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Arms-Discussion Digest V12 #1

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Rob Gross

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Feb 6, 1994, 3:22:00 PM2/6/94
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Subject: Arms Discussion Digest V12 #1


From: Rob Gross (moderator)
<GR...@BCVMS.BITNET/GR...@BCVMS.BC.EDU>
Sunday, February 6, 1994, 16:20 EST
Arms Discussion Digest
Volume 12 : Issue 1

All submissions to ARM...@BUACCA.BU.EDU (ARM...@BUACCA.BITNET)
Please do not post articles, as they have a high probability
of being lost.

[Sorry about the gap between issues; work interfered.--rg]

Today's topics:

Six Day War (Marcelo Serrano)
Cruise Missile Debate in the Commons (Duncan Campbell)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 12:30:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Marcelo Serrano <mser...@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Six Day War

THE SIX DAY WAR OF 1967: THE ROOTS OF A CRISIS

The six day war of 1967 has been called 'inadvertent' due to the
almost inevitable chain of events that led to war on June 5.
However, while the war could be accurately described as
inadvertent, due to evidence showing that none of the countries
involved actively sought war, the war was hardly inevitable. At
many turns the crisis could have been defused if the leaders
involved could have realized the role that the deterrence and
spiral theories, domestic political pressure, strategic
limitations and genuine misperceptions played in conspiring to
create a crisis and the subsequent war.

The crisis that produced the six day war had its beginning in the
state of tension between the Arab world and Israel that has
existed since Israel's independence in 1948. After the 1956 war,
the United Nations General Assembly created the UNEF(United
Nations Emergency Force), a multinational peace-keeping force, to
occupy the Sinai and create a buffer between Israel and Egypt.
At the time of the crisis, the UNEF was commanded by Major
General Indar Jit Rikhye of the Indian army. The tension
increased after 1964, when the Palestine Liberation Organization
coordinated the Palestine movement. The first chairman of the
PLO, Ahmed Shuquairi, was a firebrand. In November 1966, Egypt
and Syria concluded a mutual defense agreement.(Bailey 188) This
act foreshadowed the following spring's tension. On January 15,
General Secretary U Thant received accounts of military activity
in the Jordan Valley. Early in 1967, guerrilla incursions
launched from Syria into Israel heightened the already tense
situation.(Bailey 189) Then the tension interrupted into a
military clash between Israeli and Syrian forces when Israel
launched a punitive raid into Syria. Six Syrian MiGs were shot
down. (Bailey)

This tense situation was the fertile ground upon which dissension
and suspicion created the crisis which would result in the six
day war. The crisis only truly began when Nasser received news
that the Syrians believed that Israel was preparing for an attack
on Syria. Nasser heard from Soviet `friends' of an Israeli
`decision' to attack Syria on May 17. Apparently, Nasser was
skeptical, so he sent General Fawzi to Damascus to
investigate.(Bailey 189) These rumors reached Israel, which
invited Soviet ambassador Chuvakhim to see for himself that there
were no unusual troop concentrations. The ambassador declined.
Lieutenant General Odd Bull, head of the UN Truce Organization,
reported that UNTSO had not discovered any unusual troop
concentrations.(Bailey 190) From these facts, it is reasonable to
conclude that the Soviet claim of an Israeli buildup was false.
However, the veracity of the claim was irrelevant to the Syrians,
who, in the atmosphere of distrust, were all too willing to
believe in an imminent Israeli attack. Their fears were deepened
when the Israelis made the next escalation of the crisis. In Tel
Aviv, foreign military attaches were warned that if the guerrilla
raids instigated by Syria continued, Israel would take military
action `designed to topple the Damascus army regime'. This
remark was interpreted in the Arab world as a foreshadowing of an
Israeli attack on Syria.(Bailey 190)

As a response to the 'news' of an Israeli buildup, Nasser sent
troops into the Sinai. This action was to become the turning
point for the crisis. Israel had stated that, "'a threatening
concentration of Arab military forces on one or more of its
[Israel's] borders'", would be interpreted as a casus belli and
interpreted by Israel as an act of war. This definition was
usually applied to the Egyptian deployment in the Sinai.(Stein
108) It was this casus belli which the UNEF was specifically
meant to prevent. On May 16, a courier delivered a message from
General Fawzi of the U.A.R.(the Egyptian Army) to Major General
Rikhye of the UNEF. The message informed Rikhye that Egyptian
troops were already concentrated in the Sinai, and requested that
the UNEF withdraw all its troops "immediately". Rikhye responded
that any request for a withdrawal would have to be made with U
Thant, the Secretary General of the UN. The next day U.A.R.
troops had taken up positions at El Sabha, and El Amr, key areas
of the Sinai.(Rikhye 14-23) The official request for the
withdrawal of the UNEF came on May 18. The crisis heated up
again on May 22, when Nasser announced a blockade of the Gulf of
Aquaba. Any blockade of the Gulf was another well-articulated
casus belli for the Israelis, and thus a cause of war.(Stein 106)
Immediately afterwards, Secretary General U Thant flew to Cairo
to avert the crisis. However, the Soviets did little to help
avert the crisis; on May 29 Premier Alexei Kosygin "sent Nasser
what amounted to a Soviet 'guarantee' of the Egyptian blockade.
It was, Nasser said, 'just the stand we have been waiting
for."(Associated 47) With Nasser intensifying the crisis and the
Soviets encouraging him, Israel had to react. On May 31, she
did; Moshe Dayan was appointed Defense Minister. If there was a
sign that Israel had chosen war over negotiation, this was it.
Then, on June 5, the Israelis launched a preemptive air strike on
Egypt, Jordan and Syria. (Associated 50-53)

Israel's preemptive strike can be explained if Israeli foreign
policy is examined as a response to its hostile Arab neighbors
through deterrence. A strategy of deterrence and defense must
examine five factors if it is to be successful.(Stein 93) First,
the strategy must examine the value of the interests being
protected versus the costs of protecting them. In Israel's case,
this examination was simple; since its independence in 1948,
Israel had fought for its very existence. Arab statesmen made it
very clear that the annihilation of Israel was a desirable
outcome. During his speech on May 22 in which he announced the
blockade of the Gulf of Tiran, Nasser stated that if Israel
attacked Egypt or Syria, it would mean "'total war with the basic
objective of destroying Israel..."(Bailey 198) The second factor
to be examined must be the specification of the challenge to be
deterred. For deterrence to work, leaders must clearly signal
their intent to maintain the status quo.(Stein 94) Israel's
leaders openly stated, sometime ambiguously, all of the casus
belli which would cause Israel to go to war.(Stein 105-108)
Third, deterrence assumes that adversaries are rational and able
to calculate the costs and benefits of potential actions and make
the desired decisions. Each leader must understand each other's
intents, capabilities and options.(Stein 95) This factor is the
one most susceptible to misconception and miscalculation.
Fourth, leaders must make threats of retaliation credible for
deterrence to work.(Stein 96) Finally, the responses threatened
must be commensurate to the action being deterred. This
principle is closely related to the credibility of strategy of
deterrence.

Why did Israel, and why does it continue to, pursue a strategy of
deterrence with its Arab neighbors? The answer to this question
can be found by examining Israel's strategic environment. The
distances between Israel's principal cities and capital of its
Arab neighbors are extremely short; only 75 km between Jerusalem
and Amman, 160 km between Haifa and Damascus, and only 435 km
between Cairo and Tel Aviv. At Israel's narrowest point, it is
only fifteen miles from the Mediterranean to the Jordanian
boundary of the West Bank. Jerusalem was surrounded on three
sides by Jordanian territory and could easily be cut off. Syrian
forces on the Golan heights overlooked Israel's Hula valley. An
advance by the Egyptian army of only 20 km could reach Jordanian
territory and cut off the port of Eilat, and with it Israel's
access to Asia and Africa. This situation led Janice Stein to
conclude, "Israel's military geography was a strategist's
nightmare."(Stein 100-101) Population also worked to the favor of
the Arabs. In 1967, the ratio of Arab to Israeli WA 20.4 :
1.(Stein 101) The Arabs also enjoyed a quantitative military
superiority over Israel. Israel could field 60,000 regulars,
204,000 reservists, 800 tanks and 350 planes. Egypt, Syria and
Jordan could field, respectively, 190,000 regulars, 120,000
reservists, 1,200 tanks and more than 550 planes; 60,000
regulars, 50,000 reservists, 600 tanks and 100 planes; and 35,000
regulars, 35,000 reservists, 132 tanks and 12 planes.(Associated
51)

These two major military liabilities, geography and population,
created what Israeli defense planners called a 'narrow margin of
security'. Geography prevented Israel from waging a defense in
depth; Israel had no territory to sacrifice for time. The
quantitative superiority, both militarily and demographically, of
the Arab states dictated that Israel must have a qualitative
superiority to compensate. These liabilities resulted in the
logical strategy the Israeli's adopted: deterrence. Several
precise actions were defined as casus belli; the first was an
indication of an enemy air attack. Yigal Allon described the
indicators of possible retaliation, "Air supremacy ensured the
maximum chance of victory. The enemy air force would not be
allowed to hit our air force on the ground. When the imminence
of an air attack becomes apparent, ...the enemy air force was to
be destroyed, if possible before take-off."(Stein 105) The most
frequently articulated casus belli was an Egyptian blockade of
the Gulf of Aquaba. For strategic and political reasons, this
action had to be deterred at all costs. The port of Eilat was
Israel's access to Asia and Africa. The cost of the blockade of
Aquaba was partly that it threatened oil; far more importantly,
the blockade eroded Israel's capacity to deter. Senior military
leaders stated that if Israel could not deter credibly, an Arab
attack was inevitable, sooner or later.(George 141) Prime
Minister Ben Gurion unambiguously stated that a blockade of Eilat
would be an act of war.(Stein 106) Another act that would lead to
war was Jordan allowing foreign military forces or her own
battalions to concentrate on the West Bank. Enemy forces on the
West Bank would be disastrous for Israel; the country could be
divided into two or three parts. Allon explained that Israel
would have no alternative but to attack in those
circumstances.(Stein 107) The most obvious casus belli that could
provoke Israel was a concentration of Egyptian military power in
the Sinai, as stated earlier. All the previous actions that
Israel strove to prevent exploited her geographic weaknesses; the
final casus belli was an Arab neighbor attempting to negate
Israel's qualitative military superiority through a third party.
Israel's qualitative superiority would be undermined by arms
supplied to Arab countries, and thus undermine her ability to
deter attack through superior capabilities. (Stein 107) Israel's
attempts to prevent all these casus belli had one aim: to widen
Israel's narrow margin of security by compensating for her
serious geographic and demographic liabilities.

The Israeli pattern of deterrence is clear. However, Israel's
reliance upon deterrence alone may be the principal cause of the
war of 1967. While the deterrence model has great validity, so
does its polar opposite, the spiral model. The deterrence theory
posits that wars occur as a result of weakness; military weakness
or a hesitancy or unwillingness to use force create incentives
for aggressors. The only way to prevent aggression is to
discourage it with credible threats or, if necessary, strong
action. The spiral model describes the outbreak of war under the
exact opposite conditions. The spiral model posits that the two
countries acting aggressively toward each other will not deter
the other, but rather escalate the conflict into war. The first
country perceives a threat, and hoping to prevent war, assumes an
aggressive stance to deter what it perceives as aggression. The
second country, interpreting the first country's attempt at
deterrence as proof of aggression, escalates by assuming an even
more aggressive stance. This cycle continues until war breaks
out or one country assumes a conciliatory position, backing down.
Spiral theorists point to examples such as the US-USSR nuclear
arms race as proof of their theory, and cite the disastrous
results if a strategy of deterrence was followed by both the US
and USSR in the Cuban missile crisis.

The pattern of escalation began with Syrian apprehensions of an
imminent Israeli invasion. Perhaps the Syrians were suspicious
of Israeli motives after the punitive raid launched by Israel on
May 7, when six Syrian MiGs were shot down. This apprehension
resulted in 'news' of an Israeli invasion planned for May 17
being delivered to the Egyptians. To deter a threat to Syria,
Nasser sent troops into the Sinai. (Bailey 193) There is evidence
to believe that Israel never had any intention of invading Syria,
but this made little difference after the Israelis mobilized on a
large scale on May 19.(George 134) When the Syrians asked their
Russian allies if they could confirm Israeli troop
concentrations, the Soviets replied that it was impossible to
tell whether the Israelis were deployed for an attack, or merely
to defend Israel in case of Syrian attack.(Bailey 199) Even if
the Israelis did not intend to attack Syria, they made the
Syrians believe so. Foreign military attaches were informed that
if the guerrilla attacks instigated by Syria continued, Israel
would take action "'designed to topple the Damascus army
regime...'"On May 14, Israeli papers reported an interview with
Major-General Yitzhak Rabinin which he described Israel's policy
towards Syria, saying, "'Therefore the aim of action against
Syria is different from what it ought to be against Jordan and
Lebanon.'"(Bailey 190) These aggressive statements were
interpreted by the Syrians as hints of aggression. Nasser
referred to these threats when he closed the Gulf of Aquaba on
May 22.

The deterrence and spirals models seek to explain what resulted
from Nasser decision to send troops into the Sinai and blockade
the straits of Tiran; these models do not explain why Nasser
chose this course of action. Domestic political factors are the
keys to explaining Nasser's actions. Syria had long taunted
Nasser for hiding behind the UNEF.(Associated 44) Even King
Hussein had accused Nasser of hiding behind the "skirts" of the
UNEF.(George 128) Nasser's decision to move into the Sinai had
partly to do with deterring a threat to Syria; another motive was
Nasser's desire to vindicate himself throughout the Arab world.
Janice Stein describes Nasser in this position, saying,
"Politically vulnerable at home and abroad, the Egyptian
president saw no option but to challenge deterrence."(George 137)
The issue of the UNEF was not the only instance in which Nasser
felt pressured; Syria also attacked Nasser for failing to come to
its assistance during the April 7 raid. Mohammed Heikal, one of
Nasser's advisors, made it clear that Egypt's obligation to Syria
under their defense agreement of 1966 extended only to a war with
Israel, not punitive raids.(George 128-9) The protests of the
Syrians, however, had their effect; when the crisis came, Nasser
strongly supported his Syrian allies. During his speech about
the Aquaba blockade, Nasser said that should Syria be attacked by
Israel, 'Egypt would enter the battle from the first
minute.'(Bailey 197) The reward for Nasser was a great one; he
led a united Arab world against their common enemy. On May 30,
King Hussein flew to Cairo and embraced Nasser as a 'brother'.
(Associated 50) Nasser's own view of his position revealed itself
when the Egyptian prime minister, Sulayman, objected to Nasser's
proposed blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba; "Nasser paid no attention
to Sulayman's objections. He was eager to close the
Strait....[to] maintain his great prestige within the Arab
world.'"(George 135) In addition to the pressure Nasser felt from
regional allies and rivals, he faced a domestic public which
would not allow him to concede.(George 128)

These domestic and regional political pressures influenced the
perceptions Nasser and the Arab leaders held, leading to
misinterpretation and error preceding the six day war. The
actions of Nasser with regard to UNEF and Sinai stemmed from
Nasser's and Syrian misinterpretations of Israel's aims. The
Israelis did not want war, or plan on starting a war with Syria.
Although Nasser did correctly assess that the immediate impact of
his troops in the Sinai would be to take pressure off Syria, he
failed to estimate how far he could take his strategy of
brinkmanship with Israel. Nasser thought, after the Sinai and
the blockade of the gulf of Aquaba, that Israel would negotiate
and not go to war.(Associated 50) Egyptians have even thought
that Nasser did not envisage the actual result of his request; he
never wanted the total withdrawal of the UNEF, only its
re-deployment.(Bailey 192) Not only did Nasser and other Arab
leaders misperceive Israel's intentions and her reactions to the
crisis, they completely underestimated the military threat Israel
posed to them, resulting in the military defeat they suffered.
The Air Force Commander Sidqi Mahmoud claimed that Egypt air
defenses were capable of discovering and destroying an enemy air
attack regardless of the direction of the attack, the number of
planes involved, or even if the attack was assisted by
carrier-borne American planes. The picture on the ground looked
equally rosy; the Egyptians estimated Israeli ground forces could
reach less than 100 km into the Sinai before an Egyptian
counterattack captured Eilat and advanced to Beersheeba. The
Commander of the ground forces stated that Israel had nor "firm
defenses" and that Egypt had superiority in tanks and Egyptian
missiles protected the whole theater.(George 135) Aberrations
played such a central role in the crisis leading to the six day
war that Janice Gross Stein has stated the it was an "inadvertent
war" that none of the major participants or even the superpowers
wanted.(George 126)

If an Arab-Israeli war was not what either superpower wanted,
what were the objectives of the superpowers? Each superpower
sought to exploit regional developments to increase its own
influence at the other's expense. This was down for two
objectives: to strengthen the superpower's global position and
protect specific security interests in the Middle East. The
superpowers viewed this particular case of geopolitics as a
zero-sum game in which an increase in the influence of the other
superpower as a decrease in its own influence and
de-stabilizing.(George 305) The Soviets provided the Syrians with
false information about Israeli troop concentrations to bring
Syria into a closer relationship with Egypt, with whom the
Soviets had a strong relationship. Since the United States had
considerable influence over Israel, it was in the US's best
interests to protect Israel, but the US was unwilling to take
unilateral action to maintain Israel's freedom of navigation, and
wished that Israel did not take unilateral action either. Even
though both superpowers perceived a common interest in preventing
an Arab-Israeli war, the political costs to the Soviets shuttled
any possibility of a joint superpower solution to the
crisis.(George 305-307)

The importance of strategic motivations manifested themselves in
Israel's defense policy and stated conditions of preemption, and
domestic political factors had their effect on the war through
pressure applied to Arab leaders. These are the important
issues; economic or ideological considerations played little or
no part in this crisis. The only effect economic considerations
might have played in Israel's decisions was when to go to war;
the mobilization was costing Israel immensely in lost
productivity. The Arab states did not experience this difficulty
due to their greater population. The considerations of strategic
limitations, deterrence, domestic politics, and misperception,
while central to the crisis, did not conspire to create an
inevitable war; only a crisis which could have been averted if
the leaders involved better understood their opponents'
limitations.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Associated Press, Lightning Out Of Israel, Western printing and
lithographing company, 1967

Bailey, Sydney D. Four Arab-Israeli Wars and The Peace Process, Macmillan:
London, 1990

"The Arab-Israeli War of 1967.." by Janice Gross Stein in Avoiding War,
edited by Alexander George, West view Press: Oxford, 1991

Rikhye, Indar Jit The Sinai Blunder, Frank Cass: London, 1980
Stein, Janice Gross and Tanter, Raymond Rational Decision Making: Israel's
Security Choices, 1967 Ohio State University Press: Columbus, 1981

--------------------

Date: 24 Jan 1994 09:38:36 -0800
From: dcam...@mdd.comm.mot.com (Duncan Campbell)
Subject: Cruise Missile Debate in the Commons

In the coming weeks there looks to be a debate in the commons
about the continuance of cruise missile testing in northern
Alberta. All the usual special interest groups will doubtless
trot out their arguements for and against the testing, so I will
trot out my own special little argument:

The biggest military threat we americans (note the small a) face
at the present is an unknown one. Perhaps a resurgence of
Fascism in Europe, or the formation of warring kingdoms in the
XSSR. Or maybe a great new religion out of Africa.

Whatever form this unknown takes it is presently less than
certain what defensive mechanisms, if any, will prevail. This
means that heavy monitary /technological investment in any
weapons at this time will be a Maginot Line, capable of little
more than economically crippling us.

Cruise missiles are cheap, flexible, weapons tech. That is they
waste less money than, say, orbital laser platforms or aircraft
carriers. For this reason Canada should support continued
testing and developement of the cruise in lieu of more expensive
systems, while lobbying for a more general reduction in US
armaments.

And yes, I supported the neutron bomb for the same reasons.

Duncan Dhu (Black Duncan, that is!)

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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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