The October 1973 Arab-Israeli War: Looking Back 50 Years Later
By William B. Quandt, September 2023
(Adapted from Galen Jackson, ed., The 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023 and published here with permission of the editor and publisher.)
Abstract
The October 1973 Arab-Israeli war was a major turning point in the Middle East, as well as a momentous development in US-Soviet relations and in the international oil market. Fifty years after its outbreak, much of the story has been told in historical accounts, memoirs, and vast archival resources that have been available to scholars for years. On many important issues, there is now a general consensus, but some serious disagreements of interpretation remain, as do some imponderable “what if” questions. This article seeks to address four key issues:
–Was the war inevitable, or could it have been avoided if diplomatic efforts, which were seriously considered, had been launched in the first half of 1973? The key regional players in this crucial period were Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who openly talked about the need to break the stalemate, either by force or by diplomacy, and who had begun to distance himself from his Soviet allies and to communicate directly with U.S. President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger; and Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, deeply skeptical of the possibility of peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors, confident that Israel’s military prowess, reinforced by American diplomatic backing, would deter Arab military threats, or, if deterrence failed, would allow Israel to enhance its military dominance in the region. In early 1973, U.S. policy began to move in the direction of exploring a diplomatic option. Nixon was particularly by the possibility of war; he was ready to put pressure on Israel to show flexibility on the key issue of returning all of Sinai to Egypt in exchange for Egyptian acceptance of security arrangements in Sinai, a transitional period, and a final peace between the two major protagonists in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Kissinger met twice during this period with Sadat’s key security adviser, Hafiz Ismail, and they seemed to reach a general consensus on initial diplomatic moves. But Prime Minister Meir, who was fully briefed on these talks, rejected the entire idea, saying that the concept was flawed – Israel would not return all of the Sinai, even for peace. In her view, Sadat had no viable military option. Also, an election year was no time for her to take the risk of reassessing Israel’s stance. With Israel’s rejection of diplomacy in the first half of 1973, Sadat and his Syrian ally made the decision for a limited war in late summer and the war was launched on October 6, 1973. Israel had advance warning, but was nonetheless unprepared. Kissinger, who by this time was fully in charge of U.S foreign policy, having become Secretary of State in September, while retaining the role of National Security Adviser, had believed that deterrence would insure calm until after Israeli elections, at which time he would turn his attention to a diplomatic effort. He had never met Sadat, and in retrospect it is clear that he had underestimated him as well as the improved capabilities of the Egyptian and Syrian militaries.
–Once the war began, could it have been brought to an early end, avoiding many of the costs of the war, human and economic, as well as preserving the U.S.-Soviet working relationship know as “détente” that Nixon had embraced, and, importantly, avoiding the Arab oil embargo that had a very disruptive effect on the world economy? This issue has still not been fully clarified by historians or archival sources. It is clear that a ceasefire-in- place was believed to be possible by Kissinger in the October 12-13 timeframe; the Soviets claimed to support it; Meir had accepted the proposal; and, for reasons not fully understood, Sadat rejected it. In retrospect, this may have been a missed opportunity to limit the damage of the war, but it has received little attention.
–The United States and the Soviet Union did finally agree to submit a resolution to the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire-in-place beginning on October 22, 1973, just as Israeli forces were about to cut off the Egyptian Third Army in Sinai. The Israelis pleaded with Kissinger for more time, and he acknowledges that he may have given them the impression that they could continue their military operations for a short time. But the record, especially from recent released Israeli archives, suggests that Kissinger gave them more than a cautious yellow light; he seemed to support a strong final push just after he had returned from Moscow where he had negotiated UN Resolution 338 calling for a ceasefire. Needless to say, the Soviets and the Egyptians were furious, and this led to a serious crisis when the Soviets seemed to threaten military action, to which the Americans responded with an enhanced worldwide military alert. In retrospect, this seems to have been an unnecessary and reckless moment that might have escalated to an extremely dangerous international crisis. While the crisis was quickly brought to an end, U.S.-Soviet relations were badly damaged.
–Finally, there was more than a hint of nuclear weapons in the background of this crisis, and yet most accounts make little reference to this dimension. Israel was generally believed to possess a modest arsenal, along with missiles and aircraft capable of delivering them. The Soviets had supplied long-range SCUD missiles to Egypt, but not nuclear warheads, at least according to U.S. intelligence sources. No explicit threats were made, but in a crisis of this sort the nuclear shadow cannot be ignored, and certainly the very last days of the crisis were colored by the fear of a possible superpower confrontation. The nuclear dimension of the crisis should not be exaggerated, but, at the same time, cannot be ignored.
–This article concludes that the October 1973 war could and should have been prevented. All of the diplomatic steps that followed the war could have been taken in early 1973, with less disruption to international stability and economic order, to say nothing of the immediate human and economic costs of the war itself.