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VIC'S GIVES YOU QUALITY FRESHNESS AT ALL TIMES! 86 FRIDAY, NOV. 13, 1987 ficulties for Jerusalem is the fact that the Arab build-up came during the first half of the decade, a time when Israel itself was suffering severe economic problems, which led to an un- precedented cut in the defense budget and to a war- ning by the air force com- mander that pilot training hours had fallen "below the red line." According to calculations in Israel, a post-Gulf War coali- tion of Arab armies — con- sisting of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Algeria and Morocco — could field a ground force of almost two million men (against Israel's 440,000) and 2,404 combat aircraft (against Israel's 696). Moreover, the Arab states have made massive strides not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of the quali- ty of their weapons. Thday, they are capable of deploying the most sophisticated war materiel produced by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia and Egypt possess state-of-the-art United States F-15 and F-16 fighter planes and are awaiting delivery of Europe's most advanced aircraft, the Tornado and the Mirage-2000. Syria, which has been equipped with Soviet-made MiG-25 interceptors and Sukhoy-22 strike aircraft, this week took delivery of the first of its MiG-29s, the most sophisticated jet fighters in the Soviet arsenal (which have also been supplied to Iraq). At the same time, Jordan now possesses the advanced British Chieftain tank, while the Egyptians and Saudis are equipped with the front-line American tank, the M-60 A3, and the Syrians with the sophisticated Soviet T-72. Another great technological leap forward has occurred in the field of self-propelled ar- tillery. More than half of the Jordanian and Saudi artillery pieces are self-propelled, while Egypt is also moving heavily in this direction. Syria, which has placed great emphasis on the ac- quisition of sophisticated missiles for both offensive and defensive purposes, is receiv- ing similar weapons from the Soviet Union, while Iraq and Libya are being supplied by Italy and France. According to the Israeli analysts, however, this technological revolution is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the Arab armies now possess a formidable fighting potential; on the other, the equipment could prove to be too advanced and could ac- tually impair the quality of their performance. Much of this weaponry is designed for highly complex, highly mobile warfare and is based on a military doctrine that demands a large measure of delegation to middle-ranking officers in the field, an area in which the Arab armies have shown themselves to be particularly vulnerable in the past. In the short term, at least, the Arab armies, lacking either the technical or military skills necessary to match such weapons or war- fare, are unlikely to realize the full potential of their super-sophisticated arsenals. At the same time, Israel, which has always prevailed on the battlefield because of its decisive qualitative edge, is likely to maintain that ad- vantage, although the margin will be significantly narrowed. This point was underscored in an article published in a Hebrew-language daily last month by a senior Israeli of- ficer, Major-General Moshe Bar-Kochba, who noted that there had been a reduction in the qualitative gap between the Syrian and Israeli high commands. Moreover, he wrote, Syrian officers are now both far bet- ter trained and better educated in military theory and practice than they were after the 1973 October War. "The Syrians have done a good deal to upgrade the quality of their commanders through new courses, sup- plementary courses and ad- vanced exercises that were unknown in the past," he wrote. "This impressive quali- ty was not at the disposal of the Arab armies in Israel's previous campaigns against them." At the same time, he con- tinued, the senior command in Israel had fallen increas- ingly behind: "In my view, the training courses no longer accord the knowledge, ex- perience, maturity and pro- fessional education required by the senior command under current and future wartime conditions." Israel, he added, would be able to meet the challenge on- ly if it enhanced the quality of its own senior officers and ensured that they retained a significant measure of qualitative superiority over their Arab counterparts. Ironically, though, the most serious danger posed by the military treasure chest that has accumulated in the Arab world is a psychological one.