Hizbullah / Hezbollah (just the group) [Archive]

SWJED

07-22-2006, 07:50 AM

Moderator's Note

This thread has steadily acquired smaller threads, six today and concerns the group's activities. Hezbollah appears in the title of several threads and in a large number of threads on other subjects (ends).

22 July New York Times - In 1990’s, Shadows Waged War (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/world/middleeast/22history.html) by John Kifner.

The Hezbollah guerrilla campaign that ended Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000 was in many ways a precursor to the kind of asymmetrical warfare American troops are facing in Iraq — and Israeli troops would face again if they entered Lebanon in large numbers.

Suicide bombers, roadside explosives and ambushes were the weapons the shadowy force that called itself the resistance used to drive out a superior conventional army.

“By limiting the firing, we were able to keep the cards in our hands,” said Sheik Nabil Qaouk, then and now the Hezbollah commander in the south, in a rare interview six years ago, shortly after the Israeli withdrawal.

“We were able to do small, little battles where we had the advantage,” the sheik, a Shiite imam who is also referred to as a general, said at the time in Tyre, Lebanon.

Now, as Israel contemplates the possibility of another land invasion of Lebanon, its commando reconnaissance teams are meeting stiff fighting as they discover that Hezbollah has spent much of the past six years constructing networks of fortified bunkers and tunnels and amassing stores of thousands of rockets.

And while the Palestinians whom Israel is battling in the Gaza Strip have only light weapons and homemade rockets, Hezbollah is equipped with up-to-date weaponry like laser-guided missiles, much of it supplied by Iran.

In the earlier battles in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah used innovations like roadside bombs made of fake plastic rocks, which could be bought in Beirut garden stores for $15.

To confuse Israel’s motion sensors, they would run farm animals across areas monitored by the devices.

A Soviet tank that was hidden in a cave and never driven, and thus did not show up on heat sensors, took the Israelis months to find, the sheik said.

A turning point was the ambush, in the summer of 1997, of a raid by elite Israeli naval commandos — some of Israel’s toughest troops — in which a dozen were killed. Then Hezbollah put out word that it had an informer, deterring further Israeli counterinsurgency operations.

The effect was to drive the Israelis into fixed, fortified positions, conceding land and initiative to Hezbollah...

SWJED

07-22-2006, 08:14 AM

22 July Washington Post - History Revisited in Lebanon Fighting (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072101653.html) by Edward Cody and Scott Wilson.

...Yet a look back over the past three decades suggests that the foe Israel is taking on today -- the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militia -- may be far harder to expel than the transplanted Palestinians it fought in southern Lebanon in the 1970s and '80s.

The history also suggests that Israel's previous military campaigns and occupations of Lebanon played a decisive role in creating this new enemy. Some analysts in Lebanon believe that the new bloodshed and a renewed attempt to fashion Lebanese society to Israel's advantage could generate yet another permutation, one that is perhaps even more irreconcilably hostile to the Jewish state.

"Now you risk producing something worse than Hezbollah, maybe al-Qaeda number two," said Fawaz Trabulsi, a Lebanese professor at the American University of Beirut who helped lead a leftist organization that fought Israeli troops alongside Palestinian guerrillas during the 1982 invasion.

"It's '82 all over again," Trabulsi said. "What's similar is the idea of destroying the infrastructure, of the PLO then, and now of Hezbollah. The difference is Hezbollah is Lebanese and you can't expel them."

The 1978 Operation Litani provided a clear lesson in the rules of unintended consequences. It was a swift success militarily; Israeli forces pushed across the border and moved about 20 miles north to the Litani River without serious opposition from primarily ragtag Palestinian defenders. They weren't native to the area or fully familiar with it -- they'd moved to it in the early 1970s to escape a crackdown in Jordan...

Its exploding young population, sons of those chased from southern homes, became the base of a new radical organization born several years later. Inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution, it eventually took the name Hezbollah, or Party of God...

Yitzhak Bailey was teaching Middle East history at Tel Aviv University in 1982 when Israel's Defense Ministry called him with a job offer...

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., who arrived in Israel in the early 1950s, Bailey has made a specialty of Arab affairs, the culture of the nomadic Bedouin people in particular. But his task in the fall of 1982 was to evaluate the Shiite political landscape in south Lebanon and find Israel some friends there.

At the time, Israel had made common cause with Lebanon's Maronite Christians, who opposed the PLO's presence in Lebanon and feared for their place in a country with a growing Muslim majority. The Christian leadership was also willing to work openly with Israel.

Operating from an Israeli military base in Tyre, Bailey began traveling the region. He spent nights in family homes when he could, and tried to determine the most important political players in the Shiite south. Almost at once, he said, he began proposing in his reports a different approach to win allies in the crucial southern Lebanese region.

"All of Israel's eggs were in the Christian basket," Bailey said. "While the Shiites at the time were willing to be quite cooperative, they were not willing to say so openly." As members of a minority, many Shiites felt they needed protection from other factions in Lebanese society.

At the time, a Shiite Lebanese party called Amal was the most important party in the south. Once Israeli tanks and troops had dislodged PLO gunmen, Amal's influence increased dramatically. Amal was aligned in that period with more-liberal elements of the leadership of Shiite-dominated Iran, and the group tacitly accepted the Israeli role in the south. But once that cooperation became known, Bailey said, the movement broke apart.

Islamic Amal, as the radical splinter was called, began carrying out attacks on Israeli and Western targets. The group's popularity rose as Israel, responding to rising militancy, began tightening its hold with checkpoints, mass arrests and military operations that hit the civilian population hard.

The splinter group soon renamed itself Hezbollah.

Jedburgh

08-01-2006, 02:14 PM

Commentary by Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution:

Hezbollah's Popularity Exposes al-Qaeda's Failure to Win the Hearts (http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/telhami/20060730.htm)

...Americans should also be troubled that most Arabs surveyed now see the United States as one of the greatest threats to them (second only to Israel), in large part because of the Iraq war and the deep mistrust of U.S. intentions there, according to my poll with Zogby. In that sense, some have wanted to see the United States fail even more than they have wanted to see Iraq succeed; they worry about Iran, but they will root for it against Washington; and they fear Al-Qaida's world, but hope the group gives America a black eye.

This suggests that the current American challenge in the region is how to help shape outcomes, without making them seem part of an American imperial design. Yet the statements by the Bush administration in the first two weeks of the current crisis have played directly into regional fears. The reluctance to call for a quick cease-fire despite the massive damage and civilian casualties and statements about the suffering as being ``the birth pangs of a new Middle East'' have made many in the region conclude that the Lebanon war is America's war...

Jedburgh

08-02-2006, 01:11 PM

Decent summary by Andrew McGregor, published by the Jamestown Foundation 1 Aug 06:

Hezbollah's Tactics and Capabilities in Southern Lebanon (http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370089)

With its attack on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Israel is fighting on terrain that has been prepared by the Shiite movement for six years since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers have described finding a network of concrete bunkers with modern communications equipment as deep as 40 meters along the border. The terrain is already well-suited for ambushes and hidden troop movements, consisting of mountains and woods in the east and scrub-covered hills to the west, all intersected by deep wadis (dry river beds). Broken rocks and numerous caves provide ample cover. Motorized infantry and armor can only cross the region with difficulty. Use of the few winding and unpaved roads invites mines and ambushes by Hezbollah's adaptable force of several thousand guerrillas...

SWJED

08-03-2006, 06:18 AM

3 August New York Times - The Long-Term Battle: Defining ‘Victory’ Before the World (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/world/middleeast/03israel.html?ref=world) by Steven Erlanger.

As Israeli troops press the ground offensive in southern Lebanon and commandos make an unexpected raid far to the north in Baalbek, Israel is fighting now to win the battle of perceptions.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wants to ensure that when a cease-fire is finally arranged, Israel is seen as having won a decisive victory over Hezbollah. It is important for him politically, especially after a slow and fumbling start to this war. In part, Israel wants to recover from an image of an unimpressive military venture against a tough, small, but well-trained group of fighters.

Israel also wants to send a message to the Palestinians, and to Hezbollah and its sponsors, Syria and Iran, that attacks on Israel will be met with overwhelming force, and that the cost is not worth the effort. How soon that message is perceived will play a central role in its decision to stop the war.

As with all wars, however, any victory must be consolidated in political and diplomatic arrangements, which remain uncertain, like the insertion of a multinational force along the border.

For Hezbollah, victory means simply avoiding defeat. It will be perceived by many Muslims to have won by keeping the capacity to fire even short-range rockets into Israel.

Gidi Grinstein, a former Israeli negotiator and director of the Reut Institute, a research group, calls it the “90-10 paradox.” Israel can eliminate 90 percent of Hezbollah’s fighting capacity, but Hezbollah can still declare victory and claim that it fought the mighty Israeli Army to a draw...

SWJED

08-09-2006, 01:48 AM

SWC member and all-around good-guy from Chicago posts over on his Zenpundit blog - Hezbollah and the Ghost of Giap (http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2006/08/hezbollah-and-ghost-of-giap-general-vo.html).

Colonel W. Pat Lang (http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/), making an observation about Israel's war in Lebanon (http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2006/08/an_arab_guerril.html) with both immediate as well as historical implications.

"The Lebanese Hizbullah "Arab Guerrilla Army" is something different. What Newsweek describes is a force in transition, a force becoming a real army. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote in "People's War, People's Army" that a national resistance movement's armed force must "evolve" from political agitprop activities to guerrilla war and eventually to the status and capability of regular armed forces if it is to succeed in defeating its enemies and seizing " a place at the table" in its country's future."

The interesting thing about this observation is that, while Giap is a military leader of the first rank, his theory of guerilla warfare has rarely been borne out by history, including that of the Vietnam War. It is exceptionally rare for irregulars or guerillas to " transition" or "evolve" into full-fledged conventional military operations against a modern, first-rate opponent. Generally, guerilla forces beat state opponents by becoming more effective at guerilla warfare and causing a psychological and moral collapse of the state's will to resist; and only after seizing power, do the new rulers transform their guerilla fighters into professional soldiers...

Much more - read the whole thing...

Tom Odom

08-09-2006, 12:50 PM

It is exceptionally rare for irregulars or guerillas to " transition" or "evolve" into full-fledged conventional military operations against a modern, first-rate opponent. Generally, guerilla forces beat state opponents by becoming more effective at guerilla warfare and causing a psychological and moral collapse of the state's will to resist; and only after seizing power, do the new rulers transform their guerilla fighters into professional soldiers...

look at the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army 1990-1994

Best
Tom

zenpundit

08-09-2006, 02:21 PM

My proviso was " against a modern, first-rate opponent" - I'm not sure the Rwandan Army made it to a level of competence comparable with say, South Africa much less a NATO state or great power.

You know the details on the ground there -how far apart in qualitative terms were the Rwandan military and the Patriotic Front ?

SWJED

08-12-2006, 08:00 AM

12 August Washington Post commentary - Learning From Hezbollah (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/11/AR2006081101398.html) by Brian Humphreys.

From my first day in Iraq as a young infantry officer, I was struck by the huge perceptual gulf that separated us from the Iraqis. My first mission was to escort a civil affairs team assigned to supervise the rebuilding of a local school. After tea, smiles and handshakes, we departed and were promptly struck by a roadside bomb. Our modest efforts to close the perceptual gulf, exemplified in our smile-and-wave tactics and civil affairs missions, seemed to my mind well-intentioned but inadequate.

At a deeper level, the motives of the local populace remained largely invisible to us, as people smiled one minute and attempted to blow us up the next. We knew little or nothing about their grievances and aspirations, or where the political fault lines ran in the cluster of small cities in the Sunni Triangle we were tasked with pacifying

We experienced many periodic spasms of violence that seemed to come out of nowhere before disappearing again. Of course they came from somewhere, but it was a somewhere we didn't understand. In a battalion of more than 800 men, we had one four-man team assigned to interact directly with the local population, and even this team was frequently sidetracked to deal with routine translation duties or interrogations.

Perhaps understandably for a conventional military force trained to focus on the enemy, our primary intelligence focus was on the insurgents. Much less attention was paid to the larger part of the population. Although we were a visible and sometimes forceful presence, I'm not sure we were a truly influential one.

Now, watching the latest news dispatches from Lebanon, I find myself comparing our efforts to introduce a new order in Iraq with Hezbollah's success as an effective practitioner of the art of militarized grass-roots politics. Frankly, it's not a favorable comparison -- for us. Hezbollah's organizational resilience in the face of an all-out conventional assault shows the degree to which it has seamlessly combined the strategic objectives of its sponsors with a localized political and military program.

Using the grass-roots approach, Hezbollah has been able to convert the ignored and dispossessed Shiite underclass of southern Lebanon into a powerful lever in regional politics. It understands that the basic need in any human conflict, whether or not it involves physical violence, is to take care of one's political base before striking out at the opponent...

Whatever the objective truth of Hezbollah's motives, its many supporters in southern Lebanon believe fervently that it is their organization, not an Iranian surrogate. Few if any American units in Iraq have achieved anything close to this level of success in winning the support of the local population. (Of more concern is the fact that few Iraqi security units or political leaders appear to have done so, either.) Commanders have come and gone, elections have been held, Iraqi soldiers trained, all manner of strategies for dealing with the insurgency attempted -- but with only limited and localized successes. Hezbollah's success among civilians in Lebanon, which is only reinforced by a ruthless pummeling from a reviled enemy, contrasts sharply with the continued fragility of the much more modest U.S. gains in Iraq, achieved at a much higher price.

The lessons should be clear. To engage in insurgency or counterinsurgency -- fancy terms for grass-roots politics by other means -- one must be willing and, most of all, able to work in the underbelly of local politics, as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon. It is the politics of getting people jobs, picking up trash and getting relatives out of jail. Engaging in this politics has the potential to do much more than merely ingratiate an armed force with a local population. It gives that force a mental map of local pressure points and the knowledge of how to press them -- benignly or otherwise -- to get desired results.

Some may say that this is just standard insurgency-counterinsurgency doctrine. True, but one has to ask why Hezbollah has been able to pull it off in Lebanon, while young Americans continue to endure a host of nasty surprises in Iraq.

keaggy220

08-12-2006, 02:23 PM

The writer effectively addresses the issue regarding raising a grassroots effort in order to gain greater acceptance among the masses, but the writer completely ignores the greater issues.

I believe the two bigger issues are religion and race. We will never reach the level of acceptance that a Hezbollah can within their own culture because they can play the race and religion card. We are dealing with extremists who hate us and they are taught to hate from the time they are small children - until this changes we will continue to fight.

SWJED

08-12-2006, 04:09 PM

I believe the two bigger issues are religion and race. We will never reach the level of acceptance that a Hezbollah can within their own culture because they can play the race and religion card.

I agree and thought the same thing as I read this op-ed piece this morning. Still, he was spot-on on concerning focusing on the population rather than exclusively on the insurgents. Some units have done this in Iraq and others have not. I would like to see a consistent approach throughout Iraq that puts “the people” as the center of gravity. That is, if it is not too late.

SWJED

08-14-2006, 06:37 AM

14 August Washington Post - 'The Best Guerrilla Force in the World' (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/13/AR2006081300719.html) by Edward Cody and Molly Moore.

Hezbollah's irregular fighters stood off the modern Israeli army for a month in the hills of southern Lebanon thanks to extraordinary zeal and secrecy, rigorous training, tight controls over the population, and a steady flow of Iranian money to acquire effective weaponry, according to informed assessments in Lebanon and Israel.

"They are the best guerrilla force in the world," said a Lebanese specialist who has sifted through intelligence on Hezbollah for more than two decades and strongly opposes the militant Shiite Muslim movement.

Because Hezbollah was entrenched in friendly Shiite-inhabited villages and underground bunkers constructed in secret over several years, a withering Israeli air campaign and a tank-led ground assault were unable to establish full control over a border strip and sweep it clear of Hezbollah guerrillas -- one of Israel's main declared war aims. Largely as a result, the U.N. Security Council resolution approved unanimously Friday night fell short of the original objectives laid out by Israel and the Bush administration when the conflict began July 12.

With the declared U.N. cease-fire set to take effect Monday morning, many Lebanese -- particularly among the Shiites who make up an estimated 40 percent of the population -- have already assessed Hezbollah's endurance as a military success despite the devastation wrought across Lebanon by Israeli bombing...

sgmgrumpy

08-14-2006, 02:38 PM

Will other Islamic fighters adopt the same tactics?

We already know that Terrorist organizations have established their own version of lessons learned database in operations/tactics. The successes by Hizballah over the past month against the IDF are no doubt being fed back to Iran since most Hizballah fighters where trained there. Although I think most of those so called Iranian advisors where probably the ones manning most of those Sagger-2 missiles. Hizballah's stand against the IDF has already been recognized in the Islamic world. Nasrallah is hailed as a Muslim hero others may adopt the same tactics by the use of rockets. Hizballah now has seasoned fighters that can now take that experience against the IDF and apply to future operations, as well as export to other fighters. It would not surprise me if similar tactics showing up elsewhere. Just in the past week rocket attacks have been reported in both A-Stan and Iraq. Iran no doubt has benefited the most from observing their trained and equipped fighters slugging it out against the IDF. Will they refocus their efforts elsewhere?

Jedburgh

08-14-2006, 07:08 PM

Some insights from CEIP: Hizbollah's Outlook in the Current Conflict

Part One: Motives, Strategy and Objectives (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/saad_ghorayeb_final.pdf)

Part Two: Accommodating Diplomacy and Preparing for the Post-War Context (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/ghorayeb_part2_final.pdf)

...Now that Hizbollah has shown that Israel’s powerful, U.S.-backed military was unable to disarm it, it believes that nobody else can, least of all the weakened Lebanese government. Qomati boldly declared that the “resistance is a red line for us, handing [in] our arms is out of the question, even if Shebaa is liberated.” This view is likely shared among the approximately 96 percent (according to a poll carried out in Lebanon last month) of Lebanon’s Shiites who support Hizbollah. The hundreds of thousands of Shiites who have been displaced from predominantly Shiite areas are likely to be more united as a community, as well as angry and radicalized vis-à-vis Israel, and thus even more favorable to Hizbollah maintaining arms than in the past.

In light of these facts, the consequences might be dire if the Lebanese government ardently pursues the disarmament of Hizbollah. In the worst case scenario, civil strife would occur and the state would collapse. In the best case, all Shiite ministers would withdraw from the cabinet, leading to the government’s collapse. Ultimately, the ruling majority is likely to be faced with a troubling dilemma: either a state within a state or a state within a failed state.

Culpeper

08-15-2006, 03:37 AM

SWJED

08-15-2006, 07:05 AM

George Will in today's Washington Post - The Triumph of Unrealism (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081401163.html).

... Hezbollah, often using World War II-vintage rockets, has demonstrated the inadequacy of Israel's policy of unilateral disengagement -- from Lebanon, Gaza, much of the West Bank -- behind a fence. Hezbollah has willingly suffered (temporary) military diminution in exchange for enormous political enlargement. Hitherto Hezbollah in Lebanon was a "state within a state." Henceforth, the Lebanese state may be an appendage of Hezbollah, as the collapsing Palestinian Authority is an appendage of the terrorist organization Hamas. Hezbollah is an army that, having frustrated the regional superpower, suddenly embodies, as no Arab state ever has, Arab valor vindicated in combat with Israel.

Only twice in the United Nations' six decades has it authorized the use of substantial force -- in 1950 regarding Korea and in 1990 regarding Kuwait. It still has not authorized force in Lebanon. What is being called a "cease-fire" resolution calls for Israel to stop all "offensive" operations. Israel, however, reasonably says that its entire effort is defensive. The resolution calls for Hezbollah to stop "all attacks." The United Nations, however, has twice resolved that Hezbollah should be disarmed, yet has not willed the means to that end. Regarding force now, the U.N. merely "expresses its intention to consider in a later resolution further enhancements" of the U.N. force that for 28 years has been loitering without serious intent in south Lebanon.

Only twice in the United Nations' six decades has it authorized the use of substantial force -- in 1950 regarding Korea and in 1990 regarding Kuwait. It still has not authorized force in Lebanon. What is being called a "cease-fire" resolution calls for Israel to stop all "offensive" operations. Israel, however, reasonably says that its entire effort is defensive. The resolution calls for Hezbollah to stop "all attacks." The United Nations, however, has twice resolved that Hezbollah should be disarmed, yet has not willed the means to that end. Regarding force now, the U.N. merely "expresses its intention to consider in a later resolution further enhancements" of the U.N. force that for 28 years has been loitering without serious intent in south Lebanon....

Paul Moorcraft in today's Washington Times - Hezbollah Rising (http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060814-100812-9505r.htm).

Despite the recent U.N. ceasefire, the fighting in Lebanon is likely to continue. Shariah law allows a ceasefire in battle against infidels, but only for regrouping. Nor have the Israelis finished.

Hezbollah's highly potent kind of warfare could have profound strategic impact throughout the Middle East. Previously, Israel could capture Beirut in a week; now it has struggled for over a month to control small villages right on its own border.

Hezbollah, a novel hybrid, combines the sophistication and weaponry of a formal army blended with the near-invisibility of a hit-and-run insurgency. Fighting as tenaciously as the Viet Cong, Hezbollah has dramatically modernized classic guerrilla tactics, not least that it also holds territory and has seats in the Lebanese parliament and government. But it does not abide by the laws of war.

Like Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army, it has an authentic constituency base, one which was partly created by Israel's 1982 invasion.

Western experts are struggling even to name this new phenomenon. Some call it network warfare. Traditional armies are large, often cumbersome and organized in a strict disciplined hierarchy; networks such as Hezbollah have numerous, widely dispersed, agile and able soldiers who can improvise quickly, especially in their use of high-tech communications and propaganda.

Israeli special forces are surprised to come up against Hezbollah fighters with almost the same quality of equipment -- and training -- as themselves. Sophisticated anti-tank weapons have crippled even the much-vaunted Merkava tanks.

White flags are not in evidence. Hezbollah has not run away from Israeli military might as Arab forces did in earlier wars. Morale, organization, hi-tech weaponry and the cult of martyrdom equate to effective resistance. As the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) advances, Hezbollah hides in underground systems or simply merges with civilian refugees, then they attack from the rear.

Western defense colleges have spent much time studying how to counter so-called "asymmetric warfare." One method is deploying a network to fight a network. In late 2001 small groups of U.S. special forces cooperated with Northern Alliance fighters to utilize devastating air power to rapidly overwhelm the Taliban. Interestingly, the Taliban have recovered ground now that they are fighting conventional NATO forces. Insurgents are adapting and rapidly learning from one another. No doubt lessons on elaborate air-conditioned bunker systems are being Power-Pointed around the jihadist world.

In Vietnam, guerrillas made cross-border raids from the sanctuaries of neighboring states. Hezbollah, however, has waged a sustained daily war of attrition against another nation across a state border...

Tom Odom

08-15-2006, 01:43 PM

Only twice in the United Nations' six decades has it authorized the use of substantial force -- in 1950 regarding Korea and in 1990 regarding Kuwait. It still has not authorized force in Lebanon. What is being called a "cease-fire" resolution calls for Israel to stop all "offensive" operations. Israel, however, reasonably says that its entire effort is defensive. The resolution calls for Hezbollah to stop "all attacks." The United Nations, however, has twice resolved that Hezbollah should be disarmed, yet has not willed the means to that end. Regarding force now, the U.N. merely "expresses its intention to consider in a later resolution further enhancements" of the U.N. force that for 28 years has been loitering without serious intent in south Lebanon.

George Will is off here. The UN Force in the Congo used force including fighter bombers in the sparring surrounding the Katangan secession in the early 1960s. The UN force there was the largest "pure" UN force deployed and most folks have forgotten it altogether. When it used force against the Belgian-sponsored secession of mineral rich Kataganga, that set off a hot political war inside the UN and inside the US government (between JFK's Administration and those who were willing to see the Congo dismembered).

And as usual Will and a host of others treat UNIFIL and its problems as if the UN had deliberately placed an inept force in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL's deployment in south Lebanon was never allowed to go as planned; the primary obstacle was Israel, intent on keeping the Litani River corridor open. UNIFIL soldiers died each month I was in Lebanon and the casualties came from both sides. It will be very interesting to see if the French do put a force on the ground with the requisite means to defend itself, especialy one with real AT and indirect fire capabilities.

Best
Tom

Jedburgh

08-15-2006, 02:15 PM

Wow, that Canergie Endowment for International Peace "piece" was written by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, "an assistant professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She writes regularly on Lebanese politics and is the author of Hizbullah: Politics and Religion." Just call me a sucker for propaganda.
Have you read the book? Well written and insightful, it is one of the better books on Hezballah; it is certainly not "propaganda". The two short pieces she wrote for CEIP provide a good perspective from Lebanon; although gloomy in their analysis, they are not exactly written in a pro-Hezballah slant. If you want to read real pro-Hizballah propaganda, take a look at Hizbullah: The Story from Within, by Naim Qassim, one of the top tier of Hezballah's leadership. The book is still worth a read for the perspective, but you have to recognize it for what it is.

Now, all this talk about Hizbollah rebuilding southern Lebanon is sort of moot with all those Israeli soldiers sleeping in what were once Hizbollah foxholes. What a bunch of crap.
Hezballah has a long history of rebuilding homes and more after major Israeli attacks. Operation Grapes of Wrath has been discussed as an example in another thread. They certainly won't be able to do it in the areas still under IDF control, but you can bet the funds are already flowing and plans are being drawn up.

That also makes things a little difficult for Reuters to stage photographs and pundits to now come up with more lies about how great Hizbollah is for being dumb enough to start this battle to begin with getting Lebanon wrecked. Not only did Hizbollah not win this short engagement they also lost it.
Can you reference any major media organization stating "how great Hizbollah is" for starting this conflict? Thus far, there seems to be unusual unanimity that Hezballah made a huge mistake in their calculations about the kidnapping that initiated this mess. However, Israel also made a tremendous strategic error in this case, as well as numerous operational mistakes, and they damn sure didn't "win" anything. But neither did Hezballah "lose". There is also unusual unanimity regarding the significant boost in stature that Hezballah has gained by simply standing their ground - despite their losses. To disregard the tremendous effect that is rippling throughout the region because of this is unwise.

Also, I don't think the world would miss the current Lebanese government if it was to crumble under the weight of its own hypocrisy. You can't have your cake and eat it too as as the old saying goes.
Blaming the victim. The Lebanese government was weak before this ball started rolling. The US and the West had a great opportunity to positively engage Lebanon after the Cedar Revolution when Syria was forced to withdraw in disgrace. It would have been perfect timing for a massive infusion of economic aid and military assistance specifically aimed at weakening Hezballah at a moment of vulnerability. But we were too focused on other targets, despite the administration's vaunted vision for the region, and only proffered token aid amid loud statements of success. Prior to this fiasco, Lebanon was in the middle of great economic growth and political opening that could have been greatly facilitated for a tremendous positive effect in the Levant. That moment is gone forever, and now Hezballah is in a position of strength. To achieve the same goals now will take a much greater effort, and the Lebanese government is going to be far less cooperative.

It took over 25 rockets to kill one Israeli citizen. It took one Israeli forward observer or one Israeli air strike to kill an entire platoon of the world's greatest guerrilla force. The bad guys get together a three man team and run out and kill a tank. Suddenly, Israel is losing? How many tanks and crews has Israel lost since 1948? Three? Four?
You are making the common errors of using body counts to make judgments of effect and mirror imaging ideas of conventional warfare onto a completely different type of conflict. The effect of Hizballah's rockets is purely psychological and has nothing to do with numbers of Israelis killed or wounded. Go back over the past decade's reporting in the Israeli media of rocket attacks in northern Israel and you'll see what I mean. The same thing goes when a Merkava is destroyed - a single tank destroyed by Hezballah has a far greater psychological impact upon the IDF and the people at home than did a dozen tanks destroyed in the Sinai in '73. Israel did not lose this fracas militarily; it lost it at the strategic geo-political level.

Some people seem to think we're up against the same type of endlessly funded insurgencies and guerrillas from the late great Soviet Union era. In case anyone hasn't noticed but the Soviet Union is gone. All their little victories during the Cold War are dying on the vine. That would include Syria and Iran.
No one with any sense mirror images today's conflicts with the brush fires of the Cold War. Although, to reverse that, there is a risk in summarily dismissing that era, because there are still significant lessons gained from those brush fires that we disregard at our peril. As you point out, however, funding is an issue that has changed tremendously. But today's terror and insurgent threats seem to have no problem in arming and equipping themselves. Rather than go into sources in detail here, I will simply recommend another RAND product: Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1405/index.html)

By the way, Iran was not a Soviet victory. The Shah was a proxy of the U.S., and the Islamic Revolution was nearly as virulently anti-Soviet as it was anti-U.S. (they lumped us together as imperialists, and even burned our flags together).

Merv Benson

08-15-2006, 02:33 PM

As a terror weapon the Hezballah rocket attacks were much less effective than human bomb attacks, both in body counts and terror in general, not to mention cost. The rockets did cause a lot of grass fires and forest fires. Perhaps their largest effect was in the disruption of the northern Israeli economy.

Hezballah remains a parasitic organization that relies on the charity of Iran and Syria plus its own organized crime methods of fund raising, so any rebuilding it does with be at the expense of flow of funds from those sources. One of its advantages is that it basically will bear no consequence for the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure, therefore Hezballah will have little incentive to avoid future conflicts. The contribution of Saudi and other Gulf states to the rebuilding of the Infrastructure appears to have no strings that would force the Lebanese goverment to restrain Hezballah. The ability to make war without consequence or responsibility seems to be Hezballah's greatest asset.

Finding away to deal with that problem is the best hope of avoiding future conflicts with this group.

Culpeper

08-15-2006, 07:34 PM

No, I have not read the book but I have put it in my queue. Right now I’m reading the RAND “On ‘Other War’”. If the current situation remains as planned then Hizbollah has lost the ability to rebuild what they help get destroyed. Oh, they will try but it is going to be difficult under the eyes of the entire world this time. It would be up to the UN to manage the rebuilding as such. Also, CNN is a good example of pro Hizbollah media coverage…

“During earlier coverage on Sunday, CNN chose the word ‘resistance’ to describe Hizbullah's actions in Lebanon – a term used by Hizbullah - as well as Hamas - to describe their own attacks - implicitly presuming that armed jihad organizations are 'resisting' and defending against aggression, rather than initiating it.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3291328,00.html

I don’t consider the Lebanese government a victim. I consider them a codependent of Hizbollah and blaming the current U.S. administration for allowing Lebanon to take their own medicine is not a mistake in the long term. I see no sense in the U.S. enabling the government of Lebanon into taking half measures as being good enough. Thus, the U.S. focusing on other problems rather than enabling Lebanon was not a mistake.

I understand the difference between conventional and the needed unconventional tactics in regard to fighting outfits like Hizbollah. Nevertheless, it is the U.S. that takes the loss of a single tank as a psychological defeat and not the IDF or the people of Israel. Israeli history didn’t start in 1948. I was just using that as a reference point because of the current State of Israel. Also, you stated that Israel didn’t win anything and then later claimed Israel won militarily. Since it is too soon to tell how big of an unconventional victory they may have achieved I will remain undecided until the current plan succeeds or fails before deciding whether or not Israel made mistakes to the point of defeat as is currently being spread throughout the Islam world no different than the Egyptian government falsely telling the Jordan government and the rest of the Muslim countries that they were once pounding the Israelis in Jerusalem and thus causing Jordan to end up losing territory. I also understand not to ignore past insurgency conflicts backed by the Soviet Union but I also recognize that today these insurgencies don’t have that sort of backing any longer. Gone are the days when Syria would be able to replace tanks with a constant flow of new ones coming in via the Soviet Union. I stand corrected on Iran.

As for Hizbollah’s valor and fighting tenacity? Towards the end of the current fighting after the cease-fire was imminent they were actually abandoning positions and weapons. Weapons provided by Iran and Syria no doubt. These guys are not the Japanese in the Pacific Theater. They do have options. One being to live another day and to do stupid things like abandoning weapons so the civilized world can prove where they actually came from. They're really not that smart.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/15/wmid15.xml

Jones_RE

08-15-2006, 07:57 PM

Hezbollah initiated a course of violence for two reasons: 1) it wanted something and 2) it thought it could accomplish something violence. They wouldn't launch an attack for no reason. They also wouldn't launch an attack that would be doomed to complete failure.

Marc MacYoung, from No Nonsense Self Defense, describes the concept of a "Secondary Victory." He was speaking of the sort of "victory" achieved by a violent criminal or an inmate in a correctional setting. The perpetrator doesn't beat the police officers in the sense that he "wins" or gets away. But by making cops sweat and work for it he gains esteem among his peers - other criminals or inmates. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. There's no way that a prison inmate will ever beat up all the guards - they have him outnumbered and have better weapons. But if it takes six men with pepper spray, clubs and stun guns to drag him out of his cell think about how tough that guy is!

Hezbollah has scored the same sort of "victory" here. They haven't achieved a true victory: IDF troops stopped of their own accord. They were not bloodily repulsed or routed in a conventional sense - all engaged IDF units remain combat effective and are ready to resume operations at any time.

However, it's undeniable that Hezbollah has achieved a secondary victory. Their power and prestige on the Arab Street, among Arab governments, in Lebannon, in Europe, in the UN and in Syria and Iran couldn't be higher right now. That makes them immensely difficult to deal with.

If you want to prevent a group like Hezbollah from getting violent, you have to set things up so that they cannot get what they want through violence, cannot achieve a secondary victory, and offer them something that they do want through another means (namely, compliance with your demands).

Israel is only moderately successful at the first part. Hezbollah has a very difficult time achieving much in the way of violence against Israel proper. Rockets and mortars usually miss. Raids and sniping are hard work (and dangerous!). The border is pretty well guarded. A true success would be a heavily patrolled border, backed up by human intelligence work in Lebannon. The IDF should have stopped Hezbollah's raid before it even started by being alert, well trained and fully prepared for battle. Hezbollah wouldn't have dared launch it if they'd known it would fail.

Israel has NOT been successful at the second part. By reacting with a lot of force in a big, conventional operation they already show some weakness. But having that operation fail is utterly unacceptable. Israel has to go a long way towards developing the kind of human intelligence contacts and surveillance operations that would have enabled it to defeat Hezbollah quickly and clearly. A willingness on the part of the IDF/the Isreali government/Israeli society to accept higher military casualties would be a good start - it opens up rougher operations.

Israel has not even attempted to offer Hezbollah another way out. Right now there is no negotiation. There are no contacts. If violence is the only means Hezbollah has then they'll use violence, regardless of the cost or the odds.

A proper strategy of deterrance has to hit all three key points: deny the antagonist the ability to achieve victory, make sure the antagonist knows that there's nothing to be had from defeat either (i.e. no secondary victory) and finally offer the antagonist another way to recover something from a bad situation.

Israel needs to seriously step up its intelligence work and enter into negotiations with Hezbollah. Not so much to argue about details, but to offer the leadership of Hezbollah a plausible alternative to fighting. In their place, I'd be more than willing to trade Hezbollah prisoners in whatever numbers for Israeli citizens/soldiers. The IDF can always get more of them, after all. Shebaa farms is another matter. Israel can also offer reparations for damage to civilian infrastructure or offer humanitarian aid. Disarming Hezbollah will probably not happen. Israel is too weak to negotiate that much of a concession. Once Israel establishes its ability to achieve all three steps of deterrance, then they can demand compliance from Hezbollah on rockets or possibly full disarmament.

Note that a beefed up UNIFIL and forward deployed Lebanese army would make it more difficult for Hezbollah to achieve even a secondary victory - too much chance that their initial operation would fail in a humiliating fashion.

Jedburgh

08-15-2006, 09:25 PM

If the current situation remains as planned then Hizbollah has lost the ability to rebuild what they help get destroyed. Oh, they will try but it is going to be difficult under the eyes of the entire world this time. It would be up to the UN to manage the rebuilding as such.
Current plans are simply to disarm Hezballah; to eliminate them as a armed militia independent of the Lebanese government. "Under the eyes of the world" only matters in that context. The organization retains its representation in the Lebanese parliament, and they will also retain all of their social welfare infrastructure. The only obstacle to their engaging in reconstruction is the continued IDF presence in certain areas. In all other areas there is nothing to stop them from moving forward with rebuilding.

As regards disarmament, I - along with countless others, I'm sure - am waiting to see how the process is going to turn out. An Israeli general has already spoken out against integrating former Hezballah fighters in the Lebanese Army. Some other form of actionable DDR program has to be put into place for disarmament to be effective.

I don't consider the Lebanese government a victim. I consider them a co-dependent of Hizbollah and blaming the current U.S. administration for allowing Lebanon to take their own medicine is not a mistake in the long term. I see no sense in the U.S. enabling the government of Lebanon into taking half measures as being good enough. Thus, the U.S. focusing on other problems rather than enabling Lebanon was not a mistake.
This is a nation that was just recovering from roughly 15 years of civil war followed by years of foreign domination. While Israel occupied a southern "security zone", the Lebanese central government was not only weak, but effectively under Syrian dominance, if not outright control. After the Israelis finally withdrew from south Lebanon six years ago, most Lebanese wanted to see Hezballah disarmed. However, with Hezballah being a client of Syria, the Lebanese had no choice but to accept their armed presence and provocations on the border with Israel. The Cedar Revolution provided an opportunity, but the Lebanese government and security forces were still too weak, and Hezballah and the Shi'a too unwilling, to disarm and integrate the organization without descent into a new civil war. There was a moment when the U.S. and the West could have stepped in and achieved a strategic victory - without force of arms. It passed.

...you stated that Israel didn't win anything and then later claimed Israel won militarily.
I never "claimed" that Israel won militarily. I simply said that "Israel did not lose this fracas militarily". The mere fact of not losing does not automatically translate into a win. There was no clear military victor in this campaign. The IDF certainly has the lead by measure of pure destruction, but Hezballah continued to inflict casualties and fire rockets up until the cease-fire. There were not many head-to-head engagements in the campaign. When that did occur, the IDF hammered Hezballah. But Hezballah, like any other irregular force, prefers hit-and-run engagements. These resulted in casualties on the IDF side, and sometimes resulted in the deaths of the Hezballah ambush teams. Did they hurt the IDF militarily? No. But the Israeli public is extremely casualty-conscious (far more so than the U.S. public), so Hezballah achieved a little IO victory with each IDF WIA/KIA. Did the IDF hurt Hezballah militarily? Yes. But not to the point of crippling the organization to a degree from which it can't recover in the near-to-mid term.

As stated above, the key to how this all turns out in the near term lies in how the mandate for the new "peacekeeping" force is structured - but in the long-term the Lebanese government and security forces need to be strengthened in order to ensure stability. And they have been crippled by this campaign to a greater degree than has Hezballah.

Culpeper

08-16-2006, 03:52 AM

Could you expand on the moment the U.S. could have helped the Lebanese government? You keep referring to it and I don't see the light yet. In my current frame of mind, even though their government was more democratic than before, it still immediately resulted with Hizbollah pulling the strings. Similar to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and so forth. Even now, the Lebanese government is reluctant to cross the river as directed under the current cease-fire. I'm having a difficult time separating the government from Hizbollah. I always have.

Strickland

08-18-2006, 12:21 PM

It is impossible to separate Hizbollah from the Lebanese Government, due to the fact that Hizbollah has popularly elected officials in positions of influence within the Lebanese administration. This would be akin to trying to separate the Republican or Democratic Party from our government?

Yes, Hizbollah - the Movement has a militia, but so does the ruling party of Iraq, and we havent put it on the Foreign Terrorist Organization List yet.

Here's a thought - is our refusal to deal with Hizbollah on a political basis over their remarks concerning the illegitimacy of Israel in any way similiar to our dealing with the Japanese, yet not asking them to publicly admit to killing and raping millions of Chinese during WWII? In the end, are we not picking and choosing which statements or lack of statements offend our general political and moral sensibilities?

I think we all forget that Hizbollah and Hasan Nasrallah publicly denounced the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Jedburgh

08-18-2006, 09:03 PM

Hezballah Wages a Propaganda War in the Rubble of South Beirut (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5262832.stm)

...Ghassan Darwish is supervising the erection of dozens of red banners, in English and Arabic over the huge piles of debris left by the air raids...they carry sardonic messages like "Made in the US", "The New Middle East", "Smart bombs for stupid minds" and "Extremely precise target".

The message Hezbollah wants to get over is that this is a civilian area deliberately bombed to rubble by Israel - people's homes, businesses and social centres buried under thousands of tons of crumpled concrete.

The extraordinary thing is that hundreds of people - from the whole Lebanese political and confessional spectrum - are walking through this dusty scene of devastation.

Bulldozers supplied by Hezbollah have cleared safe walkways through the wreckage and yellow tape prevents visitors from entering unsafe buildings or areas not yet cleared of unexploded munitions.

Young men in red baseball caps saying "Ja'a Nasr Allah" (literally, "God's victory has come", but also a pun on the name of Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah) are moving through the crowds.

They hand out copies of a letter from the local Hezbollah leadership giving details of how people can receive money for temporary accommodation from the movement and promising "the return of our people whose homes have been damaged by the Israeli aggression".

"We will rebuild this whole area," Mr Darwish proudly tells me. "Hezbollah is not just about rockets and fighting, otherwise people would have left us long ago. We will be victorious in the reconstruction, just as we have been victorious against Israel's army."...

SWJED

08-19-2006, 11:24 AM

From the Vital Perspective Blog - Background Briefing: Iran's Historic and Present Ties with Lebanon, Hezbollah (http://vitalperspective.typepad.com/vital_perspective_clarity/2006/08/background_brie.html).

The origins of Iranian involvement in Lebanon:

Iran first became involved militarily in Lebanon when a 2500-strong Iranian expeditionary force drawn from the Revolutionary Guard land army was sent to Syria in 1982 to assist in confronting Israel during the Peace in Galilee campaign.

Although the Syrians prevented actual Iranian participation in fighting, with many of the troops being returned to Iran, the remainder (1000-1500 men) stayed on to camp in the Bekaa Valley in the midst of the Shiite population. The force established a permanent military and logistic infrastructure at Camp Sheikh Abdallah in Baalbek, (which it had captured from the Lebanese Army) and at the Zabadani Camp in Syria, northeast of Damascus. In addition, command posts, field intelligence and operations units were established at Baalbek, Beirut, Zahleh and Mashgara (south Bekaa).

However the most distinctive accomplishment of the Iranians in Lebanon was their ability to cause disparate Shiite groups (which had been operating as local clan militias) to unite under one organizational umbrella called Hezbollah ("the party of Allah"), to indoctrinate their leaders with the extremist concepts of the Islamic revolution, and to train them in the military techniques and methods of the Revolutionary Guards.

Assistance by the Revolutionary Guards to Hezbollah prior to and during the present confrontation:

Iran did all it could during the present confrontation to stress its moral support for Hezbollah, as being part of "the historic struggle against the Zionist cancer and the USA". At the same time Iran strenuously denied any military involvement in the crisis. In fact, Iran was totally involved in these events.

This involvement was led by the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards. The Quds Force commanded by Qasem Suleimani is in charge of Iranian military operations and terrorist activities world-wide, and Lebanon is one of its main theaters of operations.

The Revolutionary Guard force in Lebanon is the spearhead of Iran in its campaign against Israel. It expresses an Iranian strategy that sees Lebanon as a beach-head, and so cultivates Hezbollah and its strategic abilities as a means of reacting to Israel, to wear Israel down with the ultimate aim of destroying that country, and meanwhile maintaining a balanced deterrent against it.

Over the years the Revolutionary Guards strengthened Hezbollah's military capabilities, granting it over $100 million annually. Iran also supplied the organization with varied weaponry, some of which was used by Hezbollah in the recent conflict. Some of these weapons were used independently and others required Iranian consent before use, such as the C-802 missiles...

Further Iranian assistance to Hezbollah in the recent fighting:

Iran supplied Hezbollah with intelligence about Israel.

Technical assistance in operating weapons: This assistance complemented routine basic training held in Iran at Revolutionary Guards camps and facilities. The two main camps of the Quds Force where non-Iranians are trained are the Imam Ali base in Teheran and Bahunar camp at Kharj north of Teheran. Two Hezbollah terrorists captured by the IDF related that they had been trained by the Revolutionary Guards at the Kharj base. One of them named the commander of an anti-aircraft course in 1999 as Hassan Irelo, a senior Iranian officer in charge of training.

Courses and joint exercises held in Iran for Hezbollah included anti-tank weapons (firing Sagger and Tow missiles), and anti-aircraft missiles. Special efforts were made to train in the use of strategic missiles with ranges of over 75 and 100 km, as well as drones. Revolutionary Guards officers assisted Hezbollah in launching an Iranian drone in November 2004 against Israel.

During recent years the Iranians stepped up supply of weapons to Hezbollah by air. When humanitarian supplies were flown into Iran following the earthquakes in Bam in southeast Iran (Dec 2003-Jan 2004) at least 9 return flights were used to ferry weapons to Hezbollah.

It is estimated that some recent attempts to resupply from Iran were prevented by IDF action. But the huge arsenal amassed over the years gave Hezbollah its "second wind". Iranian leaders have recently admitted publicly to supplying Hezbollah with weapons including long range rockets that threaten Israel...

Jedburgh

08-23-2006, 01:26 PM

From the Jamestown Foundation: The Man in Nasrallah's Shadow: A Profile of Sheikh Naim Qasim (http://jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=196)

Sheikh Naim Qasim, the deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah, is one of the most interesting politicians in Lebanon. He is also one of the most under-covered by the Western media because he remains overshadowed by the towering influence of his boss, the charismatic 46-year-old Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Yet the life and career of the number two man in Hezbollah is important since he is the leader who would likely lead the controversial party if Nasrallah were to step down or get killed by Israel...
Additional insights into the man and his perspectives on the organization can be gained from his book, "Hizbullah: The Story from Within".

SWJED

09-01-2006, 06:52 AM

1 September Washington Times - Palestinians Aim to Learn from Hezbollah (http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060831-094557-3601r.htm) by Joshua Mitnick.

Gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant Palestinian group known for its suicide attacks on Israel, say they envy Hezbollah even as they despair of their own inability to defeat Israeli forces.

"Even though we feel our capabilities are depleted, any chance at striking back we'll take. We have men that will eat stones," said Abu Ameed, who used a nickname for fear of arrest by the Israeli military.

"And if our generation feels a little demoralized, the next generations will not stop."

Mr. Ameed was part of a group of gunmen who spoke with a reporter in a grungy courtyard parking lot in Ramallah. Their disappointment was obvious. The Israeli military can reach them at will, and leaders of their own Fatah party want them to lay down their weapons.

But after Hezbollah held firm against an Israeli invasion for 34 days until an Aug. 14 cease-fire, the Palestinian gunmen say they have hope.

Israeli officials and analysts have expressed concern that Palestinian militants will try to replicate Hezbollah's tactics and "Lebanonize" areas such as the Gaza Strip by smuggling advanced weapons and building bunkers.

The militants, who wore black shirts, said they are trying to learn the lessons of Hezbollah's success, which they attributed partly to the militia's cohesion and discipline...

Jedburgh

09-11-2006, 02:56 AM

Published in The Asia Times, 9 Sep 06: How Hi-Tech Hezbollah Called the Shots (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HI09Ak01.html)

Hezbollah's ability to repel the Israel Defense Forces during the recent conflict was largely due to its use of intelligence techniques gleaned from allies Iran and Syria that allowed it to monitor encoded Israeli communications relating to battlefield actions, according to Israeli officials, whose claims have been independently corroborated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "Israeli EW [electronic warfare] systems were unable to jam the systems at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, they proved unable to jam Hezbollah's command and control links from Lebanon to Iranian facilities in Syria, they (Hezbollah) blocked the Barak ship anti-missile systems, and they hacked into Israeli operations communications in the field..."

...The ability to hack into Israel's military communications gave Hezbollah a decisive battlefield advantage, aside from allowing it to dominate the media war by repeatedly intercepting reports of the casualties it had inflicted and announcing them through its television station, Al-Manar...

SWJED

09-14-2006, 09:36 AM

14 September USA Today - Israeli Military Studies Hezbollah's Resilience (http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060914/a_israelarmy14.art.htm) by Yaakov Katz.

Israel's military has ordered a series of investigations to examine why its armed forces were unable to crush Hezbollah militants during a month of fighting in Lebanon.

Hezbollah guerrillas proved a resilient foe for Israel's vaunted military, inflicting casualties and firing missiles into Israel despite a punishing air campaign. Even after Israel sent thousands of troops into Lebanon, Israeli military commanders were still surprised by Hezbollah's capabilities.

“This is by far the greatest guerrilla group in the world,” said Brig. Gen. Guy Zur, commander of Division 162. His division lost 12 soldiers during an effort by Israel to gain ground days before a United Nations-brokered cease-fire went into effect Aug. 14...

Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 after an 18-year occupation in the south. Hezbollah used the past six years to build a complex network of tunnels and other fortifications in southern Lebanon. Some of these bunkers were found a couple hundred yards from the border with Israel.

Israeli troops, Saguy said, walked into traps Hezbollah had been preparing for six years.

Hezbollah is rearming after Israel lifted the sea and air blockade of Lebanon, allowing the group to get smuggled weapons, some experts say.

“Hezbollah is working to recover its arsenal and will be in several months where it was before the war,” Ganor said.

Bill Moore

09-14-2006, 02:51 PM

1. Hezbollah lost several foot soldiers in the conflict. Are they effectively able to recruit replacements? There is a big difference between supporters waving Hezbollah flags and volunteering to fight. If their recruiting trend is improving that would be an area of concern.

2. What is the trend of public support for Hezbollah? Understandably there was mass support for Hezbollah during the recent spat between Israel and Lebanon, since Hezbollah was the only effective force countering "perceived" Israeli aggression; however, now that the dust has settled is the Lebonese public reconsidering their position on the Hezbollah?

If anyone can provide answers to these questions it would be most appreciated.

Tom Odom

09-14-2006, 03:30 PM

Bill,

I can provide experienced-based SWAGs:

a. Recruitment will not be a problem among the young Shia in Lebanon. Hiszballah's "victory" may be perceptions-based but that constitutes reality in this matter.

b. Larger support for Hizballah will be greater at least for the near term. Hizballah damage payments to locals and earlier civic minded efforts all work in the organization's favor.

The central questiuon will be how Hizballah, the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Army, and the Israelis react to the expanded UNIFIL, one with a much more aggressive mandate and larger troop list.

Frankly, Zur's comments are somewhat obfuscatory; Hizballah's record against the IDF was not a state secret hidden from IDF leaders. And the open press--especially Poole's book on their tactics--had very accurate portrayals of what could be expected, especially the use of caves and caches.

Best

Tom

CPT Holzbach

09-14-2006, 03:55 PM

Hezbollah laid ambushes throughout southern Lebanon's hilly terrain, hitting Israel's tanks with some of the world's most advanced anti-tank missiles...Israel's military has asked the government for $2.5 billion to purchase a system capable of detecting and tracking anti-tank missiles and countering them with a launched projectile.

OF COURSE that's what they want to do. They would get better results faster if they just practice their defile drills. Accept the idea that tanks must have significant infantry support in broken, complex terrain (hills, mountains, cities). The tanks by themselves won't be enough. The IDF loves it's flashy, 3rd gen, manuever warfare, but in complex terrain, it's slow going; no faster than the slowest fat ass in the accompanying infantry. The IDF should send units to train with the US forces in Korea. Defile drills are the name of the game in the mech forces there. And it would cost less than $2.5 billion.

selil

09-19-2006, 08:44 PM

Hezbollah cracked the code
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wocode184896831sep18,0,3091818.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print

Hezbollah guerrillas were able to hack into Israeli radio communications during last month's battles in south Lebanon, an intelligence breakthrough that helped them thwart Israeli tank assaults, according to Hezbollah and Lebanese officials.

Using technology most likely supplied by Iran, special Hezbollah teams monitored the constantly changing radio frequencies of Israeli troops on the ground. That gave guerrillas a picture of Israeli movements, casualty reports and supply routes. It also allowed Hezbollah anti-tank units to more effectively target advancing Israeli armor, according to the officials.

"We were able to monitor Israeli communications, and we used this information to adjust our planning," said a Hezbollah commander involved in the battles, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official refused to detail how Hezbollah was able to intercept and decipher Israeli transmissions. He acknowledged that guerrillas were not able to hack into Israeli communications around the clock.

The Israeli military refused to comment on whether its radio communications were compromised, citing security concerns. But a former Israeli general, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Hezbollah's ability to secretly hack into military transmissions had "disastrous" consequences for the Israeli offensive.

kaur

10-05-2006, 11:46 AM

Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah War: A Preliminary Assessment

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus60.pdf

kaur

10-12-2006, 11:51 AM

After reading this report I'm wondering how would Hezbollah perform if they could use SAM's as close protection agains Israeli air force. What is your oppinion?

I didn't find any mention of mortarts used by Hezbollah. Couldn't be mortars effective counter measure against infantry that covered Israeli tanks. Report says that Israelis couldn't intercept short range Katyushas. Can we make parallel and say that Israelis are not able to spot possible Hezbollah's mortar batterys. Does anyone know if mortars in that kind of conflict are vulnerable to Israeli counter-battery radars? Is this kind mortar tactics already passed phase on Hezbollah's learning curve?

Strickland

10-12-2006, 12:11 PM

I just finished this report last night, along with those "Lessons Learned" pieces on the subject by CSIS - Cordesman. Based off what I read, it appears that Hizb'allah did a considerable amount of damage regardless of the fact as you point out, that there is no mention of the use of mortars or SAMs. However, the report estimates that they were able to engage 48 of 400 tanks that were involved in the operation, and hit over 6,000 homes/business with their rockets, killing or wounding 4800. Thus, while incapable of mitigating the damage done by the Israeli Air Force, they certainly could counter a ground offensive. In the end, our friends the British, Germans, Vietnamese, and Serbs all demonstrated that a determined foe can survive and thrive during a sustained air campaign in the absence of a credible ground threat. In the end, Hizb'allah surely appear to be the "winners" if there was one.

While Hizb'allah is on the short list of FTOs with the US, I definitely think it would cross-over into a different category with the US and the EU if they received a significant quantity of SAMs. I would imagine that the "most-likely" nightmare scenario for most counter-terrorism folks remains a civilian airliner being downed by a missile fired from a lone gunmen (SAM operator).

Jedburgh

10-12-2006, 12:46 PM

I believe this is the CSIS piece that Strickland is referring to:

Preliminary "Lessons" of the Israeli-Hezbollah War (http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060911_isr_hez_lessons.pdf)

aktarian

10-12-2006, 05:47 PM

After reading this report I'm wondering how would Hezbollah perform if they could use SAM's as close protection agains Israeli air force. What is your oppinion?

If they would be MANPADS IDF/AF would counter it with different flying procedures and defence measures (something similar to what Soviets had to do in Afghanistan), if it would be any sort of radar guidiance those radars would be first and high priority targets for ARM strikes.

kaur

10-12-2006, 07:49 PM

As far as I did understand, big part in countering the rockets was done by armed drones.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002828.html#comments

Katyshas with lower trajectory went unnoticed. The same phenomena was/is in Iraq, where guerillas shot mortars with very low angle. This kind of modus oprandi was very hard to detect for counter battery radars.

In Afganistan the appearce of Stingers changed Soviet tactics against guerillas. They had to fly much higher which ment that accuracy of their attacks was never the same.

In Kosovo/Serbia campiagn the SAM threat made US Air Force very careful. There was unbeliveable number of Wild Weasels per bombers. It would be great media boost for Hezbollah to have 1 downed F-16 or even drone. ... but maybe Iranian sponsors knew that Israelies have some kind of counter measures that make all attempts futile. If I remember correctly Isrealis boastes some time ago that their Air Force does have contermeasures against S-300 (aybe they ment those decoys that US used also against Iraq). There has been talk about anti-SAM lasers for airliners. Maybe fighter planes have those also. If palnes could afford them, I doubt drones do.

It would be very interesting to know why Hezbollah didn't use those simple portable weapons despite the fact that sponsors could afford that.

Jedburgh

10-12-2006, 10:28 PM

Here's the first two parts of a three-part series being published in the Asia Times:

12 Oct 06: Part 1: Winning the Intelligence War (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ12Ak01.html)

...Our overall conclusion contradicts the current point of view being retailed by some White House and Israeli officials: that Israel's offensive in Lebanon significantly damaged Hezbollah's ability to wage war, that Israel successfully degraded Hezbollah's military ability to prevail in a future conflict, and that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), once deployed in large numbers in southern Lebanon, were able to prevail over their foes and dictate a settlement favorable to the Israeli political establishment.

Just the opposite is true. From the onset of the conflict to its last operations, Hezbollah commanders successfully penetrated Israel's strategic and tactical decision-making cycle across a spectrum of intelligence, military and political operations, with the result that Hezbollah scored a decisive and complete victory in its war with Israel...
13 Oct 06: Part 2: Winning the Ground War (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ13Ak01.html)

...Moreover, and more significant, Hezbollah's fighters proved to be dedicated and disciplined. Using intelligence assets to pinpoint Israeli infantry penetrations, they proved the equal of Israel's best fighting units. In some cases, Israeli units were defeated on the field of battle, forced into sudden retreats or forced to rely on air cover to save elements from being overrun. Even toward the end of the war, on August 9, the IDF announced that 15 of its reserve soldiers were killed and 40 wounded in fighting in the villages of Marjayoun, Khiam and Kila - a stunning casualty rate for a marginal piece of real estate...
Edit to add: 14 Oct 06: Part 3: The Political War (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ14Ak01.html)

kaur

10-13-2006, 08:37 AM

Here is article from JDF 20.09.2006, that describes very well katysha rockets shooting modus operandi. Nice deception principles.

http://rapidshare.de/files/36556553/HezbRockets.pdf.html

kaur

11-06-2006, 01:15 PM

Hamas is learning too. Article form JDW

http://www.webfilehost.com/?mode=viewupload&id=4539274

georgev

12-02-2006, 01:46 PM

Hi!
Need to know the movement and strategy of Hizballh in Lebanon.
Regards,
George

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/12/print/hizballah_offensive_in_lebanon.php

jonSlack

12-28-2006, 01:12 AM

Jerusalem Post - Exclusive: Hizbullah paying terrorists for Kassam attacks (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881992801&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)

According to the officials, while Islamic Jihad was behind most recent rocket attacks - including the one on Tuesday night that critically wounded 14-year-old Adir Basad in Sderot - several splinter terrorists groups are also involved and have received direct funding from Hizbullah.
According to security officials, Islamic Jihad gets the money via its headquarters in Damascus while Fatah's Tanzim terror group and the Popular Resistance Committees receive payment from Hizbullah in Lebanon.

All of the money originated in Iran, the officials said.

Government officials said Hamas was not currently involved in firing missiles, but was doing nothing to stop those who were.

kaur

12-28-2006, 05:59 PM

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus63.pdf

Jedburgh

12-28-2006, 07:59 PM

Hizballah at War: A Military Assessment (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus63.pdf)
Good link, Kaur.

From the conclusion:

...Hizballah’s display on the battlefield should worry U.S. policymakers and military planners as well. Enemies of the United States will likely seek to emulate Hizballah’s perceived successes in southern Lebanon, and the lessons learned by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan may or may not apply to such a fight. As the IDF learned in the occupied territories and Lebanon, the fight you have today might be completely different from the one you have tomorrow...
I don't believe we need to be "worried". Threat migration is an issue that we are very cognizant of, and (despite assertions to the contrary by some critics) there are a few very capable professionals out there monitoring various insurgent and terrorist TTPs in conflicts around the world. The TTPs of the conflict in question are certainly being broken down and digested for their potential at the tactical and operational level. However, the context of the Israeli-Hizballah conflict is unique, and I do not see it being replicated for a future US conflict.

It also needs to be said that those Americans in uniform who have spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan already are starkly aware of the truism that the fight you have today might be completely different from the one you have tomorrow. Threat TTPs, particularly in Iraq, are very often highly adaptive and evolutionary. In my opinion, we do a very good job of collecting lessons learned and breaking down threat tactics - although we do have blockages to effective dissemination and training implementation.

This oft-beaten dead horse - effective information sharing - is still a serious problem. As stated, we have capable professionals collecting and analyzing virtually all relevant lessons to be learned from conflicts world-wide. The problem is that it doesn't all go where it can do the most good - down to the small unit leaders that can best digest and implement the material.

Of course, much of the "analysis" I'm speaking of isn't put together into a soldier-friendly format...although these tactical lessons are picked up, they are not broken down and put back into a format useable at the tactical level by our guys.

And, although we do monitor and analyze TTPs in a wide variety of conflicts, there is no intelligence element that ultimately ties it all together and spits it back out - linking key aspects of separated TTPs from around the world together, like an explosives analyst looks at signatures in widely scattered bombing incidents, a profiler looks for tiny similarities in multiple murders across a wide area, or a crime analyst looks for similar incidents in other regions as he works to figure out a new crime trend in his jurisdiction...

Strickland

12-29-2006, 03:56 AM

I am not sure why this is either shocking or seen as being somehow under-handed or nefarious? Didnt we pay the Contras to attack the legitimate government of Nicaragua? Didnt we pay the Hmong to act as a counterinsurgent force? Didnt we pay the ISI / Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviets? Wasnt the IRA primarily funded by misguided souls in Boston and New York City?

Bowman

12-29-2006, 07:01 AM

What I find interesting is that apparently Hezbollah has to pay someone to do their deed ! How much of this mercenary business is going on when we are told that ideology drives the attacks ? Very interesting and worth looking further .

Bill Moore

12-30-2006, 12:25 AM

The Hezbollah have proven they understand how to implement 4GW strategy effectively. These are guesses, but they are attempting to garner more political power in Lebanon, so they are probably holding their military arm in reserve, and keeping a clean overt appearance, yet covertly they are keeping the pressure on Israel by channeling money to various individuals and groups to conduct harassment attacks against Israel. To what purpose? This creates a wide array of targets for Israel, which means there are few if any identifiable targets that can be "effectively" neutralized. They may be able to find and kill the shooter, but there are hundreds of shooters waiting to step up to the plate. The Israeli government obviously feels compelled to take action, so this could be an attempt to lure Israel into conducting an attack, which will be seen by many as unprovoked, so again Hezbollah wins on the IO stage. Speculation, but don't underestimate them.

kaur

01-06-2007, 10:23 AM

Take a look at pages 18-19

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/mh/dti0906/

120mm

01-08-2007, 07:13 AM

Seems to be a reverification, though from a pro-Israeli source, of Israeli Armor performance in Lebanon.

As an aside, that NXT-book format is horrible. Who thought that would be a good idea?

Jedburgh

01-18-2007, 07:54 PM

In Their Own Words: Hizbollah’s Strategy in the Current Confrontation (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/saadghorayeb_hizbollah_final.pdf)

...The ideas expressed in the lengthy interviews, which we summarize below, are vitriolic. In deciding what material to use and what to leave out, we picked neither the most inflammatory nor the least controversial. Rather, we picked the ideas that were expressed repeatedly. We present those ideas without commentary, even when the language is extreme and accuracy questionable. We believe the raw material of the interviews will be helpful to readers seeking to understand the current crisis in Lebanon as well as the potential long-term ramifications of the crisis.

This presentation of Hizbollah’s ideas is based on six interviews conducted in Beirut by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb. The officials interviewed between November 1 and December 10, 2006 were: Sheikh Na’im Qasim, Hizbollah’s Deputy Secretary General; Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, the Commander of the Resistance in the South; Seyyid Nawaf al-Mousawi, the head of Hizbollah’s Foreign Relations Unit; Hussein Khalil, Seyyid Hassan Nasrallah’s Personal Political Assistant and member of the party’s Shura-Council; Ali Fayyad, head of Hizbollah’s think tank and member of Hizbollah’s Politburo; and Ghaleb Abou Zeynab, member of Hizbollah’s Politburo....

Jedburgh

06-21-2007, 01:38 PM

20 Jun 07 testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe: Adding Hezbollah to the EU Terror List.

Michael Jacobson, Senior Fellow, Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence & Policy, WINEP (http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/110/jac062007.htm)

Alexander Ritzmann, Senior Fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy (http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/110/rit062007.htm)

James Phillips, Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation (http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/110/phi062007.htm)

Dr. Matthew Levitt, Director of the Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence and Policy, WINEP (http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov:80/110/lev062007.htm)

SteveMetz

07-17-2007, 06:45 PM

In a recent interview, Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahhal discussed how Israel's summer 2006 war against Hezbollah changed both the West's vision of Arabs and the Arabs' vision of themselves (al-Quds al-Arabi, July 13). Rahhal claims that the Arabs now see themselves as "capable of action," and no longer as a people "who cannot do anything in the face of an advanced Western machine [the Israeli military] that is supported with a lifeline from the West." He argued that the West now sees the Arab as one with the "will of steadfastness, confrontation and dedication, as well as the capability of fighting…who can be a match for the Israeli, who has 60 years of technical and financial support from the West…We have forced the West to look at us as equals." Rahhal also analyzed the changed perception that Israelis have of themselves in the wake of the war. "There is a feeling of disappointment and failure [among Israelis]," he said. "This is because he has reached a conviction that if the Arabs had a will to fight, they cannot win. They are reassessing the situation with regard to all Arab armies. This is extremely important, and it is a strategic change that involves the Arab and Israeli individuals."

Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Focus, July 17, 2007 - Volume IV, Issue 23 (http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?issue_id=4179)

This reminds me of all the time Saddam Hussein spent explaining why 1991 was actually a win for him. These guys must be magna cum laude graduates of the Karl Rove Academy of Positive Spin

Jedburgh

08-23-2007, 10:16 PM

WINEP, 21 Aug 07: Hizballah's 'Big Surprise' and the Litani Line (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2652)

....At the moment, the group seems to think that despite Israel's heavy reliance on airpower in the last war -- with ground forces deployed in only a limited fashion -- the next war would begin with a much larger Israeli ground assault. Any attempt to defend the area south of the Litani would therefore be suicidal. Moreover, the deployment of 12,000 UN peacekeepers and several thousand Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) personnel has made the construction of static defensive lines in southern Lebanon much more difficult than it was before summer 2006. Accordingly, even as Hizballah continues to train village units south of the Litani in the hope that they could slow an Israeli ground invasion, the group has constructed its main defensive positions to the north, where the terrain favors the defender and where Hizballah could deny Israeli armor columns easy access to the Bekaa Valley....

Rex Brynen

08-29-2007, 02:30 AM

Take a look at pages 18-19

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/mh/dti0906/

One notable thing that I take from this (if true) is that Hizbullah AT units matched ATGM attributes to Merkava subtypes, and systematically targeted to probe for AFV design weaknesses.

If true, its shows a strikingly high degree of training and fire discipline, when the tendency for most irregular (and many regular) forces would be to fire at the nearest or most threatening vehicle.

Rank amateur

08-29-2007, 12:46 PM

If true, its shows a strikingly high degree of training and fire discipline

Yes, and since they were trained by Iranians, there are huge implications if we get into a ground war with Iran. There are also huge implications if the Iranians provide similar weapons and training to the Palestinians or the Iraqi Shia.

Rex Brynen

08-29-2007, 03:15 PM

Iran doesn't have much capacity to smuggle substantial ATGM capacity to Hamas in Gaza, and almost no capacity to get anything into the West Bank. The most you find is a few RPGs (usually with regular, non-tandem warheads) and IEDs/mines, and in Gaza only. Given how casualty-averse the IDF is, however, that's a substantial deterrent.

Regarding Iraq, its almost inevitable that Iran will, in the long term, be providing some security assistance to Iraq--indeed, Ahmadinejad has made the offer. Indeed, some (now senior) Supreme Council military cadres held IRGC commissions during their exile in Iran in the 1980s.

Rank amateur

08-29-2007, 04:34 PM

I'm just speculating that Iran could get more aggressive once they have a nuclear bomb, or if we get aggressive with them, but your points are well taken.

bismark17

09-24-2007, 10:07 PM

Jedburgh

09-24-2007, 10:46 PM

At the Domestic L.E. level, I would be worried about their Force Projection via Hezbollah cells throughout the world. People forget they attacked a Jewish Center in Argentina back in 1994 and don't forget the cell that was rolled up in North Carolina thanks in part to the vigilance of an off duty officer working in a convienance store in the mid 90s.
The degree to which Iran is able to use Hezbollah as a proxy is greatly exaggerated. They are definitely not a terror "force projection" force to be used at the whim of the Iranian government. Each has its own core interests and objectives, separate from the other, although they definitely share others.

When Hezbollah collaborated with Iran in carrying out the attacks in South America, they also had their own interests at heart - revenge (even if indirect) for the Israeli abduction of Mustafa Dirrani, one of their senior leaders.

And the NC cell, which is definitely over-used as a domestic operational example, was a fund-raising support cell with no other operational mission. No intel collection, no direct action, nada. Pure support, in an attempt to protect the lucrative fund-raising activity. Even then they ended up compromised.

Yes, Iran and Hezbollah are both threats, each potentially serious in their own context. But lets assess them in realistic manner.

bismark17

09-24-2007, 11:19 PM

Rex Brynen

09-24-2007, 11:33 PM

My understanding is that Hezbollah is just a proxy of the Revolutionary Guards. Even if not, they share many of the same goals and objectives. Its not in their interest to see Iran's government destroyed. I don't think Hezbollah would sit on the fence during a large scale engagement between the U.S. and Iran.

Hizbullah has a close and intimate ideological and material relationship with the IRGC and the Iranian regime. However, it is not a "proxy," and its electoral success and political influence in Lebanon requires that it also keep touch with its Lebanese Shi'ite base there (most of whom have no such attachment to Iran).

Incidentally, there no chance that any US strike will "destroy the Iranian government," and Hizbullah knows that. While it would degrade Tehran's military and economic capabilities, it might actually enhance the regime's hold on power.

I do think that, in the event of a prolonged US assault on Iran, there would be intense pressure on Hizbullah to "do something," and that there is a non-zero chance it might do so. However, in general I'm with Ted when he says that Hizb's ability to mount major, short-notice external operations has likely been exaggerated.

Rank amateur

09-25-2007, 02:19 AM

I've been wondering about Iranian ability to retaliate against the US navy. The Gulf is narrow and from Fox News July 16, 2006.

"the army's investigation into the attack, which left four Israeli sailors missing, showed that Hezbollah had fired an Iranian-made missile at the vessel from the shores of Lebanon, said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan."

Also, I've seen reports - here and in the media - that Syria and Hezbollah are both preparing for an Israeli attack. I don't think that's a coincidence.

I doubt there was a commando attack. If Hezbollah can shoot down helicopters with laser guided Iranian missiles, Syria would undoubtedly have some asymmetric surprises around a top secret facility. Finally, I'm going to see if I can interest any of the pros here in an outlandish conspiracy theory. I wonder if the attack was carried out by stealth aircraft and the reason everyone is so close lipped is because Israel doesn't have any stealth aircraft.

I'm with Ted when he says that Hizb's ability to mount major, short-notice external operations has likely been exaggerated.

According to another thread here, Hezbollah has been frantically building in the mountains east of Beriut, north of where the fighting took place last year. Whatever they are planning to do, it won't be on short notice. If they are hiding missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, the missiles would've come from Iran, via Syria and could've been the target.

Jedburgh

09-25-2007, 03:00 AM

...As for the cells it doesn't take much to change direction from simple fund raising to a more active posture. At least several of the members had combat training in Lebanon. It makes sense to think if they had the foresight to infiltrate fund raising cells that they would also have other sleeper cells acting more covertly.
First off, the fund raising was an active support op - it was not conducted by a "sleeper" cell. And foresight had nothing to do with it. It was simply opportunism.

Just to be clear - A sleeper cell is composed of individuals who do absolutely nothing to compromise their identity until they are activated. They are part of the community. Once a cell "acts" it is no longer a sleeper.

Now, active cell members also need to blend into the community; the key difference is that active cell members attempt to conduct their ops in such a manner as to prevent compromise - compartmentation, clandestine communications, etc. Sleeper cell members do absolutely nothing even covertly or tangentially related to the organization until they are activated.

The "sleeper cell" threat is definitely overblown. The problem with true sleepers is that it is very difficult to maintain loyalty, let alone operational control - unless its a situation like in Telefon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telefon). In my opinion, every cell that actually exists in this country is active, to one degree or another. The problem is in identification. Professionally compartmented support cells, using relatively sophisticated clandestine comms, may conduct discreet fund-raising or low-level intel collection with little danger of being rolled up - or of creating enough evidence to enable successful prosecution.

When fund raising is linked with overt criminal activity - as with the cigarette smuggling example - it creates a significant risk of operational compromise. That brings us to the next point. It is not as easy as you think for a cell to transition effectively from financial support to intel collection or offensive action. As stated, the members engaged in the criminal activity are constantly at risk of compromise. Effective compartmentation means that they better have no knowledge or links with any important element of the organization - the money gets passed on through a cut-out, or even better, a series of cut-outs. The cigarette smugglers know nothing, other than they are helping the cause. Much like most of those who raised money for the IRA in the US.

Cells engaged in intel collection require training, tight compartmentation and a detailed understanding of clandestine comms in order to even remotely be effective - they ain't gonna waste those guys by getting them engaged in a high risk action.

As regards offensive action, one of the methods the guys smuggling cigs may get involved is if they look exploitable for a suicide op. If the dumbass will risk going to jail for smuggling cigs to send a few thousand home to Lebanon, he may be malleable and dedicated enough to get him to blow himself up. However, I see that as an unlikely course of action for Hezbollah in the US. Even if we do attack Iran. But for al-Qa'ida, an affiliate or a wannabe, that is a very scary possibility that keeps LE - Fed, state and local - on edge across the country. Yet that has nothing to do with the Iran issue. In any case, a handler is necessary for the wannabe martyr - and the handler, in most instances, is going to be a smart guy and well trained along the lines of what I mentioned for the intel cell. If he's done his job right, he won't be directly connected to the suicide bomber by anything that is readily picked up post-blast.

The other side of the offensive action coin is the threat of a sophisticated attack - non-suicide IED, VBIED, WMD, high-profile hostage incident, etc. ad nauseum. This ain't gonna be carried out by a bunch of cigarette smugglers who have fired off a few rounds in the Bekaa. Similar to the example of the intel cell, this type of op will be executed by guys who have been trained, not only in the skills necessary to carry out the attack, but in organizing and conducting themselves in a clandestine manner that mitigates against operational compromise until the moment of attack.

Now, for a high-payoff offensive op, there is the possibility of the organization dropping the compartmentation at the last moment, and bringing in the dumbasses to be gun-cover for the real actors in the drama. They'll be expendable, and they'll be given only what they need prior to the op. Of course, in this worst-case scenario, if everyone is called in for a terror TF of this nature, the assumption is that the final denouement will be so ugly that it just won't matter who is compromised afterwards. No state-supported terror organization would go to this extreme in an attack on the US. The non-state bad guys would if they could.

Rex Brynen

10-25-2007, 06:11 PM

How about Hizbullah in 2006

Excellent example, Tequila--Hizbullah's tactical performance was often outstanding, as was their ability to operate in very small manoeuver units (which also exhibited innovation and leadership by NCOs). There was very little "spray and pray," and a great deal of coordinated ambushing involving multiple weapons systems, interlocking fields of fire, etc (for example, simultaneous ATGM, RPG, and deep-dug IED attacks, followed by LMG and mortar cover fire while AT units relocated or went to ground).

Moreover, Hizbullah regular force combatants typically show levels of OPSEC well beyond what your average NATO infantry are ever asked to manage--far from "prideful" boasting, their own immediate families are often unaware of their status, training, etc.

By contrast, Amal--a militia made up of the same "cultural" group, Lebanese Shi'ites—displayed very poor tactics and discipline in the war in 2006.

This isn't to say that culture doesn't matter--it clearly does. It is to suggest that whatever the original cultural "cloth," however, the right combinations of training, doctrine, and ideological motivation can clear still produce effective military forces.

tequila

10-25-2007, 06:38 PM

By contrast, Amal--a militia made up of the same "cultural" group, Lebanese Shi'ites—displayed very poor tactics and discipline in the war in 2006.

Rex, I thought much of the first line of village militia which slowed the IDF was Amal?

Norfolk

10-25-2007, 06:43 PM

Zarqawi was a convict and former street thug whose formal weapons handling training approximated zero. The better comparison would be between Zarqawi and your average mid-level Crip leader rather than Zarqawi and an American soldier.

Compare vs. Arab forces which are actually motivated and trained as Western forces are --- i.e. Hizbullah and Amal, both trained by Iranians. Even their village militias showed excellent fire discipline in 2006.

If you want to believe that Omar Bradley made a perfectly reasonable decision based totally on his own military judgment in 1944, I suppose I won't be convincing you otherwise. Corlett himself thought that Bradley was snubbing him out of prideful disdain rather than reasonable disagreement, however. According to Corlett:

"I was pretty well squelched for my question [regarding why Army troops would attack using LCVPs and LCAs instead of LVTs]. I soon got the feeling that American generals in England considered anything that had happened in the Pacific strictly 'Bush League stuff' which didn't merit any consideration.'"

If you read one of the articles posted, you would have seen that the same remark was made about the performance of some Iraqi troops being trained by the US.

I do not believe that Bradley had a completely objective military basis for the judgement he made, but he did have one, however flawed that was, given the resources at his disposal and his professional appreciation of what he was facing. That personal feelings affected this does not change the fact that he still had a military basis upon which to render the judgement he did, however faulty that judgement was (and it most certainly was flawed) and the role of emotions in colouring that judgement. The Saudi general in his own admission, did not, and consciously and deliberately rejected any and all outside help even as he knew that his own troops had neither training nor equipent at hand for the breech. Bradley may have deceived himself, believing that all the firepower and engineer resources he had at hand would certainly be sufficient to do the job; the Saudi was not deceived, and went ahead anyway.

Hezbollah is in no way representative of the armies of the Arab world in general, and even the latter suffered tactical defeat by the end of last year's Israeli invasion (a pyrrhic victory to be sure). As you observed, intensive Iranian training has had its effect - but unlike many other Arab armed forces, these two have been engage in more-or less constant wars for survival, which may have softened their resistance to outside training - even to help from the "Persians" - albeit fellow Shi'a. Amal has not been a major factor for some years, and its fighting prowess dubious.

And Hezbollah, for all the striking political success it scored, has suffered the loss of the majority of its best fighting men. It is now a shell of what it used to be, and has kept fairly quiet, militarily, ever since. Not to mention thst the Israelis, by their own admission, were even maintaining their own fighting standards, having not only let them slip in order to concentrate on intrnal security operations, but in fact had cancelled the annual training of Reservists - which has since ben restored.

There are points in the two articles that I posted the links to that have not been addressed. Here is a more direct handling of the matter by a USMC trainer of the Iraqi Army posted on our own site: "partnering with the Iraqi Security Forces" by Lt.Col. P.C. Skuta, CO 2/7th Marines:

http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/skuta.htm (http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/skuta.htm)

About a quarter of the way down the page he makes the observation that US trainers should:

Start off slow. Lawrence says, “Go easy for the first few weeks. A bad start is difficult to atone for, and the Arabs form their judgments on externals that we ignore.” How true. It was beneficial for the battalion to take a ‘crawl, walk, run” approach to training and operating with the ISF. Especially if there is a lack of trust, and underdeveloped personal relationships, the Iraqis would be hesitant to adopt U.S. processes. This was not because the Iraqis had a negative view of U.S. military techniques, quiet the contrary; it was because they maintained Arab and Iraqi pride. (boldface added)

Rex Brynen

10-25-2007, 07:47 PM

Rex, I thought much of the first line of village militia which slowed the IDF was Amal?

Most of it was Hizb, which also has local militia reserves--and, frankly, much more local support. Amal was active, but judging from the relative casualties they only played a minor role (and their forces are known for poor discipline and training).

Rex Brynen

10-25-2007, 07:59 PM

And Hezbollah, for all the striking political success it scored, has suffered the loss of the majority of its best fighting men. It is now a shell of what it used to be, and has kept fairly quiet, militarily, ever since.

I don't think Hizbullah lost the majority of its best fighting men, and its losses were compensated by both stepped-up recruitment and greater combat experience. In my view it is at least as powerful now as it was in 2006.

Hizbullah's relative quiet in the south derives from a combination of its desire to have time to continue its rearmament, fortification and training programme; its current primary focus on Lebanese domestic politics; and the domestic costs of being seen to spark another confrontation with Israel at this time.

Perhaps the most interesting contrast, btw, is between Hizb performance in 2006, and PLO performance in 1982. The PLO was, by the standards of the day, at least as well as equipped as Hizbullah. It had larger field forces, deployed in battalion and larger formations. It was fighting for its political life, and consisted of personnel (largely Palestinian refugees) who had strong ideological motivations to fight Israel.

Its battlefield performance, however, was much worse. In fairness, it faced a much larger IDF force. However, the variation had much more to do (I think) with differences in leadership, command and control, training, and political-organizational (rather than religious-ethnic) cultures.

(Actually, we have a PhD student doing a thesis on this very comparison.. wait a few years and you may be able to buy the book!)

Again, I'm not suggesting that culture is irrelevant--I think its quite important. I do think that the right mix of other factors, however, can have dramatic effects on combat effectiveness.

Umm, what was the original thread? *lol*

Norfolk

10-25-2007, 08:49 PM

I don't think Hizbullah lost the majority of its best fighting men, and its losses were compensated by both stepped-up recruitment and greater combat experience. In my view it is at least as powerful now as it was in 2006.

Hizbullah's relative quiet in the south derives from a combination of its desire to have time to continue its rearmament, fortification and training programme; its current primary focus on Lebanese domestic politics; and the domestic costs of being seen to spark another confrontation with Israel at this time.

Perhaps the most interesting contrast, btw, is between Hizb performance in 2006, and PLO performance in 1982. The PLO was, by the standards of the day, at least as well as equipped as Hizbullah. It had larger field forces, deployed in battalion and larger formations. It was fighting for its political life, and consisted of personnel (largely Palestinian refugees) who had strong ideological motivations to fight Israel.

Its battlefield performance, however, was much worse. In fairness, it faced a much larger IDF force. However, the variation had much more to do (I think) with differences in leadership, command and control, training, and political-organizational (rather than religious-ethnic) cultures.

(Actually, we have a PhD student doing a thesis on this very comparison.. wait a few years and you may be able to buy the book!)

Again, I'm not suggesting that culture is irrelevant--I think its quite important. I do think that the right mix of other factors, however, can have dramatic effects on combat effectiveness.

Umm, what was the original thread? *lol*

Yes, I largely agree with you, Rex. The Hezbollah performance was certainly in stark contrast to that of the PLO in 1982. Indeed, the IDF managed to snatch (military) victory from the jaws of defeat last year in large part to sheer weight of men, machines, and firepower. And reported Hezbollah tactics are being studied, re-studied, and studied some more to extract their lessons.

I was under the impression from an Israeli paper (so far as I know, it was not one of the rabid right-wing ones either, so I was inclined to believe it, or at least not to seripously doubt it), that Hezbollah had suffered heavy losses in its best men, especially from a particular elite battalion. I may well be wrong in that regard, then.

I'm intrigued by the mention of your student's work, Rex (my inner political philosopher is naturally attracted to these sorts of things).

Yes, it would appear that we have deviated just a little from this thread's focus.:o

Abujnoub

01-10-2008, 09:40 AM

A few points.

Hizbullah's field units fought well against the IDF during the July war. The Israeli claim of 600-1,000 dead Hizbullah is an exagerration. The figure is closer to 200-300. Mind you, there were others fighting in south Lebanon - Amal, SSNP, Communists etc - who could have made up the numbers. For eg. only nine Hizbullah died in Aitta Shaab village which saw some of the fiercest and most prolonged fighting of the war. The IDF was unable to seize any border villages or towns until the final stages of the war when it entered Lebanon in force. Aitta Shaab, located less than 1km from the border and also close to the scene of the July 12 kidnapping which triggered the war, remained in the hands of Hizbullah until the end. The fighters defending the village for the most part were not even full-time regulars, but part-timers, albeit with extensive battlefield experience from the 1980s and 1990s. The IDF evenually abandoned attempting to seize the villages and simply skirted them. At the end of the war, it was possible to drive behind the IDF's front line (almost matching the configuration of the old Security Zone from the 1990s) going from village to village without seeing a single IDF soldier. In general, the villages were defended by village guard units with the regulars deployed in the bunker networks in surrounding wadis. Hizbullah employed small unit hit-and-run tactics. Hizb SecGen Nasrallah said during the war “We are fighting a guerrilla war... Our policy is not to hang onto geography ... It is beneficial for us to allow them to advance to the entrances of villages. This is our goal. Our goal is to inflict maximum casualties and damage to the capabilities of the enemy, and we are succeeding.”

The reason the IDF fared so badly in my view was down to unrealistic political expectations (the Israelis should have learned by 2006 that bombing Lebanese infrastructure does not turn the population against Hizbullah, it turns them against Israel. The Israelis tried this tactic in 1993, 1996 and 1999. It didn't work then and it won't work if they try it again in the future), woeful intelligence shortcomings on what they were dealing with (Hizbullah of 2006 was not the Hizbullah of 2000. It still amazes me that the IDF had no idea of the extent of the bunker network constructed by Hizbullah in those six years, despite near daily overflights with jets, UAVs and whatever assets they may have had on the ground), and hubris on behalf of the IDF General Staff. Hizbullah didn't win the war, Israel lost it.

How can you defeat Hizbullah? You can't militarily in my view. You can temporarily weaken but you cannot destroy. A senior IDF general told me recently that the IDF should have staged a full-scale invasion from the get go, punching up to the Litani in a couple of days before fanning back and wiping out Hizbullah pockets. However, first, the IDF would have taken much larger casualties, second, what about Hizbullah positions north of the Litani and in the Bekaa? The speculation is that come round 2, the IDF will move into the Bekaa and take out Hizbullah's logistical centers there. But then what? As has already been stated, Hizbullah will simply rebuild once the IDF has gone home.

BTW, Being Arabic, the word Hizbullah can be spelt in numerous different ways. There is no correct or incorrect spelling in English.

Rex Brynen

01-10-2008, 12:16 PM

William F. Owen

01-10-2008, 12:49 PM

A few points.

@ The Israeli claim of 600-1,000 dead Hizbullah is an exagerration. The figure is closer to 200-300. Mind you, there were others fighting in south Lebanon - Amal, SSNP, Communists etc -

@ The IDF was unable to seize any border villages or towns until the final stages of the war when it entered Lebanon in force.

@ The IDF evenually abandoned attempting to seize the villages and simply skirted them. At the end of the war, it was possible to drive behind the IDF's front line (almost matching the configuration of the old Security Zone from the 1990s) going from village to village without seeing a single IDF soldier.

@ The reason the IDF fared so badly in my view was down to unrealistic political expectations

@. It still amazes me that the IDF had no idea of the extent of the bunker network constructed by Hizbullah in those six years, despite near daily overflights with jets, UAVs and whatever assets they may have had on the ground), and hubris on behalf of the IDF General Staff.

@ How can you defeat Hizbullah? You can't militarily in my view. You can temporarily weaken but you cannot destroy.

@ However, first, the IDF would have taken much larger casualties, second, what about Hizbullah positions north of the Litani and in the Bekaa?
.

Welcome to the dust, my brother :D

@ Clearly that figure is an exaggeration. I have yet to see a serious source try and support it. The best estimate I know of is a little higher than 300, but comparing piles of bodies are meaningless in this matter.

@ During the early days the IDF was mainly concerned with raiding, and dismounted infiltration to clear out OPs and ATGM posts, almost always situated in civilian houses, and thus in villages.

@ So the IDF by-passed villages of no tactical importance. - and why would you expect to see IDF soldiers once they are exploiting northwards?

@ Correct.

@ If you have knowledge of basic engineering, then spanning out a bunker complex from the basement of a house is not that difficult, and I would not assume that the IDF IBP was a woeful as some like to believe. The amount of captured equipment would indicate otherwise.

@ Of course they can be destroyed. If Syria wanted to destroy Hezbollah, they would, and Hezbollah would never recover, and no one, who was left alive south of the Litani would ever speak the word Hezbollah again. Maybe Bashir isn't the man Hafas was, but I am sure you get my point.

@ Well that implies you believe conflict is determinable, which I do not.

Abujnoub

01-10-2008, 12:52 PM

Welcome to the discussion, Abujnoub. Should we read anything into you being being an Abujnoub and not an Ibnjnoub? ;)

I would agree with your assessment, although I think Hizballah's casualties were higher than they have claimed (although not as high as IDF claims). Amal's casualties might have been significant, but the SSNP and LCP were at best very marginal contributors to both the fighting and the battle deaths.

Actually, I think there were (and are) very few in the IDF who thought or think that it possible to defeat Hizballah militarily. This in many ways makes the design of the 2006 campaign even more puzzling--and especially the almost complete absence of any plan on how best (from a political point-of-view) to terminate the fighting. The flip-flop on UNIFIL+ was a perfect example of this.

I think Hizbullah claimed around 220 fatalities. I agree, the figure is probably higher. There were a few SSNP and Communists killed in the last days of the war during the fighting in Wadi Salouqi and Ghandourieh village. Several villages just to the west, including Srifa, still maintain sizeable Communist support. But the numbers would not have been that significant compared to Hizb and Amal fatalities.

I'm not sure there was a design to the 2006 campaign. It initially concentrated on air power and when that was failing to halt the Katyusha rockets, it became an ad hoc endeavor with ground forces at first making probing attacks, and only in the last 60 hours (after a ceasefire deal had been reached) did the IDF move into Lebanon in strength, advancing west toward the Litani in an utterly futile gesture that cost the lives of some 30 soldiers.

Abu Jnoub is a nickname conferred upon me by some buddies in UNIFIL.

Abujnoub

01-10-2008, 01:27 PM

1 During the early days the IDF was mainly concerned with raiding, and dismounted infiltration to clear out OPs and ATGM posts, almost always situated in civilian houses, and thus in villages.

2 So the IDF by-passed villages of no tactical importance. - and why would you expect to see IDF soldiers once they are exploiting northwards?

3 Of course they can be destroyed. If Syria wanted to destroy Hezbollah, they would, and Hezbollah would never recover, and no one, who was left alive south of the Litani would ever speak the word Hezbollah again. Maybe Bashir isn't the man Hafas was, but I am sure you get my point.

1. Actually most of the OPs, bunker complexes, underground rocket firing positions etc were located in the wadis outside villages. Hizbullah had some underground storage facilities and OPs in the villages and towns, but these were more logistical in nature than intended for war fighting. I have explored some of Hizbullah's bunkers in the wadis in the past year and they are quite impressive, far more elaborate than anyone imagined prior to the 06 war, passages lined with welded steel plates, equipped with hot and cold water, ventilation, latrines, kitchens, electric lighting etc. They were located in sealed-off military zones, and everyone (IDF, UNIFIL, local residents, nosy journos) knew the locations of these zones, but no one really knew what Hizb was up to inside them. How they built them without anyone seeing, I have no idea. Even the hundreds of tons of quarried rock from one the larger bunkers I visited had been carried away, so leaving no trace to observers in the skies above.
I don't know if SWC has facilities for posting pics, but I'd be happy to send along a couple of bunker interiors if interested, or kml (or is it kmz) attachments so you can view the locations on google earth.

2. The villages by-passed by the IDF were the villages they were unable to capture in the opening days of the war.

3. Syria cannot destroy Hizbullah because they are no longer in Lebanon. If for whatever reason they attempted to do so now, I suspect they would fare even worse than the IDF. Hizbullah is not a military entity separate from its environment so that it can be isolated and crushed, it is part of the fabric of Lebanese Shiite society. Maximalist solutions (genocide against Lebanese Shiites/blitzing Lebanon with nuclear weapons) aside, a more realistic means of tackling Hizbullah is to neutralize its ability to use its weapons. That means depriving it of its casus belli. This is a process that has been underway since 2000 when the IDF withdrew from south Lebanon. How can you resist occupation where there is no occupation left to resist? Yes, Hizbullah claims the Shebaa Farms, Lebanese detainees in Israeli jails and the nebulous "deterrence against future Israeli aggression" as its justification for continuing to bear arms. But to many Lebanese, these excuses sound hollow and as they are chipped away, Hizbullah's ability to use its arsenal becomes increasingly difficult.

MattC86

01-10-2008, 03:21 PM

A few points.

How can you defeat Hizbullah? You can't militarily in my view. You can temporarily weaken but you cannot destroy. A senior IDF general told me recently that the IDF should have staged a full-scale invasion from the get go, punching up to the Litani in a couple of days before fanning back and wiping out Hizbullah pockets. However, first, the IDF would have taken much larger casualties, second, what about Hizbullah positions north of the Litani and in the Bekaa? The speculation is that come round 2, the IDF will move into the Bekaa and take out Hizbullah's logistical centers there. But then what? As has already been stated, Hizbullah will simply rebuild once the IDF has gone home.

BTW, Being Arabic, the word Hizbullah can be spelt in numerous different ways. There is no correct or incorrect spelling in English.

Oh, I'm quite aware of the pitfalls of writing out Arabic words in English - our professor always railed against us when we did that. So, in short, I can't do it. I just laugh when I see about 50 different versions of Hezbollah.

I completely agree about the IDF's inability to defeat Hezbollah in Lebanese territory, but I think Rex made an excellent point (though you, given your background and occupation, would speak to it better than I); namely, that the kidnapping and initial Israeli response detracted from Hezbollah's popularity and legitimacy in Lebanon. A more carefully planned initial response might have been effective without further bolstering Hezbollah in the eyes of the Lebanese people.

But you're right, there is no real way for Hezbollah to be defeated and destroyed by the IDF.

Matt

William F. Owen

01-10-2008, 03:51 PM

To suggest that Hezbollah somehow out fought the IDF is akin to suggesting the Taliban out fought the US during OP Anaconda or that the Somalis out fought the US during Gothic Serpent.

I am going to abstain from further comment. I consider Hezbollah one of the worst terrorist groups on the planet, and one that directly threatens my family on a daily basis, thus I have to take a side and cannot afford the leisure of purely intellectual comment.

MattC86

01-10-2008, 04:44 PM

Sir, I hardly consider Hezbollah a "good" group. There's no question they are terrorists. I have no particularly sympathy for their cause, goals, or methods.

Nor would I claim they "outfought" the IDF, which is a remarkably subjective term anyway. No one has admitted they get "outfought" since Stilwell marched out of Burma and announced we got our teeth kicked in - it's an issue of ego and pride, not usually of fact. Doesn't matter to me.

What I would say, based on the reports and analysis I've read - much of it provided by Jedburgh and others here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=4408), that Hezbollah fought very effectively for an irregular force taking on a professional army; that it held villages with decentralized defenses, and had more success against Israeli armor than many believed possible (thanks in part to the effectiveness of the RPG-29).

The criticism of the Israelis was (1) in their planning and operational concepts and (2) from Naveh, anyway, that they had been doing Gaza policing for so long, that when they took a few casualties and lost a few vehicles to Hezbollah, they were unprepared and prone to overcautiousness.

My larger question is less about what the IDF should have done (in part because almost everyone at least agrees it was something other than what they did) and more about what can be done against an entity like Hezbollah. They cannot be militarily destroyed, and the Lebanese government is in no position to co-opt them into the government.

Matt

Penta

01-10-2008, 07:44 PM

I'm going to disagree, Matt.

I think Hezbollah can be destroyed militarily. However, it makes a difference who makes the attempt.

Unless the Lebanese Armed Forces are the ones to make the attempt, then it doesn't matter.

Reality is, so far as I can tell...Hezbollah is not even remotely subject to the authority of the de jure government of Lebanon.

Until Hezbollah is brought under Beirut's control, and the whole of Lebanese territory is actively under the sovereignty of the government in Beirut, then the situation won't change much.

Now, can the AFL do that? I don't know. At the moment, not by my estimation. Ever? I have no idea.

But until that occurs - it can't be a co-option, IMHO; it really has to be "Beirut asserts authority, takes all measures to back up that assertion when Hezbollah tells them to go away, and wins" - nothing is going to change.

Rex Brynen

02-14-2008, 06:19 PM

U.S. learns from Israel-Hezbollah war (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-02-13-hezbollah_N.htm)
USA Today, 14 February 2008

WASHINGTON — Senior Pentagon officials are using a classified Army study on the 2006 war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah to retool the U.S. military's combat strategy for future wars.

Incidentally, if anyone has access to the unclassified version mentioned in the news report (or a non-NOFORNed other version), could they PM me?

Mike Innes

02-14-2008, 09:21 PM

U.S. learns from Israel-Hezbollah war (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-02-13-hezbollah_N.htm)
USA Today, 14 February 2008

Incidentally, if anyone has access to the unclassified version mentioned in the news report (or a non-NOFORNed other version), could they PM me?

Ditto.

I wonder if there's any correlation with this and Frank Hoffman's Potomac Institute report on Hybrid Wars, which has Hizbullah as its case study.

Ken White

02-14-2008, 10:29 PM

............

William F. Owen

02-15-2008, 04:45 AM

Excellent example, Tequila--Hizbullah's tactical performance was often outstanding, as was their ability to operate in very small manoeuver units (which also exhibited innovation and leadership by NCOs). There was very little "spray and pray," and a great deal of coordinated ambushing involving multiple weapons systems, interlocking fields of fire, etc (for example, simultaneous ATGM, RPG, and deep-dug IED attacks, followed by LMG and mortar cover fire while AT units relocated or went to ground).

I strongly disagree. I have now interviewed 7 IDF front line infantryman, and am talking to more. None of them rated Hezbollah's combat performance, other than to place IEDs, and conduct ATGM shoots from villages that prevented counter-fire. Hezbollahs defensive mindset in fixed in hiding amongst civilians.

I know of two occasions where Hezbollah's surround IDF platoons and where unable to over run or destroy them, despite outnumbering them, maybe 4:1.I also know of IDF infantry companies continuously involved in combat operations, that took no combat casualties across 30 days. There were losses due to exhaustion and combat fatigue, so these guys were fighting.

There a various sources on the web and in the media, spreading the idea of Hezbollah tactical competence, with the aim of supporting a Hezbollah IO campaign, and thus supporting Hezbollah.

There is a vast difference between operational failure founded on very poor campaign planning resulting in poorly defined missions and actually being defeated at the the tactical level by forces with superior training and ability.

Sorry to say, but I am not yet at liberty to share precise detail, and yes, I am not objective. Hezbollah have as much credence with me as the KKK have with most educated and civilised people.

Rex Brynen

02-15-2008, 06:49 AM

William F. Owen

02-15-2008, 12:02 PM

No one here is arguing that Hizbullah's tactical performance was superior to (or even approached) that of the IDF. The issue, rather, was Hizballah's tactical performance compared to that of other militias in Lebanon (Amal, the PLO in 1982).

I also don't think the discussion has either been influenced by, or serves, Hizballah IO.

Sorry Rex. Didn't get that, but hey ho. I think we are all on the same side.

REF: The USA Today peice,

"It's not just counterinsurgency," said Rickey Smith, of the Army Capabilities Integration Center-Forward Office. "This was a wake-up call to all of us as analysts."

The study by the Center for Army Analysis, which provided an unclassified version to USA TODAY, stresses that guerrillas armed with high-tech equipment can fight a modern military force to a standstill.

Well some analysts must have been sleeping very soundly. The only thing I found surprising was the use of C-802 SSM.

The idea that a bunch guerillas with some nice kit, can fight a competent modern military force to a stand still is ludicrously simplistic, inaccurate and misunderstands the nature of tactical operations.

02-15-2008, 02:41 PM

The idea that a bunch guerillas with some nice kit, can fight a competent modern military force to a stand still is ludicrously simplistic, inaccurate and misunderstands the nature of tactical operations.

But it does allow someone to argue to the otherwise militarily naive holders of the purse strings that the services need a lot more money to buy a lot more sophisticated materiel to be able to keep those guerrillas from succeeding in a stand up conventional fight.

William F. Owen

02-15-2008, 03:07 PM

But it does allow someone to argue to the otherwise militarily naive holders of the purse strings that the services need a lot more money to buy a lot more sophisticated materiel to be able to keep those guerrillas from succeeding in a stand up conventional fight.

"...when proper training and the sensible employment of existing equipment will suffice?"

I concur.

TROUFION

02-15-2008, 10:20 PM

What is missing in the analysis is a study of the nature of the fight, meaning defensive. The Hizbullah forces built a defensive position, a defense in depth if you will, that was attacked by the IDF. They used their suit of weaponry, some very good weapons-IED, Kornet etc to good effect in a defensive campaign. What would make Hizbullah truly dangerous would be if they could develop these tatics into an offensive capability.

As a historical reference the development of stormtroop tactics in WWI moved along the same lines. They started as defensive-local counter attacks and advanced to large scale offensive capable units, capitalizing upon new technology in arms. If the Hizbullah created an offensive capacity-one that could penetrate IDF defenses and enter Israel itself then they would have done something truly evolutionary. (note I said evolutionary not revolutionary as this is a natural progression of weapons-tactics-and technology).

A sizable armed force organized in small groups capable of infiltration and penetration, armed with mobile anti-tank weapons, shoulder launched anti-aircraft weapons, and preceded by a wave of suicide bombers (vehicle and foot) could make a serious impact. Ultimate success however would be questionable as the sustainability would be in question. Holding the ground gained and resupply would be difficult.

The actions of the VC and NVA in Tet could be looked at as a reference for the offensive capability of well armed infiltration forces.

I bring this up because like many of you I don't see any real radical change here. I certaintly dont like the Gen Scales response from the USA today article: more US infantry riding to battle in vehicles that can withstand roadside bombs... While these vehicles are important the focus should be on the training of the individual soldiers and Marines and developing tactics to defeat the hunter killer teams without blundering along roads waiting to be blown up. We can do better than that form of movement to contact.

Norfolk

02-16-2008, 12:40 AM

TROUFION, you've been reading some of our minds here, haven't you?;) Advance/Movement to Contact, as it is usually practiced, amounts to little more than a slaughter waiting to happen. While I share Wilf's skepticism regarding some of the claims regarding Hizbullah's tactical competence (especially given the tactical problems that the IDF had in its own forces), perhaps some of the tactical accomplishments, or at least concepts, that are attributed to Hizbullah in the summer of 2006 may be usefully taken into consideration as our tactics are (hopefully) reformed into something much more effective, and less costly in lives.

It really says something about our present tactical concepts and doctrine when we have to look all the way back to WWI German Stormtroopers for cutting-edge ideas about how to change out tactics for the better. Kind of twisted.

William F. Owen

02-16-2008, 12:24 PM

I bring this up because like many of you I don't see any real radical change here. I certaintly dont like the Gen Scales response from the USA today article: more US infantry riding to battle in vehicles that can withstand roadside bombs... While these vehicles are important the focus should be on the training of the individual soldiers and Marines and developing tactics to defeat the hunter killer teams without blundering along roads waiting to be blown up. We can do better than that form of movement to contact.

You are right that there is no change. What Hezbollah tried to do would have been comprehensible to any WW1 officer.
Where the WW1 officer would have problems is not using 10,000 guns per 50km to flatten every village the enemy occupied.

The vast majority of Hezbollah's tactical concepts are founded on working from within a civilian population. Not something we would ever do.

Stormtroopers could only really ever work on the Western front, once vast amounts of artillery could provide suppression and fog could mask their movement. Huge numbers of Stormtroopers died during Operation Michael when they tried to operate without supporting fires and in daylight or good weather.

Combined Arms still rules supreme, against any opponent.

Global Scout

02-16-2008, 02:30 PM

The IDF failed in their recent fiasco into Lebanon, so all the chest thumping about how the IDF can defeat Hezbollah in combat is somewhat comical. I guess the caveat was if the IDF had a better plan they would have won, because they can fight better.

By most accounts the IDF's active duty forces did superbly, but several of their reservists didn't fare so well in tough urban combat. That is probably true for most nations, you have the A-Team and then a distant C-Team that normally requires a fair amount of time to knock the dust off of it after they mobilize to be combat ready.

The fact remains that irregulars achieved their goal, and just as in Vietnam it doesn't necessarily matter who actually wins the individual battles. This conventional mindset still blinds our military to the reality that in irregular warfare the fight is to shape the perceptions of the population (and other target audiences), not destroy the opposing military forces, because they know they can't.

We need to evaluate how the Hezbollah utilized tactical operations to defeat Israel in the last campaign, not how they used tactical operations to defeat the IDF, because they didn't, but then once again that wasn't the point.

We have this habit of saying we kicked their butt based on metrics that simply are not important, when we're actually getting our butt handed to us if you look at the metrics that count.

Rank amateur

02-16-2008, 07:58 PM

working from within a civilian population. Not something we would ever do.

Depends upon who you mean by we and whether disguising soldiers as civilians counts as "working from within a civilian population."

The team attacking the target was mostly based on Sayeret Matkal commandos, led by then unit-commander Ehud Barak. (Barak later became Prime Minister). The team approached the buildings disguised as civilians and couples (Barak was disguised as a brunette). (http://www.answers.com/topic/1973-israeli-raid-on-lebanon)

From the Jewish virtual library: "When they approached their target they got out of the cars and began walking like lovers, as they had planned." (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/opspring.html)

Mike Innes

02-16-2008, 10:31 PM

Depends upon who you mean by we and whether disguising soldiers as civilians counts as "working from within a civilian population."

I was wondering when the discussion would get around to this. Some of you might be interested, if not surprised, to know that legal research has been working on those sticky gray operational areas where recce, SF, and intelligence takes on shapes and forms that are difficult to distinguish, at least in appearance, from guerrilla/insurgent/terrorist tactics. Issues of network embeddedness and the legitimacy thresholds they imply (one man's terrorist, etc.), are being revisited and deliberated with a view to better understanding how the Laws of Armed Conflict, designed for the linear battlespaces of old, can be reconciled with non-linear conflict environments like those inhabited by Hizbullah, AQ, etc.

For starters, take a look at the New Battlefields, Old Laws (NBOL) (http://insct.syr.edu/Battlefields/Battlefields.htm) project. It's a joint research initiative of the Institute for National Security and Counter-Terrorism (http://insct.syr.edu/) (INSCT) at Syracuse University, and the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (http://www.instituteforcounterterrorism.org/) (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya in Israel. Workshops (http://www.ict.org.il/aevents/74362.php) have included discussion of scenarios just like the one cited in the last post, except they happened a bit more recently. More interestingly, scenario writers were very young Israeli Masters students who'd been faced with those very situations during their 2006 summer break, spent fighting in Lebanon.

Ken White

02-16-2008, 10:56 PM

Mike Innes

02-16-2008, 11:21 PM

Military deception is as old as warfare. Inadvertently placing civilians in danger due to combat exigencies is also an unhappy circumstance of long standing. So too is deliberate use of civilians as shields an ancient practice -- but they are three very different things.

Lawyers and wordsmiths may parse the three to their hearts content to get accord -- because that's what lawyers and wordsmiths do. Fortunately, most of us can safely ignore both.

I know of no western nation or armed force that allows, much less espouses the use of civilians as shields. If anyone here knows of one that does, I'd like to hear about it -- and I am NOT talking about aberrations where some Commander locally gets or got stupid.

Anyone who conflates the three very different things to make a political point simply isn't thinking well. :rolleyes:

Ken, use of civilian shields is only part of the picture when it comes to concealment warfare. What the legal research is attempting is important in this regard, I think, precisely because of some of the political points that have been made, and because many of the issues they have engendered have been poorly understood, poorly defined, and poorly operationalized.

One of the more difficult aspects of dealing with armed groups that deliberately embed themselves among non-combatant demographics and assets, is that forces that do abide by the laws of armed conflict are forced into situations that don't fit neatly into the laws means to govern military confrontation. Some of those situations require precision knowledge of law - boiling it down to local stupidity suggests an unfair mastery of subjects that not even the politicians and the lawyers have figured out. Elaborating and explaining the body of laws that governs such situations, in a way that reconciles it with the complexities of 4th Gen/compound/unrestricted/hybrid war, can only help forces comply with LOAC.

Another challenge is establishing legitimacy thresholds: laws of armed conflict aren't just designed for one side on the battlefield. How does this work in "asymmetric" conflict? How do you incentivize non-state armed groups to play by the rules? What are the behavioral criteria for ensuring one's own group members remain legally entitled to and protected by LOAC protection, when one's group has resorted to terrorist tactics?

The answers to these questions may seem fairly obvious to most of us. To my mind, the link directly to evolutionary aspects of insurgent and terrorist organizations, and from there to political decisions on when to engage/dialogue with "terrorists".

The reason any of these, which have ample historical precedent, are being revisited now is precisely because: 1) politics has kicked crap out of what's meant by law in/of war; and 2) the shape and conduct of war today is entirely different from what it was when the LOAC were originally designed.

Thoughts?

Surferbeetle

02-16-2008, 11:32 PM

We have this habit of saying we kicked their butt based on metrics that simply are not important, when we're actually getting our butt handed to us if you look at the metrics that count.

Global Scout,

I am working on and thinking about metrics these days and would appreciate your insights (and the rest of this august company for that matter) as to 'the metrics that count'.

My general impression of of Hezbollah is that of Iranian trained and backed units that live and marry into local Lebanese community and who are, as result, able to tie in using geographically calibrated (ie local) CA, PSYOP, and SF capabilities as required. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah

I have been thinking about the November-December 07 Special Warfare article on "Can Militias be Used Effectively" (along with the associated footnotes) and trying to overlay this with the Iran-Hezbollah relationship metrics-wise. http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/summer2003/burden.html
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050901faessay84508/andrew-f-krepinevich-jr/how-to-win-in-iraq.html

Some of my musings are about Hezbollah force ratios and strategy as related to the civilian population and if we can/should use some of their successful tactics in Iraq.

Steve L.

Rank amateur

02-16-2008, 11:48 PM

And a war were Ken served.

But the AP found in researching declassified Army documents that U.S. commanders also issued standing orders to shoot civilians along the warfront to guard against North Korean soldiers disguised in the white clothes of Korean peasants.
(http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2000/investigative-reporting/works/AP7.html)

Were the North Koreans moral or immoral: justified or unjustified?

if we can/should use some of their successful tactics in Iraq.

Which specific tactics are you thinking about?

Surferbeetle

02-17-2008, 12:22 AM

Which specific tactics are you thinking about?

R.A.,

This quote from the Krepinevich article I referenced above sticks in my head....and I believe we can substitute Hezbollah/Hizbollah for Iraqi.

"Then there are "market metrics." Insurgents have exploited both the unemployed and criminals in seeking support. They often pay Iraqis to plant IEDs and declare bounties for the killing of government officials. Such measures indicate that the insurgency is struggling to expand its ranks and must buy support. It would be helpful to keep track of the "market" in this aspect of the conflict. What are the insurgents offering to those who will plant an IED? What kind of bounty are they placing on the lives of their enemies, and how does that price change over time? The assumption behind these market metrics is that the higher the insurgents' price, the fewer people there are who are willing to support them. Such a reduction in support could indicate success on the part of the coalition and the Iraqi government in improving security, reducing unemployment, and strengthening the popular commitment to the new regime, all of which would leave fewer people vulnerable to persuasion or coercion by the insurgents."

Steve

TROUFION

02-17-2008, 12:25 AM

The fact remains that irregulars achieved their goal, and just as in Vietnam it doesn't necessarily matter who actually wins the individual battles. This conventional mindset still blinds our military to the reality that in irregular warfare the fight is to shape the perceptions of the population (and other target audiences), not destroy the opposing military forces, because they know they can't.

We need to evaluate how the Hezbollah utilized tactical operations to defeat Israel in the last campaign, not how they used tactical operations to defeat the IDF, because they didn't, but then once again that wasn't the point.

We have this habit of saying we kicked their butt based on metrics that simply are not important, when we're actually getting our butt handed to us if you look at the metrics that count.

I added the bold because I think the statement needs to be evaluated. Defeat is an interesting word, true defeat for Israel means no more Israel, but Global Scout states defeat in the campaign, a much more microcosmic defeat. One that could sow the seeds of true defeat if Israel isn't careful.

Irregular forces have throughout history demonstrated an ability to quickly achieve a salient, to make a break through and to defend thick forest or urban areas. They have also proven that they generally lack the sustainment power to press salients-meaning continue attacks into foriegn terrain. On the defense side however they are highly effective and with the local population in support they have long legs and are capable of sustaining their defense against heavy attacks.

What I was getting at (with the reference to the stormtroops) was exactly that defensively they (irregulars) can conduct local counter attacks and prolong a defensive stand so long as a local population can render support. In the offense however they run into serious logistic problems, they are lacking in sustainanbility when attacking into unsupportive terrritory, their ability to live off the land diminishes. The stormtroops of WWI required massive supply and this is one of the reasons they faltered (there are too many reasons to discuss here maybe on a seperate thread).

Why I bring this up is because it comes back to the intent of the operation. The intent of Hezbollahs operation was what? I will give it a simplified answer: to provoke the IDF to attack into thier territory and to give the IDF a black eye, thereby gaining experience fighting the IDF and gaining a lot of support via a strong IO campaign. It hurt Israel, but they recover. It hurt Hezbollah but they too recover. The Arab World still hates Israel, no real substantive change there and Israel still exists again no change.

My question is has something changed? Can an irregular force bring about the defeat of a first rate power, and i mean true defeat, on its own? I do not believe it could not even if they had the perfect IO campaign along with it.

Could an assault by Hezbollah irregulars take down (or initiate the demise) of Israel proper? Possibly yes, If they made serious headway into Israel (like the NVA/VC in Tet) seizing multiple towns in the north and set in like the VC/NVA at Hue City. AND if the bordering Arab states (smelling blood) rushed in to provide them support. AND IF the Palestinians rose up to join the Hezbollah. Then Hezbollah fighters could take out Israel.

BUT the Hezbollah irregulars could not do it on their own. Once they entered Israel the population would be against them and their supply lines would be exposed. If they tried it on their own and no one rushed to thier aid with resupply then they would falter, become isolated, then be hunted and trapped or forced to withdraw. Again they can hurt Israel but on their own they cannot take Israel out.

Surferbeetle

02-17-2008, 12:37 AM

My question is has something changed? Can an irregular force bring about the defeat of a first rate power, and i mean true defeat, on its own? I do not believe it could not even if they had the perfect IO campaign along with it.

The French, The Soviet, and the US experience in Algeria, Afghanistan, and Afghanistan & Iraq (respectively) are something to reflect upon depending upon how one defines 'true defeat' (failure to achieve strategic objectives).

A Savage War of Peace (ISBN-13 978-1-59017-218-6)
Soldiers of God (ISBN 1-4000-3025-0)
Tactics of the Crescent Moon (ISBN 0-9638695-7-4)

TROUFION

02-17-2008, 12:47 AM

your nation state no longer exists in the manner it once did, having a new government imposed upon it; or ceases to exist in entirety. Byzantium, Rome, Germany/Japan (WWII), South Vietnam, Nationalist China.

Bottom line the wars you listed are what I define as this: they are Small Wars (this is my own view of what small wars are)--any war where the Nation State, its government and soveriegnty are not at direct risk. Example The US in Iraq. The converse Saddam Hussien's Iraq faced a Big War, a total war, one that ended with the Nation State radically changed against its will and a new Government impossed upon it.

Surferbeetle

02-17-2008, 01:06 AM

your nation state no longer exists in the manner it once did, having a new government imposed upon it; or ceases to exist in entirety. Byzantium, Rome, Germany/Japan (WWII), South Vietnam, Nationalist China.

The Roman and Ottoman Empires seemed to be more of a death by thousand cuts than what Germany & Japan experienced in WWII. None-the-less I do not believe that militias such as Hezbollah or insurgencies such as the Iraqi/Afghani can directly take down a great power according to your definition of "...your nation state no longer exists..."

The Ottoman Centuries (ISBN 0-688-08093-6) Still chipping away at this one...
Rubicon (ISBN 1-4000-7897-0)

Ken White

02-17-2008, 01:25 AM

Mike said:
"Ken, use of civilian shields is only part of the picture when it comes to concealment warfare. What the legal research is attempting is important in this regard, I think, precisely because of some of the political points that have been made, and because many of the issues they have engendered have been poorly understood, poorly defined, and poorly operationalized."All true -- but does not negate my point that there are three disparate things being discussed.
"The reason any of these, which have ample historical precedent, are being revisited now is precisely because: 1) politics has kicked crap out of what's meant by law in/of war; and 2) the shape and conduct of war today is entirely different from what it was when the LOAC were originally designed."

Even more true -- and, again, no contradiction to what I said. The first effect you mention in that quote is very much true and the driver of this sub thread. I realize 'politics' are an ever changing game and the trend is to leftist elements and I further understand that all politics are the art of the possible. The intent of many and of much of that ditzy maeuvering is to eventually outlaw war. I could approve of that with no qualms -- I can also doubt it will happen in any of your lifetimes. In the interim, if war is outlawed, only outlaws will start wars but not only outlaws will be involved in them.

I believe that comment merits some deep thought on the part of the anti-war types...

R.A. said:
"And a war were Ken served.

""But the AP found in researching declassified Army documents that U.S. commanders also issued standing orders to shoot civilians along the warfront to guard against North Korean soldiers disguised in the white clothes of Korean peasants.""

Were the North Koreans moral or immoral: justified or unjustified?"

All war is immoral; period, end of sentence. Everything everyone does in war is thus immoral and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.

While they're all immoral, some are necessary. The degree of validity or necessity can vary depending upon viewpoint. Korea was obviously deemed necessary by most of the players at one time or another for one reason or another.

Neither you nor I are in any position to make judgments on the North Korean decision -- we aren't Koreans and our mores are quite different. I've been there four times over a 25 year period and I cannot judge them; the culture is too different.

I will, however, note that I said ""I know of no western nation or armed force that allows, much less espouses the use of civilians as shields. If anyone here knows of one that does, I'd like to hear about it -- and I am NOT talking about aberrations where some Commander locally gets or got stupid.""(emphasis added /kw) Having fired into crowds of refugees wherein there were NK troops in 1950 (didn't occur later in the war), I was well aware of that -- and they are far from alone in doing things like that, the Chinese and others have as well. That's why I asked if anyone could identify any western nation who had done that sort of thing -- so your attempt at diversion or obfuscation sorta falls flat... ;)

Good try, though

Surferbeetle

02-17-2008, 01:54 AM

Mike said:
All war is immoral; period, end of sentence. Everything everyone does in war is thus immoral and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.

While they're all immoral, some are necessary. The degree of validity or necessity can vary depending upon viewpoint.

Ken,

I go back and forth on this; I have seen some good and some bad but I can say that in general things are more complex than they appear and you do the best that you can do at the time knowing what you know. I suspect I will need a few more years to think about it in order to have a more nuanced understanding.

What were the metric's de jour in Korea and are there any that apply to our situation today looking at things from the COIN viewpoint? What lessons learned can we cull from Hezbollah tactics? What's worth reading on this?

Steve

Global Scout

02-17-2008, 02:55 AM

I added the bold because I think the statement needs to be evaluated. Defeat is an interesting word, true defeat for Israel means no more Israel, but Global Scout states defeat in the campaign, a much more microcosmic defeat. One that could sow the seeds of true defeat if Israel isn't careful.

Again I will argue those who are blinded by the conventional doctrines of war, where victory/defeat is focused almost totally on red and blue forces, instead of the larger strategic picture. One does not need to destroy a nation's armed forces then occupy to defeat it. If an irregular force can coerce/manipulate another nation to behave a way to its liking, then the irregular force wins.

One could argue that irregular forces defeated Spain because the Madrid bombings resulted in a change of government and Spain withdrawing from Iraq. The same is happening Poland now, due to irregular attacks against Polish forces and their Ambassador in Iraq, and soon they will depart.

S. Vietnam could be argued for days, but I think most of us will agree that the focus of the Viet Cong and NVA was not defeating our military, but rather conveying to the U.S. population that they couldn't be defeated, among other things.

Lenin overthrew the Russian government with irregulars? How? He moblized the population, just as Mao did some 20 plus years later.

It is great that our western militaries can't be defeated by irregulars, but the fact remains is despite our might, the irregulars can still manipulate the superpowers.

Here are some questions in regard to Israel's escapade into Lebanon:

1. Do the people in Lebanon support the Hezbollah more or less after the conflict? The fact is it was the Hezbollah who are seen as the heros of the conflict, and even those who didn't support the Hezbollah previously tended to favor them after Israel started destroying Beirut's infrastruture.

2. Who became more isolated in the international community, Hezbollah or Israel? While most the international community will never support Hezbollah, they effectively provoked Israel to take actions that further isolated them internationally, which limits their ability to undertake similiar actions in the future.

Irregular warfare is not about defeating your adversary's military force, that is checkers. It is an attempt to asymmetrically corner him and force him to change his behavior, this is called chess.

Winning and losing can be defined many ways. Ultimately there are forces that would like to see Israel go away, that would be probably be a total victory for them, and I agree I don't think that is feasible in one fatal swoop, but over time Israel can be degraded by these activities, and so can we, Europe and other nations. The answer is not to simply send our military forces in to crush them unless we're willing to break international law and wage total war on a population.

The answer remains elusive, if it was simple we would have implemented it already.

William F. Owen

02-17-2008, 03:34 AM

The IDF failed in their recent fiasco into Lebanon, so all the chest thumping about how the IDF can defeat Hezbollah in combat is somewhat comical. I guess the caveat was if the IDF had a better plan they would have won, because they can fight better.

No chest thumping from here. A few too many new names carved on the wall recently for anyone to feel good about what happened.

However, your caveat is correct. Not just a better plan, but ANY plan. Some of the screw ups were unbelievable, and defy comprehension.

I see no problem with defeating the type of defence Hezbollah used. It's pretty simple, and, contrary to popular belief, not that sophisticated. I have a very clear picture of what went wrong, as do a lot of the folks concerned with the operation. The IDFs tactical competence is not an area requiring attention per se, though there are improvements to be made. - and this being said by a man who considers UK tactical doctrine to be stuck in the stone age!

TROUFION

02-17-2008, 03:53 AM

One could argue that irregular forces defeated Spain because the Madrid bombings resulted in a change of government and Spain withdrawing from Iraq. The same is happening Poland now, due to irregular attacks against Polish forces and their Ambassador in Iraq, and soon they will depart.

You can give the irregular force a battlefield victory here if they achieved a strategic aim BUT this is not a true defeat, LOOSING AN ELECTION is not the same as forced regime change, loss of statehood and subjugation. Loosing an election is democracy in action. It is what is done in Nation States. Stable nations hold elections and change politics all the time. The simplest example would be the US loosing a war and having the Constitution and the Government of the US thrown out, replaced with a system and personel of the Victors choosing or of a complete collpase of government.

Now I have never said an irregular force cannot issue a true defeat to a western power just that they would be hard pressed to do it alone. Hence the tie to Hezbollah, they can try to defeat Israel but without outside support they would be unable to do it alone.

As for Byzantium I was speaking more to the final battle of 1452. The completeness of it. Emperor dead capital city taken. Byzantium in any form ceases to exist.

Good debate & good points thanks.

Ron Humphrey

02-17-2008, 04:45 AM

Again I will argue those who are blinded by the conventional doctrines of war, where victory/defeat is focused almost totally on red and blue forces, instead of the larger strategic picture. One does not need to destroy a nation's armed forces then occupy to defeat it. If an irregular force can coerce/manipulate another nation to behave a way to its liking, then the irregular force wins.

The answer remains elusive, if it was simple we would have implemented it already.

It seems to be the hardest lesson for western societies to learn that our perception of win/lose/ or draw really doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things to those countries where we become involved. It is in large part their perceptions and subsequent actions/reactions which truly determine the end outcome.

It is notable that many of the successes throughout history can probably be traced to changes in the metrics which those forces looked to for what success looked like. This is a lesson which we can scarcely afford to miss.

The largest part of understanding the enemy is understanding ourselves and how they (the enemy) / the populace of our prospective countries / and ourselves as fighting forces differ in our approaches / perceptions / and overall intents.

It would seem to me that if I am a commander of irregular forces and that which I sought to achieve gets accomplished I would consider that a successful battle. Winning the war or bringing about the kind of overall change you seek that would involve much more than simply who manages to get in a good punch.

The funny thing about Hezbollah is how little they had to accomplish in order to gain such notoriety among military analysts. You would think the actions of the irregulars who accomplished much larger things such as the ousting of soviet forces would be better brain building material. Especially if you consider that pretty much any time this happened there was major help behind the scenes. Taken in context with current operational environments who is behind the scenes in each area and what are they helping with.

Not in any way trying to say that 2006 wasn't an eye opener but rather that it really shouldn't have been such a surprise considering what we did and do know about third party venders.

Ken White

02-17-2008, 05:20 AM

Ken,

I go back and forth on this; I have seen some good and some bad but I can say that in general things are more complex than they appear and you do the best that you can do at the time knowing what you know. I suspect I will need a few more years to think about it in order to have a more nuanced understanding.Things are and one does. Every war is different and we all change as we age and society changes also -- thus I'm not sure anyone will ever get it all sorted out even in their own mind, much less for the variety that is mankind. Nor am I sure that one needs to. For most of us, our instincts work pretty well.
What were the metric's de jour in Korea and are there any that apply to our situation today looking at things from the COIN viewpoint?...We were exceedingly fortunate in Korea as the war occurred before the DoD invention of 'metrics.' Thank the gods. The only numbers that counted were tonnages of munitions and chow delivered. The WIA and KIA were acknowledged as a cost of doing business and while they were mourned, briefly, there were no Memorial Services and no particular angst. Life went on, such as it was. New replacements came in every month so there was always a lot of training going on when not actually committed. Everyone was present for duty all day every day and there were no breaks though one did get two three day R&Rs in the Rear (if lucky) and one seven day to Japan (most everyone). Nice, peaceful, fun, little war.

The only significant COIN activity was that conducted against remnants of North Korean Divisions left in the south after Inchon. There were thought to be somewhere between 10 and 20 thousand (an overestimate -- or a lot of 'em went civilian and blended in locally). When 1st Mar Div got back south from the Reservoir, they and the 5th RCT were put to work cleaning them out.

That was done in a little over a month with TTP that probably would not be used today. Basically half the Division put out ambushes at night to enforce the dusk to dawn curfew and anything that moved got killed, the other half went on sweeps during the day and corralled most of them and not too gently. Intel was beyond rudimentary. No real lessons there IMO.
What lessons learned can we cull from Hezbollah tactics?That frontal attacks against defended positions are very costly? Don't attack fortified positions with tanks and too few infantry? Don't rely on air power to win anything against a determined enemy on their own ground? Don't attack an enemy that has attained social dominance in an area unless you can defeat him, he'll only emerge stronger? That the West will lose the info battle in the ME because we are not trusted there and will not be for many years if ever? That just as Saddam sucked us in, Hezbollah sucked the Israelis in? That nothing in the ME is as it seems?

Not being snide or snarky, everyone of those is a very serious point.
What's worth reading on this?Sorry, I'm unsure what "this" is? Korea? Hezbollah? Morality of war?

Mike Innes

02-17-2008, 08:01 AM

In the interim, if war is outlawed, only outlaws will start wars but not only outlaws will be involved in them.

Too true. Very nicely summarized. But it's not as simple a differentiation as you suggest when you write

does not negate my point that there are three disparate things being discussed.

While I'd agree that as categories of activity they can and should be distinguished, in practice, they quite literally bleed from one into the other - the exigencies of war. That said, this is where distinctions between intent and effect are critical, the former being what distinguishes us from criminals.

On western nations and deliberate use of civilian shields - I may have miscommunicated. I wasn't really looking to engage with the subject, since I don't fundamentally disagree or have anything intelligent to offer on it.

Surferbeetle

02-17-2008, 11:17 AM

Things are and one does. Every war is different and we all change as we age and society changes also -- thus I'm not sure anyone will ever get it all sorted out even in their own mind, much less for the variety that is mankind. Nor am I sure that one needs to. For most of us, our instincts work pretty well.We were exceedingly fortunate in Korea as the war occurred before the DoD invention of 'metrics.' Thank the gods.

Ken,

I appreciate your insights.

As a young Lieutenant stationed in Vicenza I would occasionally wander the old WWI Battlefield of Asiago. It was above treeline so my breathing was a bit labored but no matter how much ground I covered the plethora of splintered bones, sharp shrapnel, live ordnance, and shattered rock always helped me to think about the true nature of war. Fortunately for me it was also located in a beautiful northern Italian setting so it was always an enjoyable hike.

Books-wise I was looking for some recommendations on Hezbollah and Korea. With regards to Korea, 'Task Force Smith' vignettes for cadets and Hackworth's thoughts about it in his book 'About Face' are pretty much the extent of my reading. I have no Arabic reading skills, but I am very interested in Hezbollah/Hizbullah tactics, in particular their CA stuff...and suspect that some of their tactics are worth understanding and applying to our current situation.

This month's foreign affairs has a painful but interesting article to read about the ME

"Summary: The Bush administration wants to contain Iran by rallying the support of Sunni Arab states and now sees Iran's containment as the heart of its Middle East policy: a way to stabilize Iraq, declaw Hezbollah, and restart the Arab-Israeli peace process. But the strategy is unsound and impractical, and it will probably further destabilize an already volatile region.

Vali Nasr, Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Adjunct Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future." Ray Takeyh is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of "Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic."

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87106/vali-nasr-ray-takeyh/the-costs-of-containing-iran.html

Regards,

Steve

davidbfpo

02-17-2008, 12:13 PM

Having read this thread and it's references to more contempoary conflicts, can I suggest two from the past that illustrate defeat can happen for a first rate power.

The Russian Civil War 1917-1922 (?) led to massive Great Power intervention against the Bolsheviks. For all sorts of reasons each power withdrew and the Bolsheviks / USSR won. Does this rate as a defeat?

The Second Boer War, with a series of defeats for the British forces at the start, then victories and the dispersal of the Boer forces, who then followed a guerilla campaign - which took even more resources and time to end. The Boer guerillas used the support from the rural Boer community to fight on and led to "concentration camps" and many tactics seen in COIN since.

I will now sit back in my armchair.

davidbfpo

Global Scout

02-17-2008, 03:36 PM

SurferBeetle,

I would occasionally wander the old WWI Battlefield of Asiago. It was above treeline so my breathing was a bit labored but no matter how much ground I covered the plethora of splintered bones, sharp shrapnel, live ordnance, and shattered rock always helped me to think about the true nature of war.

I agree with you as far as this statement goes, but would add the large conventional battles are not the only true reflection on the nature of war. A walk in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Philippines, etc. will also shed light on the true nature of war. It comes in many forms, and war isn't simply about large conventional armies fighting one another. The reason I mention this is because you requested additional reference material on the Korean War (the untouched classic is, "This Kind of War" by TR Fehrenbach). That request led to a brain fart of sorts. TF Smith (there was a lot more to the story than the simplified vignettes covered in our leadership manuals) has been drumed into our minds from the first day we ever read anything about military leadership, so it has the call "no more TF Smiths", and not without good reason, but I now wonder if that was the turning point in our history where we jettisoned our knowledge of irregular warfare and focused almost entirely on conventional warfare? To me that seems to the event that shaped our Army's leadership almost more than any other, and I would bet it influenced GEN Westmoreland's views in Vietnam. I recall a quote by a senior Army officer in Vietnam (I'm sorry I can't cite the source off the top of my head), who said we're not going to destroy our Army for this miserable little war. I think he meant were not going to devolve into irregular warfare tactics and risk another TF Smith in the event we had to fight a "real" war. Just a thought, but I would definitely like to this council's ideas on it.

As for Hezbollah's TTP, I have read numerous outstanding studies on them, but for the civil affairs type focus I highly recommend you read S.W.E.T. and Blood. It was in the NOV/DEC 07 issue of the Armed Forces Journal, but I also found it at this link.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-172010720.html

Norfolk

02-17-2008, 06:04 PM

Following this thread, I'm starting to find myself a little overwhelmed by some of the different points being made, and their implications. Responding to these with a few somewhat disjointed thoughts of my own, I'll start off by saying that Hizbullah is, in some ways, the archetypal la bete noire of contemporary warfare: it is likely to outlive Al-Qaeda, already has a "state" of its own, effectively, and also unlike AQ, has demonstrated a more or less consistent ability to achieve victory at the Strategic level, against all comers, regular or irregular. Hizbullah rarely, if ever, takes its eyes off the political objective, which of couse is what it's all about. As long as they stick to that, and Israel stumbles a few times at critical moments, ultimate victory may well pass to Hizbullah - whether it is in possession of potent regular forces by then or not.

There is a "recent" precedent for irregular forces utterly defeating and disposing of a regular opponent and state, and an opponent that was a true master of irregular warfare itself at that - Rhodesia. Zanu-PF and the like may have lost the war, may even have lost the free and fair election that immediately followed the end of the war in 1980, but it never took its eyes off the political prize, and in the finest Sunzian tradition, shaped, manipulated, and rode the international and regional political situation, forces, and trends to its own supreme advantage. All they otherwise had to do was to continue to maintain a military/paramilitary threat in being - however ineffective tactically or operationally that was in and of itself.

Hizbullah enjoys many of the same advantages as Zanu-PF did, and for many of the same sorts of reasons - Israel can take little comfort in comparing her own position to that of Rhodesia's. That said, Rhodesia's own military performance, generally superlative as it was, though incapable of winning the war by itself, would have been indispensible to victory in any case even had it been coupled to a successful political strategy. Israel so far has has been able to avoid the international ostracism that doomed Rhodesia, and ultimately, South Africa. But when you are on the strategic defensive as Rhodesia found itself and as Israel finds itself, and the enemy is not only on the strategic offensive, but is principally an irregular enemy at that, there is no substitute for superlative leadership and training at the individual, sub-unit, and minor-unit levels.

Rhodesia found Pseudo-Operations to be particularly effective against its irregular enemies, and much the same sort of approach, provided there was a sustained political will to persevere in their use, might go some way to not only wearing down Hizbullah's military strength, but even eroding its political position as well. Hizbullah has no shortage of other enemies, who might not hesitate to pounce at signs of weakness. Not least the Lebanese Government itself.

Pseudo-Operations have rather about as much in common with espionage as they do with "warfare" per se. I doubt that they are covered under the Geneva Conventions - except by the same provisions regarding spying, and they certainly blur the Law of Armed Conflict, probably beyond usefulness. That is a problem for lawyers and the like however; soldiers do not get too concerned, considering the enemies they fight often do not to observe the Geneva Conventions anyway. Where this becomes a problem is when the civil authorities oppose, equivocate, or lose heart in support of such operations; where there is solid support, such legal niceties may become meaningless. War is like pornography; you may not be able to fully and cleary define it in theory, but you recognize it when you see it. War is war, and an enemy is an enemy, and if you can maintain basic morality whilst engaging in such operations, you're okay; if you run into serious problems there, then you're probably engaging in something that you shouldn't be undertaking in the first place. And that usually goes back to decisions made at the political level, and subsequently the soldiers find themselves in the impossible position of being required to carry out.

The old Colonial Wars observed few, and recognized even fewer, if any, of the legal definitions that existed even then, let alone now. There was little to no distinction made between soldiers performing a deliberate company attack on a guerrilla hideout, or sending a capable individual or small party behind the lines to infiltrate the enemy's territory and spy away, or destroy some hideout, or raid some enemy caravan. Those were operations directed towards the same political end; nowadays we tend to try to formalize, create technical language and categories, make artificial or inappropriate distinctions where they shouldn't exist or at least should not be so hard, and generally get too abstract and ignore the organic nature of these things. Hizbullah doesn't.

Ken White

02-17-2008, 06:12 PM

Too true. Very nicely summarized. But it's not as simple a differentiation as you suggest when you write are ever simple -- other than plans which should be so.
While I'd agree that as categories of activity they can and should be distinguished, in practice, they quite literally bleed from one into the other - the exigencies of war. That said, this is where distinctions between intent and effect are critical, the former being what distinguishes us from criminals.The intent does not so bleed in most cases, the effects may in some. Keeps the philosophers and the lawyers employed. :rolleyes:

Everyone engaged in a war is criminal to some extent -- and I say that as one who has engaged and would cheerfully do so again. As I noted earlier, all war's immoral, some are necessary... :D

Ken White

02-17-2008, 06:48 PM

Steve:

David Halbertsam's new book The Coldest Winter offers some good insights with recent research. So does Clay Blairs The Forgotten War. Both are more detailed than Fehrenbach's classic that Global Scout recommends -- as do I -- This Kind of War. If you want some interesting reading, Ed Evanhoe's Dark Moon talks about US special operations and behind the lines efforts in Korea.

Don't know much about Hezbollah but will send you one document if you'll PM me with an e-mail. BTW, not at all sure I agree with the conclusions in the article you linked. Most of that is IMO biased and speculative.

Global Scout:
"...but I now wonder if that was the turning point in our history where we jettisoned our knowledge of irregular warfare and focused almost entirely on conventional warfare? To me that seems to the event that shaped our Army's leadership almost more than any other, and I would bet it influenced GEN Westmoreland's views in Vietnam. I recall a quote by a senior Army officer in Vietnam (I'm sorry I can't cite the source off the top of my head), who said we're not going to destroy our Army for this miserable little war. I think he meant were not going to devolve into irregular warfare tactics and risk another TF Smith in the event we had to fight a "real" war. Just a thought, but I would definitely like to this council's ideas on it."Having been around before Korea, I'm in strong disagreement with that conjecture. World War I was the turning point. The Army got on the global stage and liked it. There were no irregular warfare commitments by the Army after WW I.

Then along came WW II and the 'big war' syndrome got firmly implanted. Further, since the bulk of the Army served in NW Europe; those that had served there got an extra share of promotions -- to the detriment of those who served in Italy and the Pacific. That was a terrible shame because those who had been in the latter two theaters were used to fighting outnumbered, used to being isolated and developed some innovative tactics -- whereas in NW Europe it became "High Diddle Diddle Right Down the Middle" with MASS -- no tactics to it other than kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out.

The NW Europe Generals with few exceptions led the Army into the big war syndrome and have endeavored to keep it there; their logical heirs, the Heavy Division fans of the Cold War kept the Army there. Even though their attempt with the Weinberger / Powell "doctrines" to force the Nation to do it their way failed miserably, I have little doubt they'll try again -- are trying now, in fact. In my view, that is very short sighted. Dumb, even...

That NW Europe mentality was shown in Korea by Walker and most of the Division Commanders. Couple with MacArthur's pathetic staff, they screwed up Korea. It took Ridgeway (NW Europe but from a very different tradition than the Armor folks) to turn it around and then Van Fleet, a NW Europe guy, who had other experience in Greece, to keep it going.

Edited to add: Korea, BTW, was viewed by the senior leadership of the Army in just as poor a light was later was Viet Nam. Most of 'em hated Korea, Truman and everything to do with it. The majority of the Army commanders there misused heir Armor because they tried to fight a European war in the hills and paddies of NE Asia. We made a lot of mistakes there.

In Viet Nam, Harkins set the course early on; Westmoreland was not an innovator so he just followed Harkins lead. Both were NW Europe alumni. So we tried to fight a land war in Europe in the paddies of SEA. Stupid. Sad thing is, most of the units who were there in 1965-66 knew how to do COIN but were directed to do the search and destroy foolishness instead. Seven long years of dumb tactics. We made a lot of mistakes there, too...

Bruce Palmer Jr. was DepComUSMACV, a Pacific veteran and an innovative thinker -- he was the architect of the the plan Abrams adopted and that led to the success of CORDS. After seven years, we started doing it righ but it was too late politically -- all because the Army blew it going in...

When the Army designed the Pentomic structure in the mid-50s, all the Airborne, Pacific and Italian veterans not only coped with but supported the structure -- the NW Europe types screamed about it -- they weren't flexible enough to adapt. They outnumbered the others so the concept was scrapped in less than ten years. When the entire Army (outside Europe...) started COIN training in 1962, they took to it pretty well and most units got good at it. Those folks went to Viet Nam in 1965-66 and knew what needed to be done. When the Second Team came in in 1967, guess where most of the replacements for Commanders came from...

Nah, Korea didn't do that -- the damage was done long before then and Eurocentric thinking is the culprit.

Merv Benson

02-17-2008, 07:41 PM

Iran and to some extent Syria supplied Hezballah with beau coup rockets for a purpose beyond responding to a Israeli attack on on Lebanon. Iran wanted the rockets to act as a strategic deterrent against an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. In that regard the war was a spectacular failure for Iran, because the missiles were so ineffective that Israel would have no difficulty making the decision to wipe out the nukes because they are potentially much more dangerous to Israel.

Another remarkable aspect of the Hezballah rocket attacks is that they only hit IDF forces by accident if at all. In other words the rockets were completely ineffective on military targets and were not that effective in hitting population centers that were the likely targets.

Hezballah's defenses in Southern Lebanon were somewhat effective in slowing an Israeli advance, but would have been ineffective against a determined invasion. Israel also demonstrated the ability to operate behind enemy lines and disrupt operations.

Israel's biggest failure was in using combined arms operations. They had an air war and a ground war, but they did little to tie the two together. They would have been much more effective if the ground forces had been used to "fix" enemy hard spots to be knocked out by the IAF.

While Hezballah may claim it won with a draw, Iran should have a different perspective. The IAF attacks in Syria should also have Iran worried.

Global Scout

02-19-2008, 01:00 AM

Ken,

You put a lot of history in your last vote that I'm not familiar with, or only vaguely familiar with, but I'll get on it when I return from this extended TDY. While WWI may have been the turning point where the Army developed a myoptic focus on big wars, the Army did quite well in Greece immediate after WWII, and they established a constabulary force in post WWII Germany to control the population there and rid the country of the remaining few Nazi true believers who tried to start an insurgency. As you said we got it completely wrong in Vietnam to start with, just as we did in Iraq, which points more to the failure of our officer corp than the politicians, though both were to blame. If it was new territory, then the mistakes we made would be understandable and pardoned, but the mistakes we're making now could have been avoided if we didn't officers who blindly adhere to the war is war mindset. The American people should speak out strongly against incompetence in the Army. Losing our young people in pursuit of national security is a terrible necessity, but losing them to incompetence is not acceptable.

Ken White

02-19-2008, 02:06 AM

the Constabulary in Germany post WW II. It was more dog and pony show than effective -- but it did work well enough to deter any resurgence, no doubt about that.

There were some minor successes other than Greece but IMO you got this 110% correct:
"If it was new territory, then the mistakes we made would be understandable and pardoned, but the mistakes we're making now could have been avoided if we didn't officers who blindly adhere to the war is war mindset. The American people should speak out strongly against incompetence in the Army. Losing our young people in pursuit of national security is a terrible necessity, but losing them to incompetence is not acceptable."

Stay alert and keep your head down. ;)

tulanealum

02-19-2008, 03:33 AM

The success in Greece had more to do with the Greeks than with us...and the idiocy of the Communists there...

Ken White

02-19-2008, 03:45 AM

of the KKE and its armed factions but we helped a great deal, not least in getting Papagos in position and training said Greeks. An even bigger contributor was really the USSR / Yugoslavia break up. There would have been no success at the time without all those elements.

Rank amateur

02-20-2008, 10:47 PM

R.A.,

This quote from the Krepinevich article I referenced above sticks in my head....and I believe we can substitute Hezbollah/Hizbollah for Iraqi.

"The assumption behind these market metrics is that the higher the insurgents' price, the fewer people there are who are willing to support them. "

Steve

The problem with price is that it's a function of supply and demand. High price could indicate few people willing to plant them (low supply) or that AQI has a lot of money and a lot of IEDs. (high demand.)

All war is immoral; period, end of sentence.

I tend to agree with that - with a few exceptions - but we do seem to spend a lot of time talking about the superior way we fight. It would be more sense - IMO - if we talked about the superior reasons why we fight.

[That's why I asked if anyone could identify any western nation who had done that sort of thing -- so your attempt at diversion or obfuscation sorta falls flat... ;)

I did say "it depends on how you define "we.""

I can show you a western nation that sells cluster bombs to an ally who drops them on civilian areas, which I think has some moral similarity to the use of civilian shields, but if you consider those two things apples and oranges there is no sense discussing it further.

Good try, though

Thanks. It's always nice when someone notices that you're trying.

Ken White

02-20-2008, 11:55 PM

...I tend to agree with that - with a few exceptions - but we do seem to spend a lot of time talking about the superior way we fight. It would be more sense - IMO - if we talked about the superior reasons why we fight.I don't make any exceptions; just note that, immoral or not, some are necessary. I do strongly agree with your last sentence there...
I did say "it depends on how you define "we.""That was your response to Wilf's 'we.' Since he's a Brit, one could assume he was referring to only the UK, I took it as a western or Eurocentric generic. I think stretching it beyond that would be counter to the thrust of the discussion he was engaged in. YMMV.
I can show you a western nation that sells cluster bombs to an ally who drops them on civilian areas, which I think has some moral similarity to the use of civilian shields, but if you consider those two things apples and oranges there is no sense discussing it further. Apples and Tractor-trailers more like...
Thanks. It's always nice when someone notices that you're trying. De Nada.;)

Rank amateur

02-21-2008, 01:22 AM

I don't make any exceptions; just note that, immoral or not, some are necessary. I do strongly agree with your last sentence there...

I knew we could agree on some things. I also agree that a soldier's best moral defense is, "someone has got to do it." Thank God that some people are willing to do it. (Cowards like me really appreciate it.)

I'm sure we agree on the first sentence too. I don't think genocide, or ethnic cleansing, are ever justified. You probably don't consider them military tactics. My only comment is that if you don't clearly state they're never justified, some nut will attempt to justify them as military tactics. (Sadly, some nuts already have.) But at least once we had to go nuclear. Hopefully, we won't need to again, but we might.

Ken White

02-21-2008, 01:50 AM

...I'm sure we agree on the first sentence too. I don't think genocide, or ethnic cleansing, are ever justified. You probably don't consider them military tactics. My only comment is that if you don't clearly state they're never justified, some nut will attempt to justify them as military tactics. (Sadly, some nuts already have.) But at least once we had to go nuclear. Hopefully, we won't need to again, but we might.but you're correct, genocide or ethnic cleansing are not military tactics in any sense, though such tactics may be used in the process of committing the crime. To my mind it is a crime -- but a difficult one to curtail. We can say they're never justified and most of the world does and has for some time said just that. Unfortunately, saying so doesn't seem to stop it from occurring even today.

As to whether it's a justification for war, my sensing is that it is not. If it were wars would be started to stop it at each occurrence yet they rarely are. The few occasions like Kosovo where that was invoked generally end up causing more problems than they solve.

United external pressure from the rest of the world is more effective -- IF one can develop a united front. That seems to be almost impossible; nations tend to be far from altruistic and to be pretty selfish. Bad problem with no easy solutions.

Surferbeetle

02-21-2008, 04:52 AM

The problem with price is that it's a function of supply and demand. High price could indicate few people willing to plant them (low supply) or that AQI has a lot of money and a lot of IEDs. (high demand.)

R.A.,

Price can in fact serve as a measure of the capability and desire to engage in the insurgency.

You have half of it when you state that high price indicates low supply. Assuming that AQI has a fair amount/'excess amount' of money (a reasonable assumption since we are targeting the money supply of AQI) does not mean however that the supply of people willing to do this type of work (the issue that we are measuring) is limited.

http://counterterrorismblog.org/ please see 'Extremism's Deep Pockets' by Michael Jacobson as just one open source example of the tactic of targeting funding)

The demand function can be described mathematically as:

Qd=a +bP+cM+dPr+eT+fPe+gN

Where
Qd = Quantity Demanded
P= Price of the Good or Service
M=Consumer Income
Pr=Price of Related Goods or Services
T=Taste Patterns of Consumers
Pe=Expected Price of the Good in Some Future Period
N=Number of Consumers in the Market
a = Intercept Parameter (when P,M,Pr,T,Pe, and N all equal zero)
b,c,d,e,&f are slope parameters.

So let's check our equations prediction (low supply = high demand) against an in-country observation.

Given a state of ~XX% unemployment in your country (which includes you 'Joe-Iraqi') your family asks you (the patriarch) when water, food, and shelter will be purchased (electricity is out again, your food spoiled in yesterdays 125F heat, the cities pumps have not delivered water to your home, the markets are closed due to security concerns, and you and your family can't stay in your house due to security issues). You know that you will need to pay XX dollars to get your family through Y time.

What do you do? Your choices include:

a) Food/Water/Shelter is available so you do not have to participate (you obviously live in America - Lucky You!). b) Sell your possessions. c) Ask your tribe or militia to help you out yet again. d) Join the local CLC/Iraqi Army and hope the American funding continues and retribution does not come to you or your family. e) leave the country f) Participate in smuggling, crime, etc. g) Take X dollars to shoot at the infidels. h) Take XX dollars to plant an IED. i) Take XXX dollars to act as lookout for an IED attack. j) Take XXX dollars to push the IED trigger.

Supply and Demand are metrics which can be used to measure the insurgency. The 60,000 dollar question is how accurate are the estimates for the variables used in the model.

Steve

Rank amateur

02-21-2008, 02:45 PM

R.A.,
The 60,000 dollar question is how accurate are the estimates for the variables used in the model.

Steve

There's also the issue of whether or not it's an efficient market. It appeared to be surprisingly efficient at one time. As our COIN efforts get better, it should become more inefficient.

It would be interesting to see if the price changes when we think we've killed/arrested " a major distributors of IEDs." It would also be interesting to see how long the price was disrupted. That would indicate the flexibility/resilience of the supply chain. It would also be interesting to see if there were different prices for different types of IEDs, or placing them in different locations. That would give some indication of the tactical importance placed on the different IEDs/location: though again you can't necessarily assume a constant supply of "labor" across Iraq.

Given all the variables, however, I would think that the operational value of the data is somewhat limited. How many IEDs, where and placed by who is probably the most important data.

Jedburgh

02-26-2008, 02:40 PM

JFQ, 2nd Qtr 08: Hizballah Rising: Iran’s Proxy Warriors (http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/editions/i49/32.pdf)

....Because it furthers its foreign policy aims without any meaningful penalty from the international community, it is safe to assume that Iran will continue to provide significant financial and military support. Hizballah provides Iran a means of changing U.S. behavior, as it did in Lebanon by blowing up the Marine barracks in 1983, facilitating an American withdrawal.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force will continue to use Hizballah as a proxy in Iraq. If it has not already done so, Hizballah may expand operations into Afghanistan and other regions in support of Iranian foreign policy objectives. In 2006, a senior North Atlantic Treaty Organization official likened tactics of Taliban insurgents to those of Hizballah. While no direct evidence currently exists that the organization is involved in Afghanistan, it would not be surprising to find it in some kind of training or advisory role to insurgent forces there, much as it is doing in Iraq.

Michael McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, provides this assessment: “Lebanese Hizballah, which has conducted anti-U.S. attacks outside the United States in the past, may be more likely to consider attacking the homeland over the next three years if it perceives the United States as posing a direct threat to the group or Iran.” U.S. policymakers must focus efforts on Hizballah inroads into the Western Hemisphere to prevent potential attacks in the United States by Hizballah operatives.....

03-23-2008, 05:58 PM

Of course Hezbollah is an iranian proxy. In fact the organization was founded by dispatched units of the Pasdara(Irani Revolutionary Guard) in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon in the beginning of the eighties.

Rex Brynen

03-28-2008, 10:10 PM

I suppose it depends on what one means by "proxy."

Hizbullah is an extremely close ally of Iran, and heavily funded and equipped by it. It is, at the same time, a very Lebanese organization, whose core constituency supports it because of its Lebanese goals (resistance to Israeli occupation, defending the political interests of the Shi'ite community) and not because of its Iranian connection.

Does Hizbullah slavishly follow orders from Tehran? No. Does it usually agree with Tehran? Yes--and, equally, Tehran usually defers to it on issues of Lebanese policy (although some differences seem to have been apparent during the recent presidential crisis).

Jedburgh

04-14-2008, 08:32 PM

Infantry Mar-Apr 08 (AKO Log-In Required): The Arab Perspective of the 2006 Israeli War with Hezbollah - The Egyptian Strategic Research Central Al-Ahram Annual Strategic Report (https://www.benning.army.mil/magazine/2008/2008_2/08_pf.pdf)

....The Arab report states that 1,500 Hezbollah fighters shattered and eroded the invincibility and deterrence factors of the IDF. Israeli forces could not advance at will towards Beirut as they did in 1982, and this is already being touted as Hezbollah offering a major deterrence factor to Israeli military movement towards the Lebanese capital. Arab articles and books on the war refer to this conflict as the Sixth Arab-Israeli conflict, which is indicative of the timeline by which the mass media in the region view its long-term wearing down of Israel....

kaur

08-06-2008, 08:33 AM

Russian Anti-Armour Weapons and Israeli Tanks in Lebanon

Mikhail Barabanov

According to various Israeli and Western sources, during the course of battle in Lebanon, between 46 and 50 Merkava main battle tanks (of the 400 deployed) and 14 APCs were hit by anti-tank weapons, including 22 incidents where tank armour and 5 cases where APC armour was penetrated. Another six tanks and at least one APC were blown up by mines and IDEs.

Of those tanks hit by anti-tank weapons, 18 were the newest Merkava Mk 4 version (from the 401st armoured brigade), and six of these had their armour penetrated. Twenty-three tank and five APC crew members were killed. A large number of anti-tank guide-missiles and RPG grenades hit the tanks, but in most cases these did little damage. It was reported that one of the Merkava Mk 4 tanks survived 23 hits from anti-tank guided—missiles before it was finally disabled and its armour penetrated. All penetrations of Merkava armour, according to Israeli statements, were achieved by the Konkurs, Metis-M and Kornet-E anti-tank guided—missiles, and the RPG-29 rocket-propelled grenades. If one considers that 22 of 50 tanks had their armour penetrated, that gives a penetration rate of 44% (and only 33% for the Merkava Mk 4). According to Israeli Army statistics, the penetration rate for tanks during the 1982 Lebanon War was 47%, and 60% during the 1973 War. The crew casualties rate was also much higher in 2006 at 0.5 crew member for each damaged tank, while the rate per disabled tank in 1973 War is one full crew member.

The number of irrecoverable tank losses among those damaged, according to recent Israeli publications, was five altogether, of which two (a Merkava Mk 2 and Mk 4) were destroyed by IDEs and three tanks were completely burned out after hits by guided anti-tank guided—missiles. This attests to the high degree of protection afforded by the most modern Merkava Mk 4 tanks, which could be damaged only by the most modern anti-tank weapons with powerful tandem HEAT warheads hitting, it would seem, weakened armoured zones.

http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/2-2007/item2/item1/

Fuchs

08-06-2008, 10:47 AM

Actually, all but "the most modern" AT weapons predate the Merkava, so it should not come as a surprise that the old tools are blunt.

William F. Owen

08-24-2008, 08:01 AM

Here is a breakdown of actual IDF casualties from the Lebanon, that I have cobbled together from Israeli sources.

Of the 23 members of the armoured corps killed in action, 15 were killed by ATGMs, and 7 by mines.

The cause of death for the other 1 is not recorded specifically. Most probably gunfire from commanding "heads out".

Over 50% of the armour casualties are attributable to just 3 incidents.
The ATGM deaths are all accounted for by just 6 hits.

For APCs 14 were hit by ATGM killing 7 embarked troops in 2 incidents. 3 APCs hit mines killing 5 infantrymen in two incidents (4 and 1). 90% of these casualties all occurred in one night.

In comparison, 14 infantrymen were killed by ATGMs fired at buildings.

The vast majority of casualties were still incurred by the infantry, in gun battles.

William F. Owen

08-24-2008, 08:58 AM

So extrapolating on from this, and using the most reliable sets of open source figures.

Let us assume Hezbollah fired only 100 ATGM and RPG. They hit 50 tanks, of which 22 hits perforated the armour. Of those 22 hits, only 6-7 caused deaths. That's a 6-7 percent "success" rate per 100 rounds fired. Only 3 MBTs were total losses to ATGM fire. The reality is more likely a >2% success rate.

APCs got perforated 11 times, causing 7 casualties across 2 hits.

Essentially there are only 8-9 recorded incidents where Hezbollah AT fire was able to cause deaths inside armoured vehicles, and 4 times where AT fire killed troops in buildings.

RedTEamGuru

12-08-2008, 08:03 PM

Hizbullah Spying Through 'Facebook'
5 Elul 5768, 05 September 08 10:16 (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127494)
by Gil Ronen

(IsraelNN.com) According to the intelligence community in Israel, Hizbullah terrorists are becoming increasingly computer savvy, using Facebook to learn more about IDF soldiers, potential targets for kidnappings.

Yeshiva World News reported that IDF intelligence officials are concerned that soldiers may unwittingly give the enemy information through social networking sites or even arrange to meet an internet companion who is in fact a terrorist.

Jedburgh

12-09-2008, 12:50 AM

Old news - even older than the more-than-three-month old article linked. I first saw it begin to recycle through the e-mail lists a couple of days ago. If anyone is surprised that any threat organization uses open social-networking sites to gather information on their enemies, then shame on them. The only thing that is really newsworthy is the number of people who honestly find this to be an eye-opener and are shocked by the revelation.

Rex Brynen

12-16-2010, 06:38 PM

Retired IDF general: Deterrence is our best option against Hezbollah (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/retired-idf-general-deterrence-is-our-best-option-against-hezbollah-1.330953)

Giora Eiland says another war between Israel and Hezbollah 'will be a war between Israel and the State of Lebanon and will wreak destruction on the State of Lebanon.'

Haaretz 16 December 2010 /Reuters

Mass devastation in Lebanon is Israel's best deterrence against the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, former Israel Defense Forces general and national security adviser Giora Eiland said Thursday, warning that Israel's home front would suffer greatly in any confrontation between the two sides.

"Our only way of preventing the next war, and of winning if it happens anyway, is for it to be clear to everyone ... that another war between us and Hezbollah will be a war between Israel and the State of Lebanon and will wreak destruction on the State of Lebanon," Eiland told Israel Radio. "And as no one - including Hezbollah, the Syrians or the Iranians - is interested in this, this is the best way of creating effective deterrence."

Eiland also cautioned that guerrilla group, which has an arsenal of thousands of rockets, would inflict heavy damage on the Israeli home front if war broke out.

Israel last sent its troops into southern Lebanon in 2006, after Hezbollah abducted and killed two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack. Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah's Iranian and Syrian backers have stoked expectations of renewed violence in Lebanon.

"Israel does not know how to beat Hezbollah," said Eiland, who served as national security adviser to former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.

"Therefore a war waged only as Israel-versus-Hezbollah might yield better damage on Hezbollah, but Hezbollah would inflict far worse damage on the Israeli home-front than it did 4-1/2 years ago," he said.

...

Kevin23

12-31-2011, 12:57 AM

A financial scandal has hit the leadership of Hezbollah after they are indirectly linked to a prominent Lebanese businessman who is accused of swindling money out of Shia throughout the country.

Which comes on the heels of series of setbacks for the Shia militant group.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1924186,00.html

davidbfpo

01-17-2012, 05:04 PM

A really odd report from Bangkok via LWOT Blog, citing news wire services:
Thai police on January 12 arrested a suspected member of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Atris Hussein, and later charged him with illegal weapons possession after receiving a tip from Israeli intelligence sources that Hezbollah operatives were plotting to attack various tourist attractions in the Thai capital of Bangkok (NYT, CNN, Reuters, AP, AFP). After his arrest Hussein led police on January 16 to a warehouse he had been renting for a year, where he had stockpiled a large amount of ammonium nitrate and urea, both of which can be used to make explosives, though a police spokesman later said the alleged plot involved the chemicals being shipped out of Thailand for use in another country (BBC).

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/17/the_lwot_hezbollah_suspect_leads_thai_police_to_ch emical_stash

davidbfpo

01-19-2012, 09:52 PM

Stratfor's report is interesting, not only for the details, such as this "taster":
The sheer amount of fertilizer (nearly 5 tons) is a wholesale amount. The largest vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) in recent history have contained about a ton of fertilizer.

Naturally there is speculation too on what was going on:http://stratfor.com/weekly/hezbollah-threat-thailand

Rex Brynen

01-24-2012, 08:12 PM

This part:

Hezbollah operatives were plotting to attack various tourist attractions in the Thai capital of Bangkok

...makes no sense at all. It's just not a Hizbullah modus operandi.

davidbfpo

02-19-2012, 12:16 PM

This Israeli think tank report 'Iranian and Hezbollah Terrorist Attacks against Israeli Targets Abroad: The Situation on the Ground and Background Information'
would really fit a thread on the covert conflict between interested parties around the world, but there isn't one. So here it will rest.

Link:http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/iran_e157.htm

It is interesting that the Bangkok attack did not feature large bombs, but "sticky" bombs - a very basic effective method.

tequila

02-19-2012, 11:05 PM

SWJ Blog

03-15-2012, 10:02 AM

Will Hezbollah Attack Israel? Only if... (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/will-hezbollah-attack-israel-only-if)

Entry Excerpt:

--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/will-hezbollah-attack-israel-only-if) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

bourbon

03-28-2012, 12:44 PM

Paintballing with Hezbollah (http://www.vice.com/read/paintballing-with-hezbollah-0000151-v19n3), By Mitchell Prothero. Vice, vol.19 no3.

Yes, I remind myself, this is really happening: Four Western journalists (two of whom alternated in and out of our rounds of four-on-four), plus one former Army Ranger-turned-counterinsurgency expert, are playing paintball with members of the Shiite militant group frequently described by US national security experts as the “A-Team of terrorism.” It took nearly a full year to pull together this game, and all along I’d been convinced that things would fall apart at the last minute. Fraternizing with Westerners is not the sort of thing Hezbollah top brass allows, so to arrange the match I’d relied on a man we’ll call Ali, one of my lower-level contacts within the group.
Four Beirut based ex-pat journalists and Abu Muqawama challenge five members of Hezbollah to a night of paintball in Beirut. Surreal.

The Cuyahoga Kid

03-28-2012, 02:17 PM

Saw this last night, definitely a worthwhile read.

davidbfpo

03-28-2012, 02:37 PM

For the dedicated 'Small Wars' reader skip the paintball match and go to page 6 for some interesting passages:http://www.vice.com/read/paintballing-with-hezbollah-0000151-v19n3?Contentpage=6

Rex Brynen

03-28-2012, 04:54 PM

I once challenged counter-Hizbullah folks from a USG agency that shall remain nameless to a paintball game. They wussed out because of cold weather.

(Really.)

ganulv

03-28-2012, 11:54 PM

My story about playing football with the MINUGUA guys in Guatemala suddenly seems far less interesting to me. :(

davidbfpo

06-22-2012, 10:57 AM

More of an update; a paper from an Israeli think tank and the closing judgement in the opening summary:
In our assessment, Safavi's remark about Nasrallah's being a soldier of Khamenei was a threat against Israel. Its subtext read that Hassan Nasrallah could not have independent considerations when it came to strategic issues of Iran's national security, and that Hezbollah's large arsenal of rockets (60k) would, when necessary, be used according to a decision made by Iran. Such a decision could be made, for example, to respond to an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Link:http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/20351

SWJ Blog

07-31-2012, 09:21 AM

Grandmother's Footsteps: Hezbollah Hedging (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/grandmothers-footsteps-hezbollah-hedging)

Entry Excerpt:

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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/grandmothers-footsteps-hezbollah-hedging) 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

08-01-2012, 01:06 PM

Aware of a SWJ Blog piece I came across this on FP Blog:
ProPublica has reviewed a string of plots attributed to the Shiite alliance, 10 cases in the past year alone, and found a complex and contradictory evolution of the threat. Iran and Hezbollah have waged a determined campaign to strike their enemies in retaliation for attacks on the Iranian nuclear program and the killing of a Hezbollah chief, counterterror officials say. The offensive led by the Quds Force, Iran's elite foreign operations unit, has displayed impressive reach and devastating potential.

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/30/before_deadly_bulgaria_bombing_tracks_of_a_resurge nt_iran_hezbollah_threat?page=full

SWJ Blog:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/grandmothers-footsteps-hezbollah-hedging

davidbfpo

08-08-2012, 08:56 PM

Nigel Inkster from IISS adds a commentary on the issues:http://iissvoicesblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/on-the-trail-of-hizbullah-and-iran/

We often overlook unintended consequences and anniversaries, so this is reminder:
What principally reactivated Hizbullah’s engagement in transnational terrorism was the assassination in Damascus, of one of its military leaders, Imad Mugniyeh, on 12 February 2008. Mugniyeh had been responsible for many of Hizbullah’s most prominent attacks, including the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, and an attack two years later on a Jewish centre in the same city.

.....It is noteworthy that several recent attacks attributed to Hizbullah since then including have coincided with the anniversary of Mugniyeh’s death, or the anniversary of the major attacks he masterminded.

SWJ Blog

08-22-2012, 12:10 PM

Hezbollah: Lying Low and Winning (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/hezbollah-lying-low-and-winning)

Entry Excerpt:

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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

SWJ Blog

11-19-2013, 05:50 PM

Why is Hezbollah in Syria? (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/why-is-hezbollah-in-syria)

Entry Excerpt:

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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/why-is-hezbollah-in-syria) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
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davidbfpo

11-30-2013, 09:50 PM

Moderator's Note

This thread has steadily acquired smaller threads, five today and concerns the group's activities. Hezbollah appears in the title of several threads and in a large number of threads on other subjects (ends).

Hezbollah has not gone away since the last post in August 2012, notably with its active participation in the Syrian civil war.

Hat tip to Zenpundit. Matthew Levitt, an ex-USG analyst, gave a talk recently in Washington DC, partly based on his book 'Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God':http://zenpundit.com/?p=29643

davidbfpo

12-17-2014, 01:14 PM

I am sure there is more to this. The article linked via Twitter starts with:
Hezbollah has uncovered a top Mossad agent in its elite external operations branch, who helped foil a number of attempts by the Shiite party to avenge the death of Imad Mughniyeh, according to reports.
“After a series of failed security operations outside Lebanon, Hezbollah managed to uncover a Mossad cell within its ranks… [it is] the most serious [intelligence] breach in Hezbollah’s history,” Al-Janoubia reported (http://janoubia.com/2014/12/16/%D8%A3%D9%83%D8%A8%D8%B1-%D8%AE%D8%B1%D9%82-%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%86%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AE-%D8%AD%D8%B2%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84) Tuesday.

Link:https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/564549-hezbollah-uncovers-top-mossad-agent-reports-say?

davidbfpo

01-31-2015, 05:36 PM

On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, was killed by a VBIED in Damascus, in a joint Israeli-US operation, as a long WaPo article explains:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-and-mossad-killed-senior-hezbollah-figure-in-car-bombing/2015/01/30/ebb88682-968a-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html?postshare=5801422717430777

Before the second Iraq War he was implicated in a number of attacks, as a rather too big chart shows, as faraway as Buenos Aires.

davidbfpo

05-22-2015, 09:11 PM

A short WINEP commentary on Hezbollah's role in the Syrian civil war:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/hezbollahs-victory-in-qalamoun-winning-the-battle-losing-the-war

Amidst the conclusion:
To be sure, fighting in Syria has hardened a new generation of Hezbollah militiamen, but it has also depleted the group's ranks and eroded its carefully cultivated image as an organization devoted to "resisting" Israel

A wider commentary in Strife, a Kings War Studies blog, reviews the stalemate between Hezbollah and Israel. The author concludes:
Finally, the events in January 2015 can be considered the latest reminder of a strategic stalemate along the border. The law of talion, ‘an eye for a tooth’[9] (http://strifeblog.org/2015/05/22/an-elusive-stalemate-israel-and-hezbollah-along-the-tri-border/#_edn9), which represented the Israeli strategy during the hostilities in 2006, set the pattern for the conflict. Israel and Hezbollah now tacitly adhere to an even-tempered rationale. In the foreseeable future it will be ###-for-tat, rather than all-out war, that will characterise the ever volatile tri-border area.
Link:http://strifeblog.org/2015/05/22/an-elusive-stalemate-israel-and-hezbollah-along-the-tri-border/

davidbfpo

01-22-2016, 10:04 AM

I missed this news whilst offline over Xmas and yes it could fit in the Syria thread, but Hezbollah has this thread too:
In the chaos of the Syrian conflict, Hizbollah military commander Samir Kantar was assassinated on December 20 in an Israeli air strike south of Damascus. Hizbollah has vowed to respond.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/big-question-kcl/12064031/How-will-Hizbollah-respond-to-the-assassination-of-one-of-its-commanders-in-Syria.html

davidbfpo

02-04-2016, 10:42 AM

A longish report, although lacking details; it starts with:
Police have smashed a cell of Hizbollah agents accused of trafficking cocaine for one of the world's most ruthless drug cartels to fund the militant group's war in Syria. The agents, arrested in France, allegedly masterminded a massive global drug ring which raised millions of dollars to arm Hizbollah gunmen fighting for Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Syria.

According to America's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), they worked directly with Colombian cocaine cartels....
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/lebanon/12135925/Police-smash-huge-Hizbollah-cocaine-ring-raising-funds-for-war-in-Syria.html

One wonders if anyone has been charged, let alone where they could face trial. I note no indication if money or drugs were found.

davidbfpo

03-04-2016, 10:17 PM

Worth a read from FP - hat tip to Outlaw 09 - above the title and the sub-title:
In a small enclave between Syria and Israel, Hezbollah is preparing for what it says will be its biggest war ever.
Link:http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/03/hezbollahs-death-valley/?

OUTLAW 09

07-24-2016, 12:20 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/ten-years-after-last-lebanon-war-israel-warns-next-one-will-be-far-worse/2016/07/23/58d7a6ca-4388-11e6-a76d-3550dba926ac_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_hezbollah-830pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Worth reading especially since the FSA and JaN have been beating up badly on Hezbollah and their IRGC so called "advisors inside Syria.....

By Eli Saslow

The next war against Hezbollah will be ‘ferocious,’ Israel warns

Hezbollah is now a regional military power, a cross-border strike force, with thousands of soldiers hardened by four years of fighting on Syrian battlefields on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad. There are 7,000 Hezbollah fighters in Syria, Israeli commanders say.

Hezbollah troops have been schooled by Iranian commanders, funded by Tehran and have learned to use, in combat, some of the most sophisticated armaments available, such as fourth-generation Kornet guided anti-tank missiles. They pilot unmanned aircraft and fight alongside artillery and tanks. They have taken rebel-held villages with Russian air support.

More than 1,000 Hezbollah fighters have died, the Israelis say; they do not describe Hezbollah as “demoralized” but “tested.”

“In 2006, Hezbollah fought a guerrilla war. Today, Hezbollah is like a conventional army,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general who teaches at the American University of Beirut.

Israel fought the first Lebanon war in 1982 against the Palestine Liberation Organization, a conflict that saw Israel occupy southern Lebanon and lay siege to Beirut. Hezbollah arose during that war. The second Lebanon war broke out in July 2006 after Hezbollah abducted a pair of Israeli soldiers on the border.

Ten years ago, Hezbollah fired 4,000 short-range, relatively crude rockets at Israel, about 100 a day, killing some 50 Israeli civilians. Today, the group has 100,000 rockets, including thousands of more accurate mid-range weapons with larger warheads capable of striking anywhere in Israel, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, according to Israeli army commanders and military analysts in Israel and Lebanon.

Hezbollah poses a far greater threat to Israel than it did 10 years ago. The challenges posed by Islamist militant movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip are almost trivial by comparison, Israeli senior commanders say.

Earlier this year, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot called Hezbollah Israel’s “main enemy” now that Iran’s nuclear ambitions may have been delayed by a decade or more.

Whether Hezbollah’s arsenal of rockets and the overwhelming retaliatory response promised by Israel serves as a dual deterrent is one of those questions that can never be answered — but probably keeps commanders on both sides awake at night.

In Israel’s far north, Misgav Am kibbutz sits on a hilltop above the Lebanon border. There is a popular overlook. There is a gift shop for the tour buses.

On a sunny morning, an Israeli army colonel stood on the hill and pointed toward Lebanese villages at his feet.

“You see villas, red tile roofs, summer homes. You don’t see soldiers in uniforms. They don’t wear uniforms. It looks nice and peaceful, right?” said the commander of a paratrooper reserve brigade, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is serving on active duty on the Lebanon border.

“I see rocket rooms, weapons caches, underground compounds,” he said. “I can pinpoint to you, below, a house with washing on the line that is a Hezbollah outpost.”

Israeli military leaders say Hezbollah has spent the past decade transforming hundreds of villages in southern Lebanon into covert fire bases with hidden launch pads, many rigged to operate by remote.

In briefings with reporters in Tel Aviv, Israeli military intelligence officers in the past year have begun to show aerial photographs of villages in Hezbollah’s southern stronghold.

A photograph of Muhaybib, a town south of here, is covered with red squares marking the placement of what the Israelis say are command posts, anti-tank positions, tunnels and launch pads. Israel says there are 90 buildings in the village of 1,100 people and that 35 buildings are being used by Hezbollah.

The message is implicit: This is a target list.

The Israeli commanders in Tel Aviv and here on the Lebanon border may be issuing propaganda as a warning to Hezbollah. Both sides do talk to each other through the media, yet there is broad agreement in Washington, Jerusalem and Beirut that another Lebanon war could be devastating, especially for civilians.

“Hezbollah is not a group or a organization or a movement. It’s an army. A big terrorist army,” said the paratrooper commander, who is a veteran of the 2006 Lebanon war. “We understand that people here find themselves in the middle. The next war will be a terrible war. I think they understand, too, that the next war will be different.”

Speaking publicly, the Israeli generals promise that if Hezbollah launches mass strikes against Israeli cities, Israel will be compelled to respond, similarly, with 10 times as much force. The commanders say they cannot allow Israeli cities to face 1,000 Hezbollah rockets a day.

Historians say the 2006 war came as a surprise for both sides. Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers at the border, which sparked a sustained aerial and ground war by Israeli forces — and tough resistance by Hezbollah.

Both claimed victory, but neither won. In Israel, the 2006 Lebanon war is widely viewed by Israelis as a military failure. Hezbollah boasted that it had stood toe-to-toe with the most powerful army in the Middle East, but the widespread destruction and civilian deaths were unpopular.

As the 10-year anniversary approached, both Hezbollah and Israel stressed that they do not want another war — even as both declared themselves ready for one.

“Israel knows Hezbollah has missiles and rockets that can strike anywhere in its territory,” the group’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, said in a speech delivered by video in February.

Nasrallah warned that Hezbollah rockets could strike ammonia plants at the port in Haifa in any future fight, saying that the damage would be equivalent to an atomic bomb and could lead to the deaths of 800,000 people.

“Haifa is just one of many examples,” Nasrallah said. “The leaders of Israel understand that the resistance has the ability to cover the entirety of occupied Palestine with missiles. We must keep this capability because it acts as a deterrent for the third Lebanon war.”

Continued......

davidbfpo

07-24-2016, 10:09 PM

There are a number of posts on Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian Civil War, in all the threads, IIRC most refer to tactical issues and not the group's overall stance. This thread does not have those tactical posts copied here.

OUTLAW 09

11-13-2016, 07:55 PM

OUTLAW 09

11-14-2016, 04:58 PM

Hezbollah parade in Qusayr features multiple US-made M113 APCs with mounted ZPU-2 (left), most likely source: Lebanese Armed Forces (right).

PT: Important to understand gravity of this: US military assistance regulations incredibly strict when it comes to unauthorized transfers.

Hezbollah’s parade also included 2P25-mounted self-propelled howitzers & off-road quad bikes w. Kornet anti-tank missiles

OUTLAW 09

04-03-2017, 07:27 AM

https://www.wsj.com/articles/syrias-civil-war-produces-a-clear-winner-hezbollah-1491173790?mod=e2tw

Syria’s Civil War Produces a Clear Winner: Hezbollah
The Lebanese militant group, labeled a terror organization by the U.S., has grown stronger through its support of the Assad regime, battling Syrian rebels alongside Russian forces and training local Shiite fighters

Maria Abi-Habib
Updated April 2, 2017 11:31 p.m. ET

Few wars have seen such a tangle of combatants as Syria’s, from obscure and morphing rebel groups to Russians, Turks, Kurdish and Iraqi militias. From the chaos, one clear winner is emerging.
Returning to his ancestral Syrian town of Qusayr after years away, a man named Mohammed discovered a new militia patrolling the neighborhood. Patches on the men’s camouflage uniforms called them the Islamic Resistance of Syria. Their identity became clearer when he found a notice on his house claiming it for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.
“Many houses have been confiscated with notices that they’ve been reserved for this or that family,” Mohammed said.
Hezbollah, founded in the early 1980s to fight Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, became involved in the civil war next door to protect its patrons in Damascus and a supply line of Iranian weapons. After years of growing engagement, including training thousands of mostly Shiite Muslim fighters and beginning to provide social services, Hezbollah is today stronger, more independent and in command of a new Syrian militia that its officials say is ready to be deployed to other conflicts in the region.
Hezbollah now fights alongside Russian troops, its first alliance with a global power. It was Hezbollah that devised the battlefield plan for Aleppo used by Syrian and Russian forces last year, according to Arab and U.S. officials who monitor the group.
Thanks to money and arms from Tehran, Hezbollah now stands almost on a par with Iran as a protector of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, and as a sponsor of Shiite fighting forces in Syria.
“It’s hard to see people rising through Syrian intelligence or military ranks without the blessing of Hezbollah or the Iranians,” said Andrew Exum, until January a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.
With its growing might, this arch-foe of Israel, a group long labeled terrorist by the U.S., has gained a modicum of international recognition. It participated in negotiations sponsored by Russia following the rout of rebels from Aleppo. When China’s special envoy to Syria visited Lebanon in December, he carved out time to see Hezbollah’s foreign-relations chief.
Even before the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah had evolved beyond its guerrilla-group origins into a business and political enterprise that holds positions in Lebanon’s government and runs social programs such as schools and clinics. Now it is poised to capitalize on what many Middle East analysts expect will be an eventual end to the Syrian war that leaves Mr. Assad in power. Syria will have $180 billion of war-reconstruction needs, by a World Bank estimate. Hezbollah has experience at that. After a 2006 conflict with Israel, the group efficiently organized the rebuilding of battered Beirut suburbs.
“Hezbollah is well-positioned to make a lot of money” from Syrian reconstruction, said Matthew Levitt, director of the Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, a veteran of the Treasury and State departments.
U.S. and Israeli officials have watched the growth of Hezbollah with concern, worried it could draw on its Syrian recruits to pressure Israel from a new front along the Golan Heights, captured by Israel 50 years ago. In March, Hezbollah announced the formation of a Syria-based “Brigade for the Liberation of the Golan” devoted to wresting the heights back for Syria.
“Israel knows that what has happened in Syria has changed Hezbollah, which has developed from not just defending against Israel, but attacking it,” said a senior official from an alliance of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. “It has now developed traditional and nontraditional means of war. It fights like a guerrilla army but also like a conventional one.”
Israel hasn’t waited for a Hezbollah attack in the Golan, sending aircraft to strike Iranian shipments of sophisticated arms to Hezbollah.
Premier Benjamin Netanyahu told President Donald Trump during a February U.S. visit that Hezbollah’s expanded arsenal also endangers American warships in nearby waters, said diplomats briefed on the meeting.
The U.S. is well aware of Hezbollah’s expanding capabilities and will continue working closely with partners in the region to address threats the militant group poses, a State Department official said, adding that disrupting Hezbollah’s terrorist and military capabilities was a top U.S. priority.
Hezbollah’s new clout is adding to fears among Gulf states that Iran’s power also is growing, drawing Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to agree to work with Israel. Their focal point is now Yemen, where Mr. Trump has agreed to provide a Saudi-led alliance with stepped-up U.S. military assistance to counter the Houthis, who were trained by Hezbollah and supported by Iran. The Gulf states, in turn, have tentatively agreed to try to bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table with Israel.
Religious power
Hezbollah’s role has implications for eventual postwar arrangements in Syria, given how its religious influence will likely compete with the secular politics of the Assad regime. Before the war, that government was improving relations with Saudi Arabia and once even considered a peace treaty with Israel. The improved ties have broken down, with the Saudis supporting Syrian rebel groups. Diplomats in the region say any normalization of relations after the war ends, likely with Mr. Assad still in power, will be even more difficult given Hezbollah and Iran’s newfound clout in Syria.
Hezbollah has helped the Assad regime survive partly by propping up its undisciplined military, which is plagued by corruption and defections. In Syrian villages retaken from rebel control, Hezbollah fighters have been seen holding Syrian soldiers by the wrist or collar and forcing them to return appliances or furniture looted from homes.
Syrian civilians say Hezbollah fighters sometimes openly disrespect Syrian troops on battlefronts, a stark change from its previous deference. Cars with blacked-out windows and Lebanese license plates screech up to Syrian checkpoints, the Hezbollah commanders inside refusing to get off their phones during identification checks or to answer questions posed by their Syrian allies.
When Russia and Syria wanted to put priority on retaking Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa last year, Hezbollah, along with Iran, insisted the focus instead be dislodging rebels from Aleppo to force them to the negotiating table, according to Mr. Exum and a Hezbollah official.
The strategy worked. The rebels evacuated Aleppo and agreed to participate in Russian-sponsored political negotiations now taking place in locations outside Syria.
When formed in the 1980s, Hezbollah was trained by Iran’s Quds Force, an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that manages Iranian clients across the region. Hezbollah gave Lebanon’s disenfranchised Shiite community political power and won its loyalty by providing free schooling and health care in addition to protection.
Militarily, it remained a guerrilla force, better at launching rockets from the bushes than spearheading offensives on urban centers—until Syria’s civil war began in 2011. After wading in to protect its Iranian arms flow, Hezbollah stepped up its military commitment to counter Sunni extremists such as Islamic State, which regards Shiite Muslims such as Hezbollah as infidels. Hezbollah expanded its arsenal by gaining access to Russian and Syrian weapons under the cover of the civil war’s chaos.
Shipments from Iran gave the Lebanese group precise and powerful armaments that it previously lacked, such as Russian-made Yakhont missiles, said a former State Department official.#Cooperation with Russia on the battlefield further increased the flow of weaponry.
“Russian stocks are open to Hezbollah,” said a Hezbollah official who travels frequently to Damascus. “Our fighters eat and sleep alongside theirs and we’re sharing everything, always.” While an end to Syria’s civil war could change the dynamics, Middle East analysts generally think Hezbollah’s expanded access to weapons is secure.
Damascus was once considered a Hezbollah proxy master, but Western diplomats say the Lebanese group is carving out its own zones of influence across Syria by training local fighters. They include Shiites and Alawites, the latter being adherents of a branch of Shiite Islam that includes the Assad family.
Western diplomats estimate the number of these fighters loyal to Hezbollah’s command, which Hezbollah calls al-Ridha Forces, and known locally as “Hezbollah in Syria,” in the tens of thousands. Hezbollah officials say it is lower. Hezbollah’s presence in Syria stretches 250 miles from the northern tip to the south, longer than the length of Lebanon.
Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to both Iraq and Syria, said the autonomy Hezbollah enjoys in Syria arises partly because “Iraq is more important for Iran in many ways than Syria is,” while to Hezbollah, next-door Syria is more important.
Messrs. Crocker and Exum said Hezbollah’s strategy in Syria mirrors the Lebanese group’s involvement in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. At that time, Hezbollah provided training inside Iran to Iraqi Shiite militiamen.

Continued....