Reality in a Game of Confusion
MARSHALL, S.L.A.
READING THE MIDEAST WAR Reality in a Game of Confusion by S.L.A. MARSHALL Our American naivete about military matters has rarely been more clearly demonstrated than during the opening weeks of...
...There could be no more foolhardy way to start a war-to breach a force on a desert bridgehead, forward of which lies 200 miles of waterless wasteland, and not one decisive target within two days' march...
...On Yom Kippur weekend, therefore, the burden of the nation's defense had to be borne by the regular Army, which is about one-tenth the size of the reserve Army...
...Over the air waves and in official statements came propaganda to make the blood run cold...
...The military pact with Syria went un-dramatized...
...We seemed to have forgotten that war is a game of confusion, and that deceiving the enemy is one of its main objectives...
...Along the Suez line, Israel's artillery has been outgunned since 1968 by about ten to one...
...Similarly, it was routine that the fighting began with each side blaming the other for touching the match to the powder train, the customary ploy for winning global goodwill...
...Indeed, it is sad that out of our zeal for fair play, we ceased to think for ourselves...
...If Israeli fighter-bombers approached close enough to hit them, they would come under dense rocket attack...
...The Israelis interpreted them-like the Syrian Army massing in the northern Golan and the Egyptian Army concentrating on the west bank of the Suez-as merely a baring of teeth...
...Only the inconsiderable number of reservists who regularly rotated in and out of the lines at Suez and on the Golan Heights to fulfill mandatory training periods were avail-able...
...For nothing is more astonishing than that there should be doubt anywhere about who started this war...
...Moreover, mobilizing the reserves is always a costly business, for not only does it upset the domestic economy, but it enables the Arabs to paint Israel as the aggressor in international forums...
...Their desire to make propaganda was of less consequence, however, than the fact that in this country their statements were dignified with the same even-handed treatment as the counterclaims from Jerusalem...
...The Israeli units in place had to absorb the entire shock...
...Prior to the war, this disparity in artillery numbers drew little attention outside of Israeli military circles...
...King Hussein's next turnabout being no more certain than the hop of the Irishman's flea...
...there was no way to prevent them...
...Herzog replied, "They will come on some day...
...After having growled ultimatums throughout most of 1972, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat shifted to a low key early this year...
...So Zahal took a calculated risk and suffered the consequences...
...Before every previous conflict, the Arab leaders had gone through a preliminary phase of huffing and puffing, bombastically threatening Israel's extermination...
...Given that the element of surprise was in their favor, the Arabs' failure to achieve an overwhelming victory at the outset revealed that they once again had overestimated the abilities of their high commanders, the elan of their officer corps and the skill of their troops...
...The Israeli Air Force could not go all out in direct support even after the formations scrambled because the Syrian and Egyptian bases were too closely guarded by sam-2s and sam-3s...
...Other guns were needed in the interior for training purposes...
...Despite the heavy initial losses, it would be unfair to accuse the Israeli Army of letting its guard down...
...Herzog, as congenial a soldier as I ever knew, agreed with me that it could be done...
...There could not have been more than a few hours real warning before the Arabs fell in main strength on the Suez and Golan fronts...
...In fact, the bulk of Israel's fighting force could not be brought into action until Monday...
...Yet the significance of the missile barrier was that it made prohibitive the probable cost of a preemptive air strike against the artillery build-up...
...Thus it was to be expected that, from the initial exchange of fire, we would hear conflicting claims about who was doing what to whom on the battlefield and in the skies above...
...How right he was...
...Since the founding of the Jewish State in 1948, its very existence has depended upon the size and readiness of its reserve forces, now numbering about 300,000 civilians, roughly the equivalent of Egypt's standing Army...
...In this regard, Syria and Egypt proved that they have learned from their past sad experiences, though still not enough by more than half...
...Under these circumstances, there was no reason to doubt that the Arabs could establish one or several bridgeheads...
...For the past three years the public has been more concerned about the concentration of sam sites on the west bank of the Suez...
...With only two days to score decisively, the risks involved did not justify the gamble...
...Though this will continue until the final shot, we should know from experience that Israeli combat communiques are as objective as possible...
...They will try it...
...Then I said, "But I would be amazed to see them try it...
...Even the increasingly violent air-against-air incidents last month may have been part of the deception plan, since they resembled chance encounters...
...On the other hand, it does appear beyond doubt that the Israelis were caught by surprise...
...In some cases, they were probably not fully alerted or ordered to engage with all weapons until they found themselves under fire...
...To assemble these reserves, arm them, form units, and deploy main forces to battle positions requires at best 72 hours, because the mount-up must be staggered or the congestion would paralyze the country...
...MARSHALL Our American naivete about military matters has rarely been more clearly demonstrated than during the opening weeks of the latest Middle East conflict...
...leaving the Egyptians fairly free to mass their guns anywhere along their side of the canal...
...a flexing of muscle, rather than as maneuvers aimed at readying forces for battle...
...Over the years the General Staff has heard too many wolf cries...
...Designed to whip up the populace to a frenzy and intimidate the enemy, it mainly showed how little Arab intelligence understood the mind and spirit of the other side...
...Whereas Egypt could array all of its Soviet-supplied heavy batteries against one broad target area, Israel has had to devote much of its firepower to backing up the infantry on the Golan and to covering the Jordan border...
...In addition, relatively few of the armored brigades were formed up when the attack came, and contacting the men was complicated by the religious holiday...
...But the dike peters out to the north, where the terrain provides little natural cover, and in some other places too its protection could be skirted...
...There the earth bank is about 20 feet high by 40 feet thick, and blasting it with shells is is like punching at a foam mattress...
...The section of the Bar-Lev Line that was solidly bunkered-in under the foot of the great dike thrown up during the digging of the canal did form a powerful and practical fortification...
...He said he thought it unlikely, but it was quite correct to prepare against the potential acts of mad governments...
...Egypt's massed artillery could thus box in and pound an area on the east bank, affording its infantry and armor a relatively unharassed passage...
...I had forgotten what Lord Nelson told King George III when England shook over the possibility of Napoleon making a cross-channel attack...
...This time the bolt came from the blue without any gasconading...
...As the saying goes, once war breaks out truth is its first casualty...
...the Suez line remained quiet with no perceptible break in the cease-fire...
...Americans have had a quarter of a century to study the makeup, thinking and methods of Zahal, Israel's defense establishment...
...If we do not yet understand that Israel would be mad to launch an attack on any scale without first ordering a general mobilization, we are woefully ignorant of how military power is balanced in the Middle East?and of how war is waged in general...
...What Cairo attempted was limitlessly reckless without control of the skies, and its inability to deliver a substantial blow against the enemy's interior plainly demonstrated that Israel still maintains air supremacy...
...Israeli artillery, on flat desert about a mile to the rear, lacked the range and the sock for effective counterbattery fire, especially against the Arabs' heaviest guns...
...Very likely, Slam, I understand the Arab mind better than you do...
...In 1970, when King Hussein was fighting the Palestinians, I discussed the feasibility of an Egyptian breaching of the Bar-Lev Line with General Haim Herzog, the Israeli television commentator and former Intelligence Chief of Zahal...
...Had it not been for Arab weakness in the air, those 48 hours could have spelled sudden death...
...Naturally, without pausing to inform themselves of the circumstances, the other Arab states joined Syria and Egypt in pointing the finger at Israel...
...Outnumbered by at least six to one, they took heavy casualties...
...At the jump-off, the Egyptian bridgeheads across the Suez Canal and the Syrian penetration of the Golan defenses were entirely to be expected...
...To believe that Israel would trigger a full-scale war with little more than a beefed-up outpost line, one would have to conclude that Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and the General Staff had taken leave of their senses...
Vol. 56 • October 1973 • No. 21
