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Abstract
Extant literature explains Egyptian successes and failures in the October 1973 War by Sadat’s restoration or abolition of ‘objective control’: when restoring ‘objective control’, Sadat succeeded; when abolishing it, he failed. However, Samuel Huntington’s theory cannot account for Sadat’s command performance, not because Sadat zigzagged between this theory’s extremes, but because he never thought or acted according to its recipe. I employ Eliot Cohen’s Supreme Command concepts to argue that Sadat’s command constituted an eccentric combination of military romanticism and politicization of war, whose paradox was reflected in the initial military successes and the achievement of Egypt’s strategic objectives despite the military failures by the war’s final stage.
Acknowledgments
This article has benefited from the advice of various individuals, especially Dmitry Adamsky, Uri Bar-Joseph, Joseph Cerami, and Gamal Rushdi. The author also wishes to thank Professor Eliot Cohen for providing invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Notes
1 Huntington proposed that the most effective form of civilian control of the military is ‘objective control’ that provides for a clear-cut separation between politics and strategy: soldiers should be isolated from politics which is beyond the scope of military competence, but when it comes to military strategy, the ‘statesman must accept the judgments of the military professional’; Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1957), 71.
2 George W. Gawrych, ‘The Egyptian High Command in the 1973 War’, Armed Forces & Society 13/4 (Summer 1987), 546.
3 Risa Brooks, ‘An Autocracy at War: Explaining Egypt's Military Effectiveness, 1967 and 1973’, Security Studies 15/3 (July–Sept. 2006), 396–430.
4 Imad Harb, ‘The Egyptian Military in Politics: Disengagement or Accommodation?’, Middle East Journal 57/2 (Spring 2003), 282–3; Raymond A. Hinnebusch, ‘Egypt Under Sadat: Elites, Power Structure, and Political Change in a Post-Populist State’, Social Problems 28/4 (April 1981), 454; David B. Smith, ‘The Egyptian Military Elite’, Master’s thesis, US Naval Postgraduate School, 1977, 55–66.
5 Saad Shazly, Ḥarb October [October War] (San Francisco: American Mideast Research 2003), 386–7.
6 Abdel Moneim Wassel, Al-seraa‘ al-‘Arabi al-Israeli: mudhakerat al-fareeq Abdel Moneim Wassel [Arab-Israeli Conflict: Memoirs of Lt. Gen. Abdel Moneim Wassel] (Cairo: al-Shorouk International 2002), 333–6.
7 Amin Howeidy, Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a: al-qararat al-ḥasima fi ḥarbai al-’istenzaf wa October [The Lost Opportunities: The Decisive Decisions in the Attrition and October Wars] (Beirut: Al-Matbou‘at Publications 1992), 426.
8 Gamal Hammad, Al-ma‘arek al-ḥarbyyaa ‘ala al-jabha al-Misryya: Ḥarb October 1973/Al-a‘sher min Ramadan [Military Battles on the Egyptian Front: October 1973/Tenth of Ramadan War] (Cairo: Dar El Shorouk 2002), 372.
9 Ibid., 376–7.
10 Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Anchor Books 2002), 257.
11 Ibid., 7–8.
12 Ibid., 13.
13 Ibid., 211–24.
14 Mark L. McConkie and R. Wayne Boss, ‘Personal Stories and the Process of Change: The Case of Anwar Sadat’, Public Administration Quarterly 19/4 (Winter 1996), 493–511.
15 Anwar Sadat, ‘Al-khawf alladhi ‘araftahu le-’awwal marah’ [The Fear I Knew for the First Time], Mayo, 15 June 1981, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/5671.pdf>.
16 Anwar Sadat, ‘Wa eḥtaraqat al-ṭa’era wa al-ṭayyar wa al-kharay’et allati ba‘athtu beha ’ila Rommel’ [Burnt were the Plane, the Pilot, the Maps, and the Treaty that I sent to Rommel], October, 12 April 1977, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/7003.pdf>.
17 Mohamed Heikal, Khareef al-ghaḍab [Autumn of Fury] (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publication 1988), 42–5.
18 Anwar Sadat, ‘Ḥalaqtu sha’ri wa waḍa‘tu al-monocle ka al-jeneralat al-’alman’ [I Had my Hair Cut and Put the Monocle like the German Generals], October, 27 Nov. 1977, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/6999.pdf>.
19 Priscilla Roberts, ‘New Light on a “Forgotten War”: The Diplomacy of the Korean Conflict’, OAH Magazine of History 14/3 (Spring 2000), 12.
20 Speech of President Sadat to the Extraordinary Session of the People's Assembly, 16 Oct. 1973, Bibliotheca Alexandrina Sadat Museum, <www.sadat.bibalex.org/speeches/browser.aspx?SID=135>.
21 Anwar Sadat, Ṣafaḥat majhoula [Unknown Pages] (Cairo: Dar al-Tahrir Publications 1954), 180.
22 Heikal, Khareef al-ghaḍab, 44–5.
23 Anwar Sadat, ‘Wa lam ajed li makanan fi ay mu’asasa ṣahafyya’ [And I Could Not Find a Place in any House of Journalism], October, 6 Nov. 1977, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/6990.pdf>.
24 Heikal, Khareef al-ghaḍab, 139.
25 Ibid., 96.
26 Jerrold M. Post, Leaders and their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2004), 267.
27 McConkie and Boss, ‘Personal Stories’, 498; Sadat, Ṣafaḥat majhoula, 40.
28 Sadat, Ṣafaḥat majhoula, 2.
29 Anwar Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat [In Search of Identity] (Cairo: al-Maktab al-Arabi al-Hadith 1978), 43.
30 Ibid., 160.
31 Ibid., 212.
32 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 184–91.
33 ‘Naksa’ - Arabic for ‘setback’, is the name for the Arab defeat in the June 1967 War. Anwar Sadat, ‘Wa naṣat al-madah al-thaniya min al-dostour ‘ala ’an yakoun al-Qadhafi na’iban le-ray’ees al-jumhouriyya’ [And the Second Article of the Constitution stated that Qaddafi would be Vice President], October, 24 April 1977, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/6915.pdf>.
34 Sadat, Al-baht ‘an al-dhaat, 158, 172.
35 Anwar Sadat, ‘Lam yataḥamal Abdel-Nasser kol hadha al-‘adhab’ [Abdel-Nasser Could Not Bear all this Suffering], October, 12 Dec. 1976, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/6882.pdf>.
36 ‘Tohmat al-khyana al-‘uẓma le al-fareeq Mohamed Fawzi’ [Lt. Gen. Fawzi Charged of High Treason], Al-Ahram, 26 Oct. 1971, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/23250.pdf>.
37 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 232; Sadat, ‘Lam yataḥamal Abdel-Nasser’.
38 Heikal, Khareef al-ghadab, 251–2; Shazly, Ḥarb October, 139.
39 Howeidy, Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a, 321–2.
40 Anwar Sadat, ‘Endama zar Nixon Misr’ [When Nixon Visited Egypt], October, 10 July 1977, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/6944.pdf>.
41 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 139.
42 Ibid., 97.
43 Michael I. Handel, The Diplomacy of Surprise: Hitler, Nixon, Sadat (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Center for International Affairs 1981), 241–97.
44 Cited in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims (New York: Vintage Books 2001), 390.
45 ‘Speech of President Sadat to the Opening Session of the People’s Assembly, 9 Nov. 1977, Bibliotheca Alexandrina Sadat Museum, <www.sadat.bibalex.org/speeches/browser.aspx?SID=641>.
46 Imad Abdel-Latif, ’Estratijiyat al-‘iqnaa’ wa al-ta’theer fi al-khitab al-siasy: khitab al-ray’ees al-Sadat namoudhajan [Strategies of Persuasion and Influence in Political Discourse: The Case of President Sadat’s Discourse] (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization 2012), 43–82.
47 Ibid.
48 Handel, The Diplomacy of Surprise, 242–43.
49 Howeidy, Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a, 286.
50 Mohamed Heikal, October 73: al-silaḥ wa al-siyasah [October 73: Arms and Politics] (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publication 1993), 298.
51 Ashraf Ghorbal, Mudhakkirat Ashraf Ghorbal: su‘oud wa ‘inhyyar ‘ilaqat Misr wa America [Memoirs of Ashraf Ghorbal: The Rise and Fall of Egypt-America Relations] (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publication 2004), 78–9.
52 Boaz Vanetik and Zaki Shalom, ‘The White House Middle East Policy in 1973 as a Catalyst for the Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War’, Israel Studies 16/1 (Spring 2011), 53–78.
53 Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Last Chance to Avoid War: Sadat’s Peace Initiative of February 1973 and its Failure’, Journal of Contemporary History 41/3 (July 2006), 545–56.
54 [Mit Abu al-Kum, Egypt, The Sadat Museum], Protocol of the Government Meeting, 5 May 1973, 21.
55 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 323.
56 Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown 1982), 460.
57 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 100.
58 Amr Yossef, ‘The Fallacy of Democratic Victory: Decision-Making and Arab--Israeli Wars, 1967–2006’, PhD dissertation, University of Trento, 2009, 194–9.
59 Heikal, October 73, 298.
60 Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Shahed ‘ala al-ḥarbwa al-salam [A Witness to War and Peace] (Cairo: Dar al-Shorouk, forthcoming), 60–1.
61 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 26.
62 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 353.
63 Sadat, ‘Enda mazar Nixon Misr’.
64 Sadat explains in this Political Directive that the core of ‘Israeli Security Theory’ is deterrence through which Israel aims to persuade Egypt and the Arabs that challenging Israel militarily is useless, and therefore there is no escape from submitting to Israeli conditions, even if these included concessions regarding national sovereignty; Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 352.
65 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 27–8.
66 On 12 October, the Israeli government authorized the Canal-crossing operation only after receiving information that the two Egyptian divisions were to cross to the east the next day; Hanoch Bartov, Daddo: 48 shana ve-uod 20 yom [Daddo: 48 Years and 20 More Days] (Or Yehuda: Dvir Publishing House 2002), 540–50.
67 Mohamed Abdel-Ghany El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat El-Gamasy: Ḥarb October 1973 [El-Gamasy’s Memoirs: October 1973 War] (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization 2012), 422.
68 Mohamed Hafez Ismail, Amn Misr al-qawmi fi ‘aṣr al-taḥaddyat [Egypt’s National Security in the Era of Challenges] (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publication 1987), 326.
69 Ibid., 325.
70 Anwar Sadat, ‘Al-malek Faisal’ [King Feisal], Mayo, 16 March 1981, <http://www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/7056.pdf>.
71 The Federal Command, working under the Federation of Arab Republics between Egypt, Syria, and Libya, established in January 1972 to form a united Arab front against Israel.
72 Howeidy, Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a, 399–400.
73 El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat el-Gamasy, 400.
74 ‘Ḥadeeth al-ra’yees al-Sadat’ [Interview of President Sadat], Al-Hilal, 30 Sept. 1976, <www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/8997.pdf>.
75 Vanetik and Shalom, ‘The White House Middle East Policy in 1973’, 58–9.
76 Heikal, October 73, 805.
77 Protocol of the Government Meeting, 5 May 1973, 21.
78 Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 522–3.
79 Ismail, Amn Misr al-qawmi, 336.
80 Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 529.
81 Yossef, ‘The Fallacy of Democratic Victory’, 202–5.
82 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 354.
83 Heikal, October 73, 356.
84 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 260–1.
85 Michael Eisenstadt and Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘Armies of Snow and Armies of Sand: The impact of Soviet Military doctrine on Arab Militaries’, Middle East Journal 55/4 (Autumn 2001), 556.
86 Hammad, Al-ma‘arek al-ḥarbyyaa, 228.
87 Eisenstadt and Pollack, ‘Armies of Snow and Armies of Sand’, 562–6.
88 Hammad, Al-ma‘arek al-ḥarbyyaa, 250.
89 Heweidy Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a, 423-7.
90 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 265.
91 Indeed the war involved at least two large tank battles, probably the largest since the World War II Battle of Prokhorovka in 1943, particularly the 14 Oct. offensive and the 15–17 Oct. Battle of the Chinese Farm, which both ended in Israeli victories despite the fierce Egyptian resistance especially in the latter battle. Shazly asserts in his memoirs that the EAF deliberately sought to avoid tank-to-tank battles and rather employed tanks essentially as self-propelled artillery supporting the infantry. He explains that this approach was not out of an ignorance of armored warfare tactics, but of the relative Egyptian disadvantage in armored maneuver, gun caliber (except 200 T-62 tanks), and weakness of the Egyptian Air Force to provide close support to the ground troops. Once the EAF departed from this approach on 14 Oct., the IDF was able to destroy more Egyptian tanks than earlier in the war; Shazly, Ḥarb October, 251–2.
92 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 274.
93 Yossef, ‘The Fallacy of Democratic Victory’, 202–8.
94 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 266–79.
95 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 265; Hammad, Al-ma’arek al- ḥarbyyaa, 232–3.
96 Bartov, Daddo, 584.
97 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 278.
98 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 268.
99 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 272-5.
100 Ibid., 273.
101 El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat el-Gamasy, 488–9.
102 Sadat, ‘Endama zar Nixon Misr’.
103 Talia Winokur, ‘The Soviets Were Just an Excuse: Why Israel Did Not Destroy the Egyptian Third Army’, Cold War History 9/1 (Feb. 2009), 59–78.
104 Cited in Cohen, Supreme Command, 211.
105 Jonathan M. House, Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century: Modern War Studies (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 2001), 283-4.
106 Shazly insists that he was removed from his position only on 12 December 1973; Shazly, Ḥarb October, 309. Regardless, the course of events suggests that he was at least partly isolated from the decision-making since 20 October.
107 ‘The Tough New Commanders’, Time 22 Oct. 1973.
108 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 273.
109 Yossef, ‘The Fallacy of Democratic Victory’, 188–90.
110 ‘The Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt’, State Information Service, <www.sis.gov.eg/En/Templates/Articles/tmpArticles.aspx?CatID=206>
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid.
113 Derek Lutterbeck, ‘Arab Uprisings, Armed Forces, and Civil-Military Relations’, Armed Forces & Society 39/1 (Jan. 2013), 45.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Amr Yossef
Amr Yossef is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo.