ABSTRACT
From the spring of 1949, with the signature of the first armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab states, Allied planners began to take stock of the new geo-strategic reality in the Middle East. Western strategists were agreed that Israel's military performance against the Arab states had radically altered the power balance in the Near and Middle East. Compared to the Arab states, Israel had a higher proportion of trained manpower of military age, much of which had been trained in the British, or in Central European armies. American planners expanded on the wider, strategic importance of regional communications running through or close to Israel. They pointed out that Israel now lay astride all the strategic land approaches to the Cairo-Suez area; the main land routes from the Caspian Sea area of the Soviet Union, through Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to Egypt and the Levant - all passed through or close to Israeli territory.
