Surprise attack: the victim's perspective

Contents\r......Page 10
Foreword by Thomas C. Schelling......Page 14
Preface, 2004: Old Patterns, New Lessons......Page 18
Introduction......Page 30
Part I: The Components of Surprise Attack......Page 34
1. The Essence of Surprise Attack......Page 36
Reaction to Disasters and Warnings......Page 38
Aspects of Erroneous Estimates......Page 41
The Strategic Warning......Page 51
Surprise and Military Preparedness......Page 60
2. Information and Indicators......Page 66
Quality of Intelligence Information......Page 67
Early Warning Indicators......Page 71
Signal and Noise......Page 79
Quantity of Intelligence Information......Page 82
3. Intentions and Capabilities......Page 85
Inference and Difficulties in Estimating Intentions......Page 88
The Enemy’s Conceptual Framework......Page 93
Risk Taking by the Enemy......Page 98
Estimating Capabilities......Page 101
Part II: Judgmental Biases and Intelligence Analysis......Page 112
4. Conceptions and Incoming Information......Page 114
The Set of Conceptions......Page 115
The Persistence of Conceptions......Page 118
Assimilating Information......Page 123
Information and Expectations......Page 127
Treating Discrepant Information......Page 130
Cognitive Biases and Overconfidence......Page 134
Prediction and Intelligence Analysis......Page 144
Stages of Intelligence Analysis......Page 149
Approaches for Generating and Evaluating Hypotheses......Page 151
Analogies and Learning from History......Page 153
Evaluating Incoming Information......Page 161
Choosing among Alternative Hypotheses......Page 165
External Obstacles to Perception......Page 171
Changing a View......Page 177
Part III: The Environment......Page 186
6. The Analyst and the Small Group......Page 188
The Other Opinion......Page 189
Groupthink......Page 192
Pressures for Conformity......Page 193
The Leader and the Expert......Page 197
Group Risk Taking......Page 202
The Military as an Organization......Page 205
Rivalry, Coordination, and Communication......Page 208
Intrinsic Problems in the Intelligence Organization......Page 215
Military Men and Surprise Attack......Page 225
8. Intelligence and Decision Makers......Page 228
Decision Makers and Intelligence Production......Page 229
Commitment to a Policy......Page 233
How Decision Makers Affect the Intelligence Process......Page 235
Decision Makers and Surprise Attack......Page 240
The Complexity of the Problem......Page 242
Why Safeguards Usually Fail......Page 244
War without Surprise?......Page 258
Notes......Page 265
Bibliography......Page 270
Index......Page 288