I was hungover this morning and bumming out watching Battleplan, which was focussing on pre-emptive strike actions. They used the Israeli's pre-emptive air strike action in the Six-Days War as an example. A fact that struck me as I was watching was that the Soviets informed Nasser that the Israelis were massing troops on the Syrian border, despite this not being true. At the time of filming, no-one had uncovered any reason why the Soviets would have wanted to do that. Has this situation changed? Are there now any reputable theories as to why the Soviets misdirected Nasser in this fashion?
The Soviets thought they had an opportunity. The Kremlin traditionally smells weakness, real or imagined, like a shark does blood. The US was bogged down in Vietnam-the capacity to act elsewhere was limited, and everybody knew it. This was also seen in the Korean border conflict and the Prague Spring. Nasser has been receiving aid out the wazoo for over a decade, they thought he could easily intimidate the Israelis. The USSR thought the Arabs would win, if it came to blows. It would increase Soviet prestige-after all, they were fighting with their weapons-and further decrease US influence in the Middle East. The Soviets were already the dominant power in the region, they thought this could seal the deal, perhaps.
Problem is that they underestimated:
a) How a bunch of Holocaust survivors would react to the possibility of a threat by a guy who openly desired to push Israel into the sea.
b) How good the Israeli military was.