Fundamental Surprises Zvi Lanir Decision Research 1201 Oak ...

soldiers reported that on the morning of Yom Kippur, Egyptian soldiers dressed in
undershirts were seen sitting contentedly on the battery.
Commanders of the Bar Lev Line strongholds received their orders to be on full
alert only after 1200 on October 6. These orders, too, were not interpreted as an
indication that war was to break out within less than two hours. Rather, the commanders
thought that artillery and tank fire was liable to commence at 1800. Such incidents were
hardly extraordinary or unfamiliar on the canal line, despite the long lull since the end of
the War of Attrition. The code word “Dovecote,” which from this point of view meant
immediate operation of the stronghold commanders along the canal only at 1430, i.e.,
after the war had already begun.
Once the first news of developments at the respective fronts began to circulate—
during the evening of October 6 and more so on the following morning—feelings of
shock over Syrian and Egyptian military achievements and high Israeli casualties.
Public declarations by officials, generals, and politicians in Israel from the end of
the War of Attrition up to the Yom Kippur War sketched an encouraging picture of the
national security situation. These expressions of confidence fostered powerful trust in
Israel deterrence, which was thought to vitiate all possibility of the Arab states daring to
implement their threats of another military round against Israel. The Israel public was
convinced of the low probability of war and of the IDF’s ability to crush the Arab armies
if they indeed embarked on such a military “adventure.” The sudden refutation of these
conventions created a feeling of shock and with it a desire to find a reason or factor on
which to pin the blame. An obvious “scapegoat” was the failure to provide adequate
warning.
By contrast, senior political and military decision-makers made no mention of
“surprise” or “intelligence failure” during the first days of the war. For example, during
the afternoon of October 6, 1973, when the situation in the battlefield was still unclear,
top defense officials did not attribute decisive importance to the warning period and its
results. The following description is from a well-informed Israeli correspondent.
“For some time after the outbreak of war, in various conversations, the
Defense Minister did not sound surprised. ‘The number of tanks we have today in
Sinai and our air superiority suffice for us not to be concerned over the outcome