The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War (catch all)

[SWJED]

17 August from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) - Preliminary Lessons of the Israeli-Hezbollah War by Anthony Cordesman.

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

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

[SWJED]

4 September Jerusalem Post - IDF Plans Massive Intelligence Overhaul by Yaakov Katz.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[SWJED]

From today's VOA - Lebanon War Inquiry Could Topple Israeli PM. Reposted here in full per USG guidelines.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[SWJED]

39 April Jerusalem Post - 'Olmert Nade the Decision to go to War Unprepared'.

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

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

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

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

[Stu-6]

Has anyone seen an English translation of the full report yet?

[SWJED]

Haninah Levine e-mailed a link to his Center for Defense Information article Behind the Headlines on the Winograd Commission’s Interim Report.

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

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

[Tom Odom]

Lesson One: Western militaries are in active denial concerning the limitations of precision weapons...

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

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

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

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

Best

Tom

[FascistLibertarian]

I think one of the non-explicit lessons is that you have to prepare for the wars you might have to fight not only the wars you wish to fight.

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

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

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

[goesh]

- or a failure to implement it?

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


Probe Reveals Logistics, Not Lack of Supplies, Hampered Army

By Amos Harel

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

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

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

[Tom Odom]

Israel's military history despite its media and "casual glance" studies by western militaries is not as spectacular as protrayed:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Tom

[120mm]

To be sure, Israel would benefit from a "refocus" on infantry warfare. Thanks for the illuminating and interesting survey.

[SWJED]

US Army Combat Studies Institute Occasional Paper 21 - Flipside of the COIN: Israel’s Lebanese Incursion Between 1982 – 2000 by Captain Daniel Helmer, US Army.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Jedburgh]

A pair of papers looking at the intel aspect of the invasion and occupation:

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

Perceptions and Misperceptions: Influences on Israeli Intelligence Estimates During the 1982 Lebanon War

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

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

The second is from Intelligence and National Security, Autumn '01:

"A Reach Greater than the Grasp": Israeli Intelligence and the Conflict in South Lebanon 1990–2000
(AKO log-in required)

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

[Tom Odom]

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

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

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

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

V/R

Tom Odom

[MattC86]

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

Anyone know of anything in the works or available?

Matt

[Jedburgh]

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

Anyone know of anything in the works or available?

If you haven't already, I recommend you peruse the Hezbollah TTP thread in the MidEast forum, you will find member-posted links to several substantive articles and papers.

The Hezbollah: A Win For 'The Best Guerrilla Force in the World'? thread also has some bits worth reading through, although the content of that thread tends more towards op-ed and commentary than the first one.

[SteveMetz]

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

Anyone know of anything in the works or available?

Matt

Don't know if this is linked in the threads mentioned, but it is very good. There's also a number of interesting comments and links at http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/

[JeffWolf]

First, two apologies:

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

and

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

Apologies stated,

Some sources are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards
Jeff

[MattC86]

Thanks to whomever (Jedburgh, I presume) for moving this to its proper location - I won't miss that again.

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

Matt

[Chris Albon]

Anyone know of a good detailed Tactical or Operational History of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War? I am not looking for a political history but rather an account of what happened on the battlefield.

Suggestions?