Despite multiple warnings of China’s intention to act, and evidence of Chinese forces operating in North Korea, MacArthur and his senior intelligence officer disregarded such warnings, insulated by a headquarters staff that appeared to have defaulted to agreement with the commander.
Douglas MacArthur assured President Harry Truman that the Chinese would not militarily intervene in the Korean War and, if they did, they would do so in such small numbers as to be easily defeated. The motivation could be incentives to report positive news, the effort and discomfort of changing one’s mind, personal investment and ego attached to early statements, or simply hubris. Barton Whaley, a leader in the study of military deception, defines self-deception as “can see but won’t.” In this way, self-deception is motivated misperception: People maintain a preferred narrative even in the face of conflicting information. This appears to apply to both deception by an adversary as well as deception by ourselves. National Defense Strategy provides an opportunity to realistically consider battlefield failure and avoid unfounded optimism and intellectual unpreparedness for the next war.Īll warfare is based on deception - so the adage goes. In promising contrast to this historical trend, the current U.S. Such self-deception has battlefield consequences, and is not necessarily confined to a specific rank level, unit, service or nation. A review of military operations from the world wars to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan provides insights into how individuals and organizations harbor overly optimistic perceptions, minimize threats, and make invalid assumptions about their own capabilities. While overly pessimistic estimates of an adversary are surely problematic, overestimating one’s own capabilities and performance appear to be the more consistent and costly default.
Norman Dixon identified four common factors of military failures: overconfidence underestimating the enemy ignoring intelligence reports and wasting manpower.
Positive illusions about our own performance and about the future are arguably important for physical and mental health, but cause problems when they diverge too far from reality. Human inclinations toward overly optimistic judgments about the future, inflating potential benefits and downplaying risks, are also well– recognized. That we tend to rate ourselves as “ better than average” is a well-researched phenomenon. The tendency to perceive our current and future actions and performance in an overly positive light is a form of self-deception common in human behavior, including military history. As a result, he concluded: “A fearfully severe lesson was necessary to remove the veil from the eyes of those, who, drawing their conclusions from their wishes, would consider Afghanistan a settled country.” Eyre noted that, prior to the slaughter of some 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 civilians, senior leaders largely ignored warnings of the security situation on the ground and the military’s unpreparedness in Kabul. Vincent Eyre, one of the few survivors of the annihilation of the British army in Afghanistan in 1842, wrote an account of the disastrous campaign that still serves as a warning against undue optimism in military operations.
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