The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War (catch all)

[Rex Brynen]

Some still used PRC-77!!

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

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

[William F. Owen]

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

OK. I'm impressed. Bang goes my feeble attempt at OPSEC.

[KingsofWar]

Hi guys,

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

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

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

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

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

[William F. Owen]

Hi guys,
1)Was the war inevitable, regardless of whether Israel kidnapped soldiers or not?

Which soldiers did Israel kidnap?

2)How was a relatively small resistance group able to effectively challenge the Middle East's strongest military power?

That's not an objective question. First I'd concentrate on finding out what actually happened, and why.

2)Hezbollah's guerrilla tactics during the war. Israel's mistakes and weaknesses.

I can tell you a lot about Hezbollah's mistakes and weakness as well as what actually went wrong in the IDF, and not the pop-myth.

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

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

PM me if you want.

[GI Zhou]

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

[Rex Brynen]

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

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

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

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

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

[KingsofWar]

Hi William,

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

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

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

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

Anyway thanks for writing.

[40below]

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

[KingsofWar]

40below,

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

[40below]

40below,

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

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

[NihilisticZeal]

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

[40below]

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

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

[William F. Owen]

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

Anyway thanks for writing.

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

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

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

[JMA]

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

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

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

Where can I read a 'correct' analysis?

[40below]

Where can I read a 'correct' analysis?

Yeah, I'd like to read that too.

[William F. Owen]

I repectfully sort of agree and disagree. The IDF was widely seen as having lost at the time, and it's not good enough to come back years later to claim their strategic objectives have been satisfied. Hezbollah scored a slam dunk in the war, and in an insurgency, it's not good enough to win, you have to be seen to be winning and Israel wasn't.

Wrong.
a.) Hezbollah is not an insurgency. It is a Lebanese irregular army formed for the defence of Lebanon, plus a proxy of Iran. - so in relation to Israel, the term insurgency is meaningless and nothing to do with the organisations objectives. Calling Hezbollah an insurgency is symptomatic of not understanding the context of the conflict.
b.) Anyone who has studied the conflict is very aware that there was no real strategic objectives set by Israel, and that presented real operational problems in terms of formulating military action.
c.) After the 2006 Lebanon War Hezbollah's military actions against Israel dropped to nothing, even during CAST LEAD. Hezbollah has been effectively deterred for the last 4 years. So, while folks on bar stools may consider them as having won, the facts on the ground are very different.

Anything less than wiping out Hezbollah was a loss for the Israelis, just view the footage of their burning tanks; anything more than not being wiped out was a win for Hezbollah, and they punched above their weight in that one. And combat deaths for them in their dug-in positions or civilian deaths at the hands of the IDF didn't exactly hurt them.

Wrong again, in terms of how it is viewed by those whose opinions are relevant to the issue. The reality behind the head lines was that Hezbollahs was substantially damaged, as was Iran's confidence in them. Moreover for all practical purposes, they have been substantially deterred from any effective action.
Additionally, the war in 2006 lead to a ground up revival of the IDFs formation and unit level combat skills, which has had massive benefit and is very apparent to foreign military observers who get to see the IDF close to.

[William F. Owen]

Where can I read a 'correct' analysis?

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

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

The book, "34 Days" gives a good start but was written far too soon after the conflict, and doesn't give an objective view.

[JMA]

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

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

The book, "34 Days" gives a good start but was written far too soon after the conflict, and doesn't give an objective view.

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

[William F. Owen]

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

Israel and Israelis actually care very little about what other people think. It's very obvious to anyone who lives amongst them. The supposed PR is mostly irrelevant. The IDF cares about what Israelis think, and no one else.

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

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

[Tukhachevskii]

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

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