An Intelligence Failure of the Imagination
11th October 2023
The Israeli response to the Hamas attack wasn’t just an intelligence failure in terms of acting on information, although it certainly was that. But I think that, more importantly, it was a failure to think outside the box and even imagine the sort of attack that occurred. Much like our intelligence prior to 9/11 – an event that showed a sort of evil creativity on the part of the terrorists to come up with a new approach, one that intelligence in the US simply didn’t anticipate. Whether it was because US intelligence agents underestimated the terrorists or had just became complacent in their thinking, they simply did not even imagine what happened – and in order to prevent something, you have to imagine it first.