Strategic Military Surprise/Surprise Attack
Knorr, Klaus & Morgan, Patrick & Betts, Richard K.
STRATEGIC MILITARY SURPRISE: INCENTIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES Klaus Knorr and Patrick Morgan, with contributions by Michael Doyle, Michael Handel, and Richard Betts Transaction Books/$14.95...
...Both books foresee few changes that could reduce vulnerability to surprise...
...One would hope that the shattering experience of Pearl Harbor would permanently ensure the United States against complacency...
...STRATEGIC MILITARY SURPRISE: INCENTIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES Klaus Knorr and Patrick Morgan, with contributions by Michael Doyle, Michael Handel, and Richard Betts Transaction Books/$14.95 pbk...
...It is impossible to overestimate the difficulty involved in perceiving, interpreting, and responding to warnings of attack...
...9.95 pbk...
...Warnings are usually received against a background of "noise"-competing or contradictory signals...
...SURPRISE ATTACK: LESSONS FOR DEFENSE PLANNING Richard K. Betts/Brookings Institution/$24.95...
...Nonetheless, Betts argues, in order to minimize the risk of surprise, Western policy-makers must shed their preconceptions and consider circumstances that might lead to a Soviet attack in Europe, the most obvious one being simple aggression...
...Knorr and Morgan devote the bulk of their work to twenty historical case studies exploring the nuances of surprise, concluding with sections on the incentives and opportunities for surprise...
...The risk of strategic surprise will be reduced only when we recognize that preconceptions can both blind and paralyze...
...and notwithstanding the top-level U.S...
...A principal preconception of our time continues to be the belief that the Soviets adhere to our doctrine of nuclear deterrence...
...For example, if political conditions should evolve that reduce NATO's military capabilities or fracture the alliance, weakened deterrence could tempt Moscow to dominate the continent by eliminating Bonn...
...Despite the advantages of holding the initiative, the range of deceptions available to the Soviets is limited...
...Betts suggests several, including a plan for a partially reinforced attack preceded by a fake crisis or revolt in East Germany: reinforcements brought in to stamp out the "revolt" would keep moving west...
...This conclusion is not simplis-tically dictated by Soviet strategic and tactical emphasis on surprise...
...Judging by the past, moreover, one really does not know if an alliance exists until the shooting starts...
...Terry O'Rourke If war breaks out between the Soviet Union and the United States, it will probably be initiated by surprise attack...
...Two excellent books have appeared to fill this near void in defense literature: Strategic Military Surprise by Klaus Knorr and Patrick Morgan, and Surprise Attack by Richard Betts...
...In the case of the United States, this process is aggravated by adherence to the doctrine of deterrence, which presupposes a "rational" opponent who understands that an attack is "crazy": when deterrence collapses, decision-makers accordingly are inclined to discount or dismiss changes in the opponent's capabilities and conduct...
...Morgan believes that such predispositions are the main cause of vulnerability to strategic surprise...
...With the exception of Roberta Wohlstetter's Pearl Harbor Warning and Decision, which appeared in 1962, and a scattering of monographs since, the subject has received little attention...
...Although he believes war between the Soviet Union and the United States is more likely to break out elsewhere, Betts regards the central front as the most critical to U.S...
...Even though the process may "degenerate into uninspired and uninspiring practice," he believes that some mistakes can be diminished if not altogether avoided...
...rather, it echoes the truism that virtually every major outbreak of war in modern times involved key elements of surprise: erroneous assumptions of enemy capabilities and intentions, attacks at unexpected times and places, and new weapons and tactics...
...Although history provides innumerable examples of surprise, it also teaches, as Knorr observes, that "learning from past blunders is far from easy...
...Reviewing current U.S...
...Surprise acts as a force multiplier...
...Because of the tremendous dangers such a war would pose to both sides, Betts argues that deterrence in Europe is probably solid, and for that reason Western leaders would find a Soviet decision to strike almost impossible to believe...
...With respect to preconceptions, Berts is decidedly pessimistic: we are dealing with an "intellectual or cultural phenomenon that transcends differences in structure and process...
...Serious study of the role of surprise in modern warfare has long been overdue...
...These recommendations are obviously a step in the right direction...
...The tendency is to oversimplify the reading of past events, expecting their causes to repeat themselves in mechanical fashion, and thus to be prepared for the last crisis...
...Commentary, July 1977...
...Although the two books somewhat Terry 0 'Rourke practices law in Southern California...
...Regarding the operational level, Berts recommends increasing flexibility and decreasing response time through pre-prepared firing positions and terrain modifications...
...Such assessments, he says, need to focus on the intentions and plans for surprise of potential attackers, as well as on the defender's vulnerabilities...
...Finally, the Soviets could see a situation-perhaps involving their own economic woes, Warsaw Pact unrest, and a resurgence in Western military capabilities-"in terms resembling Japanese perceptions in 1941 of inevitable war and an eroding position in the military balance, where the maturation of evolving trends seems certainly unbearable, while the risks of attack seem possibly bearable...
...As disturbing as these suggestions are, Betts overlooks a more obvious scenario: a simultaneous Warsaw Pact attack through neutral Austria toward Munich and NATO's rear area...
...By destroying the victim's forces at the outset, the attacker "exploits, his own [capabilities] to the maximum...
...The victim, moreover, usually cause of surprise is not the failure of intelligence but the unwillingness of political leaders to believe intelligence or to react to it with sufficient dispatch...
...After all, to add insult to injury, the Pearl Harbor attack was itself patterned on Japan's 1904 attack on the Russians...
...or, if the Soviets resolved to strike eastward, "they could believe it necessary to secure the more threatening western front before pivoting to take on the Chinese...
...Knorr argues that the West must establish institutional practices that continually challenge potent preconceptions...
...Knorr is more general in calling for better command and control capabilities, lower level decision-making in emergencies, and the deployment of ready and mobile forces capable of rushing speedily to any breach...
...One NATO study in the late 1970s concluded that absolute readiness would require the better part of a week after political authorization to mobilize...
...as the amazed leader of the Pearl Harbor attack later asked, "Had these Americans never heard of Port Arthur...
...Richard Pipes's famous essay "Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War"* generally met with hysterical derision and so will most suggestions that the Soviets do not share our strategic assumptions...
...policies and force postures, Betts's primary concern is NATO's central front...
...he believes that once the range of plausible innovation is detected and articulated "the potential vulnerabilities in Western posture would emerge with more clarity...
...Although the neutralization of some NATO members in a crisis is an unpleasant possibility, it is, as Betts says, "no more remote than the possibility that Moscow would decide to launch World War III...
...The number of available troops in Hungary and Czechoslovakia includes seven Soviet motorized divisions, at least four Soviet tank divisions, and Hungarian and Czech forces of equal or greater number...
...Lacking strategic depth and superiority in standing forces, NATO cannot afford a surprise attack...
...According to Betts, "the principal overlap, they differ in emphasis...
...Surprise, in short, confounds the victim's prior expectations and assessments...
...If Austria is overrun, NATO forces- scarcely adequate to cover the frontier from Lubeck south to the Austrian border-would be required to defend an additional 200 miles of frontier stretching along the southern flank of NATO forces facing east toward Czechoslovakia and northeast toward East Germany...
...On the other hand, the Soviets might seek to enhance surprise before completing full mobilization of ground forces by launching concentrated air attacks against airfields, nuclear storage sites, supply depots, barracks, and communication centers-thereby crippling the West's ability to mobilize and coordinate forces...
...adheres to erroneous views on the possibility of attack, thereby misreading the signals...
...Unfortunately, the lessons of history quickly recede into a mist of ambiguity and wishful thinking...
...The most challenging problem for the Soviets is to mask the timing or significance of mobilization or movements prior to attack...
...In the same vein, Betts advocates more ambitious assessment of "the doctrinal implications of Soviet military literature and exercises...
...Betts further argues that even were NATO warned of an impending attack, it is dangerous to assume that a coalition as diverse as NATO would undertake unified, complete, and prompt mobilization...
...and NATO vulnerability to surprise...
...Air attacks would be supplemented by the use of parachute-dropped and helicopter-carried forces in NATO rear areas to block reinforcements...
...Knorr also observes that military assessments are prepared "for the most part with reference to the defender's strategic plans, not the attacker's...
...The peacetime military balance is thus a false indicator of defense capability: surprise "radically alters the balance at the outset of war...
...Surprise is defined in terms of the defender's unreadiness," says Betts, "caused by one or more mistaken estimates of whether, when, where, and how the enemy would strike...
...Prior, unfulfilled warnings of attack, perhaps the result of enemy "conditioning," can erode the credibility of subsequent warnings...
...Enemy deception schemes compound the problem by increasing the volume of noise, heightening the ambiguity and the impression that the evidence is inconclusive...
...consensus to the contrary, two days before the same attack a National Security Agency briefer had argued that war was imminent...
...Such views range from mere wishful thinking to projecting one's own version of rationality or military doctrine on the enemy...
...NATO has never gone on full alert, so there is no way to judge how quickly the decision process in response to warning would unfold: critical decisions are not made in Brussels, but in the members' capitals...
...Betts also believes that history provides vital instruction, but most of his own book addresses current U.S...
...Egypt's 1973 attack on Israel, for example, was predicted several days in advance by an Israeli intelligence officer...
...interests since a war in this sector "would probably escalate to the nuclear destruction of the United States...
...Between June 1949 and June 1950, for example, MacArthur's Far East Command warned Washington over 1,200 times of an impending North Korean attack...
...Both conclusions are substantiated by the fact that surprise is seldom total: a correct interpretation has usually been made by the lower level intelligence or military officials close to the incoming information...
Vol. 16 • December 1983 • No. 12
