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How Israeli Intelligence Failures Led to a "Devil's Advocate" Role
(Toronto Star) William Kaplan - The October 1973 Yom Kippur War showed the risks to Israel of underestimating dangers to national security. It is the classic intelligence failure in Israeli history and it happened because the military establishment was captivated and captured by what they called The Concept of Arab Intentions - a preset world view that did not contemplate the possibility of an all-out assault. A key idea that came out of the post-war inquiry was "The Tenth Man" - a devil's advocate. If there are 10 people in a room and 9 agree, the role of the tenth is to disagree and point out flaws in whatever decision the group has reached. The Tenth Man's job is to challenge conventional and received wisdom. The Tenth Man has high status within the IDF Intelligence Corps: it is free to obtain any intelligence data it needs and to criticize existing views. Its reports cannot be ignored; they must be considered. The article is excerpted from Why Dissent Matters by William Kaplan.