In Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford University Press, 1962), the historian Roberta Wohlstetter examines the relationship between information and perception among US intelligence agencies ahead of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, which precipitated the US entry into World War II. Her main thesis is that the surprise attack was not the result of a lack of information but of the inability to understand it due to the difficulties involved in differentiating a threat or malicious intent from the “background noise” which consists of other kinds of signals that negate or mask the danger signals. Barton Whaley discussed a similar phenomenon in Codeword Barbarossa (MIT Press, 1973) in the context of Germany’s surprise invasion of Russia in World War II. There too Russian and other intelligence agencies were unable to sort true intelligence, not just from worthless information that complicates the process of analysis but from deliberately inserted disinformation as well.
In their ground-breaking study, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (Columbia University Press, 1974), Alexander George and Richard Smoke draw attention to the distinction between the “operational environment” and the “psychological environment” that informs the decision-making process. In particular, they caution against the influences of racial prejudice. While Wohlstetter argues that the surprise of Pearl Harbour occurred because of people’s natural tendency to see what they want to see, George and Smoke emphasised the types of psychological barriers that prevent people from seeing the obvious. In Perception, deception, and surprise: the case of the Yom Kippur War, Michael Handel mentions three types of noise in his study of the surprise delivered by the October 1973 war. The first was that made by the adversary’s strategic or tactical deception, the second was the noise resulting from a current regional or international conflict environment, and the third was the self-inflicted noise due to beliefs, preconceptions, and perceptions.
Perhaps the eminent political scientist Robert Jervis developed the most comprehensive framework for explaining strategic surprise in Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton University Press, 1976). He establishes six factors conducive to the occurrence of surprise in a conflict. The first five involve the decision-makers: fixed images of the adversary, interpretation of information in light of their immediate concerns, perceiving signals and stimuli in terms of their hopes and expectations, over-reliance on historical events to explain current developments, shaping discrepant information to fit their established belief systems. The sixth is the signal sender’s belief that his message is clear when, in fact, it is ambiguous or self-contradictory.
Before the 1973 War, Israel and the US had a fixed image of the Arabs: they were divided and their leaders were incapable of taking Israel on in a war so they only had the diplomatic option. They also calculated that the Soviet Union, the other superpower at the time, would not let the Arabs launch a war for fear of a repeat of 1967.
All this was part of my doctorate dissertation, “The US and the October 1973 Crisis in the Middle East,” which attempted to explain the strategic surprise Egypt and Syria delivered with their military campaign to liberate the territories Israel had occupied in 1967. What was remarkable about that famous surprise offensive was that one side had enough intelligence to know that the other side was preparing something, but it decided to ignore that intelligence because it was convinced the other side wouldn’t carry out its plans. Analysts have differed in their views on what caused the strategic blind spot that led to such disastrous consequences for the first side.
The surprise that Hamas delivered to Israel on 7 October was very different. On this occasion, Israel had no intelligence of what was in store, even though it was a multi-pronged assault, from land, sea and air, using conventional weapons and missiles. From the perspective of analysts eager to decipher the surprise, this presented something entirely new. This was a total intelligence failure; there had been no intelligence to be misperceived or misinterpreted.
We should stress, here, that while a strategic surprise gives the advantage of initiative in a war, that is no guarantee of victory. The outcome of a war is ultimately determined by the balance of power between belligerents. Despite Pearl Harbor, the US won the war against Japan. Despite Operation Barbarossa, the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany. The October 1973 War managed to create an equilibrium that would eventually allow for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. That would not have been possible if president Sadat had not known the limits of military force and that the strategic surprise had to be part of a comprehensive strategy that would open doors with the US and make it possible to obtain advanced weaponry suited to Egypt’s military strategy. All of this had broad Arab and international support.
Hamas’ strategic surprise is still in its early days, but at one point its turn will come for academic scrutiny. Perhaps one feature scholars will pick up on is the lack of a comprehensive strategy or at least the lack of one carried out in practice. Hamas’ initial strategy was for its surprise attack to ignite a multi-front war involving the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, according to statements by Hamas commander Mohamed “Abu Khaled” Deif. It then turned to the discourse of Palestinian grievances, accusations of double standards, and Israel’s noncompliance with international law and the relevant UN resolutions. In addition, after having gained the advantage of surprise, Hamas showed that it did not appreciate the limits of military force.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 October, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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