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“… surprise therefore becomes the means of acquiring superiority… When it succeeds, it sows confusion and breaks the enemy’s courage” – Carl von Clausewitz
October 7, 2023 is a day marked by the launch of Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” against Israel by a coalition of terrorist organizations led by the Hamas armed forces in the Gaza Strip. This attack on the Jewish territories and populations of Israel is one of the largest terrorist attacks organized by a non-state group against a territory and its people. After several months now, no fewer than 1,200 people have died in the attack, both civilians and soldiers, and to date almost 150 Israelis are still prisoners, making this event a tragedy that many compared to the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States or the November 13, 2015 attacks in France. And if we consider the consequences of this attack, we can count several tens of thousands of civilian deaths among the Gazan population as a result of the Israeli response.
The events of that day brought the notion of strategic surprise back to the fore. This concept assumes that, in order to gain a strategic advantage over one’s adversary, one undertakes an action that the latter did not anticipate, and which will thus advance one’s own strategy. This notion, very often used in the military sphere, has undergone a semantic shift in recent years, and in particular since September 11, 2001, to the effect that it can be used by transnational combat groups outside state-sponsored military conflicts. The best-known examples of traditional strategic surprise are Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the Egyptian offensive at the start of the Yom Kippur War. In its new definition, strategic surprise can be observed in the September 11 attacks and now in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
From the point of view of the perpetrator, a strategic surprise is a successful action while from the point of view of the victim, it is a failure of its defence organization. Without neglecting the conditions of success of the strategic surprise, which required a great deal of meticulous preparation on the part of its perpetrators, it is interesting to consider the strategic surprise from the other point of view, i.e., to examine what errors, shortcomings or flaws in a country’s defence structure transformed an attack, however significant, into a strategic surprise.
Following this logic, this piece will look more specifically at the errors committed by the entity concerned by this surprise and examine a large number of factors such as the atomization of information, the lack of coordination, the presence of cognitive biases, and the important place of technology in security structures. If a strategic surprise has taken place, it means that organizational or political elements have created this surprise. In this case, it is precisely the disparity of the means and forces involved, as well as the technologies deployed, that makes this aspect particularly significant. These include “failures” in the Israeli defense system, both structural (information gathering) and cognitive (information comprehension). Following this logic, we can now turn our attention to the events of October 7.
Intelligence structure: the problem of fragmentation and coordination
From a structural point of view, one of the major factors behind the surprise was the problem of the atomization of intelligence and the inherent lack of coordination between surveillance and intelligence institutions. Since 1948, Israel has multiplied its defense services, which today include a large number of bodies, each with its own role and its own intelligence service. There are five main ones, such as the ISA (Israel Security Agency or Shin Bet), the Mossad, and the regular army (Israel Defence Force or Tsahal). On a purely theoretical level, these organizations have their own specialties, such as border surveillance, internal or external surveillance, and should work together. However, this increased specialization and atomization of intelligence means that, for example, the ISA only works on human intelligence (HUMINT) and military intelligence (AMAM under the jurisdiction of the Israeli army) only deals with signals and visual intelligence (SIGINT). This dichotomy leads to a form of competition between intelligence centers, having a de facto impact on Israel’s ability to anticipate crises and respond appropriately. In the same vein, Israel’s absolute confidence in and growing dependence on electronic means of communication has also been a burden. Hamas, aware of this weakness, succeeded in keeping Israel in a state of total limbo by destroying its communications and targeting those responsible for monitoring Gaza on the border. As a result, the country suffered the full brunt of the attack without being able to react adequately, to such an extent that Israeli fighter planes took several hours to take off where, under normal circumstances, it takes them only a few minutes to arrive on target. In this way, Hamas disrupted the military’s communication system with Tel Aviv and prevented a coordinated response from the armed forces, allowing them only to take disorganized, ad hoc action.
Cognitive bias and negligence
In terms of anticipating events, the Israeli services demonstrated a lack of understanding, if not a certain negligence, regarding Hamas’s plans. It has been revealed that Israeli state intelligence agencies had been informed of Hamas’s attack plan a year earlier. However, despite monitoring the region, the country’s security personnel did not consider such a large-scale attack plausible. Yet there were many signs that such an operation was being planned, such as military exercises recreating areas of Israeli territory, and propaganda videos showing Hamas forces training. Despite all this, the Israeli security hierarchy failed to take any notice. What is more, the many experts who examined these plans all concluded that such an action seemed unfeasible by an armed force such as Hamas.
Indeed, the scale of the operation and Hamas’ ambitions seemed totally out of place. For the vast majority of them, the only possibility of an attack by Hamas would have been an operation on a much smaller scale, more in keeping with those it had carried out in the past, and which the security services could easily dismantle. Hamas’ logistical and military capabilities were underestimated, and its ability to carry out an attack of this scale was entirely overlooked. It should also be noted that, in its surveillance strategy, Israel has left Hamas a great deal of room for manoeuvre. For a number of years, the intelligence services had been increasingly neglecting human and open-source intelligence, in favor of digital intelligence. Hamas has taken advantage of this to slip under the Israeli radar by cutting off all digital communication, so as to reveal only the bare minimum of information. Misled by overconfidence, Israeli forces ignored direct signals of a potential attack and warnings issued by border personnel in the week preceding the attack. Several weak signals were detected, such as suspicious border movements or abnormal air activity. The last alerts issued by the security services date back to just a few hours before the attack, yet meetings were postponed until the following morning, even though the operation began at 6am. In addition to the internal alerts, international alerts were issued by Egypt and the United States, announcing the imminence of a major operation, without being able to specify its timing.
Other factors in the surprise?
Among the other elements that had a major impact on the success of Hamas’s strategic surprise was the fact that Gaza’s border surveillance is largely dependent on technology. Several billion dollars have been invested in a new high-tech surveillance system which, in principle, guarantees the impassability of the wall, reinforcing the idea of Israel as an impregnable fortress. The conviction that if anyone tried to cross the border by any means, they would be detected and eliminated long before they succeeded in their deed, disarmed the vigilance of the military. It should also be noted that all automatic defence systems were based on electronic systems, including communications, so that in the event of a network problem, the entire border defence system would be null and void. By cutting off all digital systems and destroying the telecoms, Hamas annihilated Israel’s entire defence system.
Ultimately, the surprise lies not only in the mistakes made by the Israeli services, but also in the success of the strategy pursued by Hamas for several years. In Israel’s eyes, the organization had managed to position itself as a rational political player with whom dialogue persisted, to the point where agreements had been reached on the reception of Gazan workers in Israel. In this way, Hamas was able to cover its tracks and “put the Israeli state to sleep” in order to carry out its attack. Whether it was the elaboration, meticulous preparation and implementation of a large-scale military operation leaving no room for error, or the knowledge and exploitation of its adversary’s weaknesses, Hamas pulled off a major strategic surprise.
What lessons can we learn from strategic surprise?
Is it possible not to fall victim to strategic surprise? In theory, it is possible to completely eliminate the surprise effect, but in practice it is almost impossible. Too many factors come into play, as in the case studied, where a multitude of causes ensured that the surprise played out to the full. Anticipation therefore lies in the ability to minimize the risk of being taken by surprise by improving the coordination of security institutions, without giving way to counter-productive competition in a completely atomized intelligence field. It is also imperative not to underestimate one’s adversary, not to fall into the trap of cognitive bias, and to produce a rational assessment of one’s adversary that is as perfect as possible. Finally, technology is an essential element, but it must not be a source of dependency, and the importance of human and open-source intelligence must not be overlooked if adequate surveillance is to be achieved.
In conclusion, the surprise that gripped the State of Israel, its government, army, and population that day was clearly linked to the many flaws in a system that was supposed to be invincible. Israel’s entire strategy was turned upside down by the radical shift in the regional balance of power due to organizational and structural shortcomings. It is likely that with increased communication and a non-competitive intelligence environment, an ability to overcome or at least reduce the presence of cognitive biases without forsaking human and open-source intelligence, then Israel would have been able to react accordingly and not suffer the full force of the surprise.
Strategic surprise is not only linked to the mistakes of one side, but also to the success of the other. Although the Israeli defense system showed a number of shortcomings which, taken together, were major elements of the surprise, Hamas’s ability to carry out such a large-scale attack should not be overlooked. But while surprise creates a stupefying effect at the moment of its occurrence, it must also be considered that it is highly risky if used without a plan. In other words, you have to consider your adversary’s foreseeable reaction and be prepared to strike back. Despite this reversal of relations on October 7, Israel proved resilient in the face of the attack, rekindling – not without controversy – a seemingly dormant regional conflict.
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