It’s funny how many times I get prompted by reading two things and rubbing them against each other. There’s a discussion going on about the performance of the Israeli military vs. Hizbollah, and the presumption that they did poorly (I’ll suggest from my limited knowledge that urban warfare against an emplaced, well-armed enemy that doesn’t involve massive artillery or air strikes is probably a damn difficult exercise. I’d be shocked to see what other militaries operating under the constraints the Israelis chose to operate under would have done.)
Phil Carter points to an interesting issue of military doctrine (from an op-ed in the NY Times by Lt. Col. Terry Daly (ret):
…a counterinsurgency expert who served as an Army intelligence officer and provincial adviser in Vietnam, has an interesting op-ed in Monday’s New York Times. In it, he argues that the solution to the seemingly intractable security situation in Iraq might not be a few more soldiers — it might be a few good cops instead:
There is a difference between killing insurgents and fighting an insurgency. In three years, the Sunni insurgency has grown from nothing into a force that threatens our national objective of establishing and maintaining a free, independent and united Iraq. During that time, we have fought insurgents with airstrikes, artillery, the courage and tactical excellence of our forces, and new technology worth billions of dollars. We are further from our goal than we were when we started.
Lt. Col. Daly suggests:
Counterinsurgency is work better suited to a police force than a military one. Military forces — by tradition, organization, equipment and training — are best at killing people and breaking things. Police organizations, on the other hand, operate with minimum force. They know their job can’t be done from miles away by technology. They are accustomed to face-to-face contact with their adversaries, and they know how to draw street-level information and support from the populace. The police don’t threaten the governments they work under, because they don’t have the firepower to stage coups.
Phil suggests:
We should build an expeditionary constabulary force like the one Lt. Col. Daly envisions. The sun may be setting on the U.S. involvement in Iraq; there may not be time to deploy such a unit here. However, that should not hinder us from learning the lessons of this war to be ready for the next one.
Definitely interesting and worth further discussion. I’m working on a piece that tries to segment the problem I see and map it to responses. This will certainly help my thinking about it.
Let’s switch over to Josh Marshall, who sees moral rot instead, and cites an article in Ha’aretz:
In the Israeli daily Ha’aretz tonight, military affairs writer Ze’ev Schiff says that the main conclusion that will be drawn from the IDF’s disappointing performance in the Lebanon war will be that the army’s fighting capacity and edge has been blunted by years of policing duties in the territories.
Writes Schiff …
Most units, in their training and operations, followed fighting doctrines of police forces and not of standing armies. Hizbollah trains, fights and is equipped as an army, utilizing some of the most advanced anti-tank missiles and other weapons.
Marshall goes on to quote his reader EM:
The IDF’s troubles are the bitter legacy of the endless occupation. Armies engaged primarily in harassing civilians tend to perform poorly in combat. The Argentine army, which had been engaged in a dirty war against its own people, mostly powerless to fight back, suddenly found itself in a real fight in the Falklands. The British soldiers and Marines did not arrive strapped to tables with electrodes attached to their genitals, so the Argentines didn’t know how to handle them. They lost pretty quickly. Nor is this because the whole Argentine military were simply bullies and cowards; the Argentine air force, which had not been involved in rounding up and torturing helpless people, put up a good show against the Royal Navy. Occupation duty is always bad for combat units. The American units in Korea in 1950 and those sent to Korea from occupation duty in Japan to stop the North Korean offensive performed poorly by most measures. It would take months to get them back into fighting trim, and non-occupation troops, brought in from the States, would do most of the heavy lifting in driving the North Koreans back from Pusan and Inchon.
It may well be that both are making a similar practical point – that troops trained for combat make poor occupation troops, and that troops trained for occupation make poor combat troops. That makes sense, the skills and mindset of each are dramatically different – as they should be.
But I’ll suggest that the moral center of each argument is in a far different place. Marshall:
Occupation degrades a fighting force — a reality the Israelis need to confront right now and we Americans need to come to grips with as well. The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is something Israel really cannot afford now as it becomes more clear that she is in renewed need of a very potent fighting army.
But, of course, this goes beyond the military sphere. Or rather the military sphere is revealing a deeper reality. The occupation itself is corrupting Israeli society just as it seems to have corrupted (remember that in its original and deep meaning, ‘corruption’ means ‘decay’, ‘rot’) the IDF. And here too, can we not see the echoes for ourselves?
What Marshall sees as ‘rot’, Carter sees as a requirement.
I’ve argued before that the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank was a drain – morally (in terms of international politics), economically, and militarily – the original justification was to keep Syrian tanks further from Tel Aviv. A tank invasion is arguable the last issue the Israelis need to face – war has changed that much since the 1970’s.
But the moral center of this conflict isn’t in the head of a young Israeli and what occupying Gaza has done to him – although that impact matters. It’s in the schools and back streets of the Arab world where the rot of hatred and genocide exist – and in Israel, where the full power of that hatred falls. Marshall may choose to focus on the Israeli, while offering an ‘of course on the other side…’ – I don’t.
“That makes sense, the skills and mindset of each are dramatically different – as they should be.”
Not so far as people think.
I am not aware of specific combate problems except the usual idiocy of some tank units.
All other problems came from lack of equipement, logistics, lack of assigned mission and failures in support. That is connected to the laziness, incompetence.
Since most were reservists they werent occupying anything. They just didnt trained.
After all that you just commited one of military sins that Israelis are accused of saying: “A tank invasion is arguable the last issue the Israelis need to face – war has changed that much since the 1970’s.”
Nonsense, tank threat is ever present.
As a side note: Israel mobilised (if i am not mistaken) 50000 soldiers to retire settlers from Gaza more than for Lebanon…
So, what you are saying about the fighting might be summarized as:
A the criminal/terrorist organization (Hezbollah) fought as an army, while the Israelis fought as a police force…
Perhaps not exactly correct, but enough so that the assymetric opportunities played much better for Hezbollah than one would otherwise have expected.
Just my $.02
DaveK
One thing is certain… insurgencies only end when the insurgents decide to go away.
Thinking that killing enough of them to make them quit is just so much pissing in the wind. It didn’t work in Vietnam, and it won’t work in Iraq.
The Israelis developed a system for defeating anti-tank weapons called the Trophy System.
http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/08/intel-bonanza.html
The problem is that the Israeli government did not want to spend the money to fully deploy it.
Actually Gunfighter, killing a lot of insurgents during Tet did make them go away.
The Vietnam war was lost due to regular military attacking from the north. Not to the insurgency.
Socialism is killing the Israeli military. Just as it killed the European military.
http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/08/socialism-kills.html
It has been tried before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constabulary
Col Daly is correct when it comes to insurgencies. In most cases the key organization for winning an insurgent war is an effective police force. This is well-understood counterinsurgency doctrine.
That doctrine really doesn’t apply to Hezbollah, however, for several reasons. First, Israel is a foreign power invading, not the established government or an occupying power. Second, while Hezbollah my use insurgent/guerilla tactics, it’s not a true insurgent force. It’s more akin to an Afghan warlord force than probably anything else. As a result it has conventional and unconventional aspects.
Gunfighter,
The Sunni Arab aka Baathist insurgency in Iraq will end due to the dearth of Sunni Arabs. They are being driven out of Iraq. Good riddance.
As for the Palestinians, death is coming.
I’ll add Hezbollah’s aims (destruction of Israel) guarantee War; and war more on Israel’s terms than Hezbollah’s.
Hezbollah learned the wrong lesson from Japan at Iwo Jima. Yes they can dig in and create great casulties, but the sacrifice mobility and are vulnerable to if Israel puts it’s mind to it; seige warfare Roman-style.
In addition, the political dimension comes into play. Just for the reasons cited above, Sharon’s plan was to disengage from the Palestinians as Barak did from Lebanon six years ago. What they got was rockets fired over the fence and armed invasions / abductions of soldiers and the killing of others. More than 100 Israeli civilians were killed by the rockets (relatively crude) and the impotent failure of the UN and diplomacy showed that the Israelis have only one choice:
Fight.
Where else can they go? Nowhere left to retreat to, no one has any illusions that Israelis simply fleeing Israel would not be sent back to certain death by European and other countries as in 1939-1945.
Hezbollah has practically guaranteed a “War of the Cities” ala Iran-Iraq with the advantage to Israel. Lost in all of this is the fact that the IAF could go where and when it wanted to, with no opposition.
Hezbollah did well to dig in; but in modern mechanized warfare which magnifies killing power to unheard of levels; they did very poorly. Absent any constraints by an Israel afraid of her very existence, I expect sadly and tragically a lot of dead Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians and Egyptians as well as Palestinians as the pressures for the “final Victory” over Israel mounts in those nations and the wrong lessons are learned.
Ponder how an advancing column of Egyptian or Syrian or Hezbollah troops would fare against the IAF?
Every Israeli ill can be traced to a lack of political will in Olmerts govermment.
Specifically, the tactical engagements were done with no operational goals dictated to commanders and strict rules of engagement. For instance infantry squads were instructed to occupy buildings in Lebanese towns without clearing the towns. This is how a dozen Israelis were killed when Hezbollah brought a building down on their heads. Ironically, tanks took a beating because dismounted infantry wasnt sent in ahead of them in confined areas as every combined arms philosophy dictates. Tanks are actually extremely vulnerable to light infantry in urban areas (remember the end of Private Ryan?). This war set back armored warfare 50 years, tanks are useful for their mobility, not their firepower, and they werent allowed use of that element.
I’m not sure Schiff – well respected and knowledgeable as he is – makes the case.
Perhaps the most damning quote is this:
bq. The IDF was also surprised in Lebanon by the amount of anti-tank missiles
fired by Hezbollah. The immediate reaction in the territories is to take cover in the closest home. In Lebanon, many soldiers were killed when anti-tank missiles penetrated walls behind which IDF troops had taken cover. Two weeks into the fighting, a specific order went out on how and where to take cover.
Can anyone give an example of a war in which anti-tank missiles (not RPGs) have been used so frequently, against infantry, armour and even air targets?
bq. Another example is the deployment of the Golani Brigade from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon. It turns out that this excellent fighting force lacked officer expertise in coordinating with artillery batteries, something that they don’t have to do very often in their policing duties.
That is only an argument for more military exercises.
bq. It turns out that many of the commanders in Lebanon learned their trade in the fighting in the territories, and they thought in terms of fighting the Palestinians. The “Palestinian model” guided the way IDF units fought the bloody battles at Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbail. The units entered the battle and withdrew, similar to the way they operate in the Gaza Strip.
Yep, those decisions were – from the outside – ridiculous, particularly the fighting and re-fighting for Bint Jbeil. However, the IDF’s own doctrine loathes urban warfare and advises against it unless vital. Given the constantly shifting objectives of the war, the stop-start of the operation in general, plus the doctrine, perhaps those things had an influence on the IDF’s decision to abandon Bint Jbeil?
Systemic underfunding of the military for well over a decade has produced the Army you go to war with, not the Army you want.
The Army has always been the bastard child of the defense forces, despite the hype. The Air Force and Navy always got the huge budgets which allowed them to buy the expensive toys that do a great job. But the unattractive, unsexy job of equipping infantry soldiers with the proper equipment, buying the right rations, ordering the proper trucks has always been the bane of the Army. Doesn’t sell well with politicians. Easier to make budget cuts. Why do we have to buy road wheels for tanks when we need to purchase multi-million dollar engines for our prize fighters? Which are you going to budget for?
And that is here in the US of A. 8 years of Clinton produced a broken Army that is still getting healthy despite GWOT. Our focus is away from socialization and more on war-fighting. That is what we do. I could care less about the feelings of my fellow soldiers as long as they can shoot their weapons. From 1993 to early 2001, I spent more time sitting in a class talking about others feelings than I did at the range. I was required to shoot once a yr. I was required to sit in these classes for over 6 hours each quarter of each year.
“Can anyone give an example of a war in which anti-tank missiles (not RPGs) have been used so frequently, against infantry, armour and even air targets?”
Israelis walked into the same trap counterattacking the Egyptians in the Sinai early in Yom Kippur. 1 in 3 Egyptian troops had an anti-tank weapon, they were sitting waiting for Israeli armor to show up.
“However, the IDF’s own doctrine loathes urban warfare and advises against it unless vital”
Agreed, but the larger problem was that for some reason they abandoned their mobile armored doctrine as well. If you dont want to fight a set peice battle, and you dont want to fight a battle of manuever, apparently the answer is to fight a peicemeal series of recons in force into the strength of the enemy fortifications. Not smart.
Now had the IDF infantry pinned Hezbollah into the positions they decided to hold (which was surprising and would have been a major blunder had Israel responded properly) while the massed mechanized force punched through and cut off escape and supply, we would have seen a very different war. Or even had artillery been used in direct fire to flatten the Hezbollah positions instead of sending in small units to engage them, at least IDF casualties would have been kept down and the war perhaps prolonged until a decision.
The entire way the war was carried out is inexplicable. Its rather reminiscent of Kasserine Pass after the US entered WW2, just an ineptness of command that echoed through the ranks. When confused and irrational orders start at the top, i suppose they tend to sluice downward. An amateur could look at what the IDF was attempting and been disturbed- its not even that it was uncreative, it was uncreative but also in defiance of every maxim on modern warfare in the book.
I cant really think of a battle that managed to combine _intentionally_ wading into a frontal urban brawl against an entrenched enemy with minimal artillery and air support with close to equal manpower while keeping its reserves and mobile forces sidelined doing nothing, and tactically giving conflicting or nonexistant objectives to the small numbers engaged at any given time… oh and a breakdown of logistics didnt help. This is like some sort of exam at warfare school- can you spot all the blunders.