Surprise

Surprise ”the principle of hitting the other fellow when he ain t lookin ”refers to the use of information to impair a foe s decision-making ability and a subsequent unexpected strike. It can be achieved using one of three approaches: stealth, ambiguity, or deception.

Israel s preemptive air strike on Egypt exemplifies the use of stealth to achieve surprise. Nap of the earth flight patterns were so low that Israeli aircraft could not be detected by Egyptian radar ”until they wanted to be. Careful planning of departure times and approaches ensured that the attacks occurred simultaneously ; consequently, none of the Egyptian air bases was able to alert the others of the strike ”until it was over. The IAF also employed ambiguity to conceal the intent of its actual attack: by launching at the same time every day during the previous two years , the IAF lulled the Egyptians into believing that the takeoff on the morning of June 5, 1967, was merely another training run.

In the mid-1990s, commercial airlines established websites to provide general information to customers. As the functionality of these sites expanded, customers could reserve and purchase tickets directly from the sites. Once the number of online orders reached a critical mass, Delta, in a move quickly emulated by other airlines, surprised unsuspecting travel agents by slashing commissions, from 10 percent of the value of each ticket sold to a flat $50 (and recently $0) per ticket. While the threat to travel agents of travelers buying directly from the airlines had been evident all along, the greater threat of declining commissions had not. Because travel agents weren t aware of the power shift that the Internet enabled, they were unprepared to launch effective countermeasures.

The Marine Corps s recent articulation of and commitment to the concept of information operations can serve you as a useful guide to employing information to achieve surprise in the business environment. Recognizing the increasingly central role that information will play in twenty-first-century armed conflict, the Marines have dedicated personnel and resources to the management of information in support of maneuver warfare and have formally integrated this new approach into the planning and execution of all combat operations. And this high degree of commitment suggests very strongly that a disciplined follow-through must accompany every well-intended use of information to shape the rules of competitive encounters.