Sun Tzu Emphasizes the Importance of Intelligence, Surprise, and Essay

Sun Tzu Emphasizes the Importance of Intelligence, Surprise, and Deception - Essay Example This paper is a comparative analysis of application of intelligence, surprise and deception within the Iraq and United States military during the period between 1990 and 1998. Before investigating on the use of intelligence, surprise and deception in the two countries, it is important to interrogate the meaning of the three terms in military operations. Intelligence support plays a critical role in determining the success of military operation. According to Pace, military intelligence â€Å"provides crucial insights regarding sensitive opportunities that could be exploited by the military to overcome the targeted enemy† (12). Intelligence enables military commanders to clearly indentify the intended end state and establish when the end state of a particular operation is attained (Pace, 12). Pace argues that visualization of the battle space is one the most important role of intelligence to the military. Visualizing the battle space includes possessing the facts about the physi cal and manmade installations in the areas of military operation. In addition, visualizing requires the knowledge about the most current information about the activities of the enemy forces in that particular space and the future potential of the adversary to function in the region of military interest (14). According to Handel (60), collection of accurate military intelligence requires an in-depth understanding of the enemy, especially the objectives that motivate their actions in the battle field (Sharp, 17). Establishing the objectives of the enemy in war is one of the greatest challenges of collecting military intelligence. These challenges are caused by difficulties in determining and predicting actions and response between the enemy and the offensive force once the process of establishing the intent is initiated. In most situations, well intended actions from the joint forces trigger a reaction from the enemy and this could jeopardize the entire operation prematurely. Betts (8 3) argues that determining the extent of reaction from the enemy requires possession of accurate and timely intelligence that would enable the commanders to determine and plan future friendly actions to extract the intentions of the enemy without raising undue suspicion. Possession of appropriate intelligence enables the force commanders to consider different factors that affect the operation directly or indirectly before deciding on the action for establishing the intentions of the adversary. According to Pace, intelligence plays an important role in the three stages of military operations which include during peace, war and during other operations that do not involve war (36). During peacetime, intelligence assists commanders in purchasing relevant supplies, defend and protect their technological appliances and structuring their organizations to enhance efficiency. In addition, periods of peace provide military commanders with opportunities of designing appropriate training regime ns for the combatants and other servicemen. Moreover, intelligence agencies monitor foreign countries and organizations with objectives of establishing potential threats during peacetime (Pace, 38-40). During military operations other than war intelligence is helpful to military commanders because it enables them to make suitable decisions on which forces to deploy at a particular future period, how and where to deploy, in a