ABSTRACT
Warning analysis is plagued by a particularly ominous paradox: success depends on the realization of the null hypothesis-the nonoccurrence of an anticipated event. Indeed, the veracity of warning may only truly be revealed through disaster-when warning is not heeded or given. The true significance of al-Fahd’s fatwa, for instance, cannot be known until after the catastrophe; in the absence of divine foreknowledge, its significance can only be estimated through analysis. Clausewitz outlined the problem succinctly: “Whatever is hidden from full view in this feeble light has to be guessed at by talent, or simply left to chance. So once again for lack of objective knowledge one has to trust to talent or to luck.”2 Intelligence is rooted in the origins of human civilizations because even the earliest societies were not prepared to entrust all matters to good fortune.
