholar.

page 142 note 3 Stein, ‘Freud and Descartes’ op. cit. pp. 444–446; Axelrod, R., ‘Results,’ in Axelrod, R., (ed.), Structure of Decision (Princeton, 1976), pp. 243–428Google Scholar.

page 142 note 4 See, in this connection: Lockhart, C., ‘Problems in the Management and Resolution of International Conflicts,’ World Politics, xxix (1977), pp. 384Google Scholar, 394; Stein, J. G. and Brecher, M., ‘Image, Advocacy and the Analysis of Conflict: An Israeli Case Study’, Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, i (1976), pp. 35–37Google Scholar, and O. R. Holsti, ‘Foreign Policy Formation Reviewed Cognitively,’ in Structure of Decision, pp. 29–35.

page 143 note 1 Brenner, M. J., ‘Bureaucratic Politics in Foreign Policy,’ Armed Forces and Society, ii (1976), p. 331Google Scholar. See also Stein, ‘Freud and Descartes,’ op. cit, p. 444.

page 143 note 2 Kirkpatrick, Lyman B. Jr, Captains Without Eyes (London, 1969), pp. 105–107Google Scholar.

page 144 note 1 Ben-Zvi, ‘Misperceiving the Role of Perception,’ op. cit. p. 85.

page 144 note 2 Wohlstetter 3 Pearl Harbor, op, cit. pp. 322–323.

page 145 note 1 George and Smoke, op. cit. p. 172.

page 145 note 2 Ibid.

page 145 note 3 Ibid., p. 155. See also Hammond, P. Y., ‘NSC-68: Prologue to Rearmament,’ in Schilling, W. R., Hammond, P. W. and Snyder, G. H. (eds.), Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets (New York, 1962), pp. 271–278Google Scholar.

page 145 note 4 George and Smoke, op. cit. p. 156.

page 146 note 1 Ibid. p. 166.

page 146 note 2 Quoted in Willoughby and Chamberlain, op. cit. pp. 351–352. See also, Appleman, R., South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (Washington, D. C., 1961), p. 10Google Scholar; DeWeerd, op. cit. p. 438; Stueck, ‘Cold War Revisionism,’ op. cit. p. 541.

page 146 note 3 Schiff, Z., October Earthquake: Tom Kippur 1973 (Tel Aviv, 1974), pp. 22–28Google Scholar; Herzog, op. cit. pp. 42–53; Shlaim, op. cit. pp. 353–3540

page 146 note 4 Shlaim, op. cit. pp. 353–354; Ben-Zvi, ‘Hindsight and Foresight/op. cit. pp. 393–394

page 147 note 1 Schiff, op. cit. p. 41; Herzog, op. cit. p. 52; Handel, op. cit. pp. 51–52.

page 147 note 2 Perlmutter, A., ‘Israel's Fourth War, October 1973: Political and Military Misperceptions,’ Orbis, xix (1975), pp. 434–460Google Scholar.

page 147 note 3 Handel, op. cit. pp. 22–23.

page 147 note 4 Schiff, op. cit. pp. 50–52; Herzog, op. cit. p. 72.

page 148 note 1 Stein, ‘Freud and Descartes/op. cit. pp. 449–450.

page 148 note 2 Ben-Zvi, Abraham, ‘The Outbreak and Termination of the Pacific War: A Juxtaposition of American Preconceptions,’ Journal of Peace Research, xv (1978), pp. 43–44Google Scholar

page 148 note 3 R. Tanter andJ. G. Stein, ‘Surprise Attacks and Intelligence Estimation’ (forthcoming).

page 148 note 4 Jervis, Perception and Misperception, op. cit. p. 416; George, Alexander L., ‘The Case of Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy’ American Political Science Review, lxvi (1972), pp. 751CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 759–760; Ben-Zvi, ‘The Outbreak and Termination of the Pacific War’ op. cit. p. 44.

page 148 note 5 Jervis, Perception and Misperception, op. cit. p. 417: Shlaim, op. cit. p. 375.