Understanding Strategic Success and Tactical Failure in 1973: An Examination from a Spatial-Temporal Perspective.

摘要

On 6 October 1973 at 2:00 pm, the world witnessed a conflict that continues to be discussed and researched within the professional military community. This battle would be the fifth engagement between Egypt and Israel. Both actors and environments were a familiar backdrop to the outside community that observed this region. The armies used modern equipment and techniques on the desert floor of the Sinai Peninsula. Military powers of the period would observe the event and modify their existing practices of combined arms warfare with an emphasis on the relationship between infantry and armor. Military institutions pondered the actions and results of an asymmetrical conflict in which the stronger force was surprised and attacked. Students of military history often overlooked the asymmetry in logic that existed between Israel and Egypt that facilitated the dichotomous strategic-tactical results. This monograph is an exploration into the asymmetric logic of President Sadat that rejected the accepted paradigm of the destruction of one's enemy. His logic called on Near East cultural influences of space, time, and conflict that allowed him to envision a different type of conflict that had a chance in changing the regional political inertia of 1973. The author relies on an anthropological perspective to examine the role culture can play in the construction of a creative and imaginative strategic aim to achieve a distinct aim. It investigates the symbiosis of culture and conflict, the roots of Western and Eastern military doctrine, and the emergence of a spatial-temporal understanding within the environment. The monograph serves as an opportunity for the Western military professional to challenge an existing understanding of the relationship between military success and failure. The method is a historical case study used to create an awareness of the cognitive boundaries set by Western epistemological traditions on the appropriate interactions in the levels of war.