Fateful Triangle

The Road to Armageddon758war may have been imminent. When the U.S. Liberty was attacked byIsraeli planes and torpedo boats during the June 1967 war, F-4Phantom jets were dispatched from a Sixth Fleet aircraft carrier todefend the ship, “authorized to use force including destruction ifnecessary” (Smith, quoting the official court of inquiry), nuclear-armedand recalled only by a direct order from Secretary of Defense McNamaraand the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, according to JamesEnnes. It was unclear at the time who the attackers were; Ennes, whoobserved all of this as an officer on the Liberty, writes that the jets“might have saved the ship, or they might have initiated the ultimateholocaust.” In 1973, the U.S. called a strategic nuclear alert in the finalstages of the October war. Reviewing this incident, Blechman and Hartconclude that “there was a serious threat of military conflict between theUnited States and the Soviet Union.” 11 This is, in fact, a typical exampleof how a nuclear war is likely break out, sooner or later, possiblythrough inadvertence or mistaken judgment as to intent.During the 1982 Lebanon war, American nuclear forces were notalerted, so far as we know, but the danger of superpower confrontationwas not slight. In their sharp condemnation of the Israeli invasion, theforeign ministers of the European Community warned that it posed therisk of “leading to a generalized war” (see chapter 2, section 3). TheU.S. and Soviet fleets were present in force in the EasternMediterranean. A senior Soviet official “expressed concern the Mideastfighting may provoke a full-scale confrontation between Israel and Syria,triggering greater Soviet involvement,” and it has been alleged that “theRussians had threatened to intervene militarily, if the fighting [betweenIsrael and Syria] did not stop.” 12 If Israel’s attack on Syrian forces hadcontinued and the fighting had escalated a notch or two higher, theUSSR might have made some move in defense of its Syrian ally, a stepthat surely would have brought about a U.S. military response andClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky