The Yom Kippur War’s Lessons for Ukraine — and Biden

By Tom Cotton

Friday, October 06, 2023

 

Fifty years ago today, Syrian and Egyptian forces, armed by the Soviet Union, led a massive surprise invasion of Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. As Syrian tanks rolled into the Golan Heights and tens of thousands of Egyptian soldiers poured across the Suez Canal, it looked as if the Jewish State might be wiped off the map. Moshe Dayan, the legendary Israeli general then serving as minister of defense, openly expressed fear that the “Third Temple” would fall. In that time of maximum peril, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir turned to President Richard Nixon for help.

 

The Nixon White House was besieged by the twin scandals of Watergate and the impending resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew. Yet even nearing his political nadir, President Nixon reacted decisively to arm America’s ally and destroy the armies of its enemy. Unlike Joe Biden’s too-little-too-late strategy in Ukraine, Richard Nixon’s strategy brought victory and peace at a comparatively small price.

 

The 1973 Arab invasion took the United States military and intelligence community completely by surprise. And as is tradition, America’s foreign-policy establishment proposed a cautious response, recommending that Nixon send only three C-5A cargo planes loaded with supplies.

 

Nixon responded by asking how many C-5As the U.S. had. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the president that the U.S. possessed “about 20” but that the bureaucracy feared the political and escalatory repercussions of sending more than three planes. Nixon responded that “we’re going to get just as much heat for sending three planes as for sending twenty. Send everything that can fly.”

 

Nixon rapidly approved shipments of small arms, tanks, and planes to Israel and resolved to replace every expended round and lost piece of Israeli equipment. When Kissinger provided an initial list of weapons for Israel, Nixon growled, “Double it.”

 

To his senior staff, Nixon demanded, “You get the stuff to Israel. Now. Now.” Within days, American weapons and ammunition began arriving in Israel.

 

Throughout the crisis, the Nixon administration demonstrated that resolve doesn’t invite escalation, it deters escalation. At a decisive moment in the war, the Soviets threatened to intervene directly. Nixon responded by bringing the U.S. nuclear forces to DEFCON 3, its highest level of readiness since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and began moving military assets to the region. Kissinger stated at the time, “When you decide to use force, you must use plenty of it.” Soviet ruler Leonid Brezhnev backed down.

 

During the Yom Kippur War, Nixon directed the largest airlift in history. The U.S. delivered 22,000 tons of supplies by air and an additional 90,000 tons by sea. A panicked Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, confided to the Soviets, “I am unable to fight against the flow of American tanks and aircraft.”

 

The war lasted only 18 days and cost the U.S. less than $3 billion. Israel took back every inch of its territory and defeated a vastly larger enemy, with a fraction of the casualties. From the end of the Yom Kippur War to the end of her life, Golda Meir affectionately referred to Richard Nixon as “my president.”

 

President Nixon’s speed and determination stand in stark contrast to President Biden’s delay and indecision in Ukraine. Unlike Nixon, Biden had months to prepare for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Three months before Putin launched his war, I warned President Biden that he should immediately begin arming Ukraine and take action to deter Russia. Instead, Biden wrung his hands and watched as hundreds of thousands of Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border. Putin then went for the jugular.

 

It was only after the Russian offensive stalled that Biden resolved to fight. Far from ordering cautious aides to “send everything that can fly,” Biden adopted the bureaucracy’s caution as his policy. He has stubbornly refused to send weapons out of fear of escalation, only to reverse himself months later. He refused to send Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Patriot missiles, Abrams tanks, or cluster munitions only to reverse himself after three, nine, 13, and 17 months, respectively. Biden even slow-walked intelligence-sharing with Ukraine.

 

As a result of Biden’s caution and indecision, this bloody war is dragging towards its third year. Ukrainian cities stand in ruin, America has expended over $100 billion, millions of Ukrainians are homeless, and hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians are dead.

 

Restraint is not merciful when it unnecessarily extends wars. Biden has condemned Ukraine to the terrible purgatory of having enough to keep fighting, killing, and dying — but not enough to drive the Russians back.

 

Presidential leadership matters, especially in war. While Nixon protected the dream that is Israel, Biden has prolonged the nightmare that is Russia’s war on Ukraine.