In an exhaustive report on the Yom Kippur War released here tonight, the Institute of Strategic Studies concluded that while Egypt and Syria failed to achieve their military goals, their surprise attack on Israel last Oct. 6 irreversibly altered the political and military situation in the Middle East, increased prospects for a general peace settlement and irrevocably involved the two superpowers–U.S. and USSR–in the fate of the region.
The “greatest shock” of the war, the report said, was the use of the oil weapon by the Arabs which produced “the most potent sense of a new era of any event in recent years” in sharp contrast to the impotence of the League of Nations to constrain Italy and Japan by economic sanctions in the 1930s, and more recently the failure of the United Nations “to force compliance on a state as weak as Rhodesia.”
The Institute of Strategic Studies, one of the world’s most respected and reliable bodies for the study of war, devoted 42 out of 102 pages in its 1973 report to the Yom Kippur War, its prelude and aftermath. “Perhaps the most encouraging effect of the 1973 war was to break the log-jam of fruitless peace efforts which had prevailed since the beginnings of 1971,” the report stated. Both Israel and Egypt, “disabused of purely military solutions, now recognized that nothing short of a political settlement could bring peace to the Middle East.”
AMERICAN-ISRAEL ALLIANCE DISCUSSED
The report noted: “The two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, shared that view and were working to achieve a cease-fire and disengagement of forces. They were probably not too far apart on the shape of a longer term peace arrangement. American policy had previously been equivocal on the need for a settlement. This was no longer the case. The Soviet Union had been made aware of the dangers inherent in its support for one of the sides in the Middle East conflict.”
The survey found that “the greatest uncertainty lay in the Israeli position, following the recent general elections,” but observed that “if Israel came to place greater trust in the efficacy of the UN forces, she would see her only real guarantee being provided by the United States…An essential element would obviously be American willingness to ensure that the balance of arms in the Middle East was not tipped against Israel.” The report stated that an American-Israeli alliance has been informally discussed “but prospects of its realization seem quite uncertain.”
Nonetheless, the report continued, “Any settlement between Israel and the Arabs would need to be underwritten by the United States in some way or other, for nothing short of this would enable Israel to feel secure.” The report observed that generally speaking, prospects for Mideast peace are brighter than they have been but this remains a modest encouragement.
Among the immediate lessons taught by the war, the Institute’s experts said, was the fact that “neither Israel nor Egypt could embark on such a war again without the assurance of full external support.” The war “left both sides critically dependent on outside supplies for the campaign itself and for the restoration of their strength afterwards. This dependence has given the Soviet Union and the United States a heavy mortgage on their clients.” the report said, adding, “There may be a lesson in this for NATO too, and NATO staffs will need to look again at their stock levels and resupply capacity.”
DOES NOT FAULT ISRAEL’S INTELLIGENCE EXPERTS
Another lesson of the war was that “since tactical surprise can be achieved by an enemy, the defenses must be sufficiently strong to hold any likely attack until re-enforcement arrives.” Israel managed this, the report said and noted that the fact that the war started on Yom Kippur when Israel’s roads were free of traffic, aided the speed of mobilization. The report does not fault Israel’s intelligence experts for having been caught by surprise even though Egyptian-Syrian war preparations were fully visible for weeks. “However good intelligence of the enemy’s activity and capability may be, it is not possible to know his intentions,” the report said.
The survey found that the initial Egyptian attack which crossed the Suez Canal and overran the Barlev line in a few hours, was “a text book operation, well planned and carried out.” But Egyptian follow-through on their initial success was “inhibited by the safety their ground-based air defenses afforded” and was “slow and deliberate, giving time for Israel to muster her forces.”
On the Syrian front, where the Syrians enjoyed a 10-1 advantage in manpower and a preponderance of armor and aircraft, the attack quickly lost momentum when it ran into Israeli tank defenses. “The tide on the Syrian front was turned by sheer tenacity and skill and on the (Suez) Canal front by typical audacity” on Israel’s part, the report said.
ENERGY CRISIS FOUND WEST UNPREPARED, DIVIDED
On the Arab use of the oil weapon, the report said: “It produced the greatest shock, the most potent sense of a new era, of any event of recent years.” The energy crisis found the Western powers spectacularly divided and quite unprepared to face the strain. “The United States chose Israel and crisis negotiations with the Soviet Union during the war…Western Europe and Japan chose oil and the Arabs.”
The Arab oil policy “registered the first success ever obtained at the highest level of politics by economic sanctions….There was a sense that a new period had opened up for which unfamiliar codes of conduct would have to be painfully devised, that the Cold War had merely been an introduction to a new world which would have to explore its own political nature and solutions,” the report said.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
