Military Deception and Strategic Surprise! by John Gooch

Author:John Gooch [Gooch, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415449335
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2007-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Conventional Deterrence: Explanations of the Planned Use of Force

In the three years that followed the termination of the War of Attrition in August 1970, Egypt’s leaders seriously considered a surprise military attack against Israel at least four times. After President Sadat proclaimed a ‘year of decision’ in July 1971, he planned an air strike against Israel’s military installations in Sinai preparatory to a landing of paratroopers, for the month of December. The President subsequently explained that he postponed the use of force because of inadequate military shipments from the USSR and the transfer of military equipment to India after the outbreak of the Indo-Pakistani War on 3 December.8 Again the following year, Sadat ordered the Egyptian General Staff to prepare an attack across the Canal, to follow shortly after the American presidential elections, but cancelled the attack in mid-November after dismissing his senior military commanders for refusing to follow his orders.9 In early 1973, Egyptian officers planned a surprise military attack for limited military objectives, in coordination with Syria, for the month of May. And again, the attack was postponed, this time because of the impending Soviet-American summit, inadequate arms deliveries from the Soviet Union, and Israel’s military preparations.10 In the summer of 1973, Egypt and Syria jointly planned a surprise attack across the ceasefire line and on 6 October, the two launched a coordinated military attack, surprising Israel’s leaders and catching their armed forces unprepared.

Four times, then, Egypt planned military action and all four times deception was an integral part of the strategic plan. Only once, however, did Egyptian armed forces actually attack and when they did, deception succeeded. Why did Egypt cancel its planned military action three times? How did the calculus of Egyptian leaders differ the fourth time? What factors were critical in the decision to use force? Using as evidence one or more components of a challenger’s calculus, at least five major approaches to conventional deterrence attempt to explain a challenger’s decision to use military force.

The first of these explanations focuses on a challenger’s assessment of the balance of interests and gives considerable weight to leaders’ estimates of the importance of their own interests in comparison to those of a defender. If leaders consider their opponent’s interests to be greater than their own, they will consider the defender’s resolve to be high and, very likely, will forego military action.11 Other variants of the interest explanation attach less importance to a comparative assessment and give greater weight to a challenger’s evaluation either of its own interests or those of its adversary. Some argue that a challenger will not use force if it considers a defender’s interests to be large and obvious while others insist that even a credible commitment by a defender, based on visible interests, is insufficient to deter military action.12

When we look at the calculations of Egypt’s leaders from 1971 to 1973, we find little support for any variant of an interest explanation. In all four cases, Egypt considered its interests to be of overwhelming

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