Published: 1 September 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Fall 2008

Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning by Cynthia M. Grabo. University Press of America (http://www.univpress.com), Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706, 2004, 184 pages, $30.00 (softcover).

Originally written as a textbook for Cold War intelligence analysts, the declassified book Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning speaks clearly to our current security environment. As author Cynthia Grabo points out, “The analytic problems of warning, and the nature of errors, are really little changed” (p. ix). Individuals who must collect, interpret, and use intelligence to prepare for conventional conflicts as well as stop acts of terrorism can look to this book for help in developing a framework. Grabo wrote Anticipating Surprise because of her perception of “several failures by the Intelligence community to produce clear warnings for policymakers of impending hostile actions” (p. vii). As an analyst during the Cold War, she was present for many of the surprises that occurred.

The book begins by defining warning intelligence, discussing its role, and exploring the important question of whether the analyst should address an adversary’s intentions or capabilities. The author then moves to the methods used by warning analysts. In several respects, this exposition is one of the most important in the book. Reading about how warning analysts perform their jobs, we cannot help wondering if they are developing new tools and indicators for the collection, organization, and assessment of intelligence on terrorist organizations. Electronic eavesdropping performed by the National Security Agency and the monitoring program run by the Department of the Treasury have attracted much attention. One must ask whether these programs are adequate to the task of providing indicators of terrorist aims and actions. To paraphrase the story of the drunk looking for his keys under the lamppost, are we performing these surveillance activities because they are the best things to track or because they are the only things we can track?

The next three chapters deal with the intricacies of political and military factors that provide indications of potential hostilities; they also examine these factors to provide “the totality of evidence.” Specific topics include weighting various factors, assessing the meaning of evidence, and reconstructing an adversary’s decision-making process. The discussion of military and political indicators is particularly revealing. The reader gains an excellent sense of the actions we can and should monitor when looking at intelligence. More to the point, the book raises the question of what indicators now in development will offer insight into the future aims and actions of nonstate actors such as al-Qaeda and its franchise organizations. We developed technologies such as satellite imagery and electronic interception of communications to monitor armed forces of the Warsaw Pact. What technologies do we need now to monitor people who use commercial banking systems to provide funding, telephone and Internet systems to communicate, and household goods available at Wal-Mart to hijack airplanes and manufacture explosives?

Obvious differences may exist between indicators that a state may exhibit before it takes some action and those noted in a nonstate actor or organization such as al-Qaeda or Hezbollah. However, the strength of Anticipating Surprise lies in the clear exposition of the author’s framework for assessing intelligence, permitting the reader to imagine and develop new means of assessing current situations, regardless of the topic under analysis. The final chapters address such areas as surprise and timing, the problem of deception, judgments and policy, and improvements to warning assessments.

Implicit in the book are such questions as how intelligence will be interpreted and who determines whether conflicting analyses should be forwarded to a decision maker. For example, the Cold War conflict between order-of-battle analysts and warning analysts has clear implications for today. Different methods of analysis and interpretation, together with the consequent differences in prioritizing potential actions, still constitute a serious weakness in providing advance warning of conflict or attack. The treatment of indications and warnings received by the FBI and CIA prior to 11 September 2001 closely parallels the treatment of warnings received by analysts prior to the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the final North Vietnamese offensive against South Vietnam in 1975.

Furthermore, in Grabo’s book we see only the conflict between the warning and order-of-battle analysts. What if the number of participants in the process increases through the addition of local and state law-enforcement agencies that must balance the need for acting on possible terrorist threats against potential economic and political consequences, as well as the loss of credibility if the warning proves incorrect? We saw a clear instance of this dilemma when the Department of Homeland Security raised alert levels due to ambiguous indicators of a terrorist attack against the Brooklyn tunnels.

Another implicit argument concerns the analysts themselves. By concentrating on military and political analysis, the author identifies the types of expertise that analysts should possess. When analysts examine a terrorist organization such as al-Qaeda, what kind of knowledge, background, and skill do they need?

Finally, no one who has followed debate on the recent and ongoing reorganization of the intelligence community can fail to see the implications of this book’s guidelines and examples. Rather than reorganization, our intelligence community requires new means of gathering information on potential threats and dangerous operations. Reorganization will not provide better warning if analysts cannot agree on the meaning of the indicators or if policy makers do not heed the intelligence.

The author has not updated this studyto deal specifically with the detection of terrorist actions, nor does she deal with how political leaders should handle the political aims of extremists. However, Grabo does provide a framework for developing intelligence systems that can function better than the current process and organization. Furthermore, the guidelines found in this outstanding work apply to fields other than national security. Political scientists, economists, businessmen, trend watchers, and competitive intelligence analysts all can benefit from reading Anticipating Surprise.

Paul Younes
Newport, Rhode Island

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academicenvironment 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.

Book Reviews | Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor