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View Full Version : The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War (catch all)



SWJED
08-11-2006, 01:40 AM
Moderator's Note: Main thread enhanced by merging three smaller threads today.


10 August Jerusalem Post - Analysis: IDF Fumes Over Denied Victory (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525850003&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) by Yaakov Katz.


The booms of Katyusha rockets continued; another day of what has become routine in the North. But the IDF was holding position, waiting for orders that did not come. After 30 days of fighting, the war with Hizbullah seemed to be nearing its conclusion Thursday.

Just a day earlier, the situation had looked drastically different. The security cabinet had approved the army's request to send thousands of troops up to the Litani River and beyond in an effort to destroy Hizbullah's infrastructure and to stop the Katyusha attacks. After the cabinet meeting, one division actually began moving north from Metulla. Its goal - to clear out al-Khiam and Marjayoun and to reach the Litani.

But then, under pressure from the US, Defense Minister Amir Peretz made a frantic call to Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and ordered him to stop the division in its tracks. "We need to give the diplomatic process one last chance," Peretz told Halutz. The orders trickled down the chain of command and by the time they reached 366, it had already reached Marjayoun, a stone's throw from the Litani.

With the UN Security Council on the verge of passing a cease-fire resolution, the IDF understood on Thursday that Operation Change of Direction was ending, for better or for worse.

The IDF was disappointed. Senior officers said they had been looking forward to the fight. Reaching the Litani and eliminating Hizbullah from the villages on the way could have provided, senior officers believe, the victory that Israel has been trying to obtain since July 12. By Thursday night, the chance of that happening was drifting away...

... But the political echelon thinks differently, and from the first day of this war the politicians, senior officers said, held the IDF back from escalating its offensive and hitting Hizbullah hard. First it was the massive air campaign. Then came the limited, pinpoint ground raids. Only when all that failed did Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his cabinet approve a large-scale incursion into Lebanon and the re-creation of the security zone.

This wishy-washy decision-making process cost the IDF lives, according to one senior officer. "A military force always needs to be on the offensive, pushing forward and keeping the enemy on its toes," he said. "When you sit still for too long, you turn into a target and you begin to get hit again and again."

That is what has been happening. Over the past 30 days of fighting Hizbullah, the army has lost 83 soldiers, 35 of them this week. "That is what happens when you sit still and don't move," the officer said. "The enemy fortifies its positions and gains the upper hand."

The results of sitting in place can also be seen in the way most of the soldiers who died this week were killed. Hundreds of anti-tank missiles have been fired at troops in southern Lebanon. When a force sits still it becomes an easy target, officers said. One said he thought that the number of casualties from "just sitting and waiting for orders" could turn out to be the same as the IDF would have lost had it been allowed to make the push to the Litani...

...The IDF has been at a loss to stop the mostly old and primitive rockets. Hizbullah has been preparing for this war for the past six years and, alongside the 13,000 short-range Katyusha rockets, it has amassed thousands of anti-tank missiles..

Hizbullah has thousands of Soviet-built Sagger, Cornet and Fagot anti-tank missiles, as well as the French Milan and the US-built TOW, all supplied by Iran and Syria. These missiles are usually fired by a two- or three-man team.

There are many lessons the IDF needs to learn from the fighting about anti-tank missiles and the way to deal with the threat, a high-ranking officer said. But the most important lesson the top brass has to internalize is that it needs to bring clear plans to the political echelon and to always be on the offensive...

Tom Odom
08-11-2006, 01:22 PM
From Israeli Dissident Yitzhak Laor:


The truth behind this is that Israel must always be allowed to do as it likes even if this involves scorching its supremacy into Arab bodies. This supremacy is beyond discussion and it is simple to the point of madness. We have the right to abduct. You don’t. We have the right to arrest. You don’t. You are terrorists. We are virtuous. We have sovereignty. You don’t. We can ruin you. You cannot ruin us, even when you retaliate, because we are tied to the most powerful nation on earth. We are angels of death.

The Lebanese will not remember everything about this war. How many atrocities can a person keep in mind, how much helplessness can he or she admit, how many massacres can people tell their children about, how many terrorised escapes from burning houses, without becoming a slave to memory? Should a child keep a leaflet written by the IDF in Arabic, in which he is told to leave his home before it’s bombed? I cannot urge my Lebanese friends to remember the crimes my state and its army have committed in Lebanon.

See: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n16/laor01_.html

Before anyone (everyone) howls for my stoning, let me say 2 things.

A. Laor is a dissident and as such he will state (overstate) his arguments to achieve his goals. I don't agree with his overstatements on the IDF; members of the IDF have on occasion stood against certain actions. As for a semi-miltaristic culture inside Israel, that is--for many reasons both regional and imported--quite a reality.

B. But look at it as a glimpse inside internal Israeli angst over Lebanon and the situation as a whole.

Best
Tom

SWJED
08-18-2006, 10:48 PM
18 August Associated Press - Israeli Troops Criticize Army, Equipment (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081800615.html).


Israeli soldiers returning from the war in Lebanon say the army was slow to rescue wounded comrades and suffered from a lack of supplies so dire that they had to drink water from the canteens of dead Hezbollah guerrillas.

"We fought for nothing. We cleared houses that will be reoccupied in no time," said Ilia Marshak, a 22-year-old infantryman who spent a week in Lebanon.

Marshak said his unit was hindered by a lack of information, poor training and untested equipment. In one instance, Israeli troops occupying two houses inadvertently fired at each other because of poor communication between their commanders...

In a nation mythologized for decisive military victories over Arab foes, the stalemate after a 34-day war in Lebanon has surprised many.

The war was widely seen in Israel as a just response to a July 12 cross-border attack in which Hezbollah gunmen killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two. But the wartime solidarity crumbled after Israel agreed to pull its army from south Lebanon without crushing Hezbollah or rescuing the captured soldiers.

Military experts and commentators have criticized the army for relying too heavily on air power and delaying the start of ground action for too long. They say the army underestimated Hezbollah, and that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set an unrealistic goal by pledging to destroy the guerrilla group.

This week, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz appointed a former army chief to investigate the military's handling of the war...

17 August Jerusalem Post editorial - Investigating the War (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525896473&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull).


Defense Minister Amir Peretz's external investigatory committee, to be headed by former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, might provide some useful information regarding the narrow question of military decision-making during the war. It will not be sufficient to determine the broader lessons of the war in the military sphere, let alone for the political echelon and our society as a whole.

The public, according to polls, wants a commission of inquiry. Such commissions, with the power to recommend legal sanctions against individual officials, were created in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, the killings at Sabra and Shatilla, and the deaths of Israeli Arabs at the hands of police during the riots in October 2000.

The record of such commissions is not a promising one. They tend to create an intense focus on only one question: who will pay with their job, or even be put on trial. Though some legal experts are proud of the strength of the law providing for such commissions, others, such as former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, think they go too far, in that they do not even provide a right of appeal...

Culpeper
08-19-2006, 04:33 AM
Man, that is demoralizing. What happened? I wonder how Sharon would have responded from the beginning.

Bill Moore
08-19-2006, 06:48 AM
It appears that Israel made several strategic mistakes in the conduct of this campaign, but I wasn't aware of that their Army was in such disarray until recently, and it “may” explain why Israel relied so heavily on air power in this fight, resulting a propaganda or moral defeat for Israel in much of the West and probably all of the Arab world.

This appears to be another situation where capable leadership was ignored and Air Power / technical enthusiasts won the day (but lost the battle) in Israel’s decision making process. There is no doubt in my mind that Israel has numerous experts in conducting this type of fight, but they clearly were ignored.

Israel’s tactics resulted in very little damage to Hezbollah’s militia and actually helped Hezbollah politically. Furthermore the air attacks did very little to stop the rocket attacks on Israel. Ideally, Hezbollah should have been fought mano a mano with infantry, and probably with an amphibious assault to the north to conduct a pincher moment to block their escape routes. This would have been a bloodier fight, but it would have demonstrated Israeli political will and capability. Furthermore, since Hezbollah is state sponsored (not by Lebanon), then Iran should have at least received two black eyes and a fat lip as a warning they have going too far. What we have now is a narrative on the Arab street where Israel used their Air Force to kill hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians (true), and that their infantry couldn’t defeat the Hezbollah fighters.

Now that the initial kinetic fight is over, the real battle for victory begins. While I think the Hezbollah can be still be defeated (I don’t mean totally, but significantly weakened) by the Lebanon and the West (Israel should be sitting this one out now), it will be extremely challenging. Hezbollah has many advantages:

1. The Lebanese people hate Israel for what they did to Lebanon.
2. The Hezbollah has an established chain of command and a strategy that they are implementing now (they’re inside our OODA loop).
3. Hezbollah is perceived as credible on the battlefield (the Lebanese in S. Lebanon trust them).
4. Hezbollah has an established infrastructure throughout Lebanon and will operate with information superiority.

We on the other hand must rapidly introduce UN peace enforcement forces to facilitate Lebanon's Army in disarming the Hezbollah, which they can't do on their own. If the West and Israel can take the lead in the IO war (it will be hard after Israel's moral set back) and convince the people of Lebanon that the Hezbollah are the source of their problems and they are delaying the rebuilding the Southern Lebanon, then just maybe we can turn this into a victory. However, we have to form a coalition, work under a UN bureaucracy, and the ultimate key to success is an under funded, under equipped and poorly trained Lebanese Army.

If I was Israel I would put an old war horse in charge of fixing their Army, they are going to need it soon.

SWJED
08-19-2006, 08:34 AM
19 August Washington Post - War Stirs Worry in Israel Over State of Military (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081801160.html) by Doug Struck and Tal Zipper.


Sgt. Lior Rahamin's Israeli reserve unit had not trained in two years. When its members were called up for the Lebanon war, they didn't have straps for their guns, spare ammunition, flak jackets or more than one good radio. There were other shortages: Twice their operations were canceled because they had no water to take; once they went two days without food...

From the failure to get food and water to the troops, to complaints of an uncertain war plan and overconfident generals, the Lebanon war is fast being viewed within Israel as a major stumble. Military and political leaders already are trading blame; some are expected to lose their posts. Officers say the mistakes show weakness in the military, the Israel Defense Forces, known as the IDF. Many Israelis worry that the failure of the military to squash the Hezbollah militia will make their country more vulnerable to other enemies.

"For four weeks we failed to defend ourselves against daily bombardments against our cities. This is a failure that never happened before," said Yuval Steinitz, a Likud Party member and former chairman of parliament's defense committee. "This is going to send a bad message."

Such fears were fueled by a strident speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the end of the war, promising to follow Hezbollah's model to retake the Golan Heights. Less than 24 hours after the cease-fire, he boasted that Hezbollah had "defeated the legend of the army that had never been defeated."

Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, a member of the Israeli army's general staff who is taking over as head of planning for the military, defended the outcome of the operation. "This was a unique war," he said in an interview Friday. "You can't judge it in a traditional way. Our war was much more like a war on terrorism than a war against an army. . . . It's not realistic to expect any white flag coming from the bunker."...

The complaints that have emerged as Israel's soldiers return from the field have heightened the country's concerns about the state of its army and the judgment of its leaders.

"If we would have gone in with more foot soldiers, we would have done more," said Avi Hubara, 40, a schoolteacher and reservist who volunteered to go to Lebanon to fight. "But the politicians were scared to make decisions. It was a failure. We got people killed. There was lots of friendly fire. We did not hurt the capability of the Hezbollah. We did not return the kidnapped soldiers. We did not win."...

Bill Moore
08-19-2006, 03:28 PM
Assuming these articles are an accurate reflection of Israel's Army, then what are the security implications for the U.S.? Although I frequently have been disappointed with Israeli strategy in dealing with their security problems, they are an ally that we are obligated to assist if they get in trouble, and if Syria or Iran feel emboldened enough after Israel's latest series of combat operations to launch a conventional attack with a supporting asymmetrical line of operation, then I could see a scenario where the U.S. military will have to come to Israel’s rescue. It seems like it was only yesterday that this scenario was unforeseeable, and if it happens, how will it impact our relationship with the rest of the Middle East as we endeavor to make progress in GWOT?

Uboat509
08-19-2006, 04:07 PM
I'm wondering if economics played a role in the IDF's problems. I have read that they recently had enact a number of austerity measures to resusitate their economy. If money really is that tight then that might also partialy explain their reluctance to start the ground fight and also explain the shortfalls in equipment, training and logistics. That is assuming, of course, that the problems are as wide spread as we have been led to believe. I am always immediately suspicous of anything that comes from the main stream media.

SFC W

Ray
08-20-2006, 06:08 PM
Somehow it is difficult to buy this line that it was because of poor kitting that the IDF did not make their mark.

In fact, poor kitting, poor equipment, no time to train etc are the favourite excuses that are trotted out whenever any army faces a problem that they can't solve or when they have failed to deliver.

In fact, if the IDF was not ready to take on the Hizbollah terrorists, then they should not have gone in. Their Generals should have had the moral courage to inform their Political Leaders that unless they are equipped correctly, then they would be able to this much and no more.

BBC informs that the reservists are not only complaining about kitting, they are complaining about rapid change of order (muddle) and incorrect tactics application.

Any links to fathom as to what really went wrong?

Something has seriously gone wrong somewhere since the IDF could thrash every time Arab armies as a whole and this time the rag tag Hizbollah has held them for 30 days. It is most surprising given that the tanks were said to be amongst the world best and the soldiers motivated since it was a fight for the very existence of Israel.

Ray
08-20-2006, 08:48 PM
30 Tanks Wiped Out in Lebanon
12:01 Aug 11, '06 / 17 Av 5766

(IsraelNN.com) IDF officials admit that the biggest surprise of the ongoing war against Hizbullah is the ease by which terrorists have destroyed IDF tanks.

At least 30 tanks have been totally destroyed or seriously damaged in bomb and anti-tank rocket attacks involving state-of-the-art Russian anti-tank rockets.

About one-half of the military personnel killed in southern Lebanon were inside tanks.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=109793

This conflict has not gone as was usual in an Arab Israeli war.

I wonder what could be the reason.

Is it because of the state of art anti tank rocket? I believe RPG 29S was used.

Is it because of poor tactics?

Or, is it because the Hizbs were ingenuous in their tactics and use of weapons?

Poor political leadership and decision making?

Poor generalship?

IDF actually being ill equipped but nonetheless launched?

SWJED
08-20-2006, 10:37 PM
... and while many are still digesting the "lessons learned – or unlearned" (and will be for some time) one reason might be the "operational pause" the IDF took south of the Litani River as the political leadership decided that international pressure to end Israel's Lebanon incursion was too great to bear.

Mechanized forces need to be "on-the-move" to be effective and are most effective in the conduct of "major combat operations." From first impressions the IDF faced more of a hybrid threat - heavy on the asymmetric with a sprinkling of conventional and reinforced with IO - and aided and abetted by a sympathetic and often supportive mainstream news media.

This is just my initial gut-reaction - as more information becomes available I am sure many reasons will emerge.

Other first impressions include an IDF over-reliance on air and lack of appreciation for the asymmetrical fight Hezbollah brought to bear - to include Hezbollah's (and by extension Iran's) use of IO - or "soft power" as referenced on another thread.

Stu-6
08-20-2006, 11:48 PM
I doubt the RPG29 was the wonder weapon due to limited accuracy; guided missiles seem to be a more likely culprit. Even older missiles can deliver fatal shots to tanks from the tops, flank, and rear. If the IDF allowed missile crews to get behind them they would be vulnerable. As SWJED said tanks are designed for on the move fightin. . . with the enemy in front.

J.C.
08-21-2006, 02:27 AM
The point about what missle or what weaponary was used is irrelavent. Israel used conventional weapons to attack a asymetrical problem. Like T.E. Lawerence theorized, you can not kill an idea. Hezbollah is an idea as much as it is an actual entity. If israel had used subtle political manuevering to poision the water around lebonon, by having Sunni opinion kill Iranian and Syrian imput, then they could have looked to strangle the hezbollah forces in southern lebonon. Instead they brought sympathy for hezbollah and the Lebonese people and killed any chance of accomplishing what they set out to do. So instead of asking what killed israeli tanks, we should ask why they used tanks or why they used planes. Maybe well placed acts of violence could have worked just as well. As with Iraq if their is a technology out there, it will have a counter measure and a why to beat it. The fact that it happens is rather pointless, it just means you have to find something else. I guess if any thing can be learned from this action is that israel could not control the battle space as we are having a hard time doing in our current operations.

Further, its good to still see good post and comments, didn't get much of that with the hooahs in benning.

Bill Moore
08-21-2006, 04:00 AM
Ray,

I respectfully disagree with your arguments. First, I didn't think the jest of the article was that Israel's failure was due to logistical shortfalls, but rather that the IDF has serious systematic problems, logistics being the most visible. Second, poor kitting and inadequate training "are" the reasons for many army's failures. Note the U.S. Army's experience during the initial phase of the Korean War. Obviously the tactics were far from ideal, but not so surprising from a defense force that can't get the essentials correct: kitting and training.

Bill

Uboat509
08-21-2006, 06:04 AM
I spent 18 months in the OPFOR at JRTC and my experience is that tanks tend to be very poor at fighting infantry, particularly infantry that isn't intent on staying still and providing an easy target. I have never been armor but it seems to me they get tunnel vision. A trick that I saw used effectively was to have a few OPFOR fire a few shot at the tank to get his attention and then run behind some cover. The tank would then follow and chase the dismounted OPFOR, right across the front of a T-62. Head to head an M1 is going to crush a T-62 every time but if the M1 is busy chasing infantry and not paying attention it tends to even the odds. The Israelis learned some hard lessons about infantry vs. tanks in the Yom Kippur war when they didn't have supporting infantry for their tanks initially. Back then the Egyptians were using the old Saggers which weren't terribly accurate to say the least. My mother has friend who was a tanker in the IDF back then and after one battle they counted something like 15 Sagger guide wires draped across his tank. Fast forward to this conflict with better IDF armor but also better enemy anti-armor and you can see the result. If the MSM reports from the battle are to be believed then at least some of the IDF infantry were poorly equipped, poorly trained etc. In those circumstances there might be a tendency to want to follow the heavily armored tanks rather than the other way around. At the same time an improperly trained tank crew might go into the fight buttoned up which would feel safer but which is much more dangerous because of the loss of SA. I will very interested to see the AARs form this fight. You know AQ et all will be too.

SFC W

Steve Blair
08-21-2006, 02:02 PM
Could it simply be that the Israeli army was a) overconfident because they had (some years back) smacked so many Arab armies around and b) rather out of practice when it comes to large-scale operations? They may also be seeing of the problems that can result from an army based on conscription - constant turnover leads to shortfalls in training and can also result in equipment being poorly maintained.

I also tend to agree that Israel has come to rely too much on airpower. Airpower is a good "sell," since it doesn't put many of your people at risk and does look neat when replayed on television, but it simply isn't the right answer in many situations. It is a great supporting component, but over-reliance on it can lead to problems.

Steve Blair
08-21-2006, 02:25 PM
Our own armor force learned in Vietnam (and possibly forgot it) that tanks had to operate with crewmen exposed in order to be effective against an enemy that used mainly light infantry. Tank commanders would often engage targets using their override, with the gunner assisting the loader to keep up a high rate of fire. They also mounted extra machineguns on the M-48s, as they learned that suppressive fire was very important. Makeshift gun shields were also very common.

Armor can be effective in these conflicts, but it often has to change its accustomed role. Failure to do so can be costly.

Merv Benson
08-21-2006, 04:49 PM
This report (http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/israel-gets-proof-of-syria-supplying.html) says that the Hezzies were using Russian AT-5 Spandral anti tank missiles. The serial numbers on many of these indicate they were in a shipment sold to Syria. Apparently the anti tank missiles were abundant enough to use them as anti personel weapons. Hezballah would usually attack the IDF troops that had "taken cover" in a house. I don't know enough about the terrain in southern Lebanon, but if they could dig in a fighting hole would probably give more protection than a house.

Hezballah also got Brit night vision equipment (http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-hezballah-got-its-night-vision.html) that had been sold to the Iranians for a UN drug interdiction program. Indeed, Hezballah may have been better equiped than the Israeli (http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/israels-failure-of-leadership.html) reserve units. A father of several reservist wrote:


...

Five of my sons and sons-in-law fought in this war. Now coming out of Lebanon and surviving some of the bloodiest fighting, they are filled with anger. Their short-term and long-term orders were confused and ever-changing. The emergency stocks for their reserve units were in horrible condition. One reservist special forces unit lacked basic communications equipment, they were provided guns that they had never trained on, and their rushed training was done in conditions unlike anything they would see in Lebanon.

...

Over the course of the war soldiers were held back for weeks when they were ready to charge. When they were finally dispatched, they were given unachievable missions in impossible time constraints. Soldiers were sent on daytime missions that should have been carried out only under the cover of darkness. Some died as a result.

...

Reports like this suggest that the cease fire actually help Israel much more than was believed at the time.

Ray
08-21-2006, 06:08 PM
Ray,

I respectfully disagree with your arguments. First, I didn't think the jest of the article was that Israel's failure was due to logistical shortfalls, but rather that the IDF has serious systematic problems, logistics being the most visible. Second, poor kitting and inadequate training "are" the reasons for many army's failures. Note the U.S. Army's experience during the initial phase of the Korean War. Obviously the tactics were far from ideal, but not so surprising from a defense force that can't get the essentials correct: kitting and training.

Bill

Bill,

I fully agree with what you have stated.

I only wanted to state that one goes to war after taking all issues into consideration, weighing it against the enemy's capabilities and tactics, and being sure of an even chance of success. If war is thrust on you, then it is a different matter. In this case, the IDF had the initiative and launched the offensive.

Thereafter, once in the fray, one must take the results of the events for what it is worth and not trot out 'excuses' (for the want of a better word).

The IDF should have realised that the IDF was not well equipped, trained or whatever, to take on this campaign. Now, to state so as a reason, does not really cut ice. There will be failures in war or in life. One must squarely face up to them and not lament or find issues as "scapegoats".

In 3O days, 30 Merkavas have been lost as per an Israeli newspaper. That is a lot if one considers the rag tag Hizbs. It is obvious that the Hizb tactics paid rich dividends. It is surprising that the Israelis did not find out about the Hizb tactics, when one is marvelled by the Israeli capability to be able to, with pinpoint accuracy, shoot down terrorist leaders on the move in a car or when strolling in gthe streets as in the Gaza strip! I wonder if any intelligence agency can equal that!

Therefore, the IDF in Lebanon is quite a disappointment, apart from being a hue surprise for me. It is like a National team losing a football match to local club!

Hence, it is important to know what are the lessons learnt and rectify the same rather than breast beat, if I may say so.

Ray
08-21-2006, 06:30 PM
Thank you all.

One is aware of Infantry - tank equations and mechanised warfare as I was fortunate to experience the same in the conventional combat format. I could not agree more with the comments made by you all. Indeed, 'buttoning up' by tankmen is asking for trouble in such an environment. One of the safer ways is to be in the 'infantry leading' mode and tanks in support, especially in close country or in the urban scenario. I am not too sure as to what type of terrain the IDF confronted when these tanks were killed and so my comments are not to denigrate or suggest modes. They are mere conjectures.

The Hizb tactics sort of tickles my curiosity.

I am very keen to know more of the Hizb tactics since it will be used extensively elsewhere as it has become somewhat of a benchmark of success for those who wish to indulge in asymmetrical warfare.

Any links or articles available for study?

slapout9
08-22-2006, 06:58 PM
Uboat509, that is an interesting post you made about getting tanks to come at you, because that is exactly what we did in the 82ND Airborne. I was at green ramp at Pope air force base, at Bragg waiting to board the aircraft in 1973 in response to Yom Kippur. What happened in Lebanon seems to be very close to what we called Retrograde operations. Infantry with portable missiles and artillery.

You throw bullets at tanks and get them to chase you (infantry) into a big ambush. You "advance"back wards in leap frog fashion with the tanks chasing you and then you light them up. The TOW missile was just coming on line in a big way in 73 so our plan was to mix 106 mm recoilless rifles mounted on jeeps(remember jeeps?) and TOW missiles and artillery. The US plan was to have the 82ND stand between Egypt and Israel until they stopped fighting. Fortunately we did not have to go. I don't know if the actual plan has been declassified but it would be interesting to see how close the recent operation in Lebanon was to the 82ND plan or concept of a light infantry-man launched missile based-anti-armor force.

Strickland
08-22-2006, 10:41 PM
As far as the original post concerning the 30 tanks, APCs, and IFVs being destroyed; this should not be a shock to the IDF. I seem to recall that in 1987 in Jenin that they lost so many soldiers inside APCs and IFVs that all of the IDF soldiers began riding on top of them. Glad to see we are not the only ones with a propensity for relearning the same old lessons the hard way.

Neil Horn
08-23-2006, 03:54 AM
"Five of my sons and sons-in-law fought in this war. Now coming out of Lebanon and surviving some of the bloodiest fighting, they are filled with anger. Their short-term and long-term orders were confused and ever-changing. The emergency stocks for their reserve units were in horrible condition. One reservist special forces unit lacked basic communications equipment, they were provided guns that they had never trained on, and their rushed training was done in conditions unlike anything they would see in Lebanon."

I'm a newcomer and been browsing for a while, but this quote just caught me off guard... reservist or not, how can a SF unit lack basic comm and weapons proficiency. Moreover, how can they be ill prepared for the battle space? It's not as though they have to prepare for a wide spectrum of environmental conditions.?.

Uboat509
08-23-2006, 04:54 AM
I keep seeing this same thing over and over. The IDF wasn't "allowed" to destroy Hizbullah but no one ever seems to have an answer as to how you destroy an insurgency by pure force of arms. The IDF wanted to move forward and take some more villages and clear out the bad guys. Then what? As we have proven in Iraq you can clear all the bad guys out of a village but if you don't A) occupy it and/or B) win the hearts and minds of the local populace then the bad guys will be back as soon as you leave. Israel clearly wants no part of another occupation of Lebenon and maybe I am a cynic but I just don't see them trying to win the hearts and minds of the local populace either, not that they could anyway. I think the military was stuck, they had to do something to stop the rockets of course but I think that destroy Hizbullah, however attractive, was an unreasonable goal. How far did they expect to go? Beruit? Demascus? Teheran?
It seems to me that the main purpose of this ground war was to stop the rockets unitl another solution could be found. Anything past that is just wasted resources taking ground that you don't intend to hold. Denied victory? The rockets have been stopped, a buffer zone has been created, the Lebonese Army has been forced to occupy southern Lebenon and the defense of Israel's border with Lebenon will be undertaken by a force which Israel will not have to pay for (not fully at least, perhaps they will have to contribute some funding, I don't know). It may not be VJ Day but it's a far cry from a loss.

SFC W

Bill Moore
08-23-2006, 02:06 PM
I concur with Uboat and would add that Clausewitz's argument that war is an extension of politics is clearly beyond the comprehension of the Israeli officers lamenting to the press about how the politicians prevented their victory. First, a military victory was not possible, the best that could be hoped for was too pressure all sides into a political agreement (you could argue that was achieved, even if it is temporary, with the UN cease fire agreement). Second, a number of other articles clearly indicated that the Israeli Army wasn't prepared for a major battle due to equipment and other logistical shortfalls, and training shortfalls. There is wisdom in Tom's reply above, and unless Israel comes up with a feasible political strategy (much easier said than done), then a military victory will remain elusive.

Tom Odom
08-23-2006, 02:07 PM
Interesting that they were trying to operate buttoned up. They did not in 87 when I was on the ground. In fact in most cases, their 113s operated wih the rear door open--something that has its own set of problems.

Best
Tom

Wagram
08-24-2006, 05:00 PM
You may find interesting that a recently returned FINUL (French for UNIFIL)member has told me he has counted, himself, not through a third party, over 40 damaged/destroyed IDF MBTs/APCs when he was there. The IDF was especially sensitive about retrieving and evacuating the wrecks.

I hope to get to see his pictures soon. I'll try to keep the board posted.

SWJED
08-24-2006, 08:32 PM
24 August Associated Press - Israel's Military Chief Admits Failings (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082400241.html).


In a letter to the troops, Israel's military chief acknowledged publicly for the first time Thursday that there were shortcomings in the military's performance during the recent fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

Israel went into the monthlong war as a united front against Hezbollah, but since the fighting ended last week, the country has splintered into a cacophony of reproachful voices.

Criticism of the military's preparedness and tactics swelled after the battles ended without a clear-cut victory for Israel. Questions about the wisdom of 11th-hour battles and reports of food and water shortages have fueled demands for a state inquiry into the war's conduct and the resignation of Israel's wartime leaders.

In a letter to Israeli fighters, military chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz wrote: "Alongside the achievements, the fighting uncovered shortcomings in various areas _ logistical, operational and command. We are committed to a thorough, honest, rapid and complete investigation of all the shortcomings and successes."...

SWJED
08-25-2006, 12:29 PM
17 August from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) - Preliminary Lessons of the Israeli-Hezbollah War (http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,3449/) by Anthony Cordesman.


Instant military history is always dangerous and inaccurate. This is particularly true when one goes from an effort to describe the fighting to trying to draw lessons from uncertain and contradictory information. The following analysis is based largely on media reporting, data provided by Israeli and Arab think tanks, and a visit to Israel sponsored by Project Interchange of the American Jewish Committee. This visit made it possible to visit the front and talk with a number of senior Israeli officers and experts, but Israeli officers and experts were among the first to note that the facts were unclear and that it might take weeks or months to establish what had happened.

This analysis is, however, limited by the fact that no matching visit was made to Lebanon and to the Hezbollah. Such a visit was not practical at this time, but it does mean the lessons advanced analysis cannot be based on a close view of what Liddle Hart called the "other side of the hill."...

Uboat509
08-26-2006, 03:43 AM
The CSIS report is a good read but I am suspicious of any open source document that seems to provide so much information. But then it is in my nature to be suspicious, which is probably how I ended up in MI. There are a whole lot of unnamed sources. I would like to see some corroborating reports. In fairness I should note that I am not really all that familier with CSIS' products having only read one other. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has more knowledge about them.

SFC W

Bill Moore
08-26-2006, 04:45 AM
http://www.csis.org/about/history/

Funny, you're suspicious of open source research, because I'm suspicious of the stuff we get from MI (lol). In all seriousiness I have found a number of CSIS's studies to be well researched and practical, but whether open source or classified the potential for bias obviously exists. Anyway the link above will take you to csis's history link (self promotion) which will shed some light on what they have produced. I know we supported a couple of their projects in the past (SOCOM) by providing access to soldiers to interview.

Back on the open source issue, I would encourage our MI personnel to exploit more open source material. I have never understood the intelligence community's outright bias against anything without a "SECRET" stamp on it. A reporter or researcher talks to source about let's say the Hezbullah/Israel conflict, then it results in an unclassified article or study, but if a MI person debriefs that source and writes the report it is SECRET and therefore credible, yet in many cases the PhD or reporter may actually be more a subject matter on that region. I have a lot of respect for the many good analysts I have worked with and am working with now, but this is one area we simply don't agree on.

SWJED
08-27-2006, 07:44 AM
27 August Los Angeles Times - Much Soul-Searching Ahead for Israeli Army (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-izmil27aug27,1,6080256.story?coll=la-headlines-world) by Laura King.


Israel's much-vaunted military, which emerged bruised and bloodied from its 34-day conflict with the guerrillas of Hezbollah, is in the midst of an intensive reappraisal of the battlefield tactics, intelligence capability and weaponry it brought to bear in Lebanon.

Yet a war whose outcome veered closer to a loss than almost any in Israel's history is unlikely to result in fundamental changes in Israeli military doctrine, analysts and military officials say.

That is in part because Israel regards Hezbollah, a disciplined and highly motivated Islamist militia equipped with state-of-the-art weapons, as unique among its many enemies in the region, and strongly believes that its army remains capable of inflicting decisive defeat on any conventional force it might confront.

Most Israeli military strategists also firmly believe they could have won the conflict with Hezbollah had they not been hobbled by the missteps of a domestic political leadership untested by battle — a view that is likely to be aired repeatedly during what may be months of public inquiries into how the conflict was conducted.

At the same time, however, Israel is weighing the long-term implications of the militia's ability to inflict pain not only on Israel's military, but civilians. Israel's conclusions could have far-reaching effect on its dealings with the Palestinians, in particular with militant groups such as Hamas, the political ruling power in the Palestinian territories...

Hezbollah's ability to hold its own against the Israeli army, even for a limited time, has raised the specter of other enemies being emboldened to strike, perhaps together. But Syria, one of Hezbollah's chief backers, stayed on the sidelines of this conflict — fully aware, analysts said, that the Israeli military was capable of destroying not only its army, but its infrastructure and institutions of statehood.

Many Israeli analysts and commanders say the military's overall performance was far from the stinging defeat that Hezbollah claims to have inflicted. But they generally acknowledge that Israel's poor planning, carelessness and hubris played a part in high-profile failures at crucial moments, from the earliest days of fighting to the final hours...

Much has been made of Israel's overreliance on airstrikes to destroy Hezbollah's rocket-firing ability. The army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, a former air force commander, was a chief proponent of the fierce air assault that preceded Israel's last-minute, large-scale ground push into southern Lebanon.

Halutz, whose job is now in jeopardy, has acknowledged "shortcomings" in the way the offensive was carried out.

SWJED
08-27-2006, 07:52 AM
27 August London Times - Humbling of the Supertroops Shatters Israeli Army Morale (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2330624,00.html).


... Just before midnight, the order “Fire!” — given by the squadron leader — could be heard in the Tel Aviv bunker. Within moments the first Hezbollah missile and launcher were blown up. Thirty-nine tense minutes later the squadron leader’s voice was heard again: “Fifty-four launchers have been destroyed. Returning to base.”

Halutz smiled with relief and called Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, who was enjoying a cigar as he waited by a secure red phone at his residence in Jerusalem.

“All the long-range rockets have been destroyed,” Halutz announced proudly. After a short pause, he added four words that have since haunted him: “We’ve won the war.”

Even as Halutz was declaring victory, 12 Israeli soldiers from the Maglan reconnaissance unit were already running into an ambush just over the border inside Lebanon near the village of Maroun a-Ras.

“We didn’t know what hit us,” said one of the soldiers, who asked to be named only as Gad. “In seconds we had two dead.”

With several others wounded and retreating under heavy fire the Maglans, one of the finest units in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), were astonished by the firepower and perseverance of Hezbollah.

“Evidently they had never heard that an Arab soldier is supposed to run away after a short engagement with the Israelis,” said Gad.

“We expected a tent and three Kalashnikovs — that was the intelligence we were given. Instead, we found a hydraulic steel door leading to a well-equipped network of tunnels.”

As daylight broke the Maglans found themselves under fire from all sides by Hezbollah forces who knew every inch of the terrain and exploited their knowledge to the full...

Hezbollah also suffered heavy casualties but its fighters slipped back into their tunnels to await the next round of fighting. It was immediately obvious to everyone in Tel Aviv that this was going to be a tougher fight than Halutz had bargained for.

As the war unfolded his optimism was brought crashing down to earth — and with it the invincible reputation of the Israeli armed forces.

In five weeks, their critics charge, they displayed tactical incompetence and strategic short-sightedness. Their much-vaunted intelligence was found wanting.

Their political leadership was shown to vacillate. Their commanders proved fractious. In many cases the training of their men was poor and their equipment inadequate. Despite many individual acts of bravery, some of the men of the IDF were pushed to the point of mutiny.

Last week, in an contrite letter to his soldiers, Halutz admitted to “mistakes which will all be corrected”. It is far from clear whether Halutz will remain in position to correct them...

SWJED
09-04-2006, 10:47 AM
4 September Jerusalem Post - IDF Plans Massive Intelligence Overhaul (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525995749&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) by Yaakov Katz.


As one of the lessons of the war in Lebanon, the IDF plans to ask the Treasury for an immediate budget supplement of NIS 10 billion, most of which will be invested in rehabilitating the Intelligence Corps, a high-ranking defense official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Defense officials and politicians have accused Military Intelligence of failing to predict the outbreak of violence. In addition, it is also blamed for failing to adequately penetrate the Hizbullah command, as could be demonstrated by the failure to assassinate any of the group's top leaders or destroy its main nerve centers.

"There will be a massive investment now in Military Intelligence," the official said...

The war, he said, was a "wake-up call" for the country and showed the public and the government that the budget cuts over the years had created a military that was not ready to meet its challenges.

"They need to ask themselves what type of military they want to have," he said of the government and specifically the Treasury. "If they want the IDF to protect the country, then they need to allocate the necessary resources and funds."

The defense official said he was not concerned about being summoned to testify before an inquiry to investigate the IDF's level of preparedness and management of the war.

"For years we have warned that this would happen," he said. "Now that it has happened, it is time to fix things."

SWJED
03-14-2007, 08:12 PM
From today's VOA - Lebanon War Inquiry Could Topple Israeli PM (http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-14-voa38.cfm). Reposted here in full per USG guidelines.


An Israeli inquiry into last year's Lebanon war could topple Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. As Robert Berger reports from VOA's Jerusalem bureau, Israel is in political turmoil after the commission of inquiry declared that it is taking aim at the national leadership.

The commission of inquiry into the war in Lebanon announced that it will include "personal findings" on Prime Minister Olmert. Israeli politicians and the media believe that means Mr. Olmert will be condemned for the way he handled the war, which is widely seen as a failure.

Despite a 34-day air and ground assault, the Israeli army failed to defeat some 5,000 Hezbollah guerrillas in South Lebanon. In addition, reserve soldiers returning from the battlefield complained of poor preparations and a lack of food and ammunition.

The interim report is due out next month and the final one at an undisclosed date. There is broad speculation that a critical report could force Mr. Olmert to resign under the pressure of public opinion.

Former Israeli general Uzi Dayan expects the report to come down hard on the prime minister, the defense minister and the commander of the Israel Defense Forces who already resigned.

"They made their mistake in the war by decision making, not knowing how to use, how to operate a big military force like the IDF, and finally the neglect of the home front," he said. "Their big failure is no leadership, no strategy."

But officials in Mr. Olmert's Kadima party are adopting a wait and see attitude.

"It's all speculation," Cabinet Minister Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio. He said there is no indication that the commission will blame the prime minister for the failure of the war or recommend that he step down.

But just a year after Mr. Olmert won a landslide election victory, it is very unlikely that he will complete his four-year term. Israeli media say the collapse of the government and early elections appear inevitable.

goesh
03-21-2007, 11:38 AM
- or a failure to implement it?

Taken from Israeli Haaretz Newspaper, 3/21/07:


Probe Reveals Logistics, Not Lack of Supplies, Hampered Army (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/840302.html)

By Amos Harel

Malfunctions in the transfer of supplies to the front was the main reason for the IDF's difficulties in the second Lebanon war, not a lack of supplies. This is the top conclusion of the in-house IDF investigation on the performance of logistics units in the war, presented yesterday by Major-General Avi Mizrahi, head of the Technology and Logistics Branch.

The investigation revealed logistics shortages, but the general staff believes the supplies would have reached the combat units if different directives had been issued to supply convoys. The convoys were hampered by the threat of Hezbollah anti-tank missiles and road-side bombs.

Mizrahi's committee - whose conclusions and recommendations were presented in a press conference yesterday morning - also looked into the employment of reserves soldiers during the war. "

Tom Odom
03-21-2007, 01:51 PM
Israel's military history despite its media and "casual glance" studies by western militaries is not as spectacular as protrayed:

a. 1948 War: when you look at the actual numbers of deplyed forces, the David Versus Goliath imagery so often portrayed is significantly reduced. Not taking anything away from the fledgling IDF; in many ways a more balanced look at things would give greater credit to the IDF in defeating its foes, especially the Arab Legion.

b. 1956 Suez Crisis--the main fights in this "war" were in the Sinai between the Egyptians and the Israelis. It somehow often gets overlooked that this was an Anglo-French-Israeli venture and that British and French actions against the northern end of the canal played a significant role in dividiing Egyptian military attentions. As for the Israel-Egyptian fights in the Sinai; this was essessntially a war fought at the battalion level. The Egyptians bloodied the Israelis quite severely at Abu Agheila. Sharon as a battalion commander (former Unit 101 Commander) showed the same tendencies of recklessness and inability to cooperate with equals or follow orders from above. His unit was ambushed as a result at Mitla Pass, taking significant casualties.

c. 1967 War. Four phases. Air and a stunning victory for the IAF essentially guarantees IDF complete air coverage with free roaming flying artillery. Sinai is 2nd phase fought as a brigade-level war. This time Egyptians collapse; notably at Abu Aghelia. The IAF punishes the fleeing Egyptian columns severely. Third phase and parallel to 2 is seizure of Jerusalem; this is an infantry-centric fight in urban terrain against the Jordanian Arab Legion. The final phase was against Syria to seize the Golan Heights on the day that Israel had ageed to a ceasefire.

d. 1970-1973 War of the Canal. Gradual shift toward looking at the Bar Lev line as a main defensive line versus an outposted frontier leaves the IDF vulnerable.

e. 1973 October War--Syrian and Egyptian forces attack massively at once against the Golan for Syria and Sinai for Egypt. IAF loses local air superiority over the Golan and the Canal Zone. IDF counterattacks in the Sinia are disjointed and without air cover or artillery. This becomes a war of divisional maneuver against fixed hasty defenses. Sharon as a division commander at one stage fights his own war, ignoring or undercutting the Sinai front command (corps). Ultimately Sharon forces a crossing of the Canal and encircles Third Army. Nominally he threatens Cairo--but the IDF has no logistic legs to mount such a campaign and the length of the 73 War has severely hurt Israel. On the Golan, the Syrians come within a single tank platoon (the last one in the fight for 7th Armored Brigade) in breaking through.

f. 1978 Operation Litani into Lebanon; the IDF seeks to push the PLO back from its northern border setting up a security zone in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL deploys but not completely across the southern area as the IDF continues to control access into the Litani river valley as the gateway to the Bekka Valley.

g. 1982 Sharon as defense minister with PM Begin's support launches another attack to clear southern Lebanon; IDF pushes toward the Bekka Valley prompt the Syrians to enter the war. Sharon takes on the Syrians and wins. the IAF defeats the Syrian AF dramatically; the ground fight is a closer thing. Sharon on his own and according to many concealing the action from Begin sends the IDF north into Beirut. Ultimately Sharon and IDF complicity in allowing Chritian Phalangist militias to attack Palestinian refugee camps, slaughtering women and children, leads to Sharon's censure.

h. 1982-2000 (roughly) Israel sets up the South Lebanese Army as a "Christian miltia" in the south; the ensuing guerrilla war in many ways leads to the creation of Hizballah as a military and political force. Ultimately Israel withdraws.


I put all of this on here because the IDF fights on strategic assumptions that do not always play out and do not necessarily apply to our own military:

Assumption 1: Wars must be quick and fought outside Israel proper. That means emphasis on heavy maneuver backed with absolute air superiority.

Assumption 2: Someone will intervene so grab as much territory as possible to use at the bargaining table. This was especially prevalent in the Cold War.

Assumption 3: Logistics and personnel are designed for the short war. This played a large role in the 1973 War and again in the 1982 drive to Beirut.

Assumption 4: High threat wars like 67 and especially 73 are the greatest danger to the IDF and Israel. as such they must drive Israeli doctrine, tactics, and training.

The fallacies in some of the above are well known to us:

A. the most dangerous war is not necessarily the most likely.

B. Shock and awe may be irrelevant to final outcome.

C. You can never safely assume away logistics and personnel needs.

D. there is little room for grand maneuver and big battalions inside caves or the intricate warren of an Arab town


I would say that much of this again emerged in the latest incursion into Lebanon.

Tom

120mm
03-21-2007, 01:58 PM
To be sure, Israel would benefit from a "refocus" on infantry warfare. Thanks for the illuminating and interesting survey.

SWJED
04-08-2007, 11:11 AM
US Army Combat Studies Institute Occasional Paper 21 - Flipside of the COIN: Israel’s Lebanese Incursion Between 1982 – 2000 (http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/csi/OP21_Flipside%20of%20the%20COIN_web%20version.pdf) by Captain Daniel Helmer, US Army.


In view of the adoption of the term “The Long War” by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff to describe US operations against terrorism and state sponsored terrorism, we have decided to change the title of our long running series of studies on irregular warfare – from the Global War on Terrorism Occasional Papers to the Long War Occasional Papers.

This CSI Occasional Paper is the fi rst in the renamed series. The purpose of the series, however, remains unchanged. That is, to provide short historical monographs on topics of doctrinal and operational relevance to the US Army and military professionals for an Army at war.

We are therefore pleased to offer Long War OP #21: Flipside of the COIN: Israel’s Lebanese Incursion Between 1982-2000, by Captain Daniel Helmer. Captain Helmer’s study, written while studying at Oxford University, addresses the Israeli view of the threat posed by various armed factions in southern Lebanon over an 18-year period. This was a period during which Israeli used air strikes, ground invasions, and border operations to contain or defeat the military threat to its national security.

Among the key points the author makes in this study is the inability of Israel to use military force to secure a lasting political end state in Lebanon that was favorable to its security needs, despite some stunning battlefield victories.

Helmer also notes that both Palestinian and Hezbollah leaders recognized they could not militarily defeat Israeli military forces, despite occasional tactical success, but that this was not their political objective. Rather, they needed only to survive and to maintain their forces in the field to achieve their long-term objectives. Weaker powers have often employed this strategy against their stronger opponents. He also notes the steady dwindling of political and public support in Israel for the occupation of Lebanon and the role this played in Israel’s decision to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000.

As the recent 2006 Israeli attack into Lebanon against Hezbollah terrorists has shown, however, these strategic challenges and dilemmas remain unsolved. In the fi rst decade of the 21st century, it is clear that these dilemmas are not unique to Israel and that the United States might draw some insights relevant to our own situation.

The Combat Studies Institute also plans a future study on the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. We at CSI hope this Occasional Paper will contribute to the Army as it conducts operations in the Long War. CSI -- The Past is Prologue!

Jedburgh
04-08-2007, 01:41 PM
A pair of papers looking at the intel aspect of the invasion and occupation:

From the (Canuck) Journal of Conflict Studies back in '96:

Perceptions and Misperceptions: Influences on Israeli Intelligence Estimates During the 1982 Lebanon War (http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/JCS/S96/articles/schulze.html)

...In simplified terms, Operation Peace for Galilee (as the invasion was code-named) was based on a combination of misconceptions about Israel's alliance with the Maronites in Lebanon and an overestimation of Israel's military capabilities, underlined by the mistaken belief that force could achieve real peace. Israel saw Lebanon as a Christian state and the Maronites as the predominant community backed militarily by the Lebanese Forces. Moreover, Israel perceived the Maronites it was liaising with as representative of the community and as reliable.

To fully understand this failure in Israel's national intelligence estimates, not only the actual misconceptions but also the process of intelligence evaluation needs to be analyzed. Moreover, within this framework, it is essential to examine the signals as well as the noise that obscures them and can prevent them from being understood. In the Lebanon War, as in other historical examples, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2 the Yom Kippur War,3 or the US failure to predict the Iranian Revolution in 1979, 4 the intelligence failure was not due to lack of information about the adversaries, but to an incorrect evaluation of the available information, noise, false signals or deception, misconceptions and ideology....
The second is from Intelligence and National Security, Autumn '01:

"A Reach Greater than the Grasp": Israeli Intelligence and the Conflict in South Lebanon 1990–2000 (https://forums.bcks.army.mil/secure/GetAttachment.aspx?id=335222&pname=file&aid=26795)
(AKO log-in required)

This article examines the way in which intelligence was used by Israel
in its war against Hizb’allah in south Lebanon. By using ideas drawn from the literature on strategic culture, it argues that in trying to replicate methods used in countering Palestinian insurgents, Israel’s intelligence agencies failed to appreciate fully the finite political aims of Hizb’allah’s guerrilla struggle. As such, the paucity in Israel’s collective intelligence effort allowed operatives of Hizb’allah’s military wing, al-Muqawama, to score notable intelligence triumphs over Israel, triumphs that did much force the IDF into a unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000....

Tom Odom
04-09-2007, 07:42 PM
If this alignment of interest between Amal and Iran would not have ensured a problematic occupation in and of itself, Israel’s actions in the south at the invasion’s inception virtually ensured a permanent schism between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite population. Avner Yaniv argues that Israel had no plan for administering the power vacuum that it created in the south through the destruction of the PLO mini-state. Ad hoc improvisation, which had always been a component of Israel’s conventional, offensively minded doctrine, led to “a series of reflexive fits drawing on Israel’s previous experience with comparable problems in the Sunni, Christian West Bank and Gaza Strip.”31
This had an almost instant deleterious effect on Israel’s relationship with the Shiites. In the early days of the war, while the siege of the PLO in Beirut was still ongoing, the Higher Shiite Council, led by Amal’s Shams al-Din, Sadr’s successor, urged the Shiites of Lebanon to reject as illegitimate Israeli interference in southern Lebanon and the imposition of Israeli-backed administrations in Shiite towns and villages. Shiites were urged “to reject the occupation and not to cooperate in any way with the Israeli-imposed local administration.”32 When I asked Baruch Spiegel if the IDF had done anything initially to win “the hearts and minds” of the Lebanese Shiite population, his answer was simple. “Not immediately. It took time until we modified. It took time.”33 If there was ever a real window of opportunity to win over the Shiite population, it was shut by the time the IDF “modified” its practices.

This installment of the JRTC CALL Cell BiWeekly History Lesson again turns to a product from the Combat Studies Institute. Occasional Paper 21 Flipside of the COIN: Israel’s Lebanese Incursion Between 1982 - 2000 by Daniel Isaac Helmer provides an in-depth analysis of Israel's 22-year long venture in Lebanon.

Helmer describes this Israeli experience as a defeat on three levels. The Israelis went into Lebanon to destroy the Palestinian Liberation Organization: they won sweeping tactical victories but never succeeded in their aim to crush the PLO. More importantly, the sustained existence of the PLO as champion for a Palestinian people was a strategic defeat directly tied to the beginning of the First Intifadah. The Israelis stimulated the creation of Hezbollah in Lebanon and then lost the asymmetric fight with the Shia militia, in the process turning the militia into a global threat. Finally as described by Helmer, the 1982 Invasion was to destroy the "terrorists" and as he shows, the net result was an increase in terrorism from pre-1982 levels.

As a former United Nations Military Observer in southern Lebanon (1987), I found this paper to be balanced and accurate. In many ways it explains what happened to the Israeli Defense Force in the 2006 fight with Hezbollah. But this paper transcends its role as a study of the conflict in Lebanon. It is very much a study of the unconventional versus the conventional. As such it is also quite relevant to US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

V/R

Tom Odom

SWJED
04-30-2007, 03:58 PM
39 April Jerusalem Post - 'Olmert Nade the Decision to go to War Unprepared' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1177591164863&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull).


After months of waiting and speculation, the Winograd Committee's interim report harshly criticizing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and former IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Dan Halutz over their actions during the first five days of the Second Lebanon War was released to the public Monday afternoon.

In conclusions much harsher than those expected ahead of the report's publication, Judge Eliyahu Winograd said in a press conference that "[The committee] established that decisions and the way they were taken suffered from the most severe flaws. We put the responsibility for these flaws on the prime minister, the defense minister and the former chief of staff."...

The prime minister bore supreme and comprehensive responsibility for the decisions of 'his' government and the operations of the IDF, according to the report.

Olmert made up his mind hastily, the report said, without asking for a detailed military plan and without consulting military experts. According to the findings, Olmert made a personal contribution to the fact that the war's goals were "overambitious and unfeasible."...

Stu-6
05-01-2007, 01:30 PM
Has anyone seen an English translation of the full report yet?

SWJED
05-29-2007, 06:57 PM
Haninah Levine e-mailed a link to his Center for Defense Information article Behind the Headlines on the Winograd Commission’s Interim Report (http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=3969&from_page=../program/document.cfm).


In late April, the Winograd Commission, appointed by the Israeli government last September to examine the events of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, published its interim report. Media coverage of the interim report, which is not yet available in English, has focused mostly on the commission’s harsh evaluation of the nation’s civilian leaders, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

The 170-page document offers far more than just a report card on these politicians’ performance, however. It examines the behavior of the military, the government, the National Security Council, and even the media and the electorate over a six-year period which begins with Israel’s May 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon and ends on July 17, 2006, nearly a week into the war. It is both uncompromisingly honest and scrupulously fair, offering a 15-page discussion of “The Principles of Responsibility” and weighing at every turn the balance between individual, collective and institutional responsibility and plain bad luck. (The breadth of the commission’s findings reflects its composition, which includes Israel’s leading experts on public administration and human and civil rights law alongside two reserve generals.)...

Tom Odom
05-30-2007, 01:13 PM
Lesson One: Western militaries are in active denial concerning the limitations of precision weapons...

Well I would certainly agree with that one. I saw a report yesterday on use two precision 155mm rounds against an AQ safehouse. The officer discussing the strike was an artilleryman and he was of course enthusiastic. The report did not however offer an assessment on collateral effects. To the FA guy's credit he pointed out that the real benefit from precision munitions was their efficiency in destroying the target, not the "surgical" capability that is often associated with such weapons. But back to the Israeli report..


Between Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 and the morning of July 12, 2006, when a cross-border attack by Hezbollah militants left three Israeli soldiers dead and two kidnapped, Israel’s policy towards the terrorist organization was, in its own words, one of “containment.” In practice, “containment” meant extreme restraint in response to acts of provocation. This restraint was justified by a simple calculus: in the IDF’s official estimation, Israel’s precision air and artillery forces could not suppress Hezbollah’s offensive rocket forces, which meant that any military action against Hezbollah was likely to provoke sustained rocket fire into Israel’s interior which could be suppressed in turn only with a costly invasion of the Hezbollah heartland.

This really gets back to longstanding issues with the IDF and its use of artillery and air in conventional combat. 1956 when the IDF attacked Egypt to threaten the Suez Canal so the British and French would have an excuse to seize it to "protect it" was the IDF's first attempt at sweeping maneuver warfare. They ran into problems at Abu Agheila and in the Mitla Pass. They lacked artillery and the IAF was not sufficiently oriented to ground support to offset it. 1967 of course the IAF lead the way and then ruled the skies over the battlefield after eleimnating the Arab air forces. Israeli tactical thinking saw fixed wing air as flying artillery, used against point targets. In 1973 that cost them because the IAF had to abandon the air space over the canal and the Golan at times due to the SAM threat. Without that CAS, Israeli ground commanders had difficulty suppressing AT systems; IDF armor carried HEAT and SABOT rounds, not HE. Sagger and RPG gunners in the hundreds were difficult targets. Some of these faults were readdressed before the 82 Invasion of Lebanon; the IDF got 155mm SP and rotary wing attack aircraft from us and elsewhere. The IAF of course unraveled the SAM issue as well. In consequence, the 82 invasion even with the Syrian entry did not see artillery used as massed fires etc. During my tour in Lebanon in 87, I saw the same thing. The IDF FA units would practice hipshoots and actually fire missions but they were selectively used. There was still very much reliance on air--including rotary air--to hit select targets.

With Hizballah's ability to use low tech launch systems, the calculus cited in this report sound very much like the conundrum facing the Israellis on the conventional battlefield in 1973 and in the unconventional battlefield I observed in 1987.

Best

Tom

FascistLibertarian
05-30-2007, 02:46 PM
I think one of the non-explicit lessons is that you have to prepare for the wars you might have to fight not only the wars you wish to fight.

The other lessons are
Lesson Two: There are real consequences to overstretching a military

Lesson Three: Rhetorical praise for the troops must not interfere with honest assessment of their abilities

I think all of these lessons are valid and are of importance for all wars not just last summers war.

Tom Odom
05-30-2007, 07:07 PM
I think one of the non-explicit lessons is that you have to prepare for the wars you might have to fight not only the wars you wish to fight.

No doubt and absolutely the hardest lesson for most militaries to learn--very much in line with the old saw, "preparing for the last war."

The others are also on target; I was just struck by the techno/precision fires issue as it plays out inside the IDF after watching them for so many years.

Tom

MattC86
11-28-2007, 02:12 AM
I'm eagerly looking for stuff on the Lebanon War of 2006, but I know it's too early - all I've found are some articles online, and some interesting stuff about Hezbollah's anti-tank exploits using the RPG-29 (which apparently is one nasty mother).

Anyone know of anything in the works or available?

Matt

Jedburgh
11-28-2007, 03:48 AM
I'm eagerly looking for stuff on the Lebanon War of 2006, but I know it's too early - all I've found are some articles online, and some interesting stuff about Hezbollah's anti-tank exploits using the RPG-29 (which apparently is one nasty mother).

Anyone know of anything in the works or available?
If you haven't already, I recommend you peruse the Hezbollah TTP (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=1034) thread in the MidEast forum, you will find member-posted links to several substantive articles and papers.

The Hezbollah: A Win For 'The Best Guerrilla Force in the World'? (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=1109) thread also has some bits worth reading through, although the content of that thread tends more towards op-ed and commentary than the first one.

SteveMetz
11-28-2007, 10:00 AM
I'm eagerly looking for stuff on the Lebanon War of 2006, but I know it's too early - all I've found are some articles online, and some interesting stuff about Hezbollah's anti-tank exploits using the RPG-29 (which apparently is one nasty mother).

Anyone know of anything in the works or available?

Matt

Don't know if this (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=260) is linked in the threads mentioned, but it is very good. There's also a number of interesting comments and links at http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/

JeffWolf
11-28-2007, 07:23 PM
First, two apologies:

1) That I seem to have been tardy in posting, and thus the thread seems to have proceeded beyond the topic;

and

(2) That perhaps this would be better posted in the thread Jedburgh noted; relatedly, apologies if some of these links have already been posted in that thread.

Apologies stated,

Some sources are:

The Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies (Tel Aviv U) - albeit with a new name - has articles on the war in its journal, Strategic Assessment: http://www.inss.org.il/publications.php?cat=68&incat=&read=839#9.3. It also has some books out or coming out, but those appear to be Hebrew-only.

The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Volume 20, Issue 4, pages 583-601, December 2007) has "Israel's Military Intelligence Performance in the Second Lebanon War," by Uri Bar-Joseph.

Apparently the Journal of Strategic Studies will be publishing an award-winning article, and posting it online for free, in its January 2008 issue: Avi Kober, "The IDF in the Second Lebanon War: Why the Poor Performance?" http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01402390.asp.

Tony Cordesman had a nice, long lessons-learned on the war posted soon after it ended, but I can't seem to find it on the CSIS website: my hunch is they wanted to ensure this book - http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,4168/ - would sell. If you want, private message me, as I downloaded a copy when it was downloadable.

It appears preliminary findings of the Winograd Commission are available:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/854051.html

Parameters had two articles in its Spring 2007 issue:
"The 2006 Lebanon War: Lessons Learned” by Sarah E. Kreps
“Israel’s Uncertain Strategic Future” by Louis René Beres
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/07spring/contents.htm

Regards
Jeff

MattC86
11-28-2007, 09:15 PM
Thanks to whomever (Jedburgh, I presume) for moving this to its proper location - I won't miss that again.

And a bigger thanks for the guidance - lots of good stuff. I always appreciate people putting up with my neediness.

Matt

Rex Brynen
01-31-2008, 02:52 AM
"Winograd lays blame for war failings on IDF (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/949764.html)," Ha'aretz, 31 January 2007.


The final Winograd Committee report on the Second Lebanon War has categorically laid blame for the failings in the war on the Israel Defense Forces - criticizing nearly every arm and unit. With particular reference to the ground forces, the committee wrote, "They failed to meet most of the missions and challenges they were assigned."

Full report here (http://www.vaadatwino.org.il/pdf/%E3%E5%E7%20%F1%E5%F4%E9.pdf) (in Hebrew).

Chris Albon
02-23-2008, 08:02 PM
Anyone know of a good detailed Tactical or Operational History of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War? I am not looking for a political history but rather an account of what happened on the battlefield.

Suggestions?

CR6
03-02-2008, 11:57 AM
Anyone know of a good detailed Tactical or Operational History of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War? I am not looking for a political history but rather an account of what happened on the battlefield.

Suggestions?


Try this (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content?content=10.1080/01402390701785211)

Jedburgh
03-12-2008, 12:05 PM
CSIS, 11 Mar 08: The Lessons of the Israeli-Lebanon War (http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080311_lessonleb-iswar.pdf)

The lessons from the Israeli-Lebanon War in 2006 are now far clearer than they were during the fighting and its immediate aftermath. The war has led to extensive criticism from military experts within Israel, as well as the work of the Winograd Commission. At the same time, the resurgence of the Hezbollah, and its partial rearming, have demonstrated just how difficult it can be to defeat an asymmetric enemy fighting on its own soil and with a popular base.

The attached briefing summarizes these lessons and attempts to put them in the broader context of the key lessons the United States should learn from the Iraq and Afghan conflicts. Examples of these lessons include:

• The need to properly characterize the enemy, the consequences of going to war, and the ability to achieve successful conflict termination: Different as the three wars are, and the conditions under which Israel and the US have fought, they do raise the common lessons that one of the most critical single choices in war is the choice of where, when, and why to fight.

In all three cases, Israel and the United States faced real enemies. At the same time, it is an open question as to whether Israel’s grand strategic failures in characterizing its enemy and the political situation Lebanon were worse than the US failure to understand the nature of the enemy and risks it was dealing with in Afghanistan and Iraq. In all three cases, both Israel and the US also went to war without a credible plan for conflict termination and for dealing with the aftermath of the wars they chose to fight.

• The need for realism in assessing the ability to use airpower. At a tactical level, Israel placed reliance on air power that cannot be compared to the way the US has used air power in the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, but which repeated many of the miscalculations about the ability of strategic bombing to achieve decisive political and military effects that characterized at least some of the strategic air and interdiction campaign in the Gulf War in 2001. These limits to airpower are as old as, Douhet but they are lessons that military forces seem to have to constant relearn

There are other lessons more unique to the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict that may serve as a warning of the shape of things come in Afghanistan and Iraq, or in future conflicts. One was how ineffective most IAF close air support sorties were in dealing with a Hezbollah that could take advantage of tunnels, sheltered buildings, and well-prepared concealment.

• The dangers of “proliferating” advanced light weapons to asymmetric and insurgent forces: Another warning comes from the Hezbollah use of advanced anti-tank weapons; manportable and light surface-to-air missiles, and anti-ship missiles. The situation in both Iraq and Afghanistan would be very different if the US and its allies faced anything like the same threat. It could have a major impact on the use of tactical airpower, but it would raise far more serious questions about the value of uparmoring and the security of tactical and logistic movements.

The attached brief explores a wide range of additional lessons, including the lessons regarding readiness and training, warfare in built-up areas, and missile and rocket attacks and defense.....
Complete 63-slide briefing in pdf at the link.

Tom Odom
03-12-2008, 12:50 PM
If there is a lesson here, it is that it <has> been clear from Douhet to the present that the advocates of airpower have no better political understanding of this aspect of airpower than any man on the street and probably less. They tend to sharply exaggerate its ability to influence or intimidate leaders and politicians, and act as a weapon of political warfare.

Amen Brother Cordesman

Ken White
03-12-2008, 02:54 PM
"...it would raise far more serious questions about the value of uparmoring and the security of tactical and logistic movements."

I think he agrees with me that all this MRAP overkill is of little long term value...

Tom Odom
03-12-2008, 09:05 PM
Latest history lesson I sent out.



"The lackluster performance of the IDF in the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli war was the result of a multiplicity of factors. Halutz’s steadfast confidence in air power, coupled with his disdain for land warfare, increased the strength of the IAF at the expense of the ground forces. While continuing COIN operations against the Palestinians, the IDF saw its budget for ground forces slashed and training for major combat operations by divisions and brigades greatly reduced. Within the IDF reserve, equipment was not replaced or repaired, and the tactical skills of both reserve and regular ground forces continued to decline. Training for reserve tank crewmen was all but forgotten...

... The missteps committed by the IDF in this war provide the US Army with valuable examples of potential difficulties when counterinsurgency operations are abruptly changed to major combat operations. For the US Army, which has been almost exclusively involved in irregular warfare for years, this issue is of paramount importance. While the US Army must be proficient in conducting major combat operations around the world, it is possible that years of irregular operations have chipped away at this capability, not unlike the situation encountered by the IDF."

This history lesson looks at the Combat Studies Institute's Occasional Paper #26 We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War by Matt M. Matthews. It makes a great follow up to OP21 Flipside of the COIN: Israel's Lebanese Incursion Between 1982-2000 by Daniel Isaac Helmer.

Matthew's monograph is interesting reading. This is a study of a military in war befuddled by confusion in its own doctrine and its own reputation. The introduction above offers ample reason to read this book. I would also offer a couple of caveats to this study. Armies develop cultural trends over the years of their existence and the IDF is no different. As a military built around short wars and aversion to casualties, the IDF has since 1948 put its greatest emphasis on the Israeli Air Force and its second greatest emphasis on its armored forces. Aside from certain units, infantry has been a distant third. Combined arms operations using all elements in concert has not been a hallmark of IDF operations. So as you read this understand that, while years of irregular operations in the territories exacerbated these tendencies, those traits did not necessarily originate there.

Secondly I would add emphasis to certain points. The IDF and Hezbollah have nearly a quarter century of history as enemies. It is true enough that Hezbollah was well supported and supplied by Syria and Iran over that period; it is also equally true that Hezbollah has remained very much a Lebanon-centric organization. As such it has had repeated opportunities to study previous IDF incursions and occupations of the area contested in this particular war. It is terrain that favors the determined and prepared defender. As a UN Observer in 1987 I watched these two antagonists spar repeatedly. Hezbollah began preparing for this match before the IDF pulled back in 2000. Finally I would say that while confusion of doctrine played a large role in this episode, the alternatives discussed concerning a rapid push to the Litani River to "demolish Hezbollah in six days" are just as disconnected from the reality of southern Lebanon as EBO and SOD proved to be.

You may download a copy at CSI (http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/csi/RandP/CSIpubs.asp#LongWar)
Best

Tom

Ski
03-13-2008, 12:37 AM
Thanks for the link, I have found Cordesman to be one of the most honest and realistic observers of the wars of the early 21st Century

William F. Owen
03-13-2008, 07:25 AM
Thanks for the link, I have found Cordesman to be one of the most honest and realistic observers of the wars of the early 21st Century

...and I used to agree with that, till I saw these slides. While what he writes is vastly more accurate than I have seen in most open sources, there are some omissions, and some mistakes that indicate that this may have been a bit of a "rush job."

For example, the IDF had working examples of every ATGM and AT weapon they encountered in the Lebanon, prior to the war. They weren't "got by Military intelligence". They just went out on the market and brought them.

The statement "swarming works" indicates a lack of tactical and operational understanding and I don't think he would ever make that comment to a professional military audience.

IMO, the J.P. Storr article in the RUSI journal remains the most accurate and measured assessment of the ground war.

slapout9
03-13-2008, 07:37 AM
Have to agree with Wilf on this one. The IDF report calling it Stand Off Fire Power operations is a more accurate title and description. It had little or nothing to do with EBO. However don't make the mistake that Air Power cannot be used to influence Political Leadership. The Air Strike against Syria (that never happened) where they turned off their entire Air Defense system to directly attack their target and then tell Syria to keep their mouth shut is good example of what can be done.

Also Tom Odom don't you think this was a good example of Fortified Compound Warfare? (from Hezbollah's point of view)

slapout9
03-13-2008, 08:07 AM
Excellent report especially the their 13 principles of war. And like I have always said the enemy understands exactly what EBO is....we don't.:eek:

William F. Owen
03-13-2008, 08:39 AM
As this subject is extremely dear to my heart, I submit that this is a fascinating document and mostly a very useful one. However,


Out of the 400 tanks involved in the fighting in southern Lebanon, 48 were hit, 40 were damaged, and 20 penetrated. It is believed that five Merkavas were completely destroyed.
Clearly, Hezbollah has mastered the art of light infantry/ATGM tactics against heavy mechanized forces.

In context, out of 400 MBTs
48 MBTs hit - 12% hit
40 damaged – 10 % damaged.
20 penetrated – 5% penetrated.
5 destroyed. - 1.25% destroyed.

These were achieved over 30 days in the some of the best anti-tank terrain on the planet. These are, as I understand it, overall loss rates, from IED/Mine, ATGM and RPG. I know from my own sources that 2 of the total losses were IED and one to an AT-3.

Rank amateur
03-13-2008, 12:45 PM
As this subject is extremely dear to my heart, I submit that this is a fascinating document and mostly a very useful one. However,



In context, out of 400 MBTs
48 MBTs hit - 12% hit
40 damaged – 10 % damaged.
20 penetrated – 5% penetrated.
5 destroyed. - 1.25% destroyed.

These were achieved over 30 days in the some of the best anti-tank terrain on the planet. These are, as I understand it, overall loss rates, from IED/Mine, ATGM and RPG. I know from my own sources that 2 of the total losses were IED and one to an AT-3.

Out of the 48 hit: 83 % were damaged, 42% were penetrated and 10% were destroyed.

Tom Odom
03-13-2008, 12:51 PM
These were achieved over 30 days in the some of the best anti-tank terrain on the planet.

Absolutely correct. South Lebanon is deceptive in that what appear to moderate hills are actually limestone formations riven with deep cuts and switch backs. It is an AT-gunner's field of dreams.

This part of Lebanon is after all part of the Great Rift Valley as it reaches for the European land mass. In fact the Litani River Valley is the migratory route for African raptors; that little tidbit came to me from a 55 year old Norweigian reservist who had volunteered for OGL because bird--and especially hawk and falcon--watching was his passion.

Best

Tom

To give you an idea of how close things are I posted a pic of the IDF brigade Hqs in 1987 I took from the observation deck of OP Hin. The IDF Hqs straddled the border. Op Hin is just inside Lebanon oriented south and we had a hilltop IDF position just behind us which overlooked Bint Jbeil, which in 1987 was most definitely "Indian Country".

Tom Odom
03-13-2008, 12:58 PM
Also Tom Odom don't you think this was a good example of Fortified Compound Warfare? (from Hezbollah's point of view)

To a certain degree, yes, with Hezbollah as irregulars in prepared defenses. It would be a much closer match had their been a regular force afeild or at least poised to take the field. The Syrians are not that stupid.

Best

Tom

William F. Owen
03-13-2008, 01:35 PM
Also Tom Odom don't you think this was a good example of Fortified Compound Warfare? (from Hezbollah's point of view)

Fortified Compound Warfare? Please explain. Is this another name for "hedgehog" or "Stellunghund" defensive systems?

Tom Odom
03-13-2008, 01:51 PM
Here is an anthology on the subject


Compound Warfare: An Anthology, Thomas M. Huber, editor. Final Version. (PDF) (http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/compound_warfare.pdf)

In the long history of warfare, a recurring theme is the combined use of regular and irregular forces to pursue victory. The American colonists relied upon regular Continental Army troops and local militia in their war for independence. British troops commanded by Wellington fought alongside Spanish peasant guerrillas against Napoleon in Spain. The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong organized local militia units, regional forces, and a regular army for use in their struggle to topple the Nationalist government. In these and many other cases, the practice of employing regular and irregular forces together was not only applied, but also instrumental in bringing victory to the side that at the beginning of the conflict seemed clearly inferior to its opponent.

In 1996, in an article entitled “Napoleon in Spain,” Dr. Thomas M. Huber of the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) coined the term “compound warfare” to describe this phenomenon of regular and irregular forces fighting in concert, as he examined the reasons for Napoleon’s failure to pacify the Iberian Peninsula. The article, written to support CSI’s course in modern warfare at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, received high praise from student officers, from the CSI faculty, and from the Institute’s director at the time, Colonel Jerry Morelock. Impressed by Dr. Huber’s analysis of the synergistic effects achieved by Wellington’s British Army and Spanish guerrillas as they worked together against Napoleon’s forces, Col. Morelock suggested that other members of CSI examine examples of this pattern of warfare in other times and places. This book is a compilation of their studies.

William F. Owen
03-13-2008, 03:18 PM
Here is an anthology on the subject

Aha! Many thanks.

Jedburgh
09-29-2008, 09:09 PM
SSI, 25 Sep 08:
The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy (https://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB882.pdf)

Hezbollah’s conduct of its 2006 campaign in southern Lebanon has become an increasingly important case for the U.S. defense debate. Some see the future of warfare as one of nonstate opponents employing irregular methods, and advocate a sweeping transformation of the U.S. military to meet such threats. Others point to the 2006 campaign as an example of a nonstate actor nevertheless waging a state-like conventional war, and argue that a more traditional U.S. military posture is needed to deal with such enemies in the future.

This monograph, by Dr. Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations and Mr. Jeffrey Friedman, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, seeks to inform this debate by examining in detail Hezbollah’s conduct of the 2006 campaign. The authors use evidence collected from a series of 36 primary source interviews with Israeli participants in the fighting who were in a position to observe Hezbollah’s actual behavior in the field in 2006, coupled with deductive inference from observable Hezbollah behavior in the field to findings for their larger strategic intent for the campaign.
Complete 110-page paper at the link.

William F. Owen
06-27-2009, 01:34 PM
Read the 2nd Paragraph (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/26/this_week_at_war_no_22).
So,

Israel's brief, violent, and ultimately inconclusive war against Hezbollah in 2006 is the new prototype guiding the Pentagon's war-planning process. "Hybrid warfare" -- a non-state actor's sophisticated employment of terrorism, conventional military action, propaganda, cyberwarfare, and high-technology weapons -- is now the focus of attention inside the Pentagon's policy office.
So the Hezbollah are the prototype?
This is a guerilla group, that;

Can't use guided missiles
Lost most of its long range SSMs in air strikes
Can't use MANPADS
Could only launch two of it's anti-ship missiles.
Tried to hold ground - and failed
Can't conduct counter attacks
Can't fight in built up areas
Can't patrol
Abandons most of its equipment without destroying it
Can't use mortars properly
Can only get 25% of it's SR SSMs to hit built up areas
Has given up conducting military action against Israel for the 3 years since the war.

To quote an IDF friend of mine, "There must be two Hezbollahs. The one I fought and the other one the US studied."

Personally, I believe the best information operations coup Hezbollah pulled off, was getting the Pentagon to believe they are better than the facts and the evidence show. It's either that or some folks just want to see the things that promote their personal agendas.

Jedburgh
06-27-2009, 01:45 PM
CSI, May 09: Back to Basics: A Study of the Second Lebanon War and Operation CAST LEAD (http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/farquhar.pdf)

.....The IDF Operation CAST LEAD against Hamas in 2008-09 was a small scale affair in comparison to the multi-division attack into Lebanon in 2006. The former operation, however, restored confidence in both the government and armed forces in the eyes of the Israeli populace. The reforms of the year and a half between conflicts paid great dividends to Israeli soldiers and aircrews. It also demonstrated Israeli resolve, created a schism in the Muslim Middle East and is only one of a series of escalations in what is becoming a very dangerous conflict in the region......

William F. Owen
06-27-2009, 02:58 PM
CSI, May 09: Back to Basics: A Study of the Second Lebanon War and Operation CAST LEAD (http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/farquhar.pdf)

Only read the First Chapter. I'd treat it with extreme caution. Quite a lot is plain wrong, not understood, or is based on opinion. Critical detail has also been omitted.
If anyone wants blow by blow details I'm happy to pitch in. The list is long!
Footnotes indicate that research was done on the internet or some e-mails with guys I know well. Basically little or no original research.

Ken White
06-27-2009, 04:30 PM
several things stood out.

From the Introduction:
"American professional military personnel are well-acquainted with “the arrogant show of strength” that was Task Force Smith in Korea in the summer of 1950 and of its fate."Any American professional military person who looks at Task Force Smith as an arrogant show of strength is badly -- really badly -- deluded. It was not any such thing, it was a rapidly thrown together and poorly designed effort to send a message and its likelihood of success was known to be poor.

These items from the final chapter:
"The US in contrast develops campaigns that have an enduring endstate. The concepts of campaigns and strategies that involve unified action are part of a comprehensive campaign that brings with it allies, coalitions, and regional partners."How has that worked out for us...

Then there's this exercise in wishful thinking:
"The lack of a National Strategy related to strategic influence impedes the Department of Defense and military services."One must recall that we have elections every two years; each of these has had and will have some effect, possibly quite subtle, on all our attempts at a coherent national strategy. While such an object would be beneficial, the likelihood of having one is slim. Thus, DoD and the service had better be prepared to adapt -- and to give sensible, competent advice on probabilities to the politicians.

Lastly, this is scary. Do we really want a Gestapo?
"Establish dedicated OPSEC planning and assessment specialists to manage the process and programs for the commander." :D

Hacksaw
06-27-2009, 05:10 PM
Ken,

I was with you all the way up to the last comment (which of course you concluded with :D) so I'll take it with a grain of salt.

The first and one of the best lessons I learned as a planner, was always always avoid hyperbole and emotion filled language if it is your intent to communicate effectively....

All the places where you found fault were examples of just that... either over stating the case or unwarranted chest thumping... then,...

You threw in the Gestapo comment :rolleyes:...

Not sure having a dedicated person to implement and enforce a command program like OPSEC equates to the Gestapo ;)

Melting in a Kansas heat wave

Ken White
06-27-2009, 09:03 PM
Sort of. It was semi serious...:wry:


I was with you all the way up to the last comment (which of course you concluded with :D) so I'll take it with a grain of salt.
...
All the places where you found fault were examples of just that... either over stating the case or unwarranted chest thumping... True and me too; it's taken me 20 years to get to the point where I'll underline or otherwise highlight a word. With that document there were several more excellent targets but I figured only a couple would do...
then...You threw in the Gestapo comment...
Not sure having a dedicated person to implement and enforce a command program like OPSEC equates to the Gestapo ;)OpSec is EVERYONE'S business (he hyperbolized and highlighted) and IMO should be, it strikes me that an OpSec person has the same flaw as the Master Gunner program -- create an expert and suddenly many say "I don't have to know or do this, he/she'll take care of it."

That would lead, I believe, to a rapidly worsening OpSec picture in most units which would cause the Master OpSecker to crack down, probably with only marginal success -- and probably too late. The Gestapo bit was mostly tongue in cheek but they after all had one mission of insuring secrets stayed secret... :eek:

Basically, I think it's a really bad and quite unnecessary idea on several levels...
Melting in a Kansas heat waveNo sympathy. Heat Index here 109, humididitity is 88 (feels like 99.9). Though it is supposed to cool off for the next few days...

crisselvin
07-11-2009, 09:10 AM
Israel accepted that the earlier attacks on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel (http://samsonblinded.org/news/) account for its war crimes

William F. Owen
07-11-2009, 09:16 AM
Israel accepted that the earlier attacks on the threat to its security, even that against Lebanon in 1982. However, its assault on Gaza was not justified and there are international calls for an investigation. But is there the political will to make Israel (http://samsonblinded.org/news/) account for its war crimes

a.) Who says Operation Cast Lead was not justified? Ever had rockets shot at your home?

b.) How come only Israel should be held answerable for war crimes, given the level of civilian deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

c.) Why reference an extremist website as being typical of the views of Israelis.

You might want to tell us all, who you are where you are coming from on this.

Zack
08-30-2009, 11:22 PM
Hello, not sure if this was the correct section for this, but if not I will move it.

I am just beginning research for my MA thesis, which (I think) will be about the use of air power against irregular foes, and how effective that is. I had initially planned on doing at least 2 case studies, but time constraints on both myself and my Professors (thesis is capped at around 60pgs, otherwise professors get cranky) it will just focus on the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. I am looking for additions to what I have collected so far to read, and the general structure I plan on using (still up in the air to a degree though).

Books:
Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists by James Corum and Wray Johnson
Lessons of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War by Anthony Cordesman (from CSIS)
The War in Lebanon: A Reader edited by Nubar Hovsepian
34 Days by Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
Bombing to Win by Robert Pape
The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare by Stephen Biddle and Jeffery Friedman
How Democracies Lose Small Wars by Gil Merom
Back to Basics: A Study of the Second Lebanon War and Operation "Cast Lead" by LTC Scott Farquhar
Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21st Century
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife by John Nagl
Tradgedy in South Lebanon: The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006 by Cathy Sultan
The 33 Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences
Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Infidatas: Dilemmas of a Conventional Army by Sergi Catignani
Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers by TV Paul

Articles:
On Proportionality of Countermeasures in International Law by Thomas Franck (American Journal of International Law)
Lebanon: Securing a Permanent Cease-Fire (Hearing before the Senate CFR)
Lebanon: The Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah Conflict (Congressional Research Service)
Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah War (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
Who Really Won the Second Lebanon War by Michael Totten (Commentary Magazine)
Hizballah at War: A Military Assessment by Andrew Exum (Washington Institute..)
Israel's Uncertain Strategic Future by Louis Rene Beres (Parameters)
When Close Doesn't Count: An Analysis of Israel's Jus Ad Bellum and Jus in Bello in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War by Major Bottoms (The Army Lawyer)
Crisis in the Levant: Lebanon at Risk by William Harris (Mediterranean Quarterly)
Between Victory and Defeat: Israel after the War with Hezbollah by Dov Waxman (CSIS)
Surprise and Terrorism: A Conceptual Framework by Daniel Morris (Journal of Strategic Studies)
Thoughts on "Hybrid" Conflict (SWJ)
The 2006 Lebanon War: Lessons Learned by Sarah Kreps (Parameters)
How Israel Bungled the Second Lebanon War by Efraim Inbar (Middle East Quarterly)
Hezbollah's Strategic Threat to Israel by Patrick Devenny (Middle East Quarterly)
Has Hezbollah's Rise Come at Syria's Expense? by Robert Rabil (Middle East Quarterly)
The End of Israeli Military Restraint by Or Honig (ME Quarterly)
The Psychological Asymmetry of Islamist Warfare by Irwin Mansdorf and Mordechai Kedar (MEQ)
Nasrallah's Defeat in the 2006 War by Eyal Zisser (MEQ)
Missile War is a new Challenge to Israel's Long Rule in the Sky by Scott Wilson (Washington Post)
Short '06 War Stokes Pentagon Debate by Greg Jaffe (WP)
Look Not to the Skies: The IAF vs. Surface to Surface Rocket Launchers by Noam Ophir (Institute for National Security Studies)
Back to Ground Rules: Some Limitations of Airpower in the Lebanon War by Noam Ophir (INSS)
The Limits of Coercive Airpower by Daniel Lake (International Security)
From Conflict Management to Conflict Resolution by Edward Djerejian (Foreign Affairs)
The Future of Lebanon by Paul Salem (Foreign Affairs)
Israel's War with Iran by Ze'ev Schiff (Foreign Affairs)
The End of Proportionality by Jonathan Keiler (Parameters)


The way I plan on breaking it down is:
Chapter 1: Intro to conflict, casus belli
Chapter 2: Theories of airpower & insurgency/counterinsurgency
Chapter 3: Capabilities of Hezbollah and IDF/IAF
Chapter 4: Decision making before/during/after war

If anybody has any additions to my reading list (or things I should remove), or any suggestions about my chapter breakdown, I would be grateful.

Pattonmat89
08-30-2009, 11:48 PM
...that this is totally relevant, but the Strategic Studies Institute published a monograph last year about the Lebanon war. Again, like I said, not sure how much of it you can use, but who knows? I haven't read it in about a year. As the great Robert Jordan used to say, "Read and find out."

https://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=882

Zack
08-30-2009, 11:53 PM
...that this is totally relevant, but the Strategic Studies Institute published a monograph last year about the Lebanon war. Again, like I said, not sure how much of it you can use, but who knows? I haven't read it in about a year. As the great Robert Jordan used to say, "Read and find out."

https://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=882

I don't know how I missed that. Thanks I will definitely read it.

slapout9
08-31-2009, 12:31 AM
Zack, read The Air Campaign by Colonel John Warden. It is on line and can be downloaded for free. Also read The Enemy as a System by Warden, also, also:) read everything you can by him.

Tukhachevskii
08-31-2009, 12:35 AM
It's good that you've really narrowed the focus of the thesis to what appears to be an operational analysis of the failure of airpower to defeat insurgencies. It might be useful to compare the first Lebanon war with the second one perhaps in Ch. 3. Be thankful that in the North American system you have 60 pages to play with. In the UK the standard MA/MSc thesis is no more than 10,000 words (15-20 if you're lucky!) which means we realy have to narrow down the focus of our thesis. I would recommend that you add the following list to your bibliography;

A. Ibrahim, 'Conceptualisation of Guerrilla Warfare', Small Wars and Insurgecies V15/N3, 2004

Avi Kober, 'From Blitzkrieg to Attrition: Israel's Strategy and Stayiong power', Small Wars and Insurgencies, 16/2, 2005

W. J. Olson, 'War without a Centre of Gravity: Reflections on Terrorism and Post-Modern War', Small Wars and Insurgencies, 18/4, 2007

T. A. Marks, 'Counterinsurgency and Operational Art', Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement , 13/3/2005

G. Raudzens, 'War-Winning Weapons: The Measurment of Technological Determinism in Military History', The Journal of Military History, 54/4, 1990

D. P. Dilegge & M. Van Konynenburg, 'View from the Wolves' Den: The Chechens and Urban Operations', Small Wars and Insugencies, 13/2, 2002. Has some useful insights on Chechen operations and their tactical negation of the effects of Russian airpower.

T. A. Marks, 'Urban Insurgency', Small Wars and Insurgencies, 14/3, 2003

C. Jones, 'Israeli counter-insurgency startegy and the war in South Lebanon 1985-97', Small Wars and Insurgencies, 8/3/, 1997

M. M. Mathews, 'The Israeli Defence Forces Reponse to the 2006 War with Hezbollah: Gaza', Military Review, July-August, 2009. Very good short article on lessons learned.

A. Kober, 'The Israeli Defence Forces in the Second Lebanon War: Why the Poor Performance?', Journal of Strategic Studies, 31/3, 2008

S. Catignani, 'The Strategic Impasse in Low-Intensity Conflict: The Gap Between Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy and Tactics During the Al-Aqsa Intifada', Journal of Strategic Studies, 28/1, 2005

A. Bousquet, 'Chaoplexic Warfare or the Future of Military Organisation', International Affairs, 84/5, 2008

D. Rodman, Combined Arms Warfare in the Israeli Defence Forces: An Historical Overview', Defence Studies, 2/1, 2002

J. Stone, 'Air-Power, Land-Power and the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict', Civil Wars, 2/3, 1999

I assume that you will make the usual deferential mention of Duhet?

All the best

Cavguy
08-31-2009, 01:47 AM
Don't forget:

We Were Caught Unprepared (Combat Studies Institute)
http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/CSI/GWOTPubs.asp

and

"Learning the Right Lessons from Israel's war with Hizbollah"
Combatting Terrorism Center (USMA) Sentinel

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/CTCSentinel-Vol1Iss4.pdf

Zack
08-31-2009, 02:32 AM
Wow thanks guys, I will add all of those to my list. Only problem is my university library does not seem to subscribe to Small Wars and Insurgencies, Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement, defense studies, our subscription to the Journal of Military History only goes back to 1993, and our subscription to Civil Wars only goes back to 2000. :(

Do you know of any other way I could get those articles? If you have them, I would be immensely grateful.

And yes I will of course mention Douhet, Mitchell, & Trenchard, with deference.

Please PM to establish contact. (Moderator removed email address)

Cavguy
08-31-2009, 03:01 AM
Wow thanks guys, I will add all of those to my list. Only problem is my university library does not seem to subscribe to Small Wars and Insurgencies, Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement, defense studies, our subscription to the Journal of Military History only goes back to 1993, and our subscription to Civil Wars only goes back to 2000. :(

Do you know of any other way I could get those articles? If you have them, I would be immensely grateful.

And yes I will of course mention Douhet, Mitchell, & Trenchard, with deference.

If your library has access to JSTOR it should have all of that. Also try Web of Knowledge. Ask a librarian to help.

Zack
08-31-2009, 03:54 AM
If your library has access to JSTOR it should have all of that. Also try Web of Knowledge. Ask a librarian to help.

I have checked both JSTOR and Web of Knowledge, with no luck. I guess we don't have full access to all of JSTOR. If nobody has them and can send them my way I will go see if the librarian can request them for me. Thanks though.

slapout9
08-31-2009, 03:56 AM
I have checked both JSTOR and Web of Knowledge, with no luck. I guess we don't have full access to all of JSTOR. If nobody has them and can send them my way I will go see if the librarian can request them for me. Thanks though.

Send a PM to John T. Fishel he helped start that publication and knows all kinds of stuff about it.


Here is alink to the free version of the Air Campaign by Warden

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/warden/ward-toc.htm

slapout9
08-31-2009, 04:31 AM
Zack, pay special attention to the 5 cases of War. The 2006 war was a case 5 War and Israel violated every principle Warden ever spoke about. This is important because he was and is blamed for a lot of the supposed EBO concepts that were used in the war, not a grain of truth in any of it, it fact (the 2006 war) is an excellent example of what will happen if you don't follow his advice on SBW (Systems Based Warfare).

PS: Afghanistan is a current example of a case 5 War and all the problems that go with it.

Zack
08-31-2009, 05:02 AM
Zack, pay special attention to the 5 cases of War. The 2006 war was a case 5 War and Israel violated every principle Warden ever spoke about. This is important because he was and is blamed for a lot of the supposed EBO concepts that were used in the war, not a grain of truth in any of it, it fact (the 2006 war) is an excellent example of what will happen if you don't follow his advice on SBW (Systems Based Warfare).

PS: Afghanistan is a current example of a case 5 War and all the problems that go with it.

I definitely will, thanks for the tip.

William F. Owen
08-31-2009, 05:37 AM
Zack,

The only advice I would offer about attempting to analysis the 2006 War is be very careful of most Western English language analysis. It almost all contains substantial errors and fallacies.

EG: This from Exum

Yet, in asking how Hizb Allah intercepted Israeli communications during the 2006 war, it is worth noting that in cases when encrypted communication failed, IDF soldiers simply used their personal cellular phones to communicate.
Actually in 2006 all the IDFs formation tactical radios were VHF/FM, with no encryption. Any actual knowledge of the IDF would have told him that.
Hezbollah only ever attempted to break one form of IDF encryption and in doing so compromised the attempt, thus it was countered.
This is one minor example.

Some of what has come out of CAC and other similar sources is also of doubtful veracity and usefulness.

Stephen Biddle's analysis (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=882)(also not great but the best yet) is actually the only one I know that has any credibility because it used first hand sources.

To be constructive, I know a few of the men actually involved in the operational planning of the war in 2006, so if you PM me, I'll happily pass on questions. - so if you really want to know about the IDF using EBO, they can tell you first hand.

The single biggest issue (and the one not written about in English) with the 2006 Lebanon War was a failure to stick to the plan, because the plan kept being micro-managed at the Political level, and that casts doubts on the actually political objectives. IMO, it is an absolute case study of ignoring Clausewitz's observations.

Yes, lots of tactical problems, but again, everyone misses the political and economic dimensions that created the conditions where those became a problem - no time or money to train for proper combat operations - and huge faith in Air Power/EBO.

Zack
08-31-2009, 05:45 AM
Ok cool, I will keep an eye out for that. Hopefully what I am reading will be enough that I will be able to pick up on that sort of stuff. Maybe you guys can help me fact check a bit when I get to writing.

Tukhachevskii
08-31-2009, 10:14 AM
Zack,


The single biggest issue (and the one not written about in English) with the 2006 Lebanon War was a failure to stick to the plan, because the plan kept being micro-managed at the Political level, and that casts doubts on the actually political objectives. IMO, it is an absolute case study of ignoring Clausewitz's observations.

Yes, lots of tactical problems, but again, everyone misses the political and economic dimensions that created the conditions where those became a problem - no time or money to train for proper combat operations - and huge faith in Air Power/EBO.

I'd like to add that the 2006 war also showed up the doctrinal imbroglio (?) of the transition from standard wafighting to Shimon Naveh's rather appropriately entitled concept of SOD. From the commentaries I have read a large number of IDF staff officers were flumoxed by it and operations proceeded on the basis of EBO/RMA/NCW concepts when actually simply killing the enemy and taking his ground would have been more appropraite (i.e., classical warfare). This is, of course, in addition to the civil-military chaos Wilf mentions above. The article in Military Review presents this case rather well IMO (and is free to download).

William F. Owen
08-31-2009, 10:45 AM
From the commentaries I have read a large number of IDF staff officers were flumoxed by it and operations proceeded on the basis of EBO/RMA/NCW concepts when actually simply killing the enemy and taking his ground would have been more appropraite (i.e., classical warfare).

This is exactly that 90% of folks have missed. The IDF have been doctrinally crippled by a bunch of avant-garde concepts, either home grown or from the US. The flow down from that was sets of mission verbs which made no sense, and tactical actions that were often irrelevant.

Gian P Gentile
08-31-2009, 10:51 AM
Zack:

I didnt see it on your original list and also didnt see it on the posts suggesting other readings (although I may have missed it) but you should have a look at the work and thinking of Shimon Naveh, the Israeli GO, and so-called intellectual father of IDF thinking about war prior to 2006. He is mentioned briefly in the works by Matthews and Kober and others. Many of the critiques of the IDF in Lebanon at one point or another trace their way back to what some analysts see as the pernicious influence of Naveh and his purportedly whack-job ideas about theory and practice in war.

A place to start might be this interview with Naveh in Haaretz. (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917158.html)

Wilf might have some things to add in this regard too.

gian

William F. Owen
08-31-2009, 11:00 AM
Many of the critiques of the IDF in Lebanon at one point or another trace their way back to what some analysts see as the pernicious influence of Naveh and his purportedly whack-job ideas about theory and practice in war.

Naveh is indeed the father of SOD and very few officers in the IDF do not have a very strong opinion about him, or his teaching. Yes his influence was huge

.... and he is also apparently a driving power behind Operational Design and FM3!- so fear not! The wackiness lives on!

Tukhachevskii
08-31-2009, 11:02 AM
The Combat Studies Institute also has an interview with Naveh which was posted at the small wars journal website here

smallwarsjournal.com/documents/mattmatthews.pdf

Regarding SOD and the 2006 war his take on events was that no-one in the IDF was cleverer (!) enough to understand his conceptual schema. His invective against IDF Gen. Dan Halutz (formerly of the IAF) is revealing in this regard. Understandibly when one frames one's ideas in an esoteric vocabulary properly belonging to those who were berets and frequent Parisian Cafes what do you expect?

Rex Brynen
08-31-2009, 12:20 PM
Zack,

EG: This from Exum

Actually in 2006 all the IDFs formation tactical radios were VHF/FM, with no encryption. Any actual knowledge of the IDF would have told him that.
Hezbollah only ever attempted to break one form of IDF encryption and in doing so compromised the attempt, thus it was countered.
This is one minor example.

Actually, in the quote in question, Ex isn't saying anything about Hizbullah breaking Israeli military encryption. Rather, he is saying that when communications failures arose, IDF personnel used their cellphones to communicate instead. He's correctly implying that the GSM cellphones in use by the great majority of Israelis (IDF soldiers included) are unencrypted and hence extremely vulnerable to intercept--which is why, on more than one occasion, the IDF has issued warnings to military personnel about this.

/nitpick

William F. Owen
08-31-2009, 12:45 PM
Ex isn't saying anything about Hizbullah breaking Israeli military encryption. Rather, he is saying that when communications failures arose, IDF personnel used their cellphones to communicate instead. He's correctly implying that the GSM cellphones in use by the great majority of Israelis (IDF soldiers included) are unencrypted and hence extremely vulnerable to intercept--which is why, on more than one occasion, the IDF has issued warnings to military personnel about this.


Quote.

Yet, in asking how Hizb Allah intercepted Israeli communications during the 2006 war, it is worth noting that in cases when encrypted communication failed, IDF soldiers simply used their personal cellular phones to communicate.

OK, but at the below unit level, the normal formations of the IDF did not have any encryption to fail. Some still used PRC-77!! You can listen to it on a commercial scanner. Bear in mind the UK VHF military comms system was totally open until they got that POS Bowman in 2005.

The cellphone conversations intercepted where soldiers civilians cell-phones that were being relayed through cell sites in the Lebanon. My cell phone frequently hops to Jordanian networks, when I'm on the West Bank. This is frequently alleged that the broke IDF encryption. It's simply not true.
The calls concerned were mostly to families and not operational communications (though in extremes some may have been)

The IDF military cell phone network is secure and comes from the US!

Rex Brynen
08-31-2009, 01:04 PM
Some still used PRC-77!!

Ahh , the 77-set.. that brings back some semi-fond memories. :rolleyes:

Yes, the IDF cellular system is based on the Motorola TETRA system.

William F. Owen
08-31-2009, 01:09 PM
Yes, the IDF cellular system is based on the Motorola TETRA system.
OK. I'm impressed. Bang goes my feeble attempt at OPSEC. :wry:

KingsofWar
07-06-2010, 10:27 PM
Hi guys,

Just started my MA thesis on the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war and am unsure about my outline. My idea is to answer the following three questions:
1)Was the war inevitable, regardless of whether Israel kidnapped soldiers or not?
2)How was a relatively small resistance group able to effectively challenge the Middle East's strongest military power?
3)How important was the war in reshaping the political and military relationship between Israel and Hezbollah? Iran, Syria, the United States?

These questions could be answered in three chapters,
1)Buildup to war from 2000-2006, including unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Intifada, Gaza, change in Israeli leadership etc...
2)Hezbollah's guerrilla tactics during the war. Israel's mistakes and weaknesses.
3)Post Bellum. The war's local, regional, and international implications.

Is this feasible for a 15,000 word (45-page) paper? Should a chapter be added on Hezbollah and Israeli military doctrine? Or how about the proxy aspect of the war? That being Hezbollah's ties with Syria and Iran and Israel's strong ties to the United States.

I've found about 30 good references so far, but are there any MUST reads?

I've never written something like this, so thank you for any advice you can give.

William F. Owen
07-07-2010, 04:51 AM
Hi guys,
1)Was the war inevitable, regardless of whether Israel kidnapped soldiers or not?
Which soldiers did Israel kidnap?

2)How was a relatively small resistance group able to effectively challenge the Middle East's strongest military power?
That's not an objective question. First I'd concentrate on finding out what actually happened, and why.

2)Hezbollah's guerrilla tactics during the war. Israel's mistakes and weaknesses.
I can tell you a lot about Hezbollah's mistakes and weakness as well as what actually went wrong in the IDF, and not the pop-myth.

I've found about 30 good references so far, but are there any MUST reads?

Most open sources contain substantial errors and mistakes. If you read Hebrew I can recommend some excellent sources.

PM me if you want.

GI Zhou
07-07-2010, 12:09 PM
Try and include a small paragraph about all the Lebanese who went back to live there after taking another country's citizenship. The complaints from them that the Australian government didn't do enough to evacuate them caused a backlash against them in Australia. I would suggest that other European nations recieved the same complaints.

Rex Brynen
07-07-2010, 01:37 PM
In general, I try to advise students to start narrow, and broaden the scope of the thesis if turns out that they have the time and space available. It typically works out better than starting very broad, and then never managing to say anything very profound because of space limitations.

That being said, the three questions/issues you set yourself are probably OK. The "implications" section will, I think, reveal several paradoxes:

1) That the immediate post-war feeling that Israel had "lost" (due to its inability to halt rocket attacks, etc) has given way to an Israeli feeling that they won (due to continued deterrence of Hizbullah).

2) Similarly Hizbullah's sense that they had "won" has been somewhat tempered by the damage that the war did outside in non-Shiite Lebanese constituencies (where there is anger at Hizbullah's state-within-the-state status). Physically, however, Hizbullah's material power in Lebanon has never been greater.

Finally, make sure you have some actual analytical arguments to make--it is easy to get lost in the "trees" of factual detail and lose sight of the "forest" of broader implications. A thesis should, after all, have a thesis :wry:

KingsofWar
07-08-2010, 10:44 PM
Hi William,

Thanks for your thoughts. To answer your question, I meant the soldiers that Hezbollah kidnapped, not Israel. My mistake.

As for your advice to 'concentrate on finding out what actually happened, and why,' these last few days I've read through book after book, and all authors seem to disagree on what exactly did happen. I don't know Hebrew, so I'm afraid I'll just have to rely on English sources.

Perhaps I could argue that:
1) Factors that built up from May, 2000 (Israeli unilateral withdrawal) until July, 2006 made the war inevitable. The kidnapping only sped up the start of the war.
2) Israel’s military setbacks during the war were inflicted by Hezbollah’s unexpected strengths in intelligence and guerrilla tactics, but also by failures within Israeli leadership and military. Hezbollah also suffered setbacks, such as the loss of their longer range missiles shortly after the start of the war.
3) Hezbollah appears to have benefited most in the short term. But four years later, the deterrence Israel sought appears to have been achieved, which weakens the original belief that Israel 'lost' the war.

The problem is that these arguments have been made already. I'm having trouble approaching the issue from a new angle.

Anyway thanks for writing.

40below
07-08-2010, 10:51 PM
I hate to sound all cynical but how about looking at whether after dealing with the corrupt and ineffective PLO for so long, Israel was entirely unprepared, militarily, politically and psychologically to deal with an actual war-fighting organization like Hezbollah that proved quite competent at insurgency and was entirely unlike the regular armies that its leaders did battle with a generation ago? Just a thought.

KingsofWar
07-08-2010, 11:02 PM
40below,

If I focused on the IDF's difficulty in adjusting to a different enemy which used different war tactics, do you think it would suffice to cover just the May 2000- July 2006 period? I'd like to keep a narrow focus.

40below
07-08-2010, 11:09 PM
40below,

If I focused on the IDF's difficulty in adjusting to a different enemy which used different war tactics, do you think it would suffice to cover just the May 2000- July 2006 period? I'd like to keep a narrow focus.

Doubt it. You'd have to go all the way back to 1967 or before to establish tactics and why Israel brought that particular hardware to the battle, and at some point, someone (I'll volunteer) is gonna whisper in your ear that it's sorta how NATO and pretty much every one of its current military leaders with at least one star on their shoulder was trained as an OC and a young Lt in the 1980s to defend the Fulda Gap and now has to deal with Helmund or Kandahar. (Confession: every time I interview one, I ask some variant of this question.) That's probably not helpful, but it is interesting.

NihilisticZeal
07-08-2010, 11:32 PM
I don't know enough of the details to go into the tactical level, but to me Israel's fall was in that it failed to define what constituted a victory, or at least failed to communicate it to the general public. From my perspective, they failed to disambiguate fighting Hezbollah from fighting the idea behind Hezbollah (Shia Islamism) and their tactics ("terrorism"). Engaging the organisation did the trick (which people are starting to see now), but the initial failures to disambiguate stopping terrorism or delegitimizing the idea behind Hezbollah from the strategic objectives caused them a lot of grief. At least that's my view from trying to remember what I thought of it then.

40below
07-09-2010, 12:11 AM
I don't know enough of the details to go into the tactical level, but to me Israel's fall was in that it failed to define what constituted a victory, or at least failed to communicate it to the general public. From my perspective, they failed to disambiguate fighting Hezbollah from fighting the idea behind Hezbollah (Shia Islamism) and their tactics ("terrorism"). Engaging the organisation did the trick (which people are starting to see now), but the initial failures to disambiguate stopping terrorism or delegitimizing the idea behind Hezbollah from the strategic objectives caused them a lot of grief. At least that's my view from trying to remember what I thought of it then.

I repectfully sort of agree and disagree. The IDF was widely seen as having lost at the time, and it's not good enough to come back years later to claim their strategic objectives have been satisfied. Hezbollah scored a slam dunk in the war, and in an insurgency, it's not good enough to win, you have to be seen to be winning and Israel wasn't. Anything less than wiping out Hezbollah was a loss for the Israelis, just view the footage of their burning tanks; anything more than not being wiped out was a win for Hezbollah, and they punched above their weight in that one. And combat deaths for them in their dug-in positions or civilian deaths at the hands of the IDF didn't exactly hurt them.

William F. Owen
07-09-2010, 07:30 AM
The problem is that these arguments have been made already. I'm having trouble approaching the issue from a new angle.

Anyway thanks for writing.
Why not find out what happened. Actually do some research. 70-80% of what has been written in English is substantially wrong, or based on bad sources.

Most have simply never talked to those involved. I have, plus I know most of the other English sources that actually based their work on credible pieces of evidence. It is possibly the worse reported war of modern times, in terms of people being able to actually understand what went on.

The US and UK Army's analysis was mostly very wrong and has only recently been corrected, thanks to some guys actually coming here and listening and not printing their version of events.

JMA
07-09-2010, 07:41 AM
Why not find out what happened. Actually do some research. 70-80% of what has been written in English is substantially wrong, or based on bad sources.

Most have simply never talked to those involved. I have, plus I know most of the other English sources that actually based their work on credible pieces of evidence. It is possibly the worse reported war of modern times, in terms of people being able to actually understand what went on.

The US and UK Army's analysis was mostly very wrong and has only recently been corrected, thanks to some guys actually coming here and listening and not printing their version of events.

Where can I read a 'correct' analysis?

40below
07-09-2010, 07:46 AM
Where can I read a 'correct' analysis?

Yeah, I'd like to read that too.

William F. Owen
07-09-2010, 08:08 AM
I repectfully sort of agree and disagree. The IDF was widely seen as having lost at the time, and it's not good enough to come back years later to claim their strategic objectives have been satisfied. Hezbollah scored a slam dunk in the war, and in an insurgency, it's not good enough to win, you have to be seen to be winning and Israel wasn't.
Wrong.
a.) Hezbollah is not an insurgency. It is a Lebanese irregular army formed for the defence of Lebanon, plus a proxy of Iran. - so in relation to Israel, the term insurgency is meaningless and nothing to do with the organisations objectives. Calling Hezbollah an insurgency is symptomatic of not understanding the context of the conflict.
b.) Anyone who has studied the conflict is very aware that there was no real strategic objectives set by Israel, and that presented real operational problems in terms of formulating military action.
c.) After the 2006 Lebanon War Hezbollah's military actions against Israel dropped to nothing, even during CAST LEAD. Hezbollah has been effectively deterred for the last 4 years. So, while folks on bar stools may consider them as having won, the facts on the ground are very different.

Anything less than wiping out Hezbollah was a loss for the Israelis, just view the footage of their burning tanks; anything more than not being wiped out was a win for Hezbollah, and they punched above their weight in that one. And combat deaths for them in their dug-in positions or civilian deaths at the hands of the IDF didn't exactly hurt them.
Wrong again, in terms of how it is viewed by those whose opinions are relevant to the issue. The reality behind the head lines was that Hezbollahs was substantially damaged, as was Iran's confidence in them. Moreover for all practical purposes, they have been substantially deterred from any effective action.
Additionally, the war in 2006 lead to a ground up revival of the IDFs formation and unit level combat skills, which has had massive benefit and is very apparent to foreign military observers who get to see the IDF close to.

William F. Owen
07-09-2010, 08:16 AM
Where can I read a 'correct' analysis?
Essentially, you cannot. I did an analysis of the all the guided weapons deaths. You can find that on the web. Bascially showed that Hezbollah can't shoot straight.
You can also read my letter to the British Army Review (if you get it), which corrects a 2010 article on the war which was substantially incorrect.

RAND put some stuff out a while ago, that was actually based on interviews with the IDF, but it is limited in terms of what it addresses. Stephen Biddle also interviewed IDF officers, but produced a slightly odd body of work as a result.

The book, "34 Days (http://www.amazon.com/34-Days-Israel-Hezbollah-Lebanon/dp/0230614361)" gives a good start but was written far too soon after the conflict, and doesn't give an objective view.

JMA
07-09-2010, 08:26 AM
Essentially, you cannot. I did an analysis of the all the guided weapons deaths. You can find that on the web. Bascially showed that Hezbollah can't shoot straight.
You can also read my letter to the British Army Review (if you get it), which corrects a 2010 article on the war which was substantially incorrect.

RAND put some stuff out a while ago, that was actually based on interviews with the IDF, but it is limited in terms of what it addresses. Stephen Biddle also interviewed IDF officers, but produced a slightly odd body of work as a result.

The book, "34 Days (http://www.amazon.com/34-Days-Israel-Hezbollah-Lebanon/dp/0230614361)" gives a good start but was written far too soon after the conflict, and doesn't give an objective view.

So if the world is left with the belief that the Israelis got run out of the Lebanon by Hezbollah and it s not true then its another massive PR failure by the Israelis. Why don't they bother to make sure the "truth" is put out into the public domain? Arrogance? Incompetence? What?

William F. Owen
07-09-2010, 09:23 AM
So if the world is left with the belief that the Israelis got run out of the Lebanon by Hezbollah and it s not true then its another massive PR failure by the Israelis. Why don't they bother to make sure the "truth" is put out into the public domain? Arrogance? Incompetence? What?
Israel and Israelis actually care very little about what other people think. It's very obvious to anyone who lives amongst them. The supposed PR is mostly irrelevant. The IDF cares about what Israelis think, and no one else.

The IDF is not in the business for compensating for other peoples poor analysis or satisfying academics and the community of the curious as it is largely irrelevant to what they know or think.
If the Hezbollah has been deterred from action for the last 4 years, then the opinions of everyone else is moot. Deterrence has worked for those 4 years.

The only reason I have a dog in this fight is because of the usually poor attempts to analyse the conflict by the US and UK with a view to learning lessons. My point being, you cannot learn lessons without actually talking to people who were there. Newspapers and the internet are not useful sources, and nor is what people "feel."
....and I do not know more than anyone else about this matter. I just actually bothered to go and learn and find out. Something I would urge other to do, should they have a valid reason to do so.

Tukhachevskii
07-09-2010, 09:24 AM
So if the world is left with the belief that the Israelis got run out of the Lebanon by Hezbollah and it s not true then its another massive PR failure by the Israelis. Why don't they bother to make sure the "truth" is put out into the public domain? Arrogance? Incompetence? What?

More likely OPSEC. Why correct the world's (and Hizballah's) misperceptions and thereby reveal your TTPs/playbook? Better to have Hizballah "course correct" to a false heading than allow them to improve, plan and resource for another punch-up having thoroughly analysed and digested all of Israel's weaknesses. Maskirovka on a strategic scale. Sweet:D. (Assuming that's what they're doing of course:cool:)

KingsofWar
07-09-2010, 11:54 AM
Good call William. I'll concentrate more on interviews.

Also, to what extent was the Second Lebanon War a proxy war between Iran and the United States?

How did the war effect Hezbollah's relationship with Syria and Iran? Israel's relationship with the United States?

Rex Brynen
07-09-2010, 01:35 PM
Israel and Israelis actually care very little about what other people think. It's very obvious to anyone who lives amongst them. The supposed PR is mostly irrelevant. The IDF cares about what Israelis think, and no one else.

I'm not fully convinced of this--it rather depends on the issue and the context.

I concur that the 2006 war left Hizbullah much more deterred than it had ever been. This was not the general view in Israel (or even in much of the Israeli government) at the end of the war, when the view that it had been a "loss" was quite widespread. Since then, as the northern border has stayed quiet, the view that it was a deterrent success after all has certainly grown.

The general regional perception that Israel lost is important. It strengthened Hizbullah significantly, and since 2006 the organization has (in terms of capabilities) become much more of a threat to Israel than ever before. The image of Hizbullah triumphing against Israel (whatever actually happened in unit-on-unit engagements) has spurred recruitment by Hizbullah and Sunni Islamists alike, in the Middle East and further afield. Hizbullah is also actively searching for ways of getting at Israel that don't involve military conflict on the border.


More likely OPSEC. Why correct the world's (and Hizballah's) misperceptions and thereby reveal your TTPs/playbook? Better to have Hizballah "course correct" to a false heading than allow them to improve, plan and resource for another punch-up having thoroughly analysed and digested all of Israel's weaknesses. Maskirovka on a strategic scale.

It's more due to bad analysis of what happened on the ground, as Wilf has noted in previous discussions. I do think that Hizbullah performed well above average for an irregular armed force, and not just because it was lavishly equipped with ATGMs. I also think Hizbullah has a reasonable understanding of what went right and wrong--to date, I've seen no evidence that they've either become overconfident, or that they've lost their flexibility and inventiveness.

Theer are several threads on this on SWJ (perhaps one of the mods wants to make up a Hizbullah catch-all thread sometime?)

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=1034
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=4188
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=1109
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=1012

William F. Owen
07-09-2010, 03:03 PM
I'm not fully convinced of this--it rather depends on the issue and the context.
Of course context is critical but, as a people, they are surprisingly impervious to criticism. The Government may have diplomatic issues to contend with, but the people, and the IDF are peculiarly immune to that consideration.

Rex Brynen
07-09-2010, 03:36 PM
Of course context is critical but, as a people, they are surprisingly impervious to criticism. The Government may have diplomatic issues to contend with, but the people, and the IDF are peculiarly immune to that consideration.

That's a really interesting question, actually--I can see evidence for it in both directions (which may say something about the complexities of Israeli society!)

On the one hand, Israelis certainly do what they think is necessary for national survival. (This is far from a unique trait, however.)

They do tend to devalue external criticism (often as being motivated by anti-Semitism, whether or not it is), and press ahead doing things (the Gaza siege, settlement, the occupation) that almost the entire world disagrees with.

On the other hand, Israel is enormously sensitive to criticism in other ways. There is no government that I've ever interacted with that gets so upset at outsider comments that are critical of current policy--even when those criticisms are expressed daily in the Israeli press. US government officials, for example, are far, far less sensitive to criticism, in public and in private.

Criticism of Israel is also often perceived by Israelis as somehow aimed at delegitimizing the very state, even when it clearly isn't.

I can see also sorts of complex, intertwined explanations for why this might be: the perception of grave external threat and a dangerous neighbourhood, the legacies of European anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the tough pioneer nation that also wants to be seen as a member of the Western democratic world, etc.


Now, back to the 2006 war....

Jesse9252
07-09-2010, 07:51 PM
b.) Anyone who has studied the conflict is very aware that there was no real strategic objectives set by Israel, and that presented real operational problems in terms of formulating military action.

Okay, I'm confused here. I recognize that the war was executed without much logical coherence, but I thought (based on English-language research only) that the goals were pretty clearly articulated on the Israeli side. Cordesman lists them as:
1) Destroy the Iranian Western Command before Iran could go nuclear.
2) Restore the credibility of Israeli deterrence after the unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and countering the image that Israel was weak and forced to leave.
3) Force Lebanon to become and act as an accountable state, and end the status of Hezbollah as a state within a state.
4) Damage or cripple Hezbollah, with the understanding that it could not be destroyed as a military force and would continue to be a major political actor in Lebanon.
5) Bring the two soldiers the Hezbollah had captured back alive without major trades in prisoners held by Israel—not the thousands demanded by Nasrallah and the Hezbollah.

Is this incorrect?

Rex Brynen
07-10-2010, 01:47 AM
1) Destroy the Iranian Western Command before Iran could go nuclear.


I'm not even sure what this means--but no, I don't think the IDF ever dreamed it could "destroy" Hizbullah. If they did, they would have gone for a war plan and ground commitment that looked like 1982. Degrade longer-range and potential non-conventional missile capabilities? Yes (and not achieved in any meaningful, lasting sense).



2) Restore the credibility of Israeli deterrence after the unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and countering the image that Israel was weak and forced to leave.

Yep.


3) Force Lebanon to become and act as an accountable state, and end the status of Hezbollah as a state within a state.

Maybe, although one would have to be pretty silly to imagine that "Lebanon" could do that.


4) Damage or cripple Hezbollah, with the understanding that it could not be destroyed as a military force and would continue to be a major political actor in Lebanon.

Damage, yes.. I doubt they were as ambitious as "cripple."


5) Bring the two soldiers the Hezbollah had captured back alive without major trades in prisoners held by Israel—not the thousands demanded by Nasrallah and the Hezbollah.

Yes.

William F. Owen
07-10-2010, 05:59 AM
Rex Brynen, as usual has it right enough.

However one of the things that gets missed is that Israel had a plan for a war with Hezbollah. The incredible thing is, that when the shooting started, they simply did not stick to the plan. This is very well documented in Israel, but almost nowhere else.

What got done it it's place had almost no strategic rationale. - and not helped by the fact that aspects of equipment, training and logistics, critical to the plan, had not been implemented or implemented well enough.

KingsofWar
07-11-2010, 12:18 AM
So William, Rex and others, which side more generally do you believe achieved a military victory immediately after the war? How about a political victory?

And did this scorecard change in the following four years?

William F. Owen
07-11-2010, 04:54 AM
So William, Rex and others, which side more generally do you believe achieved a military victory immediately after the war? How about a political victory?

And did this scorecard change in the following four years?
Huh??? With respect, "Kings of War," these are not questions I would expect an MA student to be asking. They are simplistic.

Why is the condition "immediately after the war" less relevant than that "soon after the war?" Why are you separating "political" and "military." Who taught you Clausewitz at Kings?

I'll kick back the question I keep having to put to UK/US officers visiting Israel, which is:
"Do you think the IDF would have launched Operation Cast Lead, if they were worried about Hezbollah's rocket forces in the North?"

Rex Brynen
07-12-2010, 03:00 PM
So William, Rex and others, which side more generally do you believe achieved a military victory immediately after the war? How about a political victory?

And did this scorecard change in the following four years?

I can see what you are getting at here, but you might want to think through your concepts and terminology.

The only meaningful "military victory" is a political one, since war is an instrument of policy. That being said, you can separate out an assessment of "military performance" in an operational sense from the political-strategic outcomes of the war.

I realize that Wilf doesn''t much like the notion of a changing scorecard, but I think it does reflect the perceptions of the parties. In 2006, Hizbullah and broader regional audience would have regarded it as a Hizbullah win, while many Israelis would have regarded it as a losing draw.

Today, the Hizbullah/regional assessment hasn't much changed, but the Israeli assessment (after 4 years of deterrence) has.

The Middle East, by the way, is full of wars with unclear winners. Who won in 1973, Israel or Egypt? The IDF certainly won on the battlefield, surrounding the Egyptian Third Army. However, Sadat (unlike Assad) didn't launch the war to defeat Israel, but to break the diplomatic logjam--which it did, culminating in the 1979 peace treat and full recovery of occupied Egyptian territory. This is the reason why the war is still the subject of annual commemoration in Egypt.

Who won in 1982? The IDF certainly devastated the PLO, and forced it from Lebanon--but at the cost of creating a far more dangerous opponent, Hizbullah. Moreover, there is ample evidence that Sharon had a broader ambition to marginalize the PLO... yet, the war forced the PLO to become even more pragmatic, thereby enhancing its effective pursuit of the two-state solution that Sharon opposed. I would regard this as positive for Israel too, but I'm doubtful that the Israeli (Likud) leadership of the day would have regarded it as such.

In short, wars are messy things, with all sorts of complicated and unanticipated second- and third- order effects.

Policymakers, take note! :wry:

Tukhachevskii
07-12-2010, 03:37 PM
Who taught you Clausewitz at Kings?


Obviously not the same people who taught me!!!:D Standards have really dropped (they even have Vivien Jabri (http://www.libertysecurity.org/article202.html) teaching there now:confused:) WHOA!!! Scratch that I see, Jan Willem Honig (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/ws/people/academic/lecturers/honig/) is still there. (Can't blame the teachers for their student's laziness I suppose!)

William F. Owen
07-12-2010, 04:53 PM
Huh??? With respect, "Kings of War," these are not questions I would expect an MA student to be asking. They are simplistic.
Apologies if I came on a bit strong here. Not my intent to deter you from your endeavour. Keep at me, but people like me are an everyday hazard in this business..... or should be!

KingsofWar
07-14-2010, 09:39 PM
You'll have to pardon my terribly worded question. I of course have read Clausewitz and understand that war is an extension of politics by other means. I'm happy to say that Kings professors remain top notch. Ahron Bregman and Sue Onslow were fantastic, although I can't say the same about Julian Reid and his obsession with biopolitics.

What I meant to ask was ... 'Have the realities on the ground in Lebanon and Israel since the war's end slowly chipped away at the argument that Hezbollah defeated Israel? When taking into account Hezbollah's mobility restrictions, infrastructural losses, domestic political opposition, 4 years of enhanced deterrence, to name a few, can it be said that neither side achieved victory? Even when considering Hezbollah's even larger weapons stockpiles?

Rex touched on a bit of this...

40below
07-15-2010, 01:37 AM
What I meant to ask was ... 'Have the realities on the ground in Lebanon and Israel since the war's end slowly chipped away at the argument that Hezbollah defeated Israel?

You're asking questions that don't have meaningful answers, no offence. You won't find anyone on the eponymous Arab Street that thinks the Hezzie victory was diminished by what has happened in the years since (might not find too many takers for that view in Israel, either, but I'll leave that to the subject matter specialists here.)

But let enough time pass and the impact of war becomes less important in light of political and economic developments after the hostilities and I don't know how you can frame that argument in a meaningful way. It's like comparing the sales of Mercedes and BMW in 2009 versus Chevy and GM and arguing the US lost WWII. Or that you guys to the south won the War of 1812, when you didn't.:D

William F. Owen
07-15-2010, 04:43 AM
You'll have to pardon my terribly worded question. I of course have read Clausewitz and understand that war is an extension of politics by other means.
You may have read Clausewitz, but understanding him is a "whole other thing." - Clausewitz is widely discussed here on SWJ.

What I meant to ask was ... 'Have the realities on the ground in Lebanon and Israel since the war's end slowly chipped away at the argument that Hezbollah defeated Israel? When taking into account Hezbollah's mobility restrictions, infrastructural losses, domestic political opposition, 4 years of enhanced deterrence, to name a few, can it be said that neither side achieved victory? Even when considering Hezbollah's even larger weapons stockpiles?
OK, so now you just have to do the research!
Considering that an accurate English language account of what actually happened, in 2006 has not yet been written and what does exist is extremely poor, you have an excellent opportunity. Happy to help.

unmo300
08-15-2010, 03:23 PM
Certainly, a interesting topic. Unfortunately, I got in late in this discussion, but here are some suggestion from my point of view.


These questions could be answered in three chapters,
1)Buildup to war from 2000-2006, including unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Intifada, Gaza, change in Israeli leadership etc...
2)Hezbollah's guerrilla tactics during the war. Israel's mistakes and weaknesses.
3)Post Bellum. The war's local, regional, and international implications.

1. The buildup started 1982, with the creation of Hizbollah. A resistance movement, but also a militia during the civil war. The civil war finished 1990, all militias were disbanded except Hizbollah, who could continue as a resistance movement (with the blessing of the international community). And do not call it an unilateral withdrawal, Israel pull out because it was to costly. For some reason Israel kept Sheeba Farms, giving Hizbollah a reason to continue as a restistance movement.
2. Which I had more knowledge about tactics, maybe a visit to Hizbollah theme park could help (see article in todays The Independent). Israeli mistakes, most have been very bad intelligence. Maybe bigger network of spies today, anyhow a lot of spies are being caught in Lebanon.
3. Will only comment on local implications. Lebanon has been on the brink of civil war several times since 2006.

unmo300
08-15-2010, 03:56 PM
KingsofWar cited:
Have the realities on the ground in Lebanon and Israel since the war's end slowly chipped away at the argument that Hezbollah defeated Israel? When taking into account Hezbollah's mobility restrictions, infrastructural losses, domestic political opposition, 4 years of enhanced deterrence, to name a few, can it be said that neither side achieved victory? Even when considering Hezbollah's even larger weapons stockpiles?

What I can recall, Hizbollah has not been involved in any exchange of fire with IDF, since 2006. The war was extremely costly for them and the rest of Lebanon, and Nasrallah does not want to repeat his mistake. Who achieved victory? If you ask an Egyptian who won the Yom Kippur war, he will say Egypt. After all they got Sinai desert back. Hizbollah, as an underdog, could stand up to IDF, which earned them a lot of respect.
"Hezbollah's even larger weapons stockpiles?" Is it true, perhaps, or someone is building up a case. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Hizbollah-Weapons-Stockpile-Near-Lebanon-Towns-Israel-Reveals-Intelligence-Information/Article/201007215661569?f=rss

unmo300
08-15-2010, 04:10 PM
Have the realities on the ground in Lebanon and Israel since the war's end slowly chipped away at the argument that Hezbollah defeated Israel? When taking into account Hezbollah's mobility restrictions, infrastructural losses, domestic political opposition, 4 years of enhanced deterrence, to name a few, can it be said that neither side achieved victory? Even when considering Hezbollah's even larger weapons stockpiles?

What I can recall, Hizbollah has not been involved in any exchange of fire with IDF, since 2006. The war was extremely costly for them and the rest of Lebanon, and Nasrallah does not want to repeat his mistake. Who achieved victory? If you ask an Egyptian who won the Yom Kippur war, he will say Egypt. After all they got Sinai desert back. Hizbollah, as an underdog, could stand up to IDF, which earned them a lot of respect.

Hezbollah's even larger weapons stockpiles? Is it true, perhaps, or someone is building up a case. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Hizbollah-Weapons-Stockpile-Near-Lebanon-Towns-Israel-Reveals-Intelligence-Information/Article/201007215661569?f=rss

Bob's World
08-15-2010, 04:50 PM
Both parties still exist, so neither was "defeated." As to who "won", I guess the best measures are found in assessments of:

1. Relative changes in influence of the two parties, both with each other and with others globally; and

2. Interests of each party going in, and how effectively the operations either positively or negatively affected their pursuit of those interests.

As an aside, I believe that both parties have fascinating "Legitimacy" concerns.

While many focus on the religious aspect of the conflicts between Israel and her neighbors; I believe that much of the motivation for these challenges is that these same neighbors question the legitimacy of Israel's very right to have a state in this location. Certainly they have historic claims, but no greater than those of their challengers. It is the fact that Western powers have worked so hard to establish and sustain this state that I believe creates their greatest legitimacy issues. The fact may well be that Israel can stand on her own two feet; but it is the perception that matters, and I suspect that her neighbors rationalize Israel's existence and survival are primarily due to this outside support, so they do not recognize her legitimacy. I think that the less the West supports Israel, the greater her perceptions of legitimacy will become, and that this is the path to stability.

Hizbollah has very different legitimacy issues. Here is a quasi-state organization that stands with one foot in the official governance of a state, and another in the unofficial, illegal realm of terrorist organization. Between the two grows an expanding body of quasi-state capability and influence. In an age where "state" power is fading a bit, and "non-state" power is growing we don't know quite what to do with such organizations.

Did this conflict hurt or help Hizbollah in its requirement for greater "legitimacy"? Did it hurt or help Israel in its requirement for greater "legitimacy" (again, as assessed in the perceptions of the Muslim populaces that surround them)?

These are questions I would explore, and ones that I suspect CvC would find fascinating if he were around today as well. They really weren't questions that came up much back in his era.

Abdul
11-06-2010, 08:19 PM
Hello everyone,

I realize this thread was debated upon nearly 4 months ago however I'm currently writing a BA thesis on a topic which itself was fathomed through the readings of this thread.

I want to start out by stating that my mastery of language will not be as articulate as most of the writers previously in this forum possess, but I'll attempt to respond and counteract posts as best I can.

My thesis will focus on Clausewitz and his philosophy on war, in retrospect to the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War and the origins of the conflict and parties that led to it. I will attempt to conclude, based on Clausewitz, who the "victor" of the conflict truly was or if there was a "victor" at all.

I realize that my understanding of Clausewitz is limited and I only currently began to read his text. That being said, any help (i.e. opinions, references, analytical perspectives, factual evidence, etc.) in developing my ideas would be gratefully appreciated.

Fuchs
11-06-2010, 08:43 PM
Using CvC means that you need to know the true political intents to make a judgement. I would delay that enterprise for 50 years...

The Israelis got primarily an unexpected benefit; a wake-up call concerning their shortcomings.

Hezbollah survived and gained reputation, but doesn't seem to see much promise in risking the same with a repetition.

Markus
05-09-2011, 03:48 AM
I am just beginning research for my MA thesis, which (I think) will be about the use of air power against irregular foes, and how effective that is.

How did your thesis go, Zack?

I'd love to see a copy.

Polarbear
05-10-2011, 08:05 AM
From the French center for the study of doctrine: "Le Hezbollah face aux forces armées conventionnelles""

Summary:
Né du chaos lié à l'invasion israélienne du Liban en 1982 et nourri par les luttes d'influences entre puissances régionales dont le Liban est le théâtre pendant les années 1980, le Hezbollah s'est s'affirmé comme un acteur significatif au pays du cèdre et dans tout le Moyen-Orient. Prospérant sous le regard bienveillant de la Syrie et de l'Iran dans un environnement où l'État n'était plus, le Hezbollah a cependant dû évoluer dès la fin de la Guerre Civile pour continuer d'exister. Groupe islamique révolutionnaire, il est devenu sous l'impulsion de Hassan Nasrallah un «Janus politique», tour à tour parti politique libanais, force paramilitaire, filet de sécurité social, et alternative contestataire à un système communautaire qu'il dénonce.

http://www.cdef.terre.defense.gouv.fr/publications/cahiers_drex/cahier_recherche/Hezbollah.pdf

Regards

PB

Mod's Note: the website has an English section, but this publication does not appear there, nor is there a translate option given when viewed. Good luck.

Polarbear
05-10-2011, 08:12 AM
Sorry if I oversaw that title in your list: “THE SECOND WAR IN LEBANON” ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH WAR OF 2006 WAS AIR POWER ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH THE GOALS OF THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT?" By Col. Scott E Manning from the Air War College.
You will find it throuhg a Googel search.

Regards

PB

Polarbear
05-13-2011, 05:12 AM
I guess I was a bit late. Simply did not watch the date of the entry...Sorry.:o

PB

SWJ Blog
06-07-2011, 03:40 PM
Civil-military lessons from the 2006 Hezbollah war (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/06/civilmilitary-lessons-from-the/)

Entry Excerpt:

RAND’s Project Air Force division recently published a book-length analysis of Israel’s 2006 campaign against Hezbollah. Benjamin Lambeth, author of Air Operations in Israel’s War Against Hezbollah (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG835.html), attempts to make the case that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) executed a highly competent campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Yet Lambeth readily acknowledges that a tarnished reputation now hangs over the overall campaign and the government and high command that led the 34-day war. According to Lambeth, blame for the perceived failure rests with top civilian leaders, who impetuously rushed into asserting strategic goals they could not achieve, and with top military leaders who failed to give competent military advice to their civilian masters. Lambeth’s version of the 2006 war reveals important civil-military lessons for policymakers everywhere.

Click below to read more ...



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/06/civilmilitary-lessons-from-the/) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

davidbfpo
09-12-2012, 09:30 PM
On SWJ two articles:http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-2006-lebanon-war-a-short-history and http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-2006-lebanon-war-a-short-history-part-ii