ISRAEL AND SYRIA BELIEVED TO FACE RISK OF CONFLICT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302120024-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: May 19, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302120024-1
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ISRAEL AND SYRIA
BELIEVED TO FACE
RISK OF CONFLICT
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Special to The New York Times
JERUSALEM, May 18 ? Complex,
long-term changes in the Syrian-Israeli
military balance of power have created
a situation in which a miscalculation
by either side could ignite an armed
conflict, according to Israeli, Arab and
Western military experts.
These changes include a marked
strengthening of the Syrian Army since
1982 to a point where its leaders may
now believe it can challenge Israel
without another Arab partner, accord-
ing to a number of senior Israeli mili-
tary sources, Arab analysts in London
and Beirut and Western experts on
military affairs.
In addition, they cite these develop-
ments:
OSyrian attempts to take advantage
of the Israeli public's reluctance to go
to war at this time.
OSome recent Israeli provocations of
Damascus, such as the downing of two
Syrian MIG-23's in Syrian airspace.
0Syrian nervousness about the possi-
bility of a joint American-Israeli retali-
ation for purported Syrian involvement
in international terrorism.
0Economic problems in both Syria
and Israel that have left each with
lighter fingers on their triggers since
neither can afford ? literally ? to be
caught off guard.
Threat of War Seen
"Add them all together and there is
no question that the threat of war be-
tween Israel and Syria is higher today
than at any time since 1982," said Zeev
Schiff, one of Israel's leading military
writers. "But that doesn't mean some-
thing is going to happen tomorrow, or
even in six months. My feeling is that
we can still control the situation."
The experts said the danger, which
has been rising steadily over the last
two months, does not derive from any
recent movements of men or armor on
the ground, and no evidence of such
movements could be seen on a recent
tour of the Golan Heights.
Clearly, both sides see constraints
and opportunities in the present enviro-
ment, Mr. Schiff said. For now it ap-
pears that the constraints, whether on
Syria or Israel, outweigh any oppor-
tunities to be derived from starting a
conflict.
NEW YORK TIMES
P
19 May 1986 FILE eil1
Desire to Avoid a Misstep
The apparent desire of both sides to
avoid a miscalculation was clear in the
tour of the Golan Heights, as well as
from recent statements by President
Hafez al-Assad and Prime Minister
Shimon Peres of Israel. Today Mr.
Peres said on the CBS News program
"Face the Nation" that he believed
both sides were trying to reduce ten-
sions in an effort to avoid war.
"We have declared very clearly that
Israel does not intend to attack Syria
and that we don't believe that Syria is
ready or able to do it right away," he
sdid.
-United Nations observers at the
Golan Heights report that Syria and Is-
.
rad are scrupulously holding to their
197;1 agreement on the disengagement
of forces and that there are no signs of
any unusual troop movements.
qazing into Syria from the Israeli Ar-
ms border observation post on
Hezeka Mountain overlooking Quneitra
in the heights, one is aware of nothing
but a calm stillness. Life appears nor-
mal as far as the eye can see along both
sides of the 80-mile-long frontier. More
joggers dot the road on the Israeli side
thRii army trucks; more Syrian shep-
herds are visible on their side than
military vehicles. The air is filled with
notbing more threatening than the
sound of warbling birds.
Serenity Masks a Danger
"I went home last weekend," said
the Israeli colonel who heads one of the
units in charge of holding the frontier,
"and my wife said to me: 'What is
going on up there? Everyone is talking
about a war.' I said to her, 'I honestly
dont know what people are talking
about.' I can tell you that on the ground
there is no sign of it. We don't want it,
and, I don't think they do either."
But while it may be true that the
closer one gets to the Golan front the
more remote a war seems, the stillness
in the air masks a more troubling situa-
tion developing behind the front lines,
according to the military experts.
In the Middle East, logic does not al-
ways prevail, and in the view of these
military analysts, Syria and Israel
could easily find themselves in a war
that neither wants. The experts point to
five.' fuses" that have developed in re-
cent months that, they believe, could
explode the truce at any moment.
The Israeli Fear:
Miscalculation by Syria
The first and most immediate con-
cerns what Israeli military sources be-
lieve has been an attempt by the Gov-
ernment of President Hafez al-Assad of
Syria to nibble away slowly at some of
Israel's military advantages over
Syria.
Some Israeli military analysts are
convinced that the Syrians perceive Is-
rael to be a country with a strong army
and a weak society, a society so tired of
war after its Lebanon experience that
it will tolerate a high level of Syrian
military maneuvering, and even gains.
As a result, the Syrians seem to be
taking bites out of Israel's strategic
position that are large enough to bene-
fit Syria, but not so large as to enable
the Israeli military leadership to jus-
tify going to war.
These include the recent digging by
Syria of tank and artillery trenches in
southern Lebanon only 10 to 15 miles
from the Israeli border. These trenches
could hold and launch forward a large
unit Syrian armor and artillery, ac-
cording to the military experts. Today,
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told.
the Israeli Cabinet that Syria?v?yas con-
tinuing to build these fortifications de-
spite Israeli protests, according to the
Israeli Army radio.
Another development that Israel
sees as troubling was Syria's reported
involvement in the attempt to plant a
time Numb on an El Al Israeli Airlines
jet preparing to leave London last
month, a move that Israeli officials see
as disturbingly brazen.
A third was Syrian deployment last
November of SAM-2, SAM-6 and SAM-8
surface-to-air missile batteries right
up to its border with Lebanon in a con-
figuration that has forced Israel to halt
its reconnaissance flights over the
Bekaa region of Lebanon, which also
were used to look into western Syria.
Mr. Schiff, the military analyst,
said: "There are some people who feel
that Israel's deterrence against Syria
is gradually being eroded by this pro-
cess. The Syrians are showing a lot of
self-confidence and willingness to go to
the brink. Some people believe that Is-
rael should do something about it now
before it becomes too expensive to do
something about it later."
Western analysts say Israeli com-
manders have apparently decided that_
it does not make sense to try to destroy
the new Syrian SAM missiles on the
Lebanese border and risk starting a
war just to improve Israeli intelligence
gathering. It appears that, for the mo-
menb Israel has decided to gather in-
telligence in this area in another way.
However, Western military analysts
say the Israelis will probably hold to
this approach only so long as the
Syrians do not try to exploit their new
missile umbrella to introduce large
numbers of pro-Syrian Palestinian
guerrillas into the south, fill their
newly dug trenches with Syrian armor
or encourage large-scale rocket at-
tacks by guerrillas on northern Israel.
Some Western military experts say
they fear that after months of nibbling,
the Syrians may now be just one "bite"
below the threshold of Israel's deter-
rence in Lebanon. This, they said,
makes the danger of miscalculation un-
usually high.
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The Syrian Worry:
Provocative Israeli Acts
The second destabilizing element in
the Syrian-Israel equation concerns
Syrian anxiety about Israeli behavior
in recent months, according to Arab
military analysts.
To begin with, the Arab analysts
said, the Syrians deployed their SAM
missiles right up to the border with
Lebanon only after Israeli jets shot
down two Syrian MIG-23's on Nov. 19
while the MIG's were flying over Syria.
In addition, they cited Israel's inter-
ception of an executive jet carrying
leaders of the ruling Syrian Baath
Party home from a conference in Libya
last February. The Israelis said they
were looking for a senior "Palestinian
terrorist" supposed to have been on
board the plane, which was searched
and released.
The Syrians reject the accusations
that they were involved in the attempt
to bomb the El Al plane and view the Is-
raeli assertions as part of a provoca-
tive propaganda campaign. "The
Syrians see the Israelis whipping up
anti-Syrian hysteria around the world
in order to lay the groundwork for some
kind of action," said Patrick Seale, a
London-based expert on Syria with ex-
cellent contacts in Damascus.
According to some Arab and Israeli
experts, the Syrians also fear that with
the Reagan Administration in office in
Washington, previous American con-
straints on Israeli military actions do
not apply, particularly in the wake of
the American retaliatory air strike
against Libya and the perceived prece-
dent that creates for Israel.
There are several recent indications
from travelers to Damascus of how
worried the Syrian leadership has be-
come. The first is the fact that since the
American attack on the home of the
Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qad-
dafi, in mid-April, the top Syrian lead-
ers have apparently installed mobile
surface-to-air missile launchers near
their homes in Damascus. The second
is the fact that at one point last month,
the Syrian leadership briefly put all
hospital beds under military control.
"The Syrians believe that the pre-
emptive strike school may be gaining
strength in Israel," said Mr. Seale.
"The scenario looks very worrying
from Damascus. All of their moves
have been purely defensive."
Long-Term Changes
In Balance of Power
The third destabilizing factor has to
do with some long-term changes in the
Syrian-Israeli balance of power, the
military experts said.
In 1980, Syria suddenly found itself
confronting Israel alone. Egypt had
opted out of the Arab-Israeli conflict by
signing the Camp David accords, Iraq
had become preoccupied with its war
with Iran and Jordan was at odds with
Damascus.
"It was from that time on that Presi-
dent Assad began talking seriously
about gaining 'strategic parity' with Is-
rael," said Mark Heller, deputy direc-
tor of the Center for Strategic Studies
at Tel Aviv University. "What he es-
sentially said was that Syria alone has
to become Israel's military equal."
Beginning in the early 1980's, Israeli
and American military experts said,
President Assad and the 3,000 Soviet
advisers in Syria began analyzing why
Israel had been able to set the terms of
previous Arab-Israeli military con-
flicts, almost always shifting the battle
to play to Israel's strengths and Syria's
weaknesses. After such analyses, the
experts said, the Syrians began to pro-
cure those arms that would help neu-
tralize Israel's advantages.
For example, they noted, Syria's
strength vis-a-vis Israel has always
been in the size of its standing army ?
500,000 men ? compared with Israel's
120,000, which balloons to 540,000 only
when reservists are called up. Because
Syria has so many men in uniform and
because the Syrian population is much
less able to bring political pressure to
bear on its authoritarian regime, Syria
is in a much better position to engage
Israel in a protracted, costly war of
attrition.
"Israel, in contrast, always took the
position that, 'We will not play by the
Syrians' rules,' " Mr. Heller said. "If
they try to begin a protracted war, Is-
rael would absorb the blow and then
immediately escalate by striking deep
into Syrian territory to end it early."
For Israel to maintain that doctrine,
it relied heavily on the superiority of its
air force and on long-range surface-to-
surface missiles, such as the Amer-
ican-made Lance and the Israeli-made
Jericho, which give Israel the ability to
strike at urban centers deep inside
Syria.
In an attempt to neutralize these Is-
raeli advantages in air power, the
Syrians installed in 1983 two SAM-5
long-range surface-to-air missile bat-
teries, which are ideally suited for hit-
ting a slow-flying aircraft like the Is-
raeli EC-2 Hawkeye, which the Israelis
use for advanced command and control
of large-scale airborne operations, ac-
cording to Western military sources.
In addition, the Syrians greatly ex-
panded their surface-to-air missile net
against high-performance fighter-
bombers, according to Israeli military
sources. There are 150 SAM batteries
of all types now, as compared to 80 in
1982.
The Syrians apparently hope that
these additions will deprive Israel of its
assumption that it has freedom of ac-
tion in the skies. At the same time, the
Syrians have acquired some 10 to 15
Soviet-made SS-21 long- range mis-
siles, which give them the ability to hit
targets 80 miles away with great ac-
curacy. This means Syria can now
threaten a deep strike at Israeli popula-
tion centers in retaliation for any deep
strike inside Syria.
The Syrians have also expanded their
ground forces since 1982 from six divi-
sions of roughly 15,000 men to nine divi-
sions, and the number of tanks has
been increased from 3,500 to 4,200, ac-
cording to the London-based Interna-
tional Institute for Strategic Studies. Of
these, about 1,000 are advanced Soviet-
made T-72's; there have been similar
qualitative improvements in the air
force, navy and overall command and
control.
In light of this Syrian buildup, sev-
eral leading Israeli military analysts,
including Mr. Schiff, argue that it is no
longer 100 percent certain that Israel
could absorb a Syrian attack on the
Golan Heights, and then immediately
go over to the offensive, as traditional
Israeli doctrine dictates, and it is no
longer certain that Syria would never
go to war without another Arab part-
ner, as was its rule in the past.
As a result, Mr. Heller said, "Israel
today is probably less tolerant of ambi-
guity in Syrian behavior and more pre-
pared to launch a pre-emptive strike, if
a war appears likely."
Nevertheless, although new capabil-
ities can create new intentions, Presi-
dent Assad has always been a very cau-
tious man.
Western analysts are convinced that
even with the improvement in Syria's
surface-to-air missile net, the Israeli
air force has the ability to electroni-
cally evade, jam and wipe out the
Syrian missiles, just as they knocked
out almost 20 SAM batteries in one af-
ternoon during June 1982.
In the view of Israeli and American
experts, President Assad would also
feel constrained by the fact that Soviet-
made SAM missiles in Libya per-
formed so poorly recently against
American attack aircraft and by the
observation that Moscow ? the super-
power patron of both Libya and Syria
? did not lift a finger to interdict the
American raids on Tripoli and Bengha-
zi.
Mr. Seale concluded: "The Syrian
posture is very much a defensive one.
It is very hard to imagine a Syrian first
strike, conscious as they are of Israel's
continued air superiority. They are not
going to take on Israel alone. I still
think they feel very vulnerable to an at-
tack."
Economic Troubles
In Both Countries
The fourth factor destabilizing the
Syrian-Israeli military balance is the
fact that both countries are now going
through economic difficulties.
For now, Israeli military analysts
believe Israel's defense budget re-
mains at a level that keeps the quality,
if not the quantity, of Israel's armed
forces very high and maintains its abil-
ity to deter attack. But if the army has
to sustain additional cuts in training
hours and spare parts, that may no
longer be the case. In that event, the
voices calling for a pre-emptive strike
against Syria at a time of high tension
will certainly gain greater weight, ac-
cording to these sources.
Speaking in an interview several
months ago, and not about Syria in
particular, Maj. Gen. Avihu Binun, the
chief of planning for the Israel Defense
Forces, said, "We are willing to take
risks" to improve the economy, "but
sometimes those risks mean that we
will have to be much more nervous and
act much sooner than we normally
would have if we had more reserves."
Some Israeli defense experts believe
that Mr. Assad might be tempted to try
to deflect the impact of his domestic
economic troubles by starting a war
C - ?
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with Israel. Others contend, however,
that Mr. Assad would never base a
decision to go to war on such a calcula-
tion. However, it could contribute to a
larger decision to initiate a conflict.
The final factor making for in-
creased tension on both sides is the
sheer number of troops that now face
each other across the Golan Heights.
After Israel withdrew most of its forces
from Lebanon a year ago, the Syrians
withdrew three of the five divisions
there. Two of those withdrawn divi-
sions were added to those already on
the Syrian side of the Golan Heights,
making for six divisions there, or
, roughly 100,000 men. Israel has consid-
erably less than that number.
With so many men and so much
armor already at the front, the Syrians
could launch a major offensive with as
little as 12 to 24 hours' preparation,
Western military experts say. In the
1973 war, it took Israel between 24 and
36 hours to fully mobilize its reserves.
Judging from recent remarks by Is-
raeli Chief of Staff, Lieut. Gen. Moshe
Levy, this situation has made Israel
much more alert, perhaps even jumpy,
about any Syrian troop movements on
the heights.
"It all comes down to warning time,"
a senior Israeli commander said. "Do
I the Syrians believe they can mount a
major offensive on the Golan before I
can mobilize my reserves?"
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