IICC Perspectives - Thoughts on Intelligence Failures

____________________________________________ 5 IICC Perspectives which led to the Six Day War in 1967, were not correctly interpreted: At the end of 1966, the Military Intelligence Directorate predicted about five years of peace, and half a year later Israel was fighting on three fronts… Some more examples: three years later, the arrival of the Russians in Egypt was not observed, what led to the unsuccessful end of War of Attrition, in 1970. And to say nothing of the huge failure of not issuing a warning for the 1973 war. Then there were the mysteries prediction failures of the First Intifada in 1987; the arrival of the Russians in Syria with their surface-to-air SA-5 missiles in 1982 after the First Lebanon War; and later, the arrival of Russian and Iranian forces in Syria in 2015. and the list goes on. They were all ongoing processes of strategic significance for Israel, which the intelligence community was unable to communicate to the decision-makers in time. Intelligence also finds it difficult to indicate in advance positive processes, such as the potential for peace negotiations, mainly because its objective is to warn of danger, while, in addition, by nature, political negotiations are isolated and conducted discretely. On the other hand, since the Second Lebanon War, the Military Intelligence Directorate has put its emphasis on a strength that already exists, and that produces quick and glorious achievements: dealing with "secrets". Thus, in 2007 the Directorate's Operative Division was established, and then expanded. its objective is to bring about a quick and successful revelation of "secrets" by combining highly focused intelligence capabilities, with precise IDF operative capabilities. At the same time, the analysis division, which is in charge of "mysteries", a long-standing weak link, under some DMIs (Directors of Military Intelligence), actually became a body that mainly served the "Targets Factory", led by the Operative Division, and so was weakened future. For the decision-makers and military leaders, and even for public, the successful and fruitful pursuit of "secrets", created the illusion of "Intelligence Superiority", and the mistaken belief that "our intelligence knows everything". The euphoria of intelligence supremacy, and the mutual back-slapping among intelligence, the political echelon, the military, the media and the public, magnified the illusion and, disastrously for us, created a false sense of stable security.

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