Intelligence Failures and Reforms: Avoiding Strategic Surprise

Intelligence Failures and Reform: Avoiding Strategic Surprise

Essay Paper

INTL302 Professor Nicholas Tzakis

By William Carter 1028079

18 December 2012

The recurring strategic theme within the past 100 years relevant to all significant reforms is the necessity to prevent strategic surprise. There have been a high percentage of surprise incidents throughout U.S. History. However, this should be not at all surprising to learn. Historically, the intelligence community does not adapt to changes in doctrine or technology until something drastic has occurred. By then, it is too late, and we have become a reactive nation versus proactive. If the intelligence community continues down this path, another strategic surprise by our enemies will soon be at hand. “In fact, preventing strategic surprise has been a regularly recurring theme in the United States national security policy from at least the mid-20th Century to the present.” [1] Warning, current, analytic, research, and science & technology intelligence are critical factors when dealing with national security. Intelligence must be shared throughout the entire intelligence community in order to have a higher chance of success in preventing such surprise. All surprises cannot be stopped; however we can think about mitigating events based off strong analysis and threat assessments.

As I stated earlier, history is filled with incidents of intelligence failures and strategic surprise. “For example, the modern IC has its origins in the aftermath of the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor. The National Security Act of 1947 created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), America’s first peacetime intelligence agency, and it also established a structure for the US national security that has persisted for 65 years.[2] Therefore, policymakers and decision makers were given advanced notice of potential futures through...