Yom+Kippur+War

Wyatt West Historical Investigation

** A.) Plan of Investigation: ** **Question: ****to what extent was the United States involved in the Yom Kippur War? ** The purpose of this investigation is to discuss the effect Soviet pressure had on American decision making in the region, how United States foreign policy provided as a catalyst for the war, and how the United States provided supplies that aided the Israel. I am not going to be looking at the effects of previous Arab-Israeli conflicts that caused the Yom Kippur War, the effect the United States had on the Camp David Accords, or the War of Attrition and the effects it had on the outbreak of the war.

**B.) Summary of Evidence** **I.) Soviet pressure on the United States** __Before the War __ __After Israeli Encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army at the end of the war __
 * "The United States maintained a back-channel of communications with the Egyptians...hoping to release them from the Soviet embrace and gain them as their client."[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn1|[i]]]
 * For the Arab surprise attack plan, Operation BADR, the "Arabs bought SAM’s (Surface to Air) missiles from the USSR yet “Egyptian "sources" spread disinformation about problems with the surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) purchased from the Soviet Union” in order to fool the Israelis[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn2|[ii]]]
 * Israel and Arab countries had not signed official peace terms after Six Day War and the “ The White House refused to become directly involved in the peace process because any settlement reached would strengthen the USSR’s hold on Egypt and on other countries in the region.” [[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn3|[iii]]]
 * NSA director Henry Kissinger believed “the State Department’s approach to Middle East affairs was mistaken because any settlement reached with Moscow’s blessing would naturally be based on the position of the Arab world and thus give open recognition to the Soviet grip on the region.” [[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn4|[iv]]]
 *  “The United States administration had its reasons for suspecting [Soviet] intervention, and was concerned about protecting //détente//.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn5|[v]]]
 * After Israeli forces surrounded 20,000 members of the Egyptian Third Army, “Brezhnev sent Nixon a warning that if the United States would not act, the USSR would do so unilaterally.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn6|[vi]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">The United States responded by, “raising the readiness state of American forces worldwide to Defense Condition (Def Con) III, the highest state of nuclear readiness in peacetime.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn7|[vii]]]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**II.) United States Effect on the War’s Outbreak and Peace Talks** __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Before the War/War’s Outbreak __  __<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">At the War’s end/Peace Talks __
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Secretary of State Henry Kissinger led “a stalemate policy which undermined any peace initiative that surfaced if it was not in accordance with Israel’s basic position on the issue.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn8|[viii]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Kissinger adopted a policy that “essentially favored the //status quo// in the Middle East. Hence, Kissinger opposed State Department pressure on Israel to reach an agreement at the cost of considerable territorial concessions.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn9|[ix]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**“**The [Egyptian] government understood that the United States would have no real interest in promoting peace process…this assessment prompted the Egyptians to abandon diplomacy and attack Israel.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn10|[x]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Due to the encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army and the pressure of the Soviets, “[Israeli Prime Minister] Golda Meir feared that Kissinger had made a deal at Israel’s expense in Moscow.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn11|[xi]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Soviet Defense minister Andrei Grechko stated at a meeting of the Politburo in reference to the peace talks that “Is it not clear? The Americans want to impose their own scenario.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn12|[xii]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Anwar Sadat sent Meir a note stating, “When I talk of peace now, I mean it. We never had had contact before. We now have the services of Dr. Kissinger. Let us use him and talk to each other through him.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn13|[xiii]]]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**III.) United States Airlifting Supplies to Israel**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">On March 14, 1973 “The //New York// //Post// revealed that at the meeting between Nixon and Meir a new weapons deal between the United States and Israel was agreed upon that included the sale of fighter aircraft.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn14|[xiv]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">“Nixon’s decision on Israel’s arms request was sweeping… [Israel’s] battlefield losses would be replaced and everything on Israel’s wish list was to be supplied.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn15|[xv]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">“The Soviets had begun an airlift to their Arab clients on October 10…Kissinger now wanted the American airlift to be visible as a “demonstrative counter” to the Soviet airlift.[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn16|[xvi]]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">This operation was dubbed “Operation Nickel Grass” by the United States government and showed that “the superpowers had become increasingly militant patrons.”[[file:///C:/Users/Dad%27s%20Computer/Documents/Wyatt1/Historical%20Investigation.doc#_edn17|[xvii]]]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**C.) Evaluation of Sources**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Changed the Middle East **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Rabinovich, Abraham. The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East. Berlin: Schocken, 2005. Print.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">This book was written by Jewish historian Abraham Rabinovich. He has published several books on recent Jewish history. He has been a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune. Before becoming a writer, he was a staff journalist at the Jerusalem Post and went to college at Brooklyn College. This book is used to provide a first-hand in depth look at the Yom Kipppur War through every tactical aspect of the war. This book explains in detail every aspect of the war starting from the plan of Arab attack called Operation BADR to even the near intervention of the USA and USSR. It brings in first hand accounts from the Israeli soldiers and accounts for all of the offensives and counter offensives that follow. It also highlights the decisions made by both Arab and Israeli high commands. While this book provides fantastic chronicles of individual fights during the war itself, it doesn’t take in a broader spectrum and effects of the war.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**The White House Middle Policy in 1973 as A Catalyst for the Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War.**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Vanetik, Boaz, and Zaki Shalom. "The White House Middle Policy In 1973 As A Catalyst for the Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War." //Israel Studies// 16.1 (2011): 53-78. //Academic Search Premier//. Web. 2 Mar. 2012.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> This journal was written by Boaz Vanetik and Zaki Shalom. Boaz Vanetik is a PhD student in the department of Jewish history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Zaki Shalom is the senior staff member at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute and the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies at Tel-Aviv University. They have both cooperated on the making of multiple journals and books concerning Israeli-Arabic conflicts. This journal was written to analyze the effect of the White House's Middle East policy on the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. This journal accounts for the fact that the United States had no real interest in promoting peace and pressured Israel into withdrawing from the Sinai Peninsula. The Arabs knew about this and decided this would be the perfect opportunity to attack Israel. It states how National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger led a 'stalemate policy" that wanted neither side to make any major gains in the region which meant undermining any peace initiative against Israel's basic position. It also expresses the fact that lack of United States involvement should not acquire all the blame for causing the outbreak of the war and that its influence over both Israel and Egypt was certain. The problem with this journal is that it has little facts on the effect the Soviet Union had on United States decision making.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**D.) Analysis** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">The relationship between the United States and Israel has been questioned many times during the 64 years Israel has been a nation. There have been multiple times in recent years in which the necessity of the relationship with Israel has been a subject of difficulty. In the past, the United States has almost always come to the aid of Israel, sometimes with far reaching implications. One of Israel’s largest conflicts with its Arab neighbors, the Yom Kippur War, shows that the United States played a pivotal role in the politics of the Middle East. For this conflict, the United States participated not only in giving aid to Israel but also brokering a deal with the Egyptians to free their surrounded Third Army under the threat of Soviet intervention, affecting the outbreak of the war, and participating in the peace talks.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Egyptian and Syrian planned Operation BADR was an operation that would mislead the Israeli’s into believing that there would not be an attack on the holy day of Yom Kippur. The extensive planning of BADR allowed “t he Egyptians and their Syrian allies [to achieve] stunning victories at the beginning of the war”. The situation for Israel was dire; luckily the United States was “willing to risk the collapse of détente if that was the price of maintaining America’s position in the Middle East”. Détente was the easing of Cold War tensions by the United States and USSR during the late 60's and 70's. The United States started a massive airdrop operation dubbed “Operation Nickel Grass”. Nickel Grass lasted 32 days and provided Israel with 22,305 tons of supplies. The influx of new supplies gave the Israelis the boost they needed to break through the Egyptian lines. This in turn enabled the Israeli’s to push through and break the Egyptian lines, encircling the Third Army and cutting off all supply routes. This would lead to stand-off between the USSR and the United Statest hat could have resulted in a third world war.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> The Middle East was another area of the Cold War that saw both the Soviet Union and the United States jockeying for control. The Soviets backed most Arab states including Egypt and Syria. Meanwhile the United States had Israel, but was still trying to gain partnership with the Egyptians. Before the outbreak of the war, the United States refused to enter any definitive peace talks over the possibility of long term peace in the region unless it highlighted Israel’s or their main concerns. The United States government also realized that any peace agreement would strengthen the Soviet hold on the region, something that could not happen. The Egyptians realized this, decided to stop all diplomacy and attack Israel. At the beginning of the war, the United States and Soviets had, “determination that the détente they had worked so hard to achieve would not be undermined by their unruly clients [but] developments on the steadily shifted the two powers stand from shoulder-to-shoulder to face-to-face”. The development on the battlefield that caused these two powers to come “face-to-face” was the encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army. The Israeli’s had encircled the Egyptian Third Army, not allowing any supplies to get through. “The Americans refused to intervene but the Soviets [concerned about their clients] were alarmed”. The Soviets demanded that the United States intervene or else they would, but the Americans refused, during a period of time in which the DEFCON (Defense Condition) alert was raised from 4 to 3, the highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The blockade thus continued but Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat’s, main foreign policy goal was to “replace Soviet patronage with American support”. This gave the Americans an opportunity to, “drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and Egypt”. The United States asked Israel to stop the blockade, and they complied granting supply lines to go through to the beleaguered Egyptian forces.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger began “shuttle diplomacy” that would oversee the peace talks between the Arab forces and Israel. Kissinger was able to set up a treaty that appeased both sides in the regaining of land. In fact, “He was able to narrow differences down to a strip of territory about a mile wide around Kunetira”. What would follow would be disengagement and then, peace.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**E.) Conclusion** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> The United States played a major role in the Yom Kippur War. Acting as a patron, supplier, and eventually peacemaker, the United States helped turn the tide of the war as well as participated in ending it. Its intervention in the conflict and the resolution led to the solidification of the United States as a major player in the Middle East.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">F.) List of Sources/ Word Count ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">House, Jonathan M. “Yom Kippur War.” //Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict//. Print.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Krisinger, Chris J. “Operation Nickel Grass: Airlift in Support of National Policy.” //Airpower Jounral// (Spring 1989): n. pag. //Air and Space Power Journal//. Web. 22 Apr. 2012.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Rabinovich, Abraham. //The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East//. Berlin: Schocken, 2005. Print.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Shalom, Zaki, and Vanetik, Boaz. "The White House Middle East Policy In 1973 As A Catalyst for the Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War." //Israel Studies// 16.1 (2011): 53-78. //Academic Search Premier//. Web. 2 Mar.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Simpson, Larry. "Arab-Israeli Wars: Military Maneuvers: Operation BADR and the Yom Kippur War." //World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society//. ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">Winokur, Talia//. “‘The Soviets Were Just An Excuse': Why Israel Did Not Destroy The Egyptian Third Army."// Cold War History 9.1 (2009): 59-78. Academic Search Premier. Web. Pg 60


 * Word Count: 1,972**


 * Endnotes **

Winokur, Talia//. “‘The Soviets Were Just An Excuse': Why Israel Did Not Destroy The Egyptian Third Army."// Cold War History 9.1 (2009): 59-78. Academic Search Premier. Web. Pg 60 Simpson, Larry. "Arab-Israeli Wars: Military Maneuvers: Operation BADR and the Yom Kippur War." //World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society//. ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.  Shalom, Zaki, and Vanetik, Boaz. "The White House Middle East Policy In 1973 As A Catalyst for the Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War." //Israel Studies// 16.1 (2011): 53-78. //Academic Search Premier//. Web. 2 Mar. 2012. Pg 56  ibid 55- Kissinger will be referenced heavily, for he was the main decision maker and the face of American foreign policy at the time.  Winokur 60  ibid 62  ibid 62  Shalom and Vanetik 54  ibid 55  ibid 54  Rabinovich, Abraham. The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East. Berlin: Schocken, 2005. Print. Pg 478 ibid 485 ibid 494 Shalom and Vanetik 64 Rabinovich 324 ibid 324 ibid 325 Simpson Rabinovich 325 Krisinger, Chris J. “Operation Nickel Grass: Airlift in Support of National Policy.” //Airpower Jounral// (Spring 1989): n. pag. //Air and Space Power Journal//. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. Rabinovich 319 Winokur 62 ibid 63 ibid Rabinovich 495