Near-catastrophic victory: disregarded lessons from the six-day war

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Israeli’s lightning quick victory of June 1967, in the Six Day War, obscured serious deficiencies in Israel’s military strategy. The Israeli Air Force’s (IAF) dependence on a preemptive strike had cost Israel an essential ally and military arms supplier in France. The false assumption that political support would again be forthcoming for a pre-emptive strike was exposed six years later, in the Yom Kippur War. The U.S. military would take lessons from the Yom Kippur War on the lethality of modern battle but observations of the changing character of modern warfare were available in the Six-Day War.