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Essay: How political and policy objectives can determine a nation’s grand strategy

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  • Published: 21 December 2019*
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1. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War provides valuable insight into theater warfighting strategy and operational art, matters of particular relevance in today’s world of joint and combined operations.A study of this war is particularly relevant as it highlights the relationship between the strategic and operational levels of war. It clearly illustrates how political objectives influence grand strategy designed to achieve those strategic aims and how these policy objectives control the planning and execution of military strategy as campaign plans at the operational level of war. Using this as a basis of  a working definition for this paper, war is defined as a coherent execution of all means to bring about sufficient adherence to a nation’s will in the international global arena, resulting in armed conflict only when all other means fail.
2. Liddell Hart defined strategy as: “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy.” War is a multidimensional occurrence, and so victory is complicated and may be defined in terms of something short of total destruction of the enemy’s army. Despite the significant advances in technologies and the increased lethality of weapons, total annihilation of the enemy force may not be realistic or it may prove to be too costly. Conversely military success on the battlefield may not automatically produce the desired political objectives or “end state” .
3. The 1967 preemptive victory was so decisive and won so cheaply, Israelis viewed their military forces as completely invincible, their intelligence service as unmatched, and their Arab foes as inferior and incapable. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how political and policy objectives can determine a nations grand strategy. The paper would discuss the background and causes of the Yom Kippur War, the conduct of the battle, assess the strategic objectives/considerations on the outcome of the Yom Kippur war, and a look at lessons learnt from the war.
AIM
5. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of political and policy considerations on the shaping of the grand strategy with a view to drawing lessons for future strategic and policy makers.
BACKGROUND OF THE YOM KIPPUR WAR
6. Any war serves political objectives, as Clausewitz made so abundantly clear. He further stated that war is an instrument of policy, a means by which nations may achieve political ends. The Yom Kippur war will later prove this to be absolutely true.  In October 1973, Arab nations led by Syria and Egypt chose war as their instrument of policy. Therefore, their primary policy objective in waging the 1973 Yom Kippur war was to recover Arab lands occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Days’ War.
7. The Six Days’ War gave Israel real reason for jubilation, but it equally casted a long shadow over the entire Arab Middle East, particularly upon Syria and Egypt.  The war had their militaries been largely destroyed and their economies fractured from staggering military expenditures thus making a case for the necessity to replace their losses. Perhaps most importantly, the Arabs in addition to their humiliating defeat of 1967 found it practically impossible to allow the continued Israeli occupation of Arab lands. This deeply wounded Arab national psyche and caused a stigma to the Arabs which was unbearable and made them collectively vowed to force resolution. This was one singular reason which throughout the Middle East, Arab nations adopted Pan-Arab national political objectives, including Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue. Israel, who by then were buffered by the occupied territories and buoyed by a sense of overall military superiority, was certain it could swiftly annihilate any Arab military attempt to compel these political aims. The Israelis became stubbornly convinced they could eventually force the Arabs to peace on Israeli terms, were satisfied with the status quo to continue.
8. Arab leaders then crafted their policy objective to recover the occupied territories into a grand strategy designed to achieve that objective. The grand strategy of the Arab leaders was based on limited military action to be followed by political pressure in order to compel recovery of the occupied territories by Israel. Their return to Middle East hostilities, the Arab leadership reasoned, would not only militarily compel partial Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, but will also create international and internal political pressure upon Israel to concede the remaining Arab lands for the sake of regional peace.
9. The Arab military strategy was then designed for limited Syrian and Egyptian offensive campaigns against Israel to secure footholds within the occupied territories. This according to them establishes the military aspect of their grand strategy which will be followed by immediate Arab reversion to the defensive to give way to the political aspect of the strategy.
CAUSES OF THE YOM KIPPUR WAR
10. There have been so many reasons alluded as root causes of the conflict. Up to this day, there are widely divergent views. Most Arabs today argue that the root cause of the Israel-Arab conflict is the dispossession and dispersal of the Palestinian Arabs, a fundamental cause which was compounded by Israel’s subsequent territorial acquisitions. In their view, this action has made Israel an inherently aggressive and expansionist state which is the real source of violence in the region. Another reason put forward is that, the root cause of the conflict is not about territory but rather the Arab rejection of Israel’s very right to exist as a sovereign state in the Middle East. This is the view which forms the basis of the Arab objective which is the liquidation of the State of Israel thus Israeli actions are portrayed as self-defence and a response to the Arab challenges.  whatever the argument today about the origins and nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there can be no doubt that this is a  conflict  that has been a major cause of wars in the Middle East.
11.  The Arabs are known to have in principle subscribe to the ideal of Arab unity but in practice inter-Arab relations are characterized more by conflict rather than by co-operation. The Israeli issue is widely held to be one of the few areas where Arab unity is unquestionable whatever their other differences may be.  Their opposition to Israel follows naturally from the belief that  they the  Arab, including the Palestinians, form a single nation and that Israel has grossly violated the sacred rights of this nation.
12. Others have also argued that a third source of instability and war in the Middle East is the involvement of the Great Powers in the affairs of the region. The middle East is blessed with features which are sources of major interest and rivalry amongst the Great Powers in the twentieth century; its geostrategic importance and its oil reserves. This is not a unique feature of the Middle East but one that affects, in varying degrees, all regions of the world. What distinguishes the Middle East is the intensity, pervasiveness and profound impact of this involvement. No other part of the Third World has been so thoroughly and ceaselessly caught up in Great Power rivalries. No other sub-system of the international political system has been as penetrated as the Middle East.
CONDUCT OF THE WAR
13. The Arab strategic plan envisioned separate, but strategically linked Egyptian and Syrian campaigns. The overall intent was to neutralize whatever advantages the Israeli had by enhanced Arab capabilities through their recent acquisition of technological improvements to their equipment and detailed, intensive planning and preparation. At 1400 on 6 October 1973, fire from 2,000 Egyptian guns signaled the Arab attack against Israel along the Suez Canal, while a 100 plane Syrian airstrike followed immediately by artillery and rocket attacks against targets on the Golan Plateau, initiated the offensive in that theater. The October War was underway. Israel, having failed to preempt or mobilize early, was rocked out of her complacency and forced to assume a strategic and operational defensive posture. As the Egyptian bombardment continued, Egyptian infantry began its assault crossing of the Suez. Though the Israelis delivered heavy fire from the Bar-Lev outposts, the Egyptian’s canal crossing was completely successful.
14. Clausewitz wrote that “a center of gravity is always found where the mass is concentrated most densely. This was clearly the case from the Arab perspective during the October War. The fully mobilized Israeli Defense Force (IDF) once it took the field, comprised one of two Israeli centers of gravity at the strategic level. Each of the two separate IDF commands, Northern Command concentrated against Syria, and Southern Command massed to face Egypt, constituted the single Israeli operational center of gravity in its respective theater of war. The IDF was, as Clausewitz described, the “hub of all power and movement.”  An essential aspect of the campaign was for the Egyptian and Syrian forces’ to militarily succeed in achieving their operational objectives prior to the time the IDF could fully mobilize and deploy. Pursuant to their strategy of limited military action, once they had defeated the Israeli strongholds in their respective theaters, the Egyptians and Syrians planned to seize lodgments and revert to the operational and tactical defensive and fight until the superpowers or United Nations intervened.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES/CONSIDERATIONS
15. Egypt and Syria’s stated foremost objectives were to recover all Arab territory occupied by Israel following the 1967 war and to achieve a just, peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Sadat was willing to exhaust international diplomacy to achieve these ends, but he suspected from the outset that war ultimately would be required. Thus while exploring peace, Sadat simultaneously began to prepare for limited war.
16. From the perspective of diplomacy, Sadat came to believe that he needed to create a sense of crisis and alter the balance of power in the Middle East in Egypt’s favor. He sought to broaden international support for the Arab cause and to strengthen Egypt’s relations with third countries in order to bring additional political, diplomatic, and economic pressures to bear on Israel. Specifically, Sadat wanted to persuade Washington to use its influence with Israel, to build coalition support among the Arab countries and African nations, and to gain the support of the United Nations. He also sought to convince Arab oil producers to employ an oil embargo as a political weapon, i.e., to cut production and raise oil prices to bring international pressure on Israel to settle the conflict.
17. The follow-on political aspect of the Arab grand strategy, seeking Israeli concessions of the remaining occupied territories, was premised upon pressure from within Israel, as well as from external international pressure to force concessions. The Arabs, therefore, planned to attack the Israeli national will and public support for war in order to compel them to seek peace through concessions.
ASSESSMENT OF THE OUTCOME OF THE WAR
18.    The 1973 Arab-Israeli War ended with no clear winner or decisive outcome on the battlefield. Militarily, the war ended in a stalemate.  On 24 October when the cease-fire took effect, Israel had already seized the initiative by crossing the Suez Canal and maneuvered elements of three divisions on the west bank between the Egyptian Third Army located primarily on the east bank and Cairo. The Egyptians, were also not defeated to a large extent as was readily apparent by the significant casualties their forces inflicted on Adan’s division in Suez City immediately prior to the cease-fire. Both the Israelis and Egyptians suffered casualties and equipment destruction at astronomical rates neither could support, even with all the backing from the superpowers.
19. What became clear overtime however, is that the Arab grand strategy eventually proved successful in achieving most of their Arab’s strategic policy objectives. In line with the Arab alliance initial plan, the return to Middle East hostilities had broken the political impasse, brought a refocused world attention on the Arab issue and forced international negotiations concerning the occupied territories. These negotiations ultimately resulted in the return of the Suez Canal and land in the western Sinai to Egypt and also ensured more Golan Heights territory to Syria was returned than it lost during the fighting. Additionally, the war caused a shocked which embarrassed Israel internationally. It was also viewed that the Arab’s military successes, particularly their deception campaign which resulted in strategic surprises shattered the twin myths held before of Israeli invincibility and Arab incompetence. This eventually restored Arab confidence and morale, which was a psychological victory for them, while conversely Israel was left downcast and uncertain about its future.
LESSONS LEARNT
20. The Arab-Israeli War in October 1973 holds many operational, diplomatic and strategic lesson. The October War which began on 6 October 1973 lasted for some 18 days and was marked by violent tank battles, air warfare, skirmishes at sea and heavy artillery attacks. It is estimated that nearly 13,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen died during the conflict. The Israeli approach in 1973 was largely based on their successes in 1967. Because of their failure to appreciate the changes in operations and tactics of their opponents, the Israelis were very nearly beaten in the first forty-eight hours of battle. Operational lessons can be taken from this simple premise: never assume that any future opponent has accepted the status quo imposed upon him on the basis of past operational victories.
21. It is also submitted that there exists a disconnect between the Israeli National Strategy for its armed forces and the employment of its military might. To understand the lessons of the Yom Kippur War, it is important to understand the three key elements that led to it. These are Muslim deceptiveness, American diplomatic pressure and Israeli complacency. Egypt had lulled Israel into complacency by faking a crisis. Before the Yom Kippur War everyone “knew” that Egypt’s air force was defunct and that its military was no threat because of an arms dispute with the Soviet Union. Complacency in war it is said is the path to defeat. For 30 years, Israel has been obsessed with the political and strategic consequences of the Yom Kippur War, when the nation learned the limits of power and the treachery of self-confidence and learned, too, how the heroism of ordinary soldiers could compensate for the incompetence of their leaders.

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