Strategic Implications of the New Oil Reality by Shemuel Meir

Author:Shemuel Meir [Meir, Shemuel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Middle Eastern, Social Science, Political Science, World, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781000313246
Google: wHCdDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 50745200
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

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USSR & Eastern Europe 9000 tanks:

5000 APCs:

3000 artillery pieces:

3000 combat aircraft:

300 helicopters $30 billion

United States 1500 tanks:

3500 APCs:

450 combat aircraft:

160 helicopters:

1500 artillery pieces $14 billion

Western Europe 1200 tanks:

1200 APCs:

400 combat aircraft:

500 helicopters $18 billion

Source: JCSS Middle East Military Balance— 1983.

The great quantity of equipment purchased caused a shift in the regional strategic balance. To offset it, Israel was forced to substantially increase its own defense outlays. Thus, following the Yom Kippur War, a larger portion of Israel's GNP was set aside fordefense: from 19.4 percent of GNP in 1972 to 44 percent in 1973, 34.4 percentin 1977, and 26.3 percent in 1979.26 By the 1980s, Israel had doubled its total number of army divisions, to 11.27 Though generous American military aid in the period 1973-1981 totaled 13 billion dollars,28 this constituted only 5 percent of Israel's GNP on an annual basis, while the additional defense burden Israel had to carry after the Yom Kippur War came to 15 percent of its GNP.29

From Israel's standpoint, then, oil wealth added a new dimension to an already unfavorable military balance in the region. Along with the advantages of land area, economic resources and population enjoyed by the neighboring Arab states, Israel now had to face large armies equipped with modern weapons systems financed by the oil wealth of the more distant Arab states.

The following outline of the military balance in the region has been abstracted to highlight some of the more significant issues in Israel's national defense posture. Thus, at the start of 1973, Israel was threatened with a potential pan-Arab coalition that would have included forces from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Libya and Saudi Arabia. We shall express this threat in the most essential terms: numbers of tanks and combat aircraft. The figures in Tables 21 and 22 were derived from military balances published by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Here we see that even prior to the Yom Kippur War, the ratio of tanks and combat aircraft was 3 to 1 in favor of the Arabs. Such a balance, however, was considered tolerable in terms of Israel's overall strategic posture. But ten years later the balance had shifted even further in favor of the Arabs, and Israel's strategic position had clearly deteriorated.

Table 21

Military Balance — Israel and Arab Coalition: 1973

Tanks Combat Aircraft

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