Title: Perception, Deception And Surprise
Author: Michael I. Handel
Handel, Michael I. (1975). Perception, Deception And Surprise: The Case Of The Yom Kippur War. Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations
LCCN: 77377674
Subjects
Date Updated: June 15, 2015
Reviewed by George C. Constantinides[1]
A well-organized and lucidly written analysis. Handel, a lecturer on international relations in Israel, has studied the ideas of others who have investigated the problem intelligence services confront in discerning impending attack. These he develops, expands, and then applies to the events leading up to the Arab attack in 1973. The conclusion he arrives at and the paradoxes he lists are obviously the work of a man who has pondered the problem of surprise, but they are also from the perspective of an Israeli and a Westerner. They are presented as of universal application but how valid this characterization is cannot be decided. There will be differences with his view that the Israelis in 1973 were “probably not deceived but … deceived themselves.” This theory is in line with the thrust of his analysis that self-deception rather than deception by one’s adversary is the greater danger. Chaim Herzog, the former chief of Israeli Military Intelligence, in 1975 characterized Egyptian deception as “eminently successful, extremely well conceived and very well carried out.” Readers will agree that Handel’s work is insightful and stimulating and that it represents some of the high-quality thinking now devoted to deception analysis.
[1] Constantinides, George C. (1983). Intelligence and Espionage: An Analytical Bibliography. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, p. 226
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