Arab MiGs. Volume 4: Attrition War, 1967-1973

Volume 4 in Harpia Publishing's highly successful Arab MiGs series expands the history of the major Arab air forces that became involved in the wars with Israel during the period 1967 to 1973. It solves the intractable complexity of this violent period by dispassionately outlining the sequence of political and military events — in chronological and geographic order. The reader is systematically taken through Egyptian attempts to reconstruct its battered air force and expand its air defense capabilities, and then reestablish control of its airspace in spite of increasing and ever more aggressive Israeli attacks.

The military support Israel received from the United States not only resulted in both sides developing, testing and employing ever more advanced methods of air warfare, but eventually provoked a Soviet military intervention, which marked the culmination of the period better known as the War of Attrition.

The narrative continues with dramatic descriptions of the developments in Jordan, which culminated in a civil war in 1970, and with an exclusive insight into the previously unknown expansion of the Syrian air arm with extensive support from Czechoslovakia, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The content is concluded with lesser known military events in Algeria, Morocco, Iraq and Libya, where a series of military coups resulted in developments that were to become critical not only for the future of the local air forces, but also well beyond the borders of those countries.