Strategic Surprise or Fundamental Flaws? The Sources of Israel’s Military Defeat at the Beginning of the 1973 War

Abstract

During the decade after the 1973 War of Yom Kippur, the consensus was that Israel's military defeat in the war’s first stage was caused by the failure of intelligence to provide a warning prior to the Arab attack, but many experts maintained later that it reflected improper preparations for war. Using recently released evidence, this article analyzes Israel’s inadequate war deployment when firing commenced and its impact on the failure to repel the attack. It concludes that since this deficient deployment resulted from the absence of a sufficient intelligence warning, the intelligence failure was at the root of the Israeli failure at the war’s start.