Abstract
Faced with the threat of a direct confrontation between the superpowers, Israel and Egypt were at first compelled by their respective patrons, the USA and the Soviet Union, to acquiesce to paragraph 1 of UN Security Council Resolution 338, and comply with the ceasefire agreement. Israel, however, continued hostilities: on 23 October, Israeli troops succeeded in completely encircling the Third Egyptian Army. Although it had already been encircled on 19 October, it had retained access to the road link to Cairo, which was its supply route. On October 23, the UN Security Council met again and adopted a further resolution, no. 339, reiterating the ceasefire call expressed in Resolution 338. Israel continued fighting, however, thereby precipitating its patron into an international political crisis. The Soviet Union could not now abandon its client without jeopardising its credibility as a superpower.
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Notes and References
I. Frank Aker, October 1973, The Arab—Israeli War, Hamden, Conn., 1985, p. 31.
Jon D. Glassman, Arms for the Arabs: The Soviet Union and War in the Middle East, Baltimore, London, 1977, p. 138.
Galia Golan, Yom Kippur and After: The Soviet Union and the Middle East Crisis, Cambridge, 1977, pp. 118ff.
William Quandt, Decade of Decisions: American Foreign Policy toward the Arab—Israeli Conflict 1967–1976, Berkeley, 1977, p. 197; see also Shoemaker and Spanier (note 6), p. 171.
Stephen T. Hosmer and Thomas W. Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice toward Third World Conflicts, Lexington, Mass., 1983, pp. 50–2.
Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, New York, 1978, p. 938.
Martin J. Slominski, ‘The Soviet Military Press and the October War’, in Military Review, vol. 54. May issue (1974), pp. 39–47.
Stanley Hoffmann, Primacy or World Order: American Foreign Policy since the Cold War, New York, 1978, p. 295.
Gabriel Sheffer, ‘Independence in Dependence of Regional Powers: the Uncomfortable Alliances in the Middle East before and after the October War 1973’, in Orbis, vol. 19, no. 4 (1976), pp. 1519–38. This deals with the problem of domesticating the foreign policy of the Third World states within a bipolar international order. See Christopher Clapham (ed.), Foreign Policy Making in Developing States: A Comparative Approach 2nd edn, Westmead, Hunts., 1979. Specifically on the countries on this particular region, see B. Korany and A. Hillal Dessouki (eds), The Foreign Policies of Arab States Boulder, Col., 1984. Prior to this book, Korany outlined his theoretical ideas in a case study of Egypt (chapter VII): Bahgat Korany, Social Change, Charisma and International Behaviour: Toward a Theory of Foreign Policy-Making in the Third World Leiden, Geneva, 1976; on the subsystem debate, see pp. 140ff, on Egypt see pp. 267ff.
Gabriel Sheffer, ‘Superpowers and Client States: Middle East Relationships since 1973’, in Wiener Library Bulletin (GB), vol. 27 (1974), pp. 48–53, here p. 52.
Paul Jabber and Roman Kolkowicz, ‘The Arab—Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973’, in S. Kaplan (ed.), Diplomacy of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument, Washington, 1982, pp. 412–67, here p. 467.
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Chaim Herzog, The War of Atonement, London, 1975, p. 270.
Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict Among Nations, Princeton, NJ 1977, p. 6.
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© 1998 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Tibi, B. (1998). The Superpowers and the October War. In: Conflict and War in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371576_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371576_7
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