Dangerous Liaison: The 1973 American intelligence failure and the limits of intelligence cooperation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article analyzes the failure of the U.S. intelligence community to foresee the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack on Israel in 6 October 1973. The paper deconstructs the various elements of the American failure and explores the reasons that led to it. The paper shows that at the heart of the flawed American assessment was a paradigm formulated by U.S. intelligence analysts, one that was influenced by Israeli intelligence analysts. With this conclusion, the paper suggests that alongside the numerous advantages of intelligence liaison between states, the practice can also lead them to make grave errors.