Scenario #1: Israel loses conventional war. Result: Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel.
Scenario #2: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel launches a nuclear strike against Syrian forces. Result: USSR launches a "limited" nuclear strike against Israel to keep its treaty commitments to Syria. Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, outcome also unacceptable to Syria.
Scenario #3: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel launches a nuclear strike against the USSR in retaliation for arming up the Syrians in the first place. Result: USSR launches a nuclear strike against Israel and the United States. US counterstrike destroys USSR. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, but it's also unacceptable to the United States and the USSR.
Scenario #4: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Result: Israel does so and is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel.
Scenario #4: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Israel launches a nuclear strike against Syrian forces. Result: USSR launches a "limited" nuclear strike against Israel to keep its treaty commitments to Syria. Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, outcome also unacceptable to Syria.
Scenario #6: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Israel recalls Scenario #4, puts forces into place to implement it, calls a responsible adult at the White House, responsible adult gets drunken idiot to realize that, no foolin', the world is f***ed if this goes down, and US assistance stabilizes the situation in the Middle East. Outcome acceptable to Israel, Syria, USSR, and US--everyone's happy, no one's vaporized. In short, the Israeli threat, apparently irrational, actually is the most logical choice in that it prevents a nuclear exchange to begin with.
Please note that all YOUR proposed scenario accomplishes is getting Israel nuked by the USSR. That tends to raise the issue of "gee, why screw around with Ivan's shoeshine boy, why not just nuke Ivan himself, we still get the same result, and maybe the threat gets us some leverage?"
If the US faced a similarly grave situation--a large enemy force having overwhelmed US defenses and headed towards the national center of gravity, said forces supplied and backstopped by a hostile superpower, your in-the-box thinking would simply guarantee our national destruction.
They wouldn't risk the fight with the US, simply put, they'd have been called and folded
In the "great game" as you are wont to call it there is only one abiding principle, don't paint yourself into a corner.
Nothing of the Russians behavior in the 60's or 70's tells me that they actually would have pushed the button on Israel.
Too many intangible factors and too great a set of possible negative consequences for too little a possible gain
Of course the Russians, for all their evil, thought as a rational dictatorship would.
As far as Israel goes, you prove my point for me
Hostage taking is a time honored custom in the Middle East
Rather than continue to fight on the Golan (and no, they were never that close to being defeated - their two lead armored brigades got beat up really bad though. The syrians had about an hour or so window of opportunity to get through the Israeli defenses while both sides forces were prostrate like two boxers who had knocked each other out. However, more is made of this that is really called for. The Syrian force that found the hole was company sized and disorganized. Nor did it have follow up units readily available. Even if it had gone pell mell down the road it would have just run into the first reinforcing Israeli Brigade and died a little further inside Israel)
But that's by the by
So anyway instead of coming to the regrettable but necessary decision of giving battlefield nuclear release to insure national survival.....
Israel seizes a hostage (The US) and threatens the world with destruction unless we cough up some tanks real quick
No western nation would do this
But as I have said, Israel is not a western nation it is a Middle Eastern nation
Their women don't wear glad bags and they don't knock their heads five times a day but in matters of policy they are remarkably similar to their Arab neighbors
What I find more intriguing is your apparent approval of this whole episode
We denuded several armored divisions in europe of Tanks and TOW systems
If the Russians had hit us in early 74 we would have had to have gone nuclear almost immediately. The lynch pin of our national security strategy at that time - The defense of Western Europe - was flapping in the breeze. Half the conventional forces in Eurpope equipment had been sent to Israel
Our buddies
And you approve of this?
Now me personally, I don't much care for being strong armed
Nixon should have made the conversation public
They wouldn't risk the fight with the US, simply put, they'd have been called and folded
In the "great game" as you are wont to call it there is only one abiding principle, don't paint yourself into a corner.
Nothing of the Russians behavior in the 60's or 70's tells me that they actually would have pushed the button on Israel.
Too many intangible factors and too great a set of possible negative consequences for too little a possible gain
Of course the Russians, for all their evil, thought as a rational dictatorship would.
As far as Israel goes, you prove my point for me
Hostage taking is a time honored custom in the Middle East
Rather than continue to fight on the Golan (and no, they were never that close to being defeated - their two lead armored brigades got beat up really bad though. The syrians had about an hour or so window of opportunity to get through the Israeli defenses while both sides forces were prostrate like two boxers who had knocked each other out. However, more is made of this that is really called for. The Syrian force that found the hole was company sized and disorganized. Nor did it have follow up units readily available. Even if it had gone pell mell down the road it would have just run into the first reinforcing Israeli Brigade and died a little further inside Israel)
But that's by the by
So anyway instead of coming to the regrettable but necessary decision of giving battlefield nuclear release to insure national survival.....
Israel seizes a hostage (The US) and threatens the world with destruction unless we cough up some tanks real quick
No western nation would do this
But as I have said, Israel is not a western nation it is a Middle Eastern nation
Their women don't wear glad bags and they don't knock their heads five times a day but in matters of policy they are remarkably similar to their Arab neighbors
What I find more intriguing is your apparent approval of this whole episode
We denuded several armored divisions in europe of Tanks and TOW systems
If the Russians had hit us in early 74 we would have had to have gone nuclear almost immediately. The lynch pin of our national security strategy at that time - The defense of Western Europe - was flapping in the breeze. Half the conventional forces in Eurpope equipment had been sent to Israel
Our buddies
And you approve of this?
Now me personally, I don't much care for being strong armed
Nixon should have made the conversation public