Surprise, Surprise: Misperception, Hubris, and Deception in Today’s Strategic Environment
Itai Shapira | 06.26.25
Surprise, Surprise: Misperception, Hubris, and Deception in Today’s Strategic Environment
In recent years, strategic surprises are everywhere. Russia and the United States were surprised by Ukrainian resilience in 2022, and Israel was surprised by the Hamas attacks in October 2023. Just recently, Iran was surprised by Israel’s preventive strikes in June 2025, probably also wrongly assessing the US resolve to strike the Iranian nuclear program if negotiations fail. Such surprises reflect not only foundational misperceptions about the environment, but sometimes also flawed self-perceptions. They also highlight the need of scholars and practitioners to study the phenomenon of surprise, take measures to prevent it, avoid hubris, and exercise deception to surprise our adversaries.
Perception and misperception have always been key topics in international relations, leading to strategic surprises. But strategic surprise, and surprise military attacks, are not just the result of intelligence agencies failing to provide early warning. They are not just intelligence failures. Surprises also result from the failure of decision-makers to adequately perceive the interaction of their decisions with the environment and the limitations of their ability to influence the adversary. Surprises create emotional and even traumatic effects, and provide the proactive side—the one that effectively surprises an adversary—with a substantial advantage.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, for instance, were not merely a failure of US intelligence to provide early warning. They also reflect a US misperception of al-Qaeda’s strategy and capabilities, and a “failure to imagine” the terrorist threat to the homeland. In 2016, when US intelligence failed to provide early warning of the Russian intervention in US presidential elections, this was also considered a “failure of imagination.” The United States misperceived Russia’s strategy and its operational concept of using cyber operations and social media to attack the core of US democracy.
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/surprise-surprise-misperception-hubris-and-deception-in-todays-strategic-environment/
