Discourse, Dissent and Strategic Surprise
Beginning in late 2004, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy established a bipartisan, multi-disciplinary Study Group made up of senior policy and intelligence officials, Congressional members and staff, private analysts and journalists who undertook a two-year study funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to examine five instances of intelligence failures and "strategic surprise" from recent U.S. history.
The cases included:
- the fall of the Shah of Iran in l979;
- Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa in l998;
- the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in l980;
- the decision to terminate relations with Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets by the U.S.-backed mujaheddin in l991; and
- the Asian financial crisis in 1996. (Please see below for links to meeting reports.)
The final report, "Discourse, Dissent and Strategic Surprise: Formulating U.S. Security Policy in an Age of Uncertainty," was published by ISD in January 2007.
The Study Group's principal finding is that "strategic surprises," commonly thought to result from flawed or inadequate intelligence, were far more often about a failure of Washington policymakers to adapt favored strategies in the face of shifting international conditions. This proved to be true even when there was compelling evidence that the existing strategy was flawed or failing. The failure to plan for or even consider seriously the implications of new or emerging threats seems often to arise from a systemic tendency to ignore or marginalize warning information that does not conform to leaders' preconceptions about the security challenges they face or the policies they endorse. The reluctance to consider new or unfamiliar information which is not consistent with widely held assumptions proved to be far more influential in situations of strategic surprise than missing or faulty intelligence.
