Anticipating Surprise, originally written as a manual for training intelligence analysts during the Cold War, has been declassified and condensed to provide wider audiences with an inside look at intelligence gathering and analysis for strategic warning. Cynthia Grabo defines the essential steps in the warning process, examines distinctive ingredients of the analytic method of intelligence gathering, and discusses the guidelines for assessing the meaning of gathered information. Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America, intelligence collection and analysis has been hotly debated. In this book, Grabo suggests ways of improving warning assessments that better convey warnings to policymakers and military commanders who are responsible for taking appropriate action to avert disaster.
Assigned to the National Indications Center, Cynthia Grabo served as a senior researcher and writer for the U.S. Watch Committee throughout its existence (1950 to 1975), and in its successor, the Strategic Warning Staff. During this time she saw the need to capture the institutional memory associated with strategic warning. With three decades of experience in the Intelligence Community, she saw intelligence and warning failures in Korea, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Cuba. In the summer of 1972, the DIA published her "Handbook of Warning Intelligence" as a classified document, followed by two additional classified volumes, one in the fall of 1972 and the last in 1974. These declassified books have now been condensed from the original three volumes into this one. Ms. Grabo's authoritative interpretation of an appropriate analytic strategy for intelligence-based warning is here presented in a commercial reprint of this classic study. (Originally published by the Joint Military Intelligence College)
This book and its message could not be more relevant today. After World War II, the U.S. Intelligence Community's main objective was to understand the intentions and capabilities of the Communist threat. This meant a focus on the Soviet Union and its allies. Data on the number and capabilities of tanks, airplanes or ships in the inventory of the Warsaw Pact were not easy to come by, although somewhat easier to obtain than insight into the intentions of Communist leaders. A well-placed spy or satellite with a camera could yield some information but far from the whole picture. One of the most knowledgeable analysts who understood the importance of addressing both capabilities and intentions as a central part of the intelligence process was a woman-Cynthia Grabo. Intelligence analysis was dominated by men before, during, and after World War II. In this environment, Ms. Grabo stood out. Cynthia Grabo worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. government from 1942 to 1980. After graduating from the University of Chicago with undergraduate and graduate degrees, she was recruited by Army Intelligence shortly after Pearl Harbor. Although she served in various capacities during the war, from 1949 for the remainder of her career she specialized in strategic warning. Assigned to the interagency staff called the National Indications Center, she served as a senior researcher and writer for the U.S. Watch Committee throughout its existence (1950 to 1975), and for its successor organization the Strategic Warning Staff. It was during this time that Ms. Grabo recognized the need to capture the institutional memory associated with strategic warning. The viability of the U.S. intelligence system depends on analysts, collectors, humanists and technologists, all of whom must be willing in their assessments and creative work to share risks with appropriate intelligence consumers. Commanders and policymakers also promote the viability of the intelligence system if they allow analysts to fail, yet to continue their work. As Ms Grabo points out, the Intelligence Community must avoid treating the warning function as only a by-product of other intelligence production. To "work'' a warning problem is to anticipate events in their fullest political, military, economic, diplomatic and cultural context. If the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon came as a surprise because "nothing like that had ever happened before in the U.S., '' then the events truly echo those of December 1941. Now, the U.S. itself is highly subject to having indications analysis practiced against it. The historical experience of the U.S. in interpreting indications of conflict, as they are brought to light in this work, can help to make us more aware of the messages we may be conveying to potential adversaries in the international environment, and therefore preserve an element of surprise for ourselves. The 21st century brings a different world in many respects, but the principles of strategic warning analysis remain the same.
