Did you ever wonder why intelligence analysts are so vulnerable to surprise?  In Understanding the Non-Linear Event: A Framework for Complex Systems Analysis (International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence), Sarah Miller Beebe and George S. Beebe explore how the dynamics of complex international systems are often at the heart of intelligence surprise. Many discontinuities, such as the recent events in the Middle East and North Africa that have become known as the “Arab Spring,” are the products of what are termed Complex Adaptive Systems. To minimize their vulnerability to surprise, analysts need a new conceptual framework for identifying and understanding such complex systems. This paper offers a new framework for producing such analyses of complex systems, avoiding the perils of linear projections, and helping policymakers understand the potential for discontinuous change.