Word: mig
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Despite the glowing communiqués, China is not in a position to give Egypt the kind of sophisticated military hardware it needs to counter Israel's U.S.-supplied forces. The Chinese used to produce MIG-17s and can help Egypt with spare parts for those near-obsolete planes. They also have a modified version of the MIG-21, but they are equipped with engines that are not adaptable to Egypt's Soviet-built MIG-21s. Admits one observer: "The Chinese may be able to supply a nut or a bolt here and there, but nothing big enough...
SYRIA has replaced and upgraded all the equipment it lost in 1973, thanks to the Soviet Union. Damascus has received hundreds of top-of-the-line T-62 battle tanks, 45 MIG-23 fighter-bombers, unpiloted drone planes and hundreds of antiaircraft missiles. Its 50 Scud surface-to-surface missiles can reach virtually all of Israel's populated areas. To enable Damascus to operate properly all its new, ultrasophisticated military hardware, there are now more than 2,000 Soviet advisers with the Syrian armed forces, while Cubans serve in Syrian tanks and North Koreans and Pakistanis fly some...
...have also expanded their arsenals. Saudi Arabia has bought 300 tanks from the U.S. and Britain, and has an additional 500 on order; it will also soon receive 128 fighter jets from the U.S. and France. Iraq is beefing up its arsenal with orders to the Soviets for 40 MIG-23s in addition to the 30 they already have. Libya last year signed a $2 billion arms deal with the Soviets that includes 24 MIG-23s, 1,100 tanks, 800 armored personnel carriers and 50 batteries of antiaircraft missiles. Since these enormous quantities are well beyond Libya's defense...
...emptive strike against Mozambique, which has no air force. Rhodesia's Canberras, Hunters and Vampire attack aircraft would have little trouble taking out guerrilla camps and breaking up concentrations of ground forces. The danger is that Moscow might reply by approving the use of Cuban-flown MIG 17s and 21s against the Rhodesian heartland. That would mean the end of all lingering hopes for a peaceful solution of Rhodesia's future...
...also has, in certain areas, an advantage created by sophisticated technology. American missiles are more accurate than their Soviet counterparts, American submarines are less noisy (thus more difficult to detect), and U.S.A.F. F-4s and F-15s are more versatile and powerful than the Russian MIG 21s and MIG 23s. What worries the analysts is that this superiority may not last, since the Soviets seem determined to narrow the quality gap. Moscow publishes no figures on its military expenditures, but the Soviet Union seems to be devoting an ever greater share of national spending to defense. Pentagon experts estimate that...