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CIA Home > Library > Center for the Study of Intelligence > Studies Archive Indexes > Documents > Strategic Warning: The Problem of Timing

Strategic Warning: The Problem of Timing

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 APPROVED FOR RELEASE 1994
 CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
 2 JULY 96
  
  
 

  SECRET   

  No Foreign Dissem 

           
 On assessing timing        
           
STRATEGIC WARNING: THE PROBLEM OF TIMING1
           
Cynthia M. Grabo
           
 A widely held concept about warning is that, as the hour of the enemy attack draws near, there will be more and better evidence that enemy action is both probable and imminent. From this, the idea follows naturally that intelligence will be better able to provide warning in the short term and will, in the few hours or at most days prior ;,o the attack, issue its most definitive and positive warning judgments. Moreover-since there is presumed to be accumulating evidence that the enemy is engaged in his last-minute preparations for the attack-this concept holds that intelligence will likely be able to estimate the approximate if not the exact time of the attack. Therefore, if we can judge at all that the attack is probable, we can also tell when it is coming.
  
 This concept of warning-as a judgment of imminence of attackhas strongly influenced US thinking on the subject for years. As of this writing, the official definition of strategic warning in the JCS Dictionary is, "A notification that enemy-initiated hostilities may be imminent." More explicitly, the US national warning estimate of 1966 concluded: "Intelligence is not likely to give warning of probable Soviet intent to attack until a few hours before the attack, if at all. Warning of increased Soviet readiness, implying a possible intent to attack, might be given somewhat earlier."
 However logical these suppositions may appear in theory, they are not supported either by the history of warfare nor the experience of warning analysts, and in recent years more realistic assessments of this problem have begun to appear in warning papers and estimates.
  
 For the fact is that warning judgments are not necessarily more accurate or positive in the short term and that assessing the timing of attack is often the most elusive, difficult and uncertain problem which we have to face. It is simply not true that the last few days or hours

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1 This article is adapted from a chapter of A Handbook of Warning Intelligence which the author is preparing for the training of intelligence personnel in analytical problems of strategic warning.
          
  SECRET           

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Posted: May 08, 2007 08:33 AM
Last Updated: May 08, 2007 08:33 AM
Last Reviewed: May 08, 2007 08:33 AM