The Victims of Success

How Complacency Bred Israeli Intelligence Failure

Abstract

This paper inquires into the conditions under which intelligence failures occur. This question is critical in understanding both past security failures and preventing surprise attacks in the future. To address this question, I test three separate Israeli cases—two intelligence failures and one intelligence success —against three potential explanations. While alternative factors like analytical failure and confirmation bias played varying roles in the examined intelligence failures, success-induced complacency emerges as the most plausible condition for surprise attacks. This factor didn’t just contribute to intelligence failures; a lack of complacency also helped produce Israel’s 1967 War success—highlighting the theory’s generalizability. This theory warns intelligence analysts against excessively confident assumptions, instructing them to constantly evaluate their preconceived notions and to adjust them when necessary.