Getting the right picture for the wrong reasons: intelligence analysis by Hezbollah and Hamas

Abstract

This article analyses intelligence assessment as performed by Hezbollah and Hamas and similar Violent Non-State Actors (“VNSA”). VNSA’s seek to inflict the highest level of harm on adversary states without provoking full-scale wars, which they avoid due to military asymmetry. Improved intelligence regarding a state’s cost/benefit analysis of unleashing full-scale war thus enables VNSA’s to “safely” calibrate operations to maximize harm. Such efforts might prove error-prone for three reasons: the authoritarian structure characterizing VNSAs; psychological bias regarding both self and enemy; and a “transparency fallacy” concerning target states. Assessments of Hezbollah (2006) and Hamas (2014) serve as case studies.