their Arab allies. Meanwhile, Handel notes, Israel com- mitted an intelligence error imputing its own strategic theory to the enemy. It assumed that Egypt and Syria would contest Israel's air superiority with jet fighters rather than negate it by effective use of new Soviet ground-to-air missiles. Paradox 3: A quiet international envi- ronment is an ideal cover for war preparations. And 4: The better the intelligence service, the greater the risk of relying on its detailed but faulty findings.
The...