The Latest Gifts from Russia

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat has had no luck in getting Israel to accept his proposals for settling the military impasse along the Suez Canal. He has, however, made progress in prompting Arab unity. Last week he signed an agreement of "confederation" with Syria's Lieut. General Hafez Assad and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. Despite the optimistic tone of the announcement in Cairo's semi-official newspaper Al Ahram, Sadat gave no indication of what form the new confederation would take, or when it might go into effect.

Sadat has also proved adept in winning sympathy for Egypt in world capitals, and even more skilled at another form of statecraft-- shopping-list diplomacy. Ever since Sadat visited Moscow last month to discuss military resupply, a lot of sophisticated hardware has been arriving by sea and air from Russia. Among incoming weapons spotted so far are several of the Soviet Union's most advanced aircraft and missiles. Items:

MIG-23, code-named "Foxbat" by NATO, is the latest Russian interceptor. It can fly at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound) and climb to 80,000 ft., 20,000 ft. higher than the operational ceiling of the U.S.-built F-4 Phantoms of the Israeli air force. This is the first time that the MIG-23, which is far too hot for Egyptian pilots to handle, has been sent outside the Soviet Union. MIG-21, the standard first-line Soviet fighter, has been sent in to replace planes lost last year in the war of attrition over the Suez Canal. About 50 Egyptian-piloted MIG-21s were bagged by Israeli pilots. In addition, Israelis last July lured Soviet pilots into an ill-fated dogfight over Suez in which four Russians were shot down. The Russians have more than replaced the loss in planes by shipping an estimated 150 additional MIG-21s to Egypt.

SU-11, a twin-jet all-weather interceptor known in NATO as "Flagon," is capable of Mach 2.5 speeds. Like the MIG-23s, these are the first advanced Sukhois allowed outside Russia.

SA-4, one of the most advanced ground-to-air missiles in the Russian arsenal, is a mobile version of the stationary SA-2s. Code-named "Ganef"*by NATO, the SA-4s have tanklike tracks and can be swiftly shifted. They are being deployed as part of the defense umbrella near the Aswan Dam and at Nag Hamadi, 125 miles north of Aswan on the Nile. In addition, more SA-3s and SA-2s are being shipped to Egypt. Israeli military sources conjecture that with Egyptians manning missile defenses near Suez, the Russians may feel that more batteries are necessary to make up for the Egyptian lack of proficiency. "God knows where they're going to put them all," says an Israeli analyst.

P15 radar systems, as sharp as U.S. radar, are also being deployed. Since their range is 400 miles, this will give Egypt an early warning system that has been lacking until now. Additional batteries of ZSU-23-4 radar-controlled antiaircraft guns are also being deployed. They are capable of defending SA3 sites with a 4,000-round-per-minute blanket of fire. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan last week described the Egyptian arms buildup as "a worsening of the situation and a matter of great gravity." So far, however, Israeli officials have shown no more alarm than that. One reason is that Israelis are trying to avoid depicting the arms arrival as an international crisis, for this would strengthen the U.S. argument that a peace-keeping force is necessary to maintain the Middle East standoff.

One Russian motive for the buildup appears to be a cynical self-interest that alarms observers on both sides in the Middle East. "There is no strategic meaning to it," one Westerner told TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott in Cairo last week. "The Spanish Civil War syndrome is taking over. The U.S. is testing its gismos on the Israeli side and the Russians are doing the same thing in Egypt." By that he meant a situation similar to Spain in 1936, where Germany, Italy and Russia perfected military equipment and tactics, including Luftwaffe dive-bombing, that were to be employed in World War II. The Russians have neither an opportunity nor a desire to test their new aircraft against U.S. flyers. But the Suez front provides a comparatively safe semi-combat theater where they work out flying tactics against the Israelis.

The overriding Soviet consideration, however, is to give Egypt complete military security from Israeli air attack. The new defenses are so modern and complete that no air strikes could be made without taking heavy losses.

*Not to be confused with the Yiddish word for thief.

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