Offshore Balancing: Soviet Role During the 6 Days War

Description of Offshore Balancing

Offshore Balancing is a strategy in which a particular nation, the Soviet Union for example, employs its military, economic, and/or diplomatic resources to stabilize a country in a region it deems hostile to its interests.  The Soviets would do this while avoiding direct military conflict.  This could come in the form of the Soviets providing arms and other resources to a preferred nation or nations in order to use them to stabilize the “hostile” nation in question without direct Soviet military intervention.  The Soviets could also rely on two or more dominant nations to essentially keep each other from becoming the overriding military power in the region so that threats to Soviet interests and security can be minimized.  Whatever the case, the Soviets would position itself through its military, economic, and/or diplomatic resources to help manage the situation to its advantage.  The Soviets must avoid direct military conflict as long as possible for offshore balancing to remain its true strategy.  If the Soviets can no longer avoid the situation and directly intervenes militarily, the use of offshore balancing would no longer apply.  However, it would not end in vain because offshore balancing enables the Soviets to postpone direct military intervention as long as possible.  This minimizes the number of Soviet military casualties and avoids heavier commitment of resources than compared to a direct Soviet military intervention from the start.  It also allows the Soviets to enter the war fresh if it needed to intervene, in contrast to its enemies who have already been weakened by war.  In the case of the Six Day War, the Soviets never had to intervene militarily which was an advantage in itself because this limited Soviet casualties and enabled the strategy of offshore balancing to endure throughout the course of the war.  However, there were inescapable consequences to this strategy as well, something that the Soviets could not avoid.  

Relations and perceptions before the Six Day War

During the lead up to the Six Day War of 1967, the Soviets used offshore balancing as a way to extend its influence into the Middle East by arming various Arab nations in order to dispel Western influences in the region.  The Soviets viewed Israel as a major vessel for Western influence since it was rapidly emerging as a close Western ally during the 1950s.  This led to the Soviet declaration of Zionism as an ideological enemy which then drove the Soviets to formulate a strategy to keep the Israelis in check.   The official position of the Soviet Union was that Zionism was a tool used by the Jews and Americans for racist imperialism.1  However, the Soviets continued to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel throughout the 1950s and part of the 1960s, and refused to recant its recognition of Israel as a State.  Even though this did not resonate well with some high ranking Arab officials, they nevertheless found themselves becoming more dependent on Soviet aid.