FRAMING THE CROSS-CANAL GOALsaid than done: “there are not enough interpreters, we know no Arabic, they [the
Eg yptians] will not carry out our orders, and whatever orders they give on their own
we won’t understand. We don’t have [personal] weapons, either.”^41
Returning to Moscow, the two Soviet ministers recommended compliance with
most of the Eg yptians’ material requests, including hardware for two new divisions, and
intensification of the USSR’s commitment to bring operational standards up to the level
required for an offensive. “In the summer of 1968, a large group of advisers to battalion
and divizyon commanders—some 400” arrived in Eg ypt, with more yet to follow.
Two weeks after Grechko inspected Karpov’s outfit, it was the turn of Serkov’s
podsovetnye (advisees) from the 2nd Brigade to use the Sweet Water Canal as a train-
ing platform. After live-fire exercises of individual companies (which Serkov oversaw,
demonstrating that the advisers were indeed operating down to this level), the
Eg yptians went on to maneuvers of an entire battalion to demonstrate an “attack in
direct contact with the enemy, [after] crossing a water obstacle.” Serkov marked this
as “significant progress,” even though “unfortunately, due to conditions in the field,
the crossing has to be practiced separately.” Within a year, this would be remedied by
constructing a full-scale model of the Suez Canal in the Eg yptian hinterland.
By the autumn of 1968, Lashchenko had already gone beyond training exercises to
initiating actual small-scale raids across the canal to rehearse securing a bridgehead
on the east bank. “This would,” Malashenko wrote, “harden the troops, reassure them
of success in the future operation, and weaken the enemy.” Such raids, also aimed at
taking prisoners and updating intelligence, would become a staple of the impending
War of Attrition. If the Soviets had any reservations about an ultimate offensive
across the canal, it was not relayed to their personnel on the ground. At Cairo-West
on 9 May 1968, Gorbunov was among the Soviet officers who celebrated “Victory
Day” (over Nazi Germany) with Eg yptian counterparts. “We toasted the victory over
Israel. The Eg yptians drank to our meeting in Tel Aviv next year,” and the Soviets
made no objection even though this went far beyond Moscow’s stated policy.^42
F. Attrition adopted as a precursor to all-out offensive
So far as we have been able to establish, the term “war of attrition” was first applied
to the Eg yptian–Israeli conflict in a report from Moscow. A few days into the Ras
el-Ish engagement in July 1967, the London Spectator’s Murarka predicted from
Moscow that “the fresh flare-up in the Suez Canal zone is a pointer to what may now
be going on. ... A phrase which has constantly occurred in Soviet public pronounce-
ments refers to the need ‘to liquidate the consequences of Israeli aggression.’”
The Arabs as well as the Russians will now be thinking of fresh ways of bringing pressure
on Israel. ... We could be in for a long war of attrition. The Russians would not be happy
about such a situation, involving the risk of a greater confrontation; but it is difficult to see
how they can either object to it or fail to support the Arabs.