‘The Russians are not coming’: Israel's intelligence failure and soviet military intervention in the ‘War of Attrition’

Abstract

This paper describes and analyzes Israel's intelligence failure to warn against Soviet intentions and preparations to intervene in the Egyptian–Israeli War of Attrition in 1969–1970. Drawing mostly on primary sources, the paper describes (1) how the thesis that the Soviets will avoid intervention in the Arab–Israeli conflict was born and became dominant; (2) the information that refuted this thesis, which had become available to Israel's intelligence community since summer 1969 (when the Soviet decision to intervene was made), and how it was ignored; (3) the political and military outcomes of this intelligence failure, and (4) its causes.