Despite that surprise is one of the oldest and perhaps the most notorious of the principle of war and that many great commanders and military theorist praises its positive effects it still lacks empirical studies.
The purpose of this study is to test one theory of surprise on two cases, one where a surprise attack was successful, which is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and one case where the surprise attack was unsuccessful, the Japanese attack on the island of Midway and see if the theory can explain why the Japanese where successful at Pearl Harbor and why they were unsuccessful at Midway.
The results of this study shows that the theory can explain why, but it also show that there are a need for more research on the subject.