Federation of Arab Republics
Assad's first foreign policy actions were to join the newly established Federation of Arab Republics along with Egypt, Libya and later Sudan, and to sign a military pact with Egypt. Assad gave a high priority to building a strong military and preparing it for a confrontation with Israel, both for offensive and defensive purposes and to enable him to politically negotiate the return of the Golan Heights from a position of military strength. He allocated up to 70 percent of the annual budget to the military build-up and received large quantities of modern arms from the Soviet Union.