For decades, scholars of intelligence and strategic studies have sought to explain why states continue to suffer strategic surprise despite investing enormous re-sources in intelligence collection. Classic explanations suggested failures of informa-tion, analysis or warning as the root cause. Yet the strategic landscape of the 21st Century suggests that these problems have evolved. Increasingly, strategic surprise does not arise because governments fail to detect threats; it occurs because they fail to act on warnings they already possess.

Military history shows that intelligence failures often stem, less from collection defi-ciencies than from the political use of intelligence. Landmark case studies further demonstrate that the core challenge is rarely a lack of information but distinguishing meaningful signals from overwhelming background noise. These insights remain profoundly relevant. However, the environment in which intel-ligence operates has changed dramatically. Today, states possess unprecedented surveillance capabilities, advanced analytical tools and continuous streams of infor-mation. The principal challenge is no longer simply identifying warning indicators; it is transforming credible warning into timely political and institutional action.

This widening ‘warning-decision gap’ increasingly defines the contemporary face of strategic surprise. The warning-decision gap refers to the interval between recognizing credible indica-tors of an emerging threat and taking coordinated decisions to mitigate it. It is within this interval that many strategic failures originate. Intelligence may identify risks ac-curately and well in advance, yet political hesitation, institutional inertia, bureaucratic fragmentation or cognitive bias prevent governments from responding before events overtake policy.........

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