Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

THE ISRAELI EXPERIENCE
Geo-Strategic Considerations
Twenty years ago, Israel consisted of little more than 8,000 square
miles of territory along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean (an area less
than that of Massachusetts), much of it, especially the triangular blade of
the Negev in the south, a barren, desert waste. It stretched only 115 miles
from north to south along the key maritime littoral where most of its population
and all of its scientific and industrial resources were concentrated.
The width of the country varied from 65 miles between the southern tip of
the Dead Sea and the base of the Gaza Strip, down to a mere 12 miles just
north of Tel Aviv.
With the Gaza Strip and all of the west bank of the Jordan in Israeli
hands, the de fucto area of the country has increased by nearly a third
(making it comparable in size to Maryland). The length of the littoral has
increased to 145 miles and the “neck” has thickened to 42 miles. Operational
air speeds and heights have also increased and missiles have come
into the picture, making the air defense of Israel more difficult than ever.
An Israeli pilot put it perfectly in focus:
At fifty thousand feet, in a supersonic Mirage, 1 can fly only north and south; otherwise,
I’d be out of the country in a matter of seconds. You can see on one side
Cyprus, Turkey-on the other, Iraq and Sharm-el-Sheikh. You have no trouble spotting
the Suez Canal. But your own country is very difficult to see; it’s under the
belly of your plane. You have to turn around and look back to see it. You become
very aware of its smallness.?
Despite their strategically precarious situation, the Israelis have
always had to balance the demands of military preparedness against the
social and economic necessities of creating a nation-state. With a population
that has now grown to 4 million (3.37 million Jews) and outnumbered
by surrounding Arabs 25- or 30-to-1, they cannot maintain the large standing
armies espoused by many of their neighbors. Nor can the Israelis, with
their delicately balanced, labor-intensive economy, afford to engage in a
long war, either in terms of casualties in the field or socio-economic disruption
at home. Mobilization means economic stagnation; mustering a citizen
army of conscripts and reserves, trained by a small cadre of regulars, Israel
must rely upon superior training and equipment, and the classic “force
multipliers” of flexibility, mobility, and firepower, to win quickly. Lacking
depth-geographically, demographically, and economically-Israeli strategists
have always planned to take the offensive and fight short, decisive
campaigns on foreign soil, a blitzkrieg concept in which air power is an
essential element and air superiority the vital prerequisite.3
The Israelis have also had to guard against the possibility of a successful
surprise by the enemy-one which might allow him to reach the heart of
Israel before their reserves could be mobilized and deployed. Excellent
intelligence minimizes this risk, but a key element in defensive planning is
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