Air University Review, November-December 1981

Surprise

Surprise is the most essential factor of victory . . . nothing makes a leader greater than the capacity to guess the designs of the enemy . . . to recognize, to grasp the situation and take advantage of it as it arises . . . new and sudden things catch armies by surprise.

Niccolo Machiavelli,
The Art of War, 1520

The military art turns on certain basic principles that set the pattern for the preparation and prosecution of war. These principles vary from nation to nation, having been established and defined in light of their respective national military histories and applied in accordance with the capabilities of their armed forces. But of all these basic principles, one has always been and continues to be universally accepted by all military doctrines—Surprise.

Military schools have devoted little study to Surprise, even though history abounds with examples showing, as Clausewitz states, "that Surprise very frequently has ended a war with a single stroke."

In light of present military thought, current strategies, and the development of new tactics and weapon systems, the purpose of this article is to establish an analytical foundation for the study of surprise.

First, however, we must define the word itself. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives this military definition of surprise: "the act of assailing or attacking unexpectedly or without warning, or of taking by this means"; and also "the act of coming upon one unexpectedly, or of taking unawares; a sudden attack." These definitions give an active meaning; another, "to astonish by unexpectedness," is a passive meaning. The word surprising is defined as "that which surprises or takes unawares" and also as "causing surprise or wonder by its unexpectedness." The English language, then, distinguishes between the action and effect of surprising and the state or situation of being surprised or allowing oneself to be surprised.

In his Dictionary of theLanguage, Émile Littré, a member of the French Academy, defines surprise as the "action par laquelle on prend ou l’on est pris a l’improviste" (the action whereby one takes or is taken unawares) and also as "action inattendue par laquelle on induit en erreur ou en faute" (an unexpected action whereby one leads to error or fault). He presents the following acceptations of the verb surprendre (to surprise): "déconcerter, prendre par surprise" and "induire en erreur, tromper," and "surprendre le secret de quelqu’un, découvrirson secret par adresse ou par hasard" (to disconcert, to take by surprise; to lead to error, to deceive; to detect someone’s secret, to discover his secret by craft or by chance).

The Spanish Royal Academy’s Dictionary of the Spanish Language defines the noun surprise as "la acción y efecto de sorprender o sorprenderse" and "cosa que da motivo para que alguien se sorprenda" (the action and effect of surprising or being surprised; something that causes surprise). But the verb to surprise is defined as "coger desprevenido" and "conmover, suspender o maravillar con algo imprevisto, raro o incomprensible" (catching unawares; to move, startle, or astonish with something unexpected, strange, or incomprehensible); and also "descubrir lo que otro ocultaba o disimulaba" (to discover what someone was hiding or dissimulating).

In the three most widely spoken languages of the Western world—English, French, and Spanish—the word surprise has, therefore, a similar connotation; this connotation includes a clear distinction between the act of surprising on the one hand and the state of being surprised and induced to plan, act, or anticipate erroneously on the other.

Our analysis of surprise gives only half the picture from the practical military perspective. The other half is intelligence. If surprise is the disease, intelligence is—at least potentially— the cure. The many military authors, thinkers, and historians who have stressed the importance of surprise have considered it in close connection with knowledge of the enemy. This perception is central to Spanish military doctrine. To be able to attack the enemy at the moment and place where he least expects it or to cause him to plan his strategic actions and tactical operations erroneously, it is crucial to know him beforehand.

Near the end of the fourth century, one of the most important military authors of all time, Vegetius, wrote a treatise commonly called De re Militari (On Military Affairs, commonly known as The Military Institutions of the Romans), which encapsulated Roman military thought from Cato and Augustus to Hadrian. Vegetius emphasized that "an understanding of the enemy is basic and crucial to achieve a surprise . . . to know beforehand the enemy forces, their tactics, leaders, weapons, the battleground."

The Byzantine Emperor Maurice, toward the end of the sixth century, wrote Strategikon, a manual for the command of large units, which included an annex titled "Reports," a realistic plan of intelligence for those times. It dealt with the nature, customs, resources, and combat procedures of the various people surrounding the empire, all of them potential enemies: the Franks and Lombards to the west, Avars and Slays in the Danube, Persians and Turks to the east. Strategikon was revised in the tenth century by Constantine VII, who turned "Reports" into a separate book, renaming it Treatise on Tactics.

The need of knowing the enemy as a determining factor in attaining surprise was emphasized by the military writers of the Middle Ages, particularly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, both in Latin and in French. Among them were William of Tyre, Ambrose Jean de Joinville, and especially Jean de Meung, whose book The Art of Chivalry presented many concepts about the application of surprise in the art of war by feudal armies.

The anonymous author of the Rosebush of War, written in 1523 to advise the king of France on military matters, stated that "half the victory consists of having known the enemy before the battle."

Niccolo Machiavelli, a leading military thinker of the Renaissance, considered "surprise the most essential component of victory," and in his book The Art of War, written in 1520, he affirms that "there is no better project or enterprise than that which the enemy ignores until you have carried it out." This concern with the element of surprise shows that Machiavelli had not only studied Hannibal, Scipio, and all the great captains but had also read Vegetius and other classic military writers such as Onosander, Cato, and Frontinus.

In 1709 Jean Charles de Folard, said that "the faults and weaknesses of a leader can serve his adversary; therefore, it behooves the able general to take full advantage of all such traits." In the eighteenth century, the Comte de Guibert observed in his Essay on General Tactics that in order to "effect surprise an intelligent general first studies his opponent, luring him onto the battleground of his choice."

In 1928 one of the great military thinkers of the twentieth century, B. H. Liddell Hart, rejecting theories formulated during World War I, said it clearly and fully: "the secret lies in surprise, the surprise of thought, leadership, and time; it lies in the surprise of attack and the execution of maneuvers."

The surprise of attacking an enemy when he is off guard, and at a time and place he did not choose, yields enormous military and psychological benefit. But as a military principle, such a move requires secrecy and security in all offensive and defensive activities of the entire nation, not only in strictly military matters but in the entire arena of national defense. The element of surprise prevents, negates, or hinders the enemy’s intelligence of one’s military potential, an obvious advantage at any point in the conduct of a war. Hence, the first aspect of surprise: the action and effect of surprising the enemy to catch him off guard. This aspect we shall call the effect of surprise.

The second aspect, the condition or state of being surprised or being forced to plan, act, or anticipate erroneously, has been the cause of many defeats. This inability, negligence, or carelessness that allows the enemy to choose the moment, place, and means of attack, and in such a way that it cannot be known or foreseen, is what we shall call a state of surprise. But one does not necessarily have to be caught unawares to be defeated; often all it takes is the inability to react appropriately and in time.

Let us take a closer look at those two perspectives of surprise, which are often confused and even ignored, to enable us better to understand our potential enemies and ensure that our minds, spirit, and national power are prepared to respond to any kind of aggression.

Effect of Surprise

Clausewitz defined those actions that could put the enemy in an inferior position and render him vulnerable to surprise as "the soul of the fortune of arms." This kind of surprise can be achieved in well-differentiated forms and categorized as four types of surprise.

When one tradition of military thought is superior to another, intellectual surprise may be the result; that is, when two opposed military doctrines lie at different intellectual levels or planes and function at different tempos.

All human activity—and war is certainly that—is regulated by systems of principles or dogmas, but these are not absolutely rigid or static. Mao Tse-tung stated in his Theory of Revolutionary War (1935) that "the laws of war change with respect to its conditions: the time, place, and nature of the war," and he added that "on studying the laws that regulate it, one must guard against any mechanical approach to the problem; since nothing is immutable, all things are evolving continuously and constantly." Aware of its history, current circumstances, and capabilities, each nation has enunciated its principles of war, not all of which necessarily coincide. Human and national factors and other such causes, oftentimes unpredictable, have been the source of defeats or the origin of victories. Indeed, according to Napoleon, no principles of war exist. In 1803 he wrote that "the art of war cannot be shown, because it has yet to be created; but if someday the principles of war could be stated, people would marvel at their simplicity."

Armed forces and military commands are not inclined to embrace untried doctrines or principles, since their organization is founded on "the strength of armies," discipline. Accordingly, military thought has been painfully slow in responding to the ideological, philosophical, scientific, political, psychological, technological, and social evolution taking place in today’s world in an increasingly rapid and profound manner. The military methods used by the Israelis in the Six Day War of 1967 no longer applied seven years later in the Yom Kippur War. Military doctrine must be evolutionary, flexible, and adaptable to new circumstances, to intellectual progress, to progress in science, technology, and society: military doctrine must be alive, dynamic. General Charles de Gaulle pointed out in his book Vers l’Armée de Métier (On the Professional Army), 1934, that "an army ought not cling to conformity, tradition, and rigidity" and that "the true leader should act on his own instead of following the textbooks; he should be intuitive and prescient." In 1804 Baron Henri Jomini ridiculed "the mistaken theories founded on the assumption that war is a positive science and all military operations can be reduced to infallible calculations."

One of the clearest examples of intellectual surprise was that achieved by Germany against France in the spring of 1940. The French War College at Paris had become a center of fresh ideas in the aftermath of World War I, a laboratory of French military thought; but then, under the influence of generals M. E. Debeney, Joseph J. C. Joffre, M. E. Fayolle, Franchet D’Esperey, and others like Henri Philippe Pétain and Maurice G. Gamelin turned inward and became narrowly constricted in doctrinal thought. It was assumed that since the ideas and methods employed in 1918 had brought victory, then it was logical to preserve them. This proved to be a serious error, as Liddell Hart pointed out in 1940 in his prologue to Rommel’s Notes: "the defeat of 1940 resulted from the inability of French and British military thought to evolve at a new pace in keeping with the times." French and British doctrine had disallowed the theories of J. F. C. Fuller, Sir Gifford Martel, Liddell Hart, and de Gaulle regarding the use of tanks and armored vehicles. These theories, however, were carefully studied by Colonel Heinz Guderian, a German officer who put them into practice. His book Achtung Panzer shows that he had studied the British theorists in particular in great detail and depth. Likewise, other German officers, Rommel among them, ruminated on and perfected the doctrines set forth by those theorists, who they subsequently identified as their precursors.

A similar development took place with respect to air doctrine. Despite the widely debated theses of Benjamin Foulois, Giulio Douhet, William Mitchell, Sir Hugh Trenchard, and Alexander de Severesky, the Allies were late in comprehending that control of the air and destruction of the enemy air force while still on the ground or including its economic potential were indispensable for victory, and that this could be achieved only through the development and employment of their own air power. As the British influence had been perceived by Guderian, so the principles of Douhet were embraced by Albert Kesselring, Adolf Galland, and other German airmen who took advantage of the destructive capacity of aerial bombardment, the ease of penetrating enemy defenses, and the flexibility and mobility of tactical air power to impose the will of Germany on European armies during the early stages of World War II.

Soviet Marshal Sokolovski in his book Military Strategy, the foundation of Soviet military thought, states that "modern war is an ideological, political, economic, and armed struggle on a global scale between imperialism and socialism, a fight to the death between capitalism and communism." He further explains that the struggle would "permeate all sectors of society, engaging all the spiritual and material forces of each nation, with the outcome depending mainly on the initial moves and strategic surprise."

Strategic surprise consists of the effect achieved in forcing the enemy to plan, direct, and execute his strategic actions erroneously. Through cunning and deception, by distorting the truth, by blinding and befuddling enemy intelligence, by confounding it continually, one can induce the enemy to develop a false appreciation of reality. History has shown repeatedly that shrewd planning and sophisticated propaganda can produce utter confusion in the mind of an opponent.

Hitler’s diplomatic and military successes in the 1930s provide an excellent case study of the uses of strategic surprise. In 1933 Germany embarked on a policy based on the imperious desire to expand its Lebensraum, its "vital space"; implementation was to begin with the annexation of all German-speaking regions: Austria, Danzig, and the Sudetenland. To that end, Germany used subversion, an intense and refined ideological and racist propaganda, blackmail, threat, and intimidation. Perhaps because Hitler’s objectives seemed so incredible, the nations opposing found it hard, at first, to take them seriously—and paid the price. During the period of annexation and until 1939, German foreign policy, pursuing its objectives through a series of faits accomplis, was able to divide and neutralize enemies, reject diplomatic protests, and generally succeed in undermining and annihilating the weak Western unity. In this way, Hitler gradually eroded the political and diplomatic stability of Europe, thus paving the way for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. But Hitler’s planners did not learn from their successes and were surprised in their turn. After the invasion of Africa and in all subsequent operations of World War II, Germany was continually startled by the strategic moves of the Allies. Hitler’s information and intelligence services, "his eyes and ears," were obfuscated by British and American intelligence. Germany’s confusion was total, and the Third Reich became incapable of timely reaction.

The Soviet Union, by planning wisely and using cold war as an effective weapon, has been remarkably successful in achieving her objectives in the postwar era. Heating or cooling situations, conveniently advancing or retreating, verging on but never crossing the nuclear threshold, threatening but not risking World War III the Soviet Union has consolidated her conquests. The Soviets’ control of Eastern Europe; their shrewdly timed penetration into Africa and the Middle East; their invasion of Afghanistan in order to flank Europe from the south and threaten her sea routes to vital raw materials and petroleum sources; their deployment of powerful naval and air forces in areas and nations under their influence; their support of pro-Soviet regimes, whether Communist or not, around China; their subversive penetrations into Latin America; their planting of the Castro regime in the middle of the Caribbean—all these moves have enabled them to maintain a clear advantage over the West.

Mao Tse-tung advised that laws of war be studied in their totality, rather than as isolated topics, if one wished to surprise the enemy strategically. In this perception, he was correct. The notion that a strategic victory is the sum of various tactical successes is erroneous because it fails to come to grips with the fact that victory or defeat implies a comprehension of the whole situation, the events of each phase of the conflict assuming their importance within the context established by the previous phase. The man who was to become the leader of the new China warned that in war ". . . as in chess, one wrong move can lose the whole game."

Military history provides many examples of superior forces’ being defeated through the skillful employment of available resources and the exploitation of geographic considerations in new, bold, and unexpected manners. The bold and determined maneuver on the field of battle, the wise utilization of meteorological, geographical, and space conditions, the intelligent use of available resources, and the application of new tactics constitute excellent means of achieving surprise.

Our first example is from the summer of 1861. General Irvin McDowell, in the first major Union offensive of the American Civil War, rushed his troops west on 16 July to engage the Confederates near Manassas, Virginia, followed by a large number of spectators from Washington, D.C., 20 miles away. The Confederate commander, General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, countered the next day by marching north toward Bull Run to cover the railroad center at Manassas. During the early hours of 25 July, both sides fought hard and evenly, but later in the day fresh troops arrived unexpectedly from the Shenandoah Valley to reinforce the Confedrates. General Joseph E. Johnston, covering 35 miles in two days, had transported his troops by railroad, surprising the western flank of the Union forces, who then fled in confusion. The first battle of Bull Run was thus decided by tactical surprise: the first use of the railroad in warfare. Johnston’s use of railroad mobility had made possible "the rapid concentration at a given point of a large number of troops, creating new strategic points and new lines of operations." The quoted passage is from the 4 August records of General George B. McClellan, McDowell’s successor, who quickly learned—some would say overlearned—the lesson of Bull Run, becoming almost obsessively dependent on secure rail lines of communication to his rear.

Our second example is from the spring of 1940. The main German thrust westward through the Ardennes was to be covered to the north by a secondary drive by panzer forces through the Maastricht corridor toward Brussels. The way was blocked by the water barrier of the Albert Canal. To succeed, the Germans had to seize the bridges across the canal at Cannae, Vroenhoven, and Veldwezelt before the Belgians could blow them up, yet the canal and the bridges were dominated by the large fortress of Eben Emael. Deemed impregnable by experts, Eben Emael was one of the most modern fortifications in the world.

In the early morning hours of 10 May 1940, a small detachment of German paratroops was lifted from airfields near Cologne in eleven small D.F.S. 230 gliders towed by as many Junkers Ju 52 transports. After a series of misadventures, nine of the eleven gliders landed directly atop Eben Emael and neutralized the fort in a lightning move that required only ten minutes; the Germans blew in the roofs and turret lids of the Belgian gun positions with specially prepared shaped charges that paralyzed the fort’s garrison of 1200 men. This maneuver enabled the opening of the Vroenhoven and Veldwezelt bridges, assuring the rapid movement of German armored forces across the Albert Canal and the security of the northern flank of the main German penetration.

The bold move against Eben Emael had been planned and studied with utmost care and secrecy. The assault detachment that landed atop the fort had trained with meticulous attention to detail since November 1939, using a detailed scale model of the Belgian fort. The precisely executed operation cost the Germans only 44 dead and 100 wounded. Boldness, ingenuity, and imagination had triumphed over strength.

The Western soldier today has become so dependent on sophisticated support weapons that he seems to many to be incapable of engaging in combat without them. Civilization and modern education appear to have deadened his reflexes. Does this mean that our forces are vulnerable to tactical surprise? The French in Algiers and the Americans in Vietnam were confounded by the Fellaghas and the Vietcong, primitive fighters who had been toughened by a hard and underdeveloped existence. They were spartan, capable of forced marches with little rest, resistant to fatigue, experts in camouf1age, masters of deception and dispersion, always surprising their enemy. They relied on guerrilla tactics— Spain’s contribution to the art of war—which Mao Tse-tung had described In 1928 in a cryptic formula of only 16 Chinese character: "when the enemy advances, we retreat; when he camps, we harass him; if he tires, we attack; when he retreats, we pursue." The lesson for Western armies is clear: sophisticated technology is not enough; it may even make us more vulnerable to surprise. Only with the most thorough physical and psychological preparation, adapted to all the conditions of war, can a soldier confront combat that arises in all warfare, primitive or technologically advanced.

The advent of new weapons and military equipment can have a decisive influence on the field of battle. The replacement of stone axes by metal weapons, the Trojan horse, and the employment of gunpowder in the Middle Ages are good examples of tactical surprise induced by technological novelty. As Machiavelli said: "new and sudden things catch armies by surprise." The impact of Big Bertha, the machine gun, and the submarine in World War I; the V-1 and V-2 rockets and radar in World War II; Soviet surface-to-air missiles in Vietnam, and, particularly, the Yom Kippur War are all good examples of technological surprise. Technology is one area in which the possibility of surprise has been generally recognized. Virtually all modern military establishments possess technological intelligence services, established to investigate, study, and evaluate technological progress of others to avoid being technologically surprised.

The spectacular and revolutionary development of scientific and technological means of intelligence gathering in recent years has made it increasingly difficult to effect technological surprise on a modern nation with a powerful, well-organized, and efficient intelligence service. But as man’s progress continues apace and his spirit of conquest remains unabated, he will reach new frontiers—nuclear science, electronics, medicine, space technology—and make novel discoveries with equally novel military applications. The neutron bomb, laser weapons, cruise missiles, remote sensors to control the battlefield, standoff munitions, precision-guided bombs, and antitank missiles are also examples of man’s continuing and intense efforts to gain technological surprise.

But technological surprise need not involve elaborate and highly visible research and development programs. Small nations and political groups can also achieve technological surprise by simply purchasing or otherwise acquiring sophisticated equipment and weapon systems. Most nations lack the scientific and industrial development to equip their own armed forces; they must therefore obtain their arms from other nations; when this is done covertly, they too can achieve surprise. Such was the surprise Egypt and Syria dealt Israel with SA-6 antiaircraft missiles and the ZSU-23-4 Shilka antiaircraft gun in the Yom Kippur War, severely punishing the hitherto invincible and seemingly invulnerable Israeli Air Force.

State of Surprise

In the early hours of 5 June 1967, Israeli fighter-bombers, striking without warning, attacked Egyptian air bases in the Sinai and on the west bank of the Suez Canal. At the same time they hit the main air bases of Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. By the end of the day, some 400 Arab aircraft had been destroyed. What would go down in history as the Six Day War began with decisive surprise and ended in total victory for Israel. The war had been conducted by the Israelis with classic use of surprise, mobility, and speed, especially in the employment of their air force. For the first time in military history, air power alone had effectively decided the outcome of a war. The planning and execution had been so perfect that many Arabs concluded that American and British aircraft had participated in the strike: they had not expected an attack from the west; they had not anticipated total commitment of the Israeli Air Force in a maximum effort strike, and it had not occurred to them that the Israelis would use advanced recovery bases in the desert. The Arab nations had been unable to imagine and foresee the attack; their inability had allowed their enemy to select not only the moment and place of attack but the means as well. Such a failure to obtain and interpret information and anticipate results is what is meant by state of surprise.

The word state, in this context, refers to one's situation and especially to one’s state of mind with respect to changing conditions. The word state, as applied in this sense to social groups, to nations and their inhabitants, and to armed forces and their leadership, may constitute a condition either of surprise or alert insofar as it influences behavior.

A state of surprise is extremely dangerous, even in the presence of a well-organized national defense, for defenses are useless if not geared to deal with possible threats. The Arab nations had reorganized and strengthened their armed forces following the 1956 war; however, they failed to evaluate, analyze, and comprehend the real threat, and, therefore, were unable to make adequate plans to deal with it. It should be mentioned that at least some of the Arab states learned the lessons of 1967 very well; it was Israel, not the Arab states, that was surprised in 1973.

Even more serious is the situation where the collective will of a nation or a society has deteriorated to such a degree that a lack of urgency and a sense of resignation and defeat prevail, and the armed forces lack effective organization and leadership, rendering them incapable of facing either direct or indirect aggression. In such cases, intelligence services are nullified and rendered incapable of gathering a coherent and meaningful body of information that would allow them to detect and evaluate threats.

The armed forces of any nation, entrusted as they are with the national defense, have the responsibility of preventing aggression in all of its forms. Their intelligence services must be able to obtain, analyze, arid disseminate information necessary to support an appropriate response to each threat. For that reason, relevant and timely intelligence is a necessary precondition for the effective organization and training of armed forces. Military commanders and staffs must be sufficiently imaginative to foresee how possible conflicts might develop. Through sound factual knowledge, research, applied logic, and mathematical, analytical techniques, intelligence systems can predict future events with reasonable accuracy. This is not a theoretical goal that is out of reach in the real world. As Sun Tzu reminded us more than 2500 years ago: "that which allows the wise man, the sovereign, and the good general to attack, conquer, and get that which lies beyond the reach of common mortals, is precognition"; by precognition, Sun Tzu meant the ability to recognize what might happen and prevent it from happening to avoid lapsing into a state of surprise.

Western intelligence was unable to evaluate and predict effectively the events and conditions that led to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. This was not a failure of insufficient effort but of inappropriate analysis. Very little took place in Iran that was not known to American intelligence; no soldier, aircraft, ship, or land vehicle could move without the Shah’s knowledge. But what the Americans did not realize and could not foresee was that the Shah’s sophisticated and powerful armed forces would not support him in case of a religiously inspired revolution. The West was simply unaware of the extent of the influence an old ayatollah exerted on the nation from exile in France. His inflammatory messages circulated freely on tape cassettes recorded in Farsi, a language unknown to all too many analysts and American agents. The lesson is clear. To be able to monitor a nation closely with satellites, reconnaissance planes, sensors, and other such ultramodern devices but to be unable to interpret that information and therefore ignore what is really taking place is to be in a state of surprise.

Efficient intelligence systems are indispensable for national defense, but they cannot work if they neglect the human mind and rely exclusively on technology. A good intelligence system is one that truly knows the enemy and has the influence to prevent society, the nation, its armed forces, and its political leaders from lapsing into a state of surprise: it must be able to make all sectors aware of the threat and also discourage any laxity or sense of resignation that would compromise the national security. Surprise, then, can only be countered by effective intelligence and intelligence gathering; and analysis must encompass much more than mere numbers and technology.

I conclude with these words by Sun Tzu: "He who knows his enemy and also himself is assured of victory; he who knows himself but ignores his enemy has but one chance out of two to gain a victory; he who ignores himself and also his enemy is condemned to defeat."

Madrid, Spain

Lieutenant Colonel José Sánchez Méndez, Spanish Air Force (Spanish Air Force Academy), is a career officer in the Spanish Air Force. A rated pilot, he has flown the T-33, F-86, F-104, and the Mystère-Falcon 20. He is author of Organizaciones Europeas (1977), and from 1978-81 he was an editor of Revista de Aeronáutica y Astronáutica, professional journal of the Spanish Air Force. Colonel Sánchez is a recent graduate of the U.S. Defense Intelligence School, Washington, D.C., where he was the outstanding student in his class.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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