SOVIET AID TO EGYPT SEEN EASING WAR THREAT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000300030008-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2000
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: March 30, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

ease 2000/09/08.-fiDF;(3P.q?96R000300030008-8
a C MAR is?!
By Alfred Friendly
Washington Post Foreign Service
LONDON, March 29 ---. ltus-
sia has sent 200 of its pilots
and 150 MiG-21J fighter-inter-
captors to Egypt and supplied
it with $2.5 billion of military
aid in 1970, according to the
authoritative Institute for
Strategic Studies annual stra-
tegic survey.
The .document, to be pub-
lished Tuesday, points out that
the sheer volume of military
support is without precedent
and that "never before had
the Soviet Union injected any
thing like the quantity of so-
phisticated inilit~iry equipment
into. a non-Cormnunist country
in such a shoat time."
Also, with the exception of
the 1962 Cuban missile crisis,
the U.S.S.R. has never de-
ployed such large numbers of
its on military personnel out-
Cjb.jWjg 1117V
side the Warsaw Treaty coun- ells, as their military options
tries. They total 12,000 to diminished and the risks at-
15,000 in SA-3 missile crews t rched to them increased,
and 4,Ou0 "advi r s. " Nevertheless, the annual found themselves urged by
survey suggests in a sophisti- prudence in the same direc-
cated argument that the intent tion.
of this intervention, or at least More substantial and more
the effect, was to lessen rather direct Soviet involvement thus
than increase the likelihood off seemed to combine the pur-
conflict: poses of defense and deter.
It induced greater caution rence, even if at the cost of in-
in Israel at a time when it was creasing the risk of Soviet em-
bombing Egyptian tact ets at broilmcnt if the cease-fire
will, as close as five mile, to
Cairo-and, by implication,
greater caution in the United
States.
e It also removed fro,u at it, perhaps a salutary one-
Egypt the shadow of surren- is that the intervention left
der and replaced it with a; Egypt with "if anything, even
feeling of nevw strength. Tie less independent ability" to
Egyptians found themselves d_,fend itself - against Israeli
able at last to afford flexibil-fair attacks than it had 12
ity in their reaction to propos- months earlier. Now, there Is
als for peace, while the Isra- i a significant potential power-
tablished a vt?,y real ability to
constrain, if ii v, ished, the mil-
itary policy of Egypt.
In all, accor_li ig to the Insti-
tute's catalog-, in? the U.S.S.R.
has put . 4.5 b=il)ion of military
aid into Egypt since the Six-
Day War in 1f7.
of the Soviets to deter or re-
strain strain Egypt from military ac-
tion across tin Suer Canal--
which depend for success on
air cover-by threatening to
withhold or v ithdraw its air
forces.
In some ynnsc, therefore,
Egypt had mcrt.5aged its free-
dom of nrilita. y----and even po-
litical i etion to its Soviet
ally in return for protection
against the 'srac1 air_ force,
should end and deterrence' The Soviet Union, whether or
fail. I its abiiit, In deter Israel
O A corollary, though-arid would stand CT- test of time,
depending on how one looks seemed durini 1070 to have es-
Approved For Release 2000/09/08 : CIA-RDP73B00296R000300030008-8