Ignorant Amateurs: Remediating the Surprise and Deception Knowledge Deficit

The Australian Army’s understanding and employment of both surprise and deception are poor. This is despite both concepts being used extensively and to devastating effect in contemporary conflicts. It is telling that the effective use of surprise and deception almost invariably occurs when playing the enemy as the opposing force during major exercises, when the aversion to risk and imprisonment by doctrine is temporarily suspended. This deficiency is due in no small part to the lack of education and development in our training continuum, beginning for officers at Duntroon. Regrettably, when a concept is poorly understood and rarely exercised it inevitably becomes impossible to teach without conscientious study. This is a dangerous situation; neither students nor instructors understand that a plan will conform to the enemy’s expectations if it does not incorporate surprise and deception. This situation is intolerable for a professional army. As British military theorist Major General John Fuller wrote, ‘As long as we remain amateurs we shall be surprised, sometimes by the substance of the enemy, but more often by the shadows of our ignorance’.[1]

Surprise and deception may be correlated, but one does not necessarily precede, or rely on, the other. There are occasions when we can deceive without causing surprise, and when we can surprise without deceit. This article will explore why surprise and deception are so poorly understood and employed in the Australian Army, before explaining concepts central to achieving surprise. The discussion will be followed by a section linking surprise to deception and outlining how the two concepts can be employed in military planning. Finally, the article makes recommendations to support the development of Army’s understanding of surprise and deception. 

This paper is a result of the author’s experiences in training and operations over more than a decade. The author does not contend that surprise is absent entirely from Army, only that surprise is neglected in Army’s institutional and professional thinking. Accordingly, it is focused on commanders and staff at the tactical levels of command. However, the discussion of surprise and deception is relevant across the joint force and at the operational level.

The Problem

The Army’s definitive source of tactical wisdom describes surprise as something we seek to impose upon the adversary while guarding ourselves from the same.[2] Although there is reference in training to decision cycles such as Boyd’s OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), subsequent exploration of the topic of surprise is, in practice, limited by the knowledge of the instructor.[3] This assertion is consistent with the author’s experience during his own career development. Specifically, when the student body of his Combat Officers Advanced Course expressed the view that widespread ignorance of the operating principle of surprise amounted to a collective weakness within Army, the concept was explained as a jaw-dropping moment of indecision. Beyond this, however, the staff were at a loss to explain how one might achieve it. As a result, the author completed the course remaining ignorant as to what surprise ‘is’ and how it is best achieved. 

Even when advocating for surprise and deception as an integral part of brigade planning, the author was unable to articulate what surprise was and how it could be achieved. After types of surprise were broached by Major General Michael Krause during a 3rd Brigade sub-unit commanders’ tactics week in 2014, a search of doctrine for more information proved fruitless. This situation posed a significant challenge: how could an experienced combat officer be unable to articulate ends, ways and means of such a crucial principle of war? A survey of 12 combat corps sub-unit commanders and senior captains, selected at random from the 3rd Brigade in the wake of the tactics week in 2014, revealed a common shortcoming. This revelation inspired the author’s further study. 

The achievement of surprise—and its partner, deception—is highly beneficial to any military plan directed against an adversary. Surprise that is planned creates uncertainty at least, and ideally an atmosphere of chaos from which order proves illusory—clearly unfavourable circumstances for an adversary. Having planned for and achieved surprise (or, far less likely, having achieved surprise by chance), the cunning commander benefits from the more desirable environment that accompanies being able to operate in circumstances of relative certainty for which they are actually prepared. A review of literature by celebrated strategists reinforces the emphasis placed on the concept of surprise. For example, the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu provided that ‘[h]e will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared’[4] and ‘all warfare is based on deception’.[5] Napoleon asserted that ‘[t]he strength of an army … is estimated by multiplying the mass by the rapidity; a rapid march augments the morale of an army, and increases all the chances of victory’.[6] Clausewitz famously declared that ‘surprise lies at the foundation of all undertakings without exception, only in very different degrees according to the nature of the undertaking and other circumstances’. He named ‘secrecy and rapidity’ as the cornerstone of surprising the enemy, outlining the effects of shattering morale and imposing confusion on one’s adversary in addition to achieving unexpected gains.[7] There is, as Luckie cites, a long list of learned strategists over history who echo the same or similar sentiments over centuries.[8]

Looking to contemporary military doctrine beyond the Australian Army, the United States Marine Corps has a 200-page pamphlet dedicated to exploring the concept of surprise. Admittedly, while this document emphasises the importance of surprise to victory and outlines case studies where surprise has been employed successfully, it does not provide a theoretical framework for understanding ways and means.[9] Similarly, the United States Army’s combined arms doctrine on offense and defence provides only three paragraphs on surprise. It provides no framework but contains a cursory explanation of what surprise achieves and methods of achieving it.[10] While United States doctrine is readily available, it is reasonable to deduce from the cited historical literature that similar treatments exist across armies, not just those of the West. However, a survey of the Australian Army’s manoeuvre doctrine illustrates that our existing theoretical exploration of surprise provides the most cursory insight into the ends we seek to achieve, and categorically fails to explore the ways and means.[11]

Examination of Australian Army doctrine clearly identifies a gap in the theoretical treatment given to surprise as a principle of war: our doctrine is almost entirely silent on the matter. Within Army’s capstone doctrine on warfare, Land Warfare Doctrine 1: The Fundamentals of Land Warfare, the word ‘surprise’ appears only six times—four of those occasions being in the explanation of surprise as a principle of war. While the pamphlet does link surprise to deception, it limits discussion to circumstances in which surprise achieves disproportionate results, without further examination of how or why. Disappointingly, Army’s principal philosophical treatise of manoeuvre theory, Land Warfare Doctrine 3-0: Operations, mentions surprise only four times—three of those occasions being in the same paragraph, with one being the paragraph title. There is no further exploration of the concept. Interestingly, Land Warfare Doctrine 3-0-3: Formation Tactics has surprise appear 35 times, but on each occasion surprise is discussed simply as a condition to inflict upon an adversary while avoiding the reverse. A single example on basic considerations for the attack fleetingly mentions method, but there is no exploration of ends, ways or means. While Land Warfare Doctrine 5-0: Planning, mentions surprise once, it refers only to the relevance of surprise to manoeuvre theory, without further exploration. There is no discussion on surprise as a foundation upon which to plan. Land Warfare Doctrine 5-1-4:The Military Appreciation Process (11 times); Land Warfare Doctrine 3-3-7: Employment of Infantry (five times); Land Warfare Doctrine 3-3-4: Employment of Armour (11 times); and Land Warfare Procedures—General 3-3-2: Deception (23 times) all mention surprise, but all refer to the concept as something to employ or guard against, without further exploration. Australian Defence Force—Philosophical—3 Operations is similarly mute. Despite surprise being identified as pivotal to Special Forces operations, Australian Defence Force—Integration—3 Special Operations is similarly lacking in its exploration of surprise, only going so far as to associate it with speed. Despite the self-evident value of surprise, our doctrine, instruction, and practice fail to adequately respect it. This failure manifests itself in an almost exclusive reliance on achieving surprise by chance, rather than by design.

This summary provides a snapshot of the limited nature of Army’s understanding of surprise. Our philosophical doctrine does not provide a framework for understanding the concept, and the most relevant procedural pamphlets do not explore methods for practical application of such a framework. It is concerning that our doctrine neglects a principle of war that the great military theorists consider so essential in military planning.[12] This situation contrasts with the way which deception is treated in our doctrine. It has its own pamphlet which explores the concept in depth. It is noteworthy that the prominence of surprise and deception in Western military theory has waxed and waned—a clear example being between the American Civil War and the Second World War.[13] Luckie describes how, with the emergence of philosophers such as JFC Fuller, the interwar period reinvigorated within the United States Army the concept of surprise as a psychological effect to erode cohesion (in the tradition of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu). He also describes an ebb and flow in how surprise was discussed by military practitioners during the Cold War, reflecting changes in the level of confidence of the United States in its strategic environment.[14] While isolated to the United States, the wider philosophical dedication to the nuclear and proxy wars of the Cold War and War on Terror eras are reflected in United States Army doctrine that characterises surprise as ‘sudden changes in scope, type or intensity’ of limited and cold wars.[15]

Exploring Surprise

Surprise is a disorientating effect caused when reality does not conform to expectations; the more drastic the difference, the greater the intensity of surprise.[16] Surprise occurs either because the circumstance was unanticipated, or because it was anticipated but one is unprepared to respond effectively. Surprise compels the enemy command system to divert from the pre-existing plan and to commence a decision cycle in response; each affected command must depart from the original plan to design, communicate and execute a new one. The achievement of surprise goes beyond forcing an opponent to react to the anticipated; contingencies such as ‘on order’ and ‘be prepared to’ responses are examples of anticipated reactions and cannot be classed as unexpected. It is surprise that allows the initiative to be retained, obtained, or seized from the enemy. The incorporation of surprise as the basis for course of action development lies at the foundation of manoeuvre theory because it involves designing a situation that deteriorates for the enemy more quickly than their system can cope with. If surprise is imposed at every echelon of an enemy formation, each commander is forced to undertake a decision cycle to adapt their plan in response. At the same time, each commander’s subordinates and superiors are similarly reacting to their own surprise, adapting their plans, and attempting to communicate both the unfolding situation and their amended plans. In this situation, the opponent’s command and control system becomes saturated with new directions, sometimes conflicting and counter-intuitive, creating confusion as the system overloads. The desired result is to dislocate the enemy commanders, at each echelon, from both their superior and subordinate plans for battle. Against adversaries with rigid command structures, or those who do not effectively employ mission command, achieving this effect can be decisive incredibly early in an action.

Surprise is neither a supporting concept nor an afterthought that can be appended after a course of action concept is built and tested; it must be a foundational and deliberate element of the planning process. Chiefly, achieving surprise must be an attitude that pervades the culture of a headquarters and must be explicit in the commander’s vision and guidance. Any plan that does not explicitly seek to achieve surprise must be discarded on the grounds that it almost certainly conforms to the enemy’s design for battle and relies on chance alone to create asymmetry by imposing upon the enemy a decision cycle in completely unforeseen circumstances. A plan without surprise is one the enemy has almost certainly war-gamed in whole or in part. The imperative is more compelling when we turn to historical data, such as that explored by Franklin:

Out of 59 battles fought [surveyed between 1914 and 1967] without any initial surprise, only 2% exceeded its general’s expectations, while 60% ended in abject failure. Conversely, out of 50 battles where surprise was intense (rated 3 or more on a 0–5 scale), 34% far exceeded their objectives and only 2% ended in defeat.[17]

Ends, Ways and Means

The Australian Army understands how manoeuvre theory aims to undermine and overwhelm an enemy’s command system. However, in defining surprise too simply we inadequately describe the ends we seek to achieve. Surprise has two primary forms (ends): moral and material.[18]Moral surprise is achieved when the enemy is caught completely unaware and unprepared by the unexpected.[19] It is the astonishing, confusion-inducing action that renders void, in whole or in significant part, the enemy’s design for battle. It is the most intense type of surprise and, because of its scale, can usually only be achieved once across the echelons in any single action. Material surprise is achieved when the enemy is aware or prepared but is unable to react effectively. While material surprise may not render the enemy plan for battle void, it nevertheless requires a commander’s assessment and intervention to respond adequately. Importantly, material surprise can be regenerated even after its initial impact is lost. Material surprise can be achieved with or without moral surprise; if moral surprise cannot be achieved or is lost, material surprise can still be achieved within the same action. Material surprise can also be achieved—and is used to best effect—at multiple echelons in an action, and in a combination of varieties which will be discussed below.[20] A simple metaphor frames the two: a boxer expects to be hit but may not be prepared for a kidney punch—material surprise; a boxer is completely unprepared to be punched by the referee—moral surprise.

We can consider surprise as having six varieties (ways).[21] First is intention: the enemy is unaware of or does not wholly anticipate the intentions with which you manoeuvre your force. Simple options such as attack or defence, selection of objectives, or employment of specific capabilities—which are not expected—can lead an enemy to err in the preparation of their forces. Second is time: the enemy is unprepared or does not anticipate when you arrive, typically when forces project more quickly than expected. Third is place: the enemy does not anticipate the place at which you appear. This concept of place can be tied closely to intention; however, when surprise of time and surprise of place are used in concert, the effects of both are magnified. Fourth is force: the enemy is presented with a greater amount of combat power than is anticipated. This force does not have to be a physical unit but can equally be an effect. Fifth is method: the enemy does not anticipate how your forces are grouped, arrayed or employed; that is, the tactics and techniques usually used are altered. This can be reflected in the tactics used, such as bypassing instead of attacking the composition of forces, or in how they are employed, such as using artillery in a direct fire, support by fire role. Sixth is technology: the introduction of new technology the enemy cannot immediately counter. This is the most difficult form of surprise to achieve at the lowest levels of command, and it is unique in that—once it is employed—the enemy system adapts to render the advantage void in a relatively short period of time. Examples include the machine gun in the First World War, and the use by insurgents more recently of different types of triggers for Improvised Explosive Devices. For each variety of surprise, the capabilities, techniques, and tactics form the means to employ them; they are limited only by the resources available and the imagination of the commander.

Surprise is most effective when multiple varieties are used concurrently, or sequentially in a single action. Commanders should plan to employ at least one variety of surprise at each echelon of an operation, thus surprising the enemy at every echelon and every opportunity. Planning to employ types and varieties of surprise requires the enemy’s perception of the situation to differ from reality long enough for that difference to be exploited. Unless additional measures are employed, achieving surprise is contingent on the enemy being kept uncertain; this is both unrealistic and an unnecessary gamble. A more efficient approach is to project a situation that differs from the reality and shape the enemy’s perceptions to compel action, or inaction, that is to our benefit—that is, to deceive them.

Incorporating Deception

Sir Winston Churchill, speaking to Joseph Stalin, described deception as the ‘bodyguard’ of surprise.[22] Relative to surprise, deception is a more familiar but similarly misunderstood concept. What is not well grasped is why we attempt to deceive the enemy and how to do it. Often a deception plan involves concealing or misrepresenting strengths or dispositions, seeking to create or increase uncertainty to that end alone. This approach demonstrates a lack of understanding of the purpose of deception, despite the Army’s doctrinal publication Deception exploring the subject in substantial detail.

A successful deception makes the enemy act to their detriment by presenting a perceived situation of our design, forcing a reaction that creates opportunities for exploitation. However, deception is not merely misrepresenting reality or creating uncertainty—after all, war is characterised by uncertainty. Uncertainty is exceedingly difficult to quantify and attempting to create uncertainty for its own sake fosters unpredictable outcomes, resulting in a waste of resources to no discernible effect. Instead, true deception reduces the enemy’s uncertainty by creating or reinforcing a false understanding of the situation that compels the enemy to conform to our designs and reduces their freedom of action when confronted with reality.[23] This is markedly more advantageous, measurable and efficient.

The effective employment of deception requires the understanding and deliberate leveraging of cognitive biases. Deception is best applied when the inherent biases of the enemy are used against them. Four significant biases are relatively easy to exploit and present opportunities for deceit. Firstly, ‘anchoring bias’ favours initial information despite subsequent information contradicting, or altering the context of, the initial information. Anchoring bias may lead a commander to focus on the contents of an initial report, and disregard or discount subsequent reports that modify or contradict the original information.[24] Secondly, ‘availability bias’ favours information that is readily accessible, on hand or recalled easily, such as using irrelevant or outdated experience to direct a course of action, despite expertise or the situation requiring otherwise.[25] Thirdly, ‘self-serving bias’ enhances one’s inflated belief in oneself or the team, including the individual’s or team’s ability to overcome the capacity of an opponent, or the environmental conditions. Self-serving bias may equate to believing one’s rank confers more relevant experience than actually exists, or that the amount of staff effort expended will translate into decision superiority.[26] Fourthly, ‘confirmation bias’ is the tendency to seek out information that validates past decisions or opinions, such as accepting information confirming an assumption as reliable but interrogating or dismissing differing information.[27] In many respects, this is the most dangerous bias because information that is believed or assumed escapes criticism, whereas other information is doubted or disregarded.

In creating courses of action, planners must create a plan that exploits the enemy’s cognitive biases by appearing to conform to a likely course of action; supports that appearance with convincing and believable deception measures and techniques; compels the enemy to act to their detriment and our advantage; and deliberately seeks to achieve moral and material surprise. This can be difficult to achieve when under pressure, with limited resources, or where the appetite for risk restricts options necessary for a successful deceit. In particular, risk aversion can be institutionally ingrained because many capabilities (such as artillery and electronic warfare) cannot accurately be replicated in training. An example of availability bias is that our planners are commonly reluctant to employ capabilities they do not understand and instead favour those within their realm of understanding. Consequently, these capabilities are institutionally misrepresented and perpetually misunderstood in exercise planning and conduct. The result is an institutional aversion to risk based on a lack of knowledge. This situation must be addressed through education, boldness, and an appreciation of calculated risk.

The Way Forward

Despite surprise and deception being poorly understood and applied within the Australian Army, there is opportunity to rectify this shortcoming. Army should institutionalise an understanding of surprise by updating doctrine to explore the philosophy of surprise more coherently. This need not be a standalone publication; adequately taught, the subject matter is neither complex nor intellectually burdensome. Instead, the principles of surprise and deception could be included as a chapter or section in one of several appropriate pamphlets—for example, Operations or Deception, the latter of which is well written and, at only four chapters in length, could readily and usefully be augmented. In the interim, directed reading could be disseminated by Forces Command or Army Headquarters. Major Charles Franklin’s monograph Tactical Surprise: Beyond Platitudes is available online from the US Defense Technical Information Center[28] and is an excellent start point. It is recommended for junior officers, non-commissioned officers and instructors. At 40 double-spaced pages, it is easy to digest and explores both surprise and deception at a level of detail that is directly relevant to military planning. Either alternatively or subsequently, a doctrine note could be raised to facilitate awareness of the subject matter and enable it to be understood and taught in training establishments. Such an approach would afford added legitimacy to the subject matter across the Joint Force. Beyond these measures, existing doctrine, aides-mémoire, and handbooks that discuss surprise should be amended where appropriate to define, refer to, or at least list the types and modes of surprise. 

The emphasis on the principles of surprise denoted by these proposed doctrinal amendments, and their supporting communications, will give licence to training institutions to adequately teach and incorporate surprise more substantively into assessments throughout Army. The subject can be quickly and easily produced as a video resource and provided as part of online reading packs for career courses, or for personal study using The Cove or similar means. As a matter of urgency, and to address the dearth of training guidance, Army should institutionalise the fundamental requirement of surprise in all military planning, requiring the rejection of courses of action that do not provide ways and means with which to achieve surprise. At every headquarters level, commanders and planners must be rapidly indoctrinated with the lore that a plan that is not founded upon the achievement of surprise delivers the enemy a course of action they have already war-gamed. Amending doctrine, particularly the Military Appreciation Process, to include this requirement when testing course of action concepts is one way to achieve this outcome. It is essential that the imperative of surprise is not just isolated to manoeuvre warfare, though that is often where it is most relevant. Where synchronisation does not allow supporting concepts to achieve surprise independently, arrangements must be nested within a broader plan to achieve surprise.

Conclusion

In an increasingly uncertain strategic environment, Army needs to embrace surprise and deception in planning at an institutional level. While the circumstances of recent operations by the Army’s conventional forces have accommodated the status quo, contemporary state-sponsored conflicts have demonstrated that our next adversary is highly unlikely to be so forgiving. The proper acknowledgment of surprise and deception as fundamental to military planning needs to be addressed with urgency.

Surprise is a combat multiplier that has been recognised for centuries as the key to military success, arguably the decisive factor. It is closely related to deception, in that the latter is most effectively employed to facilitate or amplify the former. In contemporary operational theatres, we observe surprise and deception providing marked advantages across the levels of conflict. To diminish its importance is both dangerous and negligent. Although we can observe contemporary examples of surprise and deception, Army needs a conceptual framework to understand surprise (in particular) so that personnel at all levels can understand not only the ends but also the ways and means of employing this important principle of war. Such a framework will guide the incorporation of surprise and deception into planning across the spectrum of competition and conflict.

Planning to achieve moral or material surprise—and employing single or combined varieties of surprise at each echelon—is fundamental to imposing surprise upon the enemy. Understanding an enemy’s perceptions and biases, exploiting those biases by appearing to conform to expectations, making that appearance convincing and believable, and then causing the enemy to act to their detriment for our exploitation is the ‘golden path’ to achieving victory on the battlefield. A plan that has at its core a sound plan to deceive and surprise the enemy is unlikely to have been war-gamed by the enemy. Therefore, it is more likely to catch them unaware or unprepared, thus awarding the cunning commander both the initiative and a marked advantage at the commencement of the action. For the surprised commander, it immediately degrades the operational situation, requiring that they compensate and respond before the situation deteriorates further. There can be no better reason for the Australian Army to correct the existing deficit in our knowledge of, and our attitudes towards, surprise and deception in planning.

About the Author

Major James Casey is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Royal Military College – Duntroon. He was commissioned into the Royal Australian Artillery, holding instructional and regimental appointments that involved planning at combat team, battle group, and brigade levels before joint staff appointments in Defence Headquarters. Major Casey holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Business degrees from the University of New South Wales.

Endnotes