Surprise Attack: The Victim's Perspective

by Ephraim Kam, Thomas C. Schelling (Foreword)

A new version of this book is now available. The striking thing about surprise attack is how frequently it succeeds--even in our own day, when improvements in communications and intelligence gathering should make it extremly difficult to sneak up on anyone. Ephraim Kam observes surprise attack through the eyes of its victim in order to understand the causes of the victim's failure to to anticipate the coming war. Kam analyzes eleven major surprise attacks that have been launched since the outbreak of World War II (by no means the only ones that occured), starting with the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in 1940 and ending with the Eyptian-Syrian attack on Isreal in 1973, in a systematic comparative effort to find the elements that successful sorties have in common. He tackles the problem on four the individual analyst, the small group, the large organization, and the decision makers. Emphasizing the psychological aspects of warfare, Kam traces the behavior of the victim at various functional levels and from several points of view in order to examine the difficulties, mistakes, and idées fixes that permit a nation to be taken by surprise. He argues that anticipation and prediction of a coming war are more complicated than any other issue of strategic estimation, involving such interdependent factors as analytical contradictions, judgmental biases, organizational obstacles, and political as well as military constraints.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published November 15, 1988

Reviews

[Anna Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting perspective. Kam explains in detail the many reasons why victims have been surprised by attacks. At times, the information is redundant and while the information is easy to follow and understand, there is no real narrative or continuation from event to event that holds the reader's interest. The events that he uses to illustrate his points are glossed over, so anyone with little knowledge of the events will still be able to understand his perspective. However, anyone with in-depth knowledge of any of these events may have different opinions as to why the victims were caught off guard.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on common pitfalls when analyzing the probabilty of surprise attack.

Kam hits on all the key problems and his prose is very clear. He writes like an intel analyst, leading paragraphs with a summary sentence and then supporting that sentence below. This makes some parts dry, but very useful when wanting to use the book as a reference aid.

I especially liked his look on how we look at an adversary's risk calculus. Often people use the verb "risks" to really mean could/might/may--weasel words. Kam implores analysts to not comment on "increased risk" but to look at the key drivers which play into the risk calculus of an adversary, and assess how changes to those drivers would affect their decisionmaking.

I applaud Kam for not trying to use the book to claim he has "found the answer" for why we continue to be surprised by world events. His overall message is simple: we will be suprised despite our best efforts, but our "best efforts" could be much better (I wanted to say "bester").

[Michal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, I will for sure be coming back to it in the future. A lot of it would be useful for ambitious forecasters, especially those interested in forecasting geopolitical events.

[Adam Halley · Rating 2 out of 5]

A systematic discussion on recognizing a surprise attack before it happens. The material is well-organized and very logically presented. The writing is clear but each cause of surprise is clearly illustrated with historical example, usually multiple examples.

While you may glean useful information from this book, the text is very dry and repetitive. This is clearly a textbook and not a fun read.

[Zac Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for a class
It was not too dry or dull
Inspires caution