Israel was able to prevail over several larger opponents in a very short amount of time. Even in the Yom Kippur war, Israel got caught with its tallit down and turn it around in less than 3 weeks.
It doesn’t seem like Israel could have had the same six-day success if the war had taken place with WWII technology and tactics. So, aside from the low quality of Arab militaries, what enabled Israel to run circles around its opponents?
Part of it was that Israel was using US military supplies, while Egypt was using Soviet. US equipment is better, for the most part.
Another part is that Israel could not survive losing the war. Troops who know it is win or die tend, on the large, to do better.
Regards,
Shodan
Heavenly assistance?
God was on their side???
Moderator Note
This being General Questions, let’s limit this to factual answers. (If these are meant as jokes, indicate them as such, and save them for later in the thread until serious answers have been given.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Moderator Note
See my above comment.
Caught it too late, My Bad. There is a kernel of truth about it though. The Israelis trained to fight like their life, quite literally, depended on it. Add to that they received a lot of assistance and technical expertise from the US in addition to simply having better equipment and tactics. That makes a huge difference in the end game, generally.
Indeed, if modern Israel could be said to have a slogan, that slogan would be “Never again”.
I think if there’s one lesson we’ve learned from military history, it’s that quality beats quantity, at least as long as the quality mlitary doesn’t get drawn into a long war of attrition. And in fact, once the Arabs realized that they could never defeat Israel by invasion, they began a long, unofficial war of attrition through artillery exchanges and raids, which I believe mostly ended when Sadat began his peace drive in the late 70s.
Israel’s three major wars with the Arabs aside from the longer 1948-49 war, were all short, sharp engagements where Israel’s superior training and leadership won over the poorly trained and led Arab armies. Given time, the weight of numbers and material would have overwhelmed Israel, but that kind of war would have involved more sacrifice than the Arabs were willing to contemplate. They would have had to give up most of Syria and Egypt and Jordan for a long time and tried to draw Israel into fighting at the gates of Baghdad or something. Traded land for time while being resupplied by the Soviets. That just wasn’t in the cards though. They had to take over Israel in a lightning strike, and their militaries never had anything close to that level of skill.
Tell that to the Germans in WWII vs the Soviets or US troops in Korea vs the Chinese during the Korean war.
“Quantity has a quality all its own.” ~Napoleon or Stalin or someone
So good ol’ US of A and the fierce fighting of the brave Israelis is the answer to this question? Ok, then. That was simple. Next. 
Seriously though, are there any cites? Not that American weapon systems were used or that Israeli soldiers “fought like their life, quite literally, depended on it” (which is hardly an unusal motivation in war), but that these were the reasons, plain and simple, that the “Israel [ran] circles around its opponents?”
This reminds me of an anecdote (possibly apocryphal).
After the Yom Kippur War (I think) Nixon was speaking with Golda Meir (Israeli prime minister) and told her that he’d give her any three of our generals for Israeli general Moshe Dyan (often regarded as the mastermind behind Israel’s military successes in these wars).
Meir, not missing a beat, responded, “I’ll take General Motors, General Electric and General Dynamics.”
To be fair, like any adage, it’s only true up to a certain point, and heavily dependent on many variables.
Five F-22 Raptors will easily defeat 20 MiG-21s, probably with zero losses, given the nature of modern BVR combat.
A dozen Wehrmacht tanks going up against a hundred Soviet tanks in rough terrain would probably lose.
Every soldier fights for their life but the bigger issue is the continuance of Israel itself.
But losing for the Israelis in this situation is the literal end to their country. And not just the end of their government but of their families and a Jewish homeland. There is no where to run to but into the sea which was the intent of the attackers.
One would suppose this adds some measure of “fight harder” into the troop’s morale mix than defending some random hill in Vietnam does for some US trooper.
Germany got dragged into a war of attrition. When they were able to fight short battles they completely outclassed their enemies despite their enemies’ comparable or superior numbers and equipment.
By the time Germany finished whipping the Soviets all the way to the gates of Moscow, they were out of gas and the advantage shifted to the Soviets. LIkewise, if the Israelis had pursued the Arab armies to the gates of Tripoli and Baghdad over the course of a year, that would have changed everything. Then you’d be looking at Arab armies of millions of men facing a few hundred thousand Israeli troops on a wide front, with supply lines extended. The war that was actually fought was a war on small fronts against armies with a small numerical advantage over Israel, but not an overwhelming one.
As for China vs. the US, the US was not prepared for the Chinese attack.
In the air quality matters even more. I don’t care how big your air force is, if you take 80-1 losses as Syria did vs. Israel in 1982, you’re not going to have air superiority.
I remember reading once (but have never been able to find a cite for it since) that when the Chinese came across the Yalu River into Korea in force the US had artillery in place and started pounding them. US artillery is very good and artillery is devastating to infantry.
But the Chinese just kept coming. The artillery barrage was massive and they kept coming. Chinese casualties were massive but they did not care.
Eventually the Chinese had very nearly pushed the US all the way back south and almost off the peninsula when MacArthur did the Inchon landings and cut the country in half leading to what we have today.
Numbers count for a lot if you have no problem spending those lives.
The six day war, Israel gave em a sucker punch and the Arab nations never really got back up.
Yom Kippur, the Arabs did better and had Israel on the ropes. In addition to resupply of munitions and making up war losses in aircraft, the Israeli airforce also received updated jamming pods, that allowed it to defeat the Arab Sam umbrella.
It was really the war that became the shape of things to come. The winning side will generally be the one that retains enough ammunition, platforms and fuel will decide the conflict.
Also, from what I read, the quality and attitude of Arab soldiers was very poor, and Israelis were well trained and also taught to think for themselves.
And in Yom Kippur, the Egyptians foolishly moved ground forces out from under their air defense umbrella, which enabled the IAF to pound them.