서강대학교

초록/요약

Intelligence failure is not a rare event in human history. The social science has been developed so much with the expanding of human being’s knowledge from prehistoric times to the present and many scholars and researchers have conducted investigation which has found the cause of mistakes and failures, especially related to early warning. But the fundamental reason and cause of intelligence failure are still ambiguous. There are a lot of articles and reports which dealt with this matter. They explained very well the reason and cause of disaster which usually originated from small mistake by focusing their investigations on individuals or organizations. But sometimes, the solutions established from the investigations and reports about the failure and mistake were irrelevant to apply to the trend of current situation. Historical records show that most surprise attacks have been successful while early warning often time has failed, on the contrary. However, the success or failure has not stood alone. We can also easily find many failures which have been intermingled with successes. Even the decision maker who had committed big mistake led another kind of success. If success and failure are the matter of individual or organization and there are specific conditions and variables of information distortion and intelligence failure, how the success and failure could have been intermingled without changing the members who had made mistakes? It is a proof that there is other factor which influences the success and failure of intelligence analysis and decision-making. The Korean War is one of the good cases that show the intermingling success and failure of intelligence and decision making. For over a few decades, General MacArthur and his Intelligence Staff Major General Charles A. Willoughby who were the main actors of the victory of Inchon Landing Operation have been blamed for “all the failures” of Chinese intervention in the Korean War in 1950. Scholars have tendency to simplify this matter to concentrate analysis of individual behaviors by ignoring another factor which could influence the intelligence analysis and decision-making. I also have a few fundamental questions. First, is the Korean War really surprise? Why the political and military leaders in US and Republic of Korea failed to anticipate the attack of North Korea? Second, when Generals, MacArthur and Willoughby had committed decision-making blunders in advancing to North Korea, what did the political and military leaders in Washington, D.C. do? Why they did not try to stop the MacArthur’s order. Through solving these questions, I would like to find the cause of failure of intelligence analysis and decision-making.