| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
After major intelligence failures it is often asked why intelligence and security officials failed to heed the many 'wake-up calls' that had been provided by earlier failures and surprises. This article addresses this question by examining intelligence failures as 'focusing events', which is a concept used in the literature on government policy making to explain how disasters and crises can stimulate policy change and help organizations and decision-makers learn. It argues that in order for an intelligence failure such as a major terrorist attack to inspire improved intelligence performance - to be a true wake-up call - that failure must not only act as a focusing event to bring more attention to the threat, but it must also lead to increased intelligence collection and greater receptivity toward intelligence on the part of decision-makers.
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