1973, when the CIA was "quite simply, obviously, and starkly wrong"
I continue my seven-part series on “black swan” events that the United States failed to anticipate, and that have formed the Middle East. 2/7: 1973, the Yom Kippur attack by Egypt and Syria on Israel in the Sinai peninsula and the Golan Heights.
It wasn’t only Israel that was taken by surprise; so were US intelligence agencies. On October 6, the very day of the surprise attack, the CIA estimated that “for Egypt, a military initiative makes little sense at this critical juncture,” while “for the Syrian President, a military adventure now would be suicidal.” An internal memo at the National Security Council noted that while the Israelis had become persuaded that an attack might be in the works, “our intelligence services have continued to downplay the likelihood of an Arab attack on Israel and still have no signs that such action is imminent.”
A CIA post-mortem from December 1973 admitted that its estimates “were—quite simply, obviously, and starkly—wrong.” It wasn’t for a lack of information: “Such information (derived from both human and technical sources) was not conclusive but was plentiful, ominous, and often accurate.” But all this raw data was filtered through preconceptions about Arab intentions and capabilities.
As with every “black swan,” it all seemed so obvious after the event. But as the post-mortem noted, “what may seem so clear now did not, could not, seem so clear then.” This wasn’t just Israel’s problem: by 1973, the Israeli-Arab conflict had become embedded in the Cold War, and when Israel finally gained the upper hand, the Soviets threatened direct intervention. US nuclear forces went to Defcon 3.
The Soviets backed down: as Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin put it, “it is not reasonable to become engaged in a war with the US because of Egypt and Syria.” But the other effects of the war remade the Middle East.
Senior Partner Ramko Rolland Ass. Academic Lecturer, Innovator & Inventor, turning dreams into profitable businesses
5 年Between 1967 and 1973 there was the War of Attrition ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Attrition) where Moshe Dayan made the propaganda statement you posted to my response. Israeli arrogance and self-confidence were at its highest level without any real justification. Was there and in my own arrogance of a combat, soldier I sat on the top of the sand barrier as no one could hurt me. Have somewhere the photograph. If not for Gen. Ariel Sharon who prepared as Commander of the Southern Front a loose brick wall covered with sand not sure the Israelis could arrive 60 miles from Cairo. His mixed division forced itself over the Chinese farm fortification in a bloody fight in the battle of the Chinese farm, which most Israelis have all but forgotten. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Chinese_Farm) which was the most decisive battle of the war. The Israelis run out of munition, tanks and troop carriers - then Kissinger ordered an airlift train of military hardware presumably out of guilt feelings that stopped the Israelis to mount a preventive strike ahead of Yom Kippur of that year. We crossed the Suez canal after this bloody battle and advanced in relative easy up to 60 miles of Cairo by encircling the Egyptian 3rd Army.
Senior Partner Ramko Rolland Ass. Academic Lecturer, Innovator & Inventor, turning dreams into profitable businesses
5 年I participated in that war in the Sinai Peninsula, as a reserve soldier, one of the big surprises was also the possession of the sophisticated SAM (SAM 6 I think) surface to air missiles and the Sager anti-tank missiles in the Egyptian army possession. The Bar-Lev line was wrongly designed and the General with the same name did not take any responsibility. The Bar-Lev line was static contrary to Israel's major advantage over the Arab armies - maneuverability. Unfortunate the lesson of this war where forgotten, attached me during this bloody war crossing at night enemy lines to salvage military hardware, and received an Armored and Signal Corps Command citation.