How Surprise Attack is Possible

Hamas’ surprise terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, and the subsequent fighting in Gaza has again plunged the Middle East into a situation bordering on apocalyptic. The horrors of the attack are compounded by the shock that Israel’s vaunted intelligence services were seemingly caught unawares after decades of exceptional performance. Recently, a rather damning report claims that Israeli intelligence intercepted Hamas’ attack plan but that the plan was considered “aspirational” and incapable of being implemented.

The truth will probably not be fully known until an impartial and dispassionate investigation can be conducted, similar to the Agranat Commission that reviewed Israeli intelligence and defense shortcomings prior to the October War of 1973. When an investigation of the Hamas surprise attack is completed, it will likely provide not lessons learned but lessons relearned regarding not only intelligence collection and analysis, but also military and political judgements. These judgements will likely have been clouded by four attributes of human nature that are a common factor in surprise attacks. If the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence, then the four horsemen of surprise attack are Ambiguity, Misperception, Deception, and Preconception.

Errors like this occur because the greater the ambiguity, the greater the chance of misperception or wishful thinking. Misperceptions can result from honest mistakes in interpreting ambiguous information such as when Israeli intelligence misperceived the buildup of Egyptian forces along the Suez Canal in the fall of 1973 as training maneuvers instead of attack preparations. 

Misperceptions are heightened by deception operations. Attackers misdirect victims from signals of an impending attack by contradictory signals as when Egypt sent numerous officers to participate in the Hajj just before the October War of 1973. Israeli intelligence therefore believed that Egypt was not preparing to attack since it was allowing its officers to take leave. A similar deception operation might have been Hamas’ ongoing negotiations with Israel to accept a greater number of guest workers, which would contradict possible reporting of plans for an attack. Along with deception, good counterintelligence and operational security operations by an attacker also help blind or misdirect a victim’s intelligence apparatus.

Misperceptions are incorrect ideas; preconceptions are opinions formed before obtaining adequate evidence and are often based on bias or prejudice. Both are misunderstandings, but preconceptions are more dangerous because they often harden into unalterable beliefs. Despite warnings of Nazi preparations to attack the Soviet Union, Stalin had a preconception that Hitler would not attack without first making political demands. He refused suggested countermeasures and was truly surprised when Nazi Germany attacked without warning. Since most warnings will have a degree of ambiguity, policy makers with preconceived views may not accept warnings if they do not fit those views. Preconceptions can become the lenses through which all other information is processed. Unfortunately, most people do not change lenses until they are broken.

These factors can also influence military preparations and policy making. Japanese success at Pearl Harbor was facilitated not just by intelligence shortcomings but also by the Army’s preconception that the real threat was from sabotage and not air attack causing it to park its aircraft wingtip-to-wingtip. Misperceptions of Japanese torpedo capabilities in shallow waters led the Navy to not deploy anti-torpedo nets around its ships.

Finally, “intelligence failures” often result not from a failure of intelligence professionals to warn leaders but instead from a failure to persuade them that a threat is real. For example, because General MacArthur believed that he knew Asia better than anyone else in the U.S. government, he dismissed all warnings in 1950 that China would enter the war in Korea.

Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel is an opportune reminder for the U.S. government to scrutinize its own susceptibility to surprise attack. It should reexamine preparedness for surprise attacks against not just military targets, but also against America’s domestic infrastructure and military-industrial base. A 21st century Pearl Harbor may try to destroy both U.S. military targets in Asia, Europe, or the Middle East and simultaneously targets at home to prevent the United States from responding in the short and long term. As Roberta Wohlstetter and Thomas Schelling wrote after researching Pearl Harbor, the United States cannot count on strategic warning, partly because of the difficulties described above; therefore, American defenses must be designed to function without it.

Furthermore, the savagery of Hamas on 10/7 should warn that the ideology behind 9/11 and many other terrorist outrages is still alive. Despite today’s focus on peer competitors, the U.S. government should not forget the threat posed by terrorism. The United States remains the “far enemy” for violent Salafist terrorists just as Israel remains their “near enemy.” While Russia and China may predominate American security horizons, there are deadly threats below that horizon still willing to do in the United States what was done in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza.

Philip Wasielewski is the Director of FPRI's Center for the Study of Intelligence and Nontraditional Warfare and a 2023 Templeton Fellow. He is a former Paramilitary Case Officer who had a 31-year career in the Directorate of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency.