The Soviet-Israeli War, 1967–1973. The USSR’s Military Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict

THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973

for its allies. Therefore, while Soviet propaganda justified the Arabs’ “liberation”
campaign, Western leaders (followed by historians) tended—or pretended—to
believe Moscow’s protestations that its clients had acted against Soviet advice.
Doubts were already expressed in real time. As Israeli Foreign Minister Eban testi-
fied shortly after the war (12 December):

I think the jury is still out ... whether they [the Soviets] desired it. My impression is that

they did ... Dr Kissinger ... [considered that] they certainly knew there would be a war, and

even if they did not want it—they did not consult with the US, as required by the Détente

idea ... that they were unrestrained with the armament, that they incited other Arab states

to take part in the war, and afterwards brought America to the brink of confrontation—

but I never heard the Americans say that the USSR desired and initiated this war.^5

Three weeks into the war, columnist Joseph Alsop asserted flatly that “the Soviet
Union sponsored the Eg yptian and Syrian attack on Israel. In view of the massive
Soviet supplies poured in before the attack, and the undoubted Soviet advance
knowledge of the attack itself, ‘sponsorship’ is a most conservative word.”^6 But Alsop,
as already seen, was discounted as “a militant cold warrior perennially sounding the
tocsin against the worldwide Kremlin conspiracy.”^7 Such a determination—essen-
tially, that Moscow deliberately jeopardized global détente by putting it to such a
severe test—was rarely made either in contemporary pronouncements or in subse-
quent histories.
This meant that the USSR’s support of the Arab side after the outbreak of war,
both politically and by means of a massive military resupply effort, had to be consid-
ered as practically imposed upon the Soviets by their clients as the price for maintain-
ing regional influence. Such perceptions persisted even when at a critical juncture,
when Israel threatened to reverse the initial Arab gains, the Soviets were believed to
have thrown their own nuclear capability into the equation, triggering a commensu-
rate US response. When Eg ypt did switch to the US camp after the war, this was
taken retrospectively to prove its intentions going in, and to confirm that this reluc-
tant Soviet effort had been forlorn to begin with.
Tracing the antecedents largely obviates detailed analysis of the climactic first week
of October 1973 in order to resolve the issues of Soviet complicity. The questions
have to be rephrased: Given Soviet collusion, how and why were the evacuation and
other Soviet moves made in the ultimate run-up to the war and its initial phases?
Shortly after Alsop’s column, and with the even greater passion of a convert from
communism, Theodore Draper pointed out that the distinction between passive
acquiescence and active connivance was in effect a quibble:

If the “basic principles” of Détente had been respected, the Eg yptian–Syrian attack should

not have taken place. ... The Soviets encouraged it by acquiescing, and they would have

discouraged it by refusing to acquiesce. ... In fact, the vast and expensive effort the Russians