Israel Hayom..
08 August '13..
This year, yet again, analysts and experts will put on grim faces and tell us how terrible "that war" was. They will tell us how unnecessary that "damned" war was, and how awful the failure was. However, an all-encompassing view of the picture shows us that the results of the Yom Kippur War, from a military perspective, do not jive with the same dismal narrative.
If officers training to be company or battalion commanders today had been tasked with predicting the outcome of that war, given the same conditions in which it started and considering the size of both forces 40 years ago, none would have predicted it correctly. Not only did Arab armies have an advantage in sheer troop numbers and equipment in the field, not only did they enjoy the advantage of complete surprise, one must also factor in the sense of vengeance prevalent in their ranks -- the Egyptians in particular -- which had been building since the Sinai Campaign in 1956 less than two decades earlier. And of course, the fighting capabilities of the Syrian and Egyptian troops had improved significantly since the Six-Day War.
The turning of the tide on the battlefield, as it occurred less than one week after the war started, is not mentioned enough in unclassified military history. Not every country on the brink of destruction, as Israel was in the war's first days, could have bounced back with such a resounding victory on the battlefield. An army predicated on a doctrine in which its reserve force plays a central role but is drafted late, cannot do its job. An army based on principles of close air support, after the enemies' fighter jets have either been intercepted in the air or destroyed on the runway, and does not receive it because one quarter of the fighter jets in its fleet are lost, makes defense and deciding the war's outcome virtually impossible.
I am not blind to the cost. In 18 days, 2,600 soldiers lost their lives. More than 100 fighter jets and helicopters, hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other equipment were destroyed. One quarter of the Israeli soldiers killed in battle were officers. However, a quick comparison with the war that ended in six days amplifies the military victory of the Yom Kippur War. No one speaks of the even greater failures that occurred during the Six-Day War, so as not to take away from the lamentations following "that" war.
Nevertheless, despite all this, where is the required process of learning from our own mistakes, at least from those usually associated with the left side of the political map? What could have happened had then-Prime Minister Golda Meir not acquiesced to Nixon and Kissinger and ordered a pre-emptive strike? And shouldn't the lesson we learn be that even though the Arab armies fail on the battlefield time and again, they should not get what they wish for with nothing in exchange?
One final thought for those officers training to be company commanders: Could any of them have imagined how Israel would look in relation to the Arab states 40 years later, considering the battlefield conditions at the onset of the war when people were talking about the "defeat of Israel" -- certainly not the "October victory"?
Original Title: Pride in our Yom Kippur War victory
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5629
Dr. Gabi Avital is the chairman of Professors for a Strong Israel.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.
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