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Hindsight and Foresight: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Surprise Attacks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Abraham Ben-Zvi
Abraham Ben-Zvi
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Abstract

As a step toward further conceptualization and differentiation of the problem of surprise attacks, this article suggests a new framework for analyzing the assumptions of decision makers. Two main categories are distinguished: (i) strategic assumptions of possibilities—the explicit and implicit assumptions held by an “observing state” about the conditions and circumstances under which the “observed state” would strike; (2) tactical assumptions of actualities—assumptions that have become realities in the eyes of the observing state, or that are on the verge of realization. Five cases of failures in intelligence estimates are discussed: (1) the Barbarossa Operation; (2) the attack on Pearl Harbor; (3) the Chinese Intervention in the Korean War; (4) the Sino-Indian Border War of October 1962; (5) the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973.

The analysis indicates that in each case, when discrepancies existed between tactical assumptions of actualities and strategic assumptions of possibilities, the latter prevailed without reassessment of the situation.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , April 1976 , pp. 381 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1976

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References

* Research contributing to this article was carried out under the auspices of the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I wish to thank Raymond Tanter for having commented on an earlier draft.

1 Wohlstetter, , Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford: University Press 1962), 397Google Scholar.

2 Ben-Zvi, , “Prelude to Pearl Harbor: American Images and Policies Toward Japan, 1940-1941,” Ph.D. diss. (University of Chicago 1973), 37–110 passimGoogle Scholar.

3 Letter sent by Stimson to Senator Key Pittmann, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on April 25, 1939. “Henry L. Stimson—Correspondence, 1939,” Yale University Library.

4 Wohlstetter (fn. 1), 387. See also Knorr, Klaus, “Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Cuban Missiles,” World Politics, xvi (04 1964), 457Google Scholar.

5 Hoist, Johan Jorgen, “Surprise, Signals and Reaction: The Attack on Norway, April 9, 1940—Some Observations,” Cooperation and Conflict, 1 (1966), 31–45Google Scholar.

6 Whaley, , Codeword Barbarossa (Cambridge: MIT Press 1973), 242Google Scholar; emphasis in original.

7 Knorr (fn. 4), 466.

8 Ibid. See also, in this connection, Harry Ransom, H., “Strategic Intelligence and Foreign Policy,” World Politics, XXVII (10 1974), 144–46Google Scholar.

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10 Ibid., 26; Whaley (fn. 6), 240–44.

11 George, Alexander L. and Smoke, Richard, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press 1974), 582Google Scholar. Similarly, Haldvan Koht, Foreign Secretary of Norway and its major policy maker, expected to receive an ultimatum from Hitler. This expectation was based on the observed German behavior during the preceding crises over Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The Germans had, in fact, warned Koht against giving in to Allied pressure over the ore traffic and the Finnish crisis, but these warnings were not interpreted as explicit ultimata. Whereas Koht did not doubt Germany's capabilities to attack Norway, he was not at all convinced, in the absence of an ultimatum, that it intended to strike, and therefore was surprised by the German attack. Hoist (fn. 5), 39.

12 Letter sent by Stimson to the New York Times, dated February II, 1940.

13 Ibid. See also, in this connection, Ben-Zvi, , “A Typology of American Preconceptions and Policies Toward Japan, 1940–1941: A Case Study in Misperception,” International Studies Quarterly, XIX (06 1975), 244–45Google Scholar.

14 See, for example: Grew, Joseph C., Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, 1904–1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1952), Vol. II, 1140Google Scholar; Heinrichs, Waldo W., American Ambassador: Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the United States Diplomatic Tradition (Boston: Little, Brown 1966), 355Google Scholar. See also, in this connection, Hosoya, Chihiro, “Miscalculations in Deterrent Policy: Japanese—U.S. Relations, 1938–1941,” Journal of Peace Research, V (Summer 1968), noGoogle Scholar.

15 Weigley, Russell F., “The Role of the War Department and the Army,” in Borg, Dorothy and Okamoto, Shumpei, eds., Pearl Harbor as History (New York: Columbia University Press 1973), 183Google Scholar.

16 DeWeerd, H. A., “Strategic Surprise in the Korean War,” Orbis, VI (Fall 1962), 447Google Scholar; George and Smoke (fn. 11), 191–92, 213, 583.

17 George and Smoke (fn. 11), 213; emphasis added.

18 Hoffmann, Steven A., “Anticipation, Disaster and Victory: India 1962–71,” Asian Survey, XII (11 1972), 963Google Scholar.

19 Handel, Michael I., “Perception, Deception and Surprise; The Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War,” paper delivered at the Conference on Strategic Issues held in Jerusalem, Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, 04 1975, p. 31Google Scholar.

20 The Agranat Report (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved 1975), 19–20Google Scholar.

21 Ma'aritv, August 10, 1973; transl. by author.

22 Whaley (fn. 6), 71; emphasis added. See also pp. 72–73.

23 Ibid., 100–101.

24 Wohlstetter (fn. 1), 94; Kirkpatrick, Lyman B. Jr, Captains Without Eyes (London: Macmillan 1969), 105–7Google Scholar.

25 Wohlstetter (fn. 1), 193.

26 Ibid., 200, citing a dispatch intercepted on December I.

27 Collins, J. Lawton, War in Peacetime (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1969), 174Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., 175.

29 George and Smoke (fn. 11), 208.

30 Ibid.

31 DeWeerd (fn. 16), 447.

32 George and Smoke (fn. 11), 228.

33 Ibid. See also Lampton, David M., “The U.S. Image of Peking in Three International Crises,” Western Political Quarterly, XXIV (03 1973), 33Google Scholar.

34 The Intelligence Bureau is India's civilian intelligence agency, located within the Ministry of Home Affairs; its Director at the time was B. N. Mullik.

35 Hoffmann (fn. 18), 967.

38 Mullik, B. N., The Chinese Betrayal (Bombay: Allied Publishers 1971), 329–30; emphasis addedGoogle Scholar.

37 Ibid., 330; emphasis added.

38 Hoffmann (fn. 18), 968.

39 Ibid., 971.

40 Mullik(fn. 36), 345.

41 Maxwell, Neville, India's China War (London: Jonathan Cape 1970), 300Google Scholar.

42 Schiff, Zeev, October Earthquake—Yom Kippur igyj (Tel-Aviv: University Publishing Projects 1974), 27–28Google Scholar; Handel, (fn. 19), 18–19.

43 Schiff(fn. 42), 17–28.

44 The Agranat Report (fn. 20), 19–20.

45 See, in this connection, Wasserman, Benno, “The Failure of Intelligence Prediction,” Political Studies, VIII (06 1960), 167Google Scholar; Dror, Yehezkel, Crazy States: A Countercon-ventional Strategic Problem (Lexington, Mass.: D. H. Heath 1971), 14–18Google Scholar.

46 On the eve of Pearl Harbor, for example, American policy makers, who thought chiefly in terms of the military capabilities of Japan vis-a-vis the United States, failed to perceive the Japanese predisposition in crucial moments to make decisions involving extremely great risks. Hosoya (fn. 14), 113. Likewise, in assessing the likelihood of Chinese intervention in Korea, Washington ignored the fact that the Chinese Communists were more highly motivated to prevent American troops from occupying North Korea than U.S. leaders were to carry out the occupation against Chinese opposition. George and Smoke (fn. n), 213, 583. More recently, on the eve of the October War, Israeli policy makers underestimated Arab frustration as a stimulant in risk taking. Harkabi, Yehoshafat, Palestinians and Israel (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House 1974), 222–23Google Scholar.

47 For more general suggestions and “prescriptions” for coping with surprise in the future, see, for example: Jervis, Robert, “Hypotheses on Misperception,” World Politics, XX (04 1968), 462–66Google Scholar; Wohlstetter (fn. 1), 400–401; and Wasserman (fn. 45), 168.