Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for
Strategic Warning by Cynthia M.
Grabo
Swift Service, Book As Advertised
Anticipating Surprise, originally written as a manual for training intelligence
analysts during the cold war, has been declassified and condensed, in
order to provide wider audiences with an inside look at intelligence
gathering and analysis. Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on
America, intelligence collection and analysis has been hotly debated.
Cynthia Grabo suggests ways of improving warning assessments which
better convey warnings to policymakers and military commanders - who
are responsible for taking appropriate action to avert disaster.
Personal Review: Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic
Warning by Cynthia M. Grabo
2004's "Anticipating Surprise" is a distillation of a much larger, and
classified, study on the challenge for the U.S. Intelligence Community of

providing strategic warning. Author Cynthia Grabo's working experience
covered the Cold War from Korea to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
This condensed version, put together by the Joint Military Intelligence
College, alludes to some later examples of warning problems.
Those looking for quick and easy solutions to the conduct of analysis for
strategic warning may be disappointed. As Grabo notes in a summary
chapter, "Nothing is going to remove the uncertainties of the warning
problem." Anticipating surprise is hard work; Grabo explores the topic in
clear simple language, pointing out some reliable methods and some
obvious pitfalls. After explaining the basics of the warning problem, Grabo
devotes several chapters to the use of indicators of pending enemy action,
whether military or political. She notes both the difficulty and the criticality
of providing the decision-maker with a coherent, positive judgement on a
warning problem.
Grabo includes a remarkably lucid discussion on the problem of deception,
the discouraging conclusion of which is how often deception is successful.
A follow-on discussion on assigning probabilities to various outcomes is
unusually accessible for what is often an arcane topic. A final chapter
sums up the discussion and offers some take-away points for the
professional practioner.
"Anticipating Surprise" is very highly recommended professional reading
for the intelligence officer. Persons in the academic community or the
decision-making business may find this short book to be invaluable
preparation for understanding more focused studies such as the report of
the 9/11 Commission. This reviewer recommends reading it in conjunction
with Roberta Wohlstetter's outstanding "Warning and Decision" dissection
of the Pearl Harbor disaster.
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