Every Yom Kippur, as we remember the war that happened almost 50 years ago, two messages return and echo amongst the public: one of them focuses on the intelligence failure, the second promises that the lessons have been learned and that from now on the IDF is prepared and ready for any threat. After dozens of years, these messages warrant critique.
When the failure is presented as one of intelligence, it's easy to promise that the failure was diagnosed and treated in a manner that prevents it from happening again in the future. But a deeper study of the war shows that the basis of the failure is wider and much more extensive than just the intelligence failure.
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From the first days of the war, the over-emphasizing of the intelligence failure served the higher echelons of the IDF, and allowed it to hide and repress its responsibility for the many gaps discovered in the overall preparedness of the IDF for war.
First and foremost is the systemic conception that turned out to be unsuitable for the diplomatic constraints and the changes that took place in the fighting arenas. Analyzing the diplomatic constraints, for example, would have made the General Staff observe the unresolved tension between its desire to launch a war with a preemptive strike, and the diplomatic conditions that developed, which severely limited it from getting a green light for such a move. Due to that system complex, significant gaps developed in the operational plans and the building of power, which translated into unsuitable preparedness of the ground and air forces for launching a war in defense.
At the end of the war it was easy for everyone to believe that if only there had been a warning and if the IDF had drafted enough reserve soldiers two or three days beforehand, the results at the start of the war would have been different. That claim may be true regarding the campaign on the Syrian front, but certainly not the Egyptian front, where a revolutionary change in the concept of war and idea of attack took place in the leadership of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
As the results of the battles between IDF forces and Egyptian forces during the first days became clear, there was great embarrassment throughout all levels. The activation concept and fighting method of our forces, on the ground and in the air, were found to be unsuitable in challenging the innovative Egyptian pattern of action.
In a battle against a large mass of infantry, heavy with anti-tank missiles, and with an IDF shortage of artillery firepower, Israeli armored forces lost the crushing momentum of a motorized attack. Against the Egyptian air defense, which was strengthened with advanced missiles, the Israeli air force lost its supremacy and operational effectiveness.
General (res.) Jackie Even, who served in the war as deputy commander of Sharon's division, writes in his book "At the Decisive Point" about the crisis that was created as a result of the failed counterattacks on the 8 and 9 October. It was a surprise whose significance outweighed the intelligence surprise. One can learn from his description, that even if an intelligence warning had been given on time and IDF forces had been ready in the Sinai with enough prepared forces, it could be that results in the first fighting days may not have been better – maybe even worse.
A new study by Meir Amitai focuses on examining the responsibility of Gen. Motti Hod, who was chief of the air force until May 1973, for the failures of the air force during the war. The operational master plans of the air force were shown to ignore the central changes that were underway on the Egyptian front.
The establishment of the Egyptian air defense systems on the Suez Canal front should have brought about an effort to understand the excessive expectations from the airpower in helping to hold back the Egyptian attack. During an assessment meeting on April 19, 1973, Chief of Staff Elazar asked Motti Hod what preparatory measures needed to be taken to deter the enemy from starting a war. His answer was: "Use the air force's ability… we have as much deterrence as we need. It's possible to cover, like an umbrella, the shortage of tanks in the Sinai… the air force can keep busy any force that crosses for 24 hours…"
The strategic turnaround
Until today the IDF and Israel have not fully attempted to comprehend the outlines that were the basis for failure at the opening point of that war. Historian Yoav Gelber recently claimed that the intelligence failure was double, not only due to not passing on the warning of a war about to break out, but no less grave: Israel was not aware that it had lost its deterrence.
This description expresses the over-reliance of Israel on the idea of deterrence, a false expectation that continues till this day to harm the Israeli thought process.
The thing is, it was Sadat's awareness of the power of Israeli deterrence that forced him to think of a different kind of war. His sober identification acknowledged the limits of the Egyptian army, compared to the superiority of the IAF and armored forces. His war plan was built to suit the basic limitations of the Egyptian army.
This is where the strategic change took place – precisely by acknowledging that through the "usual" way of war, Egypt's goal of returning all of Sinai would be not achievable. In schools of management and strategy in the West, they teach that one does not build half a bridge over an abyss. But Sadat turned the story of war on its head, shifting from a planning logic that is based on rationality, to making it more of an aspiration to shock the Israeli security doctrine, to begin a movement, to start momentum where something new could happen… The failure in identifying such a dramatic change, in Sadat's attitude, should be attributed to the Israeli leadership, much more than the Israeli intelligence failure.
Warnings of war are much more complex than passing on a "golden" piece of intelligence if and when war will break out. It's no less important to deal with the strategic logic of the war, characterize its shape, its methods of action, and to prepare for it accordingly. In all of this, the General Staff and the political echelon of the summer of 1973 failed.
In the days after the war, the IDF rebuilt itself with the message that this is a malfunction that was uncovered, and that from now on, just like the diagnosis of an engineering malfunction and after making the required repair, defense matters are back on a controlled and safe track. The other professional viewpoint, one that identifies the reasons for failure on a wider conceptual plane, shows a stark reality. This conclusion is almost completely unacceptable in current day Israel, because it essentially says that a systemic failure the likes of what Israel endured on that Yom Kippur, despite all the methodical effort to prevent it, can happen again.
The new viewpoint I suggest for the Yom Kippur War may, on the one hand, strengthen the public's fear from war, but on the other hand, and more importantly in my opinion, the comprehensive diagnosis of the scope of the failure during those first days of battle strengthens much more the magnitude of the victory of the people of Israel and the IDF at the end of that war.
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