The October War: A Retrospective

The Yom Kippur War was a critical game changer in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the politics of the Middle East. Henry Kissinger famously explained the ‘intelligence failure’ of Yom Kippur thus: ‘Our definition of rationality did not take seriously the notion of starting an unwinnable war to restore self-respect.’ The most recently released material suggests that Kissinger’s explanation requires some revising. This chapter demonstrates that British and American analysts understood perfectly well Sadat’s intentions, specifically his desire for a limited military victory to gain ‘face’ at home and leverage abroad. Instead analytical weakness lay in assessments of Egypt’s military capability where there was a unanimous consensus of Egypt’s impotency. Ideas about Arab ‘culture’ seem to have played a key role in this underestimation: the notion of a fatalistic Islam for example, prevailed in numerous analyses. In a radical revision of the conventional wisdom about the strengths and weaknesses of Western intelligence agencies, the Yom Kippur war provides a revealing case study whereby the West excelled in understanding the ‘mystery’ or intentions leading to war, but simply did not believe that Egypt possessed the capability to act effectively, and so perilously dismissed the prospect of an Egyptian attack.

This article analyzes the transformation of Israeli security organizations after the Yom Kippur War. In this context, the literature on military change and the change of intelligence organizations was systematically examined in order to draw the theoretical and practical framework of the transformation. As a result of the research, we argue that the Yom Kippur War was considered as an intelligence failure by Israeli policy makers and the public, and the main reason for the transformation was the motivation to eliminate social trauma and failure. In addition, contrary to the common view in the literature, the transformation in Israeli military institutions took place in a hybrid manner, both top-down and bottom-up. We also conclude that, given the military, political and strategic conjuncture not only during the war, but also before and after the war, the change in question arising from the failure of the intelligence was two-way, encompassing various transformation factors. Finally, it was found that the transformation in Israeli intelligence organizations has two stages, individually and structurally, in line with the recommendations of the Agranat Commission, which was established in 1974.

A personal history of how former US Defense Secretary William J. Perry’s thinking on nuclear weapons has evolved from Hiroshima to the present time.

ABSTRACTThe assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, on the evening of November 4, 1995, by an extreme right-wing Jew was one of the most traumatic events in the history of the State of Israel. The question is: Was it preventable? Contrary to the public perception that the assassination happened as a result of a security failure and poor management of the Israel Security Agency (ISA), I argue that the murder was mainly due to an ISA intelligence failure. Based on information that was in the hands of the ISA (also known as Shabak or Shin Bet), this event was not a complete surprise, and the ISA possibly could have prevented this political assassination by stopping the killer in advance. However, intelligence failures in counter-intelligence are much less researched than strategic intelligence failures such as Pearl Harbor, Barbarossa, the Yom Kippur War, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq (2003).

At the center of Israel’s most traumatic event, the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, stands an intelligence failure. Since the early 1990s, when senior intelligence officers who were involved in this fiasco started writing their memoirs, this event has become a source of major controversy in Israeli historiography. In response to the 2011 publication of the memoirs of the Mossad chief in 1973, Zvi Zamir, this article traces, describes and analyzes three aspects of this controversy: the personal and institutional responsibility for Israel’s lack of preparation at the outbreak of the war as well as the causes of the intelligence failure and the consequences it had on the Israeli Defense Force’s ability to confront the Arab attack.

Both US intelligence officials and intelligence studies scholars claim that ‘organizational culture’ is a cause of ‘intelligence failure’ and the proper locus of post-9/11 intelligence reform efforts. This essay uses a postmodern perspective to demonstrate how the dominant discourse of ‘organizational culture’ shapes stakeholders' understandings of accountability and what constitutes necessary, correct, or effective intelligence reform. By exploring institutional struggles over the meanings of ‘culture’ and ‘accountability’, this essay calls for reconsideration of the ways US intelligence officials and intelligence studies scholars talk about ‘organizational culture’ vis-à-vis post-9/11 intelligence reform.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was recently reported as having participated in discussions on a possible US-organized standing international peacekeeping force outside the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations. The idea would need to overcome deep-seated scepticism within the US Army, which tends to view peacekeeping as a distraction from its real job of war fighting, and among other countries reluctant to participate in such operations outside the comforting umbrella of the United Nations and NATO.

JessicaTrisko DardenAiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State ViolencePalo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 198 p. $30.00 (paper).

Editor—Most of the 50 or so correspondents agreed that doctors are guilty of using treatments that don't work.1-3 Some thought that patients respond very differently to the same treatment, so...

‘In the Libya operation, Norway and Denmark, have provided 12 per cent of allied strike aircraft yet have struck about one third of the targets’, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates noted in June 2011, ‘These countries have, with their constrained resources, found ways to do the training, buy the equipment, and field the platforms necessary to make a credible military contribution’ (Gates, 2011). Along with Belgium, Canada and Norway the outgoing US Secretary of Defence mentioned Denmark as an example for the rest of the Alliance to follow. For 10–20 years Denmark has increasingly become a more willing and able NATO-partner committing troops to NATO operations in Afghanistan and fighter planes to Unified Protector over Libya. The Danish government and its armed forces have prided themselves in being able to commit troops that were able to get the job done without caveats and, in Afghanistan at least, able to tolerate considerable casualties while doing so. When Secretary Gates described Denmark as a country that punched above its weight, it confirmed the new-found Danish self-image of being among the most willing and able NATO-partners.

In May, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates called North Korea's apparent progress on nuclear weapons and long-range missiles ‘a harbinger of a dark future’. Since then, further confrontational moves by the pariah state have continued to raise tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea's past provocations were viewed as attempts to gain attention and concessions from the outside world. Now, however, it seems to be playing by different rules.

Curiously, it had to be on the fateful day when Russia had begun brooding over former president Boris Yeltsin's final, ambivalent legacy that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived on his first official visit to Moscow.

Journalists covering war and fractured peace in Iraq have had to grope for facts in a fog of broken telephone networks, tribal politics, military jargon, and a seething rumour mill. The result has not been a cool, definitive analysis of conflict (that will be a job for historians in future), but a very current, patchy composite of fighting, peacemaking, small victories, and large policy reversals as well as blood, sweat, tears, and tragedy. This war has arguably been covered more completely, by more journalists, than any in modern history.Over time, our reporting has yielded a big picture, like slow reveal of a photographic print in a bath of developer. But as details merged into a whole, a crucial blank spot appeared. There was, and is, very little information about what's become known as the insurgency. The ruthlessness of both its leaders and its fighters have made close contact too dangerous for everyone-obviously American military and Iraqi security forces, but also western and Arab reporters. Ultimately, it is this blank spot-the failure to see how strong insurgency would become, or to come to grips with its makeup-that most seriously threatens America's victory in Iraq, and Iraq's own long-term stability.Rereading my field notes, which date back to before war, I am reminded how slowly we all woke up to potential danger of sustained armed resistance. Consider this upbeat entry written in Baghdad not six months after fall of city. The first frenzy of looting (one of freedom's untidy features, according to US Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld) had abated, and deadly bombings had not yet begun in earnest.9 September 2003: American authorities and those Iraqi civil servants who have trickled back to work are reopening schools and hospitals. We don't report often that they have done a good job-but in this case they have. By dint of massive currency imports, they've even set up regular paydays.In Baghdad, Amarah and Kut grieving and complaining voices are still loudest: people who have lost family members, jobs and their place in a stable world; those who are afraid thieves will attack their homes and those who are simply outraged by American soldiers patrolling their country.But there's a descant to this chorus too, and it is just as important.It comes from people who are delighted with their new regular, and relatively generous, wages. The Coalition Provisional Authority (the American administration in Iraq led by Paul Bremer) is giving a regular salary to every government employee-and there are hundreds of thousands of them, many of them women.Female civil servants, nurses, and teachers have seen their pay (and buying power-in spite of inflation) rocket up. In some cases, they have had a hundred-fold increase, from three to three hundred dollars a month. In addition, markets are full of goods that have been unattainable for years because of sanctions.You should see head-high piles of satellite dishes stacked on sidewalk all along main shopping street in Mansour... Satellite TV-the link with world-was forbidden for so long. Now, it's first thing families want to buy.Then there are electrical appliances, medicine, and cosmetics too. People, especially women, are giddy with choice and opportunity.This is buying patience for American occupation. These people have no desire to see Islamists or former Sadaamites-all basically totalitarians-get control.I think peace is far from won, of course, but war on many fronts is over.Bustling markets, satellite TV, and optimistic women seduced me, that September day, into believing country might be settling down to rebuild its future. But in background, Iraq's violent history was resurfacing. A mere month later I covered one of very first riots in area that is now notorious as the Sunni triangle. …

On October 11, 2011, the day after the anniversary of the Republic of China (ROC) and still during the national celebration, President Ma Ying-jeou conferred the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon on former US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for his leadership in global anti-terrorism and the US support for arms sales to Taiwan during his term. Ma's otherwise peace-loving statements severely contradicted the reputation of his awardee. Rather than for peacemaking, Rumsfeld could instead be well known for his military acts such as his deliberate misinformation for the purpose of launching war in the Middle East, ruthless ignorance of the sacrifice of civilian lives, and subsequent instruction to use torture on prisoners of war. Nevertheless, Ma's recognition of Rumsfeld's achievements incurred neither criticism nor anxiety from the infamously critical opposition group. The irony of Taiwan's appeal to the value of peace, as exposed by the inappropriate conferring of the award to Rumsfeld, is a harbinger of Taiwanese scholars' insensitivity towards new International Relations (IR) perspectives in the People's Republic of China (hereafter China, PRC, or Mainland China).

Significance The trip was part of an effort to advance US President Donald Trump's idea of an Indo-Pacific community stretching from the US west coast to the Indian Ocean, as Pompeo said. With US Defence Secretary James Mattis, Pompeo also co-hosted a meeting with Australian counterparts on July 23-24, and he announced a 113-million-dollar "down payment" of new economic initiatives with the Indo-Pacific on July 30. These activities were intended to reassure Washington's Asian partners of continuing US engagement in Asia. Impacts The 'partner countries' may be selected relative to US private sector sentiment. India is likely to be the most immediate beneficiary of the new Indo-Pacific strategy. Advancing the Indo-Pacific strategy may rely on trade balances reaching a level the White House feels is fair.