Decisive Israeli victory in Yom Kippur War

WI after the six day war and the war of attrition, Israel decides to reevaluate its war strategy. Realizing that Israel posseses for the first time in its history defensible borders(the Golan Heights, and the Suez Canal, River Jordan)as well as a large buffer zone(Sinia Peninsula),a decision is made to switched from a doctrine of preemptive-strike to a counter-strike doctrine focusing first on Syria, and if necessary Jordan, then switching back finally to smash the Egyptians.

This is basically what in the end happened though only after large Israeli casualties and a massive American airlift.
 
The problem with that scenario is that Israel was full of hubris at that time and believed that the Arabs would never amount to anything militarily. Israel already had the secure borders you describe, and believed that the correlation of forces favoured Israel into the forseeable future. Why would they attack Syria?

It would cause a huge row with the US, the supplier of the hardware that made the IDF what it was, for no real purpose. You have to remember that Israel always lacked the population to establish a military empire over all its Arab neighbours. The USSR would also almost certainly move to protect its client states of Egypt and Syria in the face of an unprovoked attack by Israel on those clients.

Remember also that the IDF could very well lose against the UAR, due to its lack of appreciation of the hand-held SAM and antitank missiles being fielded by the Arabs.
 
Elaborate more on their actual planning differences...

IRL the first thing they did was counterattack, and were swiftly halted by more advanced Arab tactics.
 
Israel gets advanced warning of the Yom Kippar attack and is able to mobilize sooner. The Arab attack breaks on the enhanced Israeli defenses and Israel goes on the offensive.
 
Few People Stop and relize that the Eygpan Army Had gotten Very Good by the Time of the Yom Kippur War , They only got in truble when they moved Forward out side of the SAM's to help Syria by attacking futher in to the Sinia Peninsula . You have to rember the IDF would send in Fighter bombers at less then 100 Feet above the Ground .
 

Riain

Banned
It wasn't American equipment that made Israel the power she was, after all the stunning victories a mere 6 years earlier were done with little US gear. Getting all the US gear on the cheap was nice, but that only came after Israel proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was the winning horse in the race.
 
Weaver said:
Why would they attack Syria?

Syria attacks first along with Egypt. Israel immediately counter attacks Syria while remaining on the defensive against Egypt. Syria therefore calls for help sooner, the Egyptians come out from under their SAM umbrella much more quickly and get chewed up.
 
Elaborate more on their actual planning differences...

IRL the first thing they did was counterattack, and were swiftly halted by more advanced Arab tactics.

Instead of counter-attacking Egyptian forces Israel remains firmly on the defensive and instead focus on Syria which was not as well prepared as Egypt. Syria gets hammered much hard much faster and calls for help on day 2 or 3, and like I said before the Egyptians leave the protection of their SAMs and get pounded, again much earlier.
 
Syria got hammered due to military incompetence, trying to overrun highly professional military forces by sheer weight of numbers.

As a result not only did Syria fail to meet her minimal goals on the Golan but her losses were so extreme as to virtually ensure subsequent defeat.

As I've noted before, it was this that gave Israel a limited victory against Egypt when Sadat overruled his generals and changed the plan to order an advance out from under the SAM network before Syria was crushed. Had he not done so Israel would have suffered a complete defeat in the Sinai and been left holding just west of Mitla Pass.

As to the question of whether Syria would have reciprocated if it had been Egypt in trouble...doubtful.
 
could the Israelis have put that many more tanks into the Golan? As I understand it, the Israelis started reinforcement heading towards the Golan immediately, but there were only so many transports and roads; as it was, the Israeli forces in position had to hold the line (which they did against whopping great odds) until the reinforcements arrive. If the Israelis had had more warning, they might have had more troops in place in the Golan ahead of time, I suppose...
 
During the run-up to the Yom Kippur War Israel got plenty of warning about an Arab attack, but they chose not to make use of it, for partly that hubris (the Arabs cannot beat us) and partly not to antagonize the West.

If the Israelis had done what their plans told them to do and poured a bunch of reserves onto the Golan, the Syrians wouldn't have gotten very far. This of course could also end up causing problems in the Sinai.

The Egyptians, as many noted, wanted more than a limited victory, and they paid the price for it. I rather doubt they would have completely defeated the IDF in the Sinai, as the Israeli Air Force, even with the SAM network could still inflict substantial losses on the Egyptian Armies, and the Egyptian Air Force was pretty bad at the time.
 
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