Virut Barracks Bombing Case Study

Why do some people have trouble believing indications and warning prior to an event?

Indications and warnings of an event to come are pushed aside for a myriad of reasons. A reason an individual, or a collective group of individuals, might ignore an indicator(s) is simply because there is a pre-conceived notion in place regarding a particular situation and/or group. A good example might be the buildup to the bombing of the marine barracks, in Beirut, Lebanon, in late October of 1983. In a case study conducted on the Beirut barracks bombing, it was noted that of the key indicators, "Signs of growing hostility", was ignored leading to what the FBI termed as the “largest conventional blast” they had ever seen (Shreeve and Wysocki 2004, 14). Thankfully, France got the picture and was
If a country was aware of every facet of their adversary’s organization, or these things were transparent (or at least easier to estimate), it would be more difficult for the opponent to conduct a surprise operation. MAJ Michael Kneis touches on the enemy's ability to exploit surprise and gain the effect they desire against their opponents. Kneis does this by pointing out a few of the ways attackers use to take advantage of information gaps and their lack of transparency in his monograph, "The Surprise Hypothesis". He directs his readers to a passage of FM 3-0 regarding how to avoid surprise and further states, "when a [military] organization has information gaps, it must fill these gaps with assumptions in order to continue planning. When the organization makes assumptions, its assumptions are subject to many different forms of biases." (Kneis 2003, 11). The enemy uses this lack of transparency to their advantage -- they exploit the biases that arise and the fact that their opponent is unaware of every aspect of their plans, training and