Introduction

The core premise of this book was that we can learn more about estimative intelligence and the prospects for anticipatory foreign policy through a double comparison of cases and actors rather than single actor case studies. What are the distinctive features of each of these cases so that we can avoid misapplying potential lessons learned to future crises that may only superficially look similar? Or is it possible to discern also common and potentially novel challenges across all three of these quite different cases? Might such challenges constitute more enduring characteristics of future threats and opportunities in foreign affairs? To what extent are these characteristics novel, quasi-structural features of contemporary security threats that together constitute an era of surprise alluded to in the title of the book? Or conversely, are most of the diagnostic challenges in these recent cases well known from previous case studies and enquiries going back to the Cold War era, with the real problem being the inability to remember and update previous lessons? Which aspects of intelligence production and use are the most challenging for all three polities at the heart of our study? And what does this tell us about the most important lessons yet to be learned, the failures of previous attempts to reform and internalise lessons, or indeed the nature of common new challenges facing the three polities? Alternatively, can we discern significant differences between these three polities in how they handled some of the challenges in estimative intelligence production and use? If so, are any weaknesses and strengths identified unique to these polities given the way they organise, resource and target their intelligence and foreign policy? Or could practitioners in Brussels, Berlin and London benefit from learning innovative lessons from each other or mitigate each other’s weaknesses through closer collaboration?

This chapter seeks to answer these questions by drawing on the evidence and arguments presented throughout this volume and in closely related publications of the underlying INTEL research project, including the case timelines based on open sources. It builds on the theoretical discussion in Chapter 1, in which we have outlined the normative model of anticipatory foreign policy, the taxonomy of surprise, the overview of performance criteria together with mitigating or aggravating factors, and the discussion of underlying problems and challenges of organisational learning.