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Week 7 Summary: Hezbollah Capabilities and Advantages in the
2006 LebanonWarMILS 521: Strategy, Tactics, and the Operational
ArtAmerican Military UniversityMartin S. Catino, Ph.D.
Here are some of the key points that could/should have been
addressed. Again, these are not the
only variables for evaluating your essay/posting, but some of
them.
1. Hezbollah possessed and extraordinary understanding of
Israel's military strategy. This ensued
from increased intelligence capacity as well advisement from
Iranian military entities, no doubt.
2. Strategic shifts: We as members of the military community
talk much about force readiness and
Full Spectrum Operations (FSO), but some military strategists
note that changing from
counterinsurgency (COIN) to conventional warfare is very
difficult, if not impossible (I'm not among
the pessimists). Nonetheless, the IDF suffered in the switch as
they found it very difficult toconduct conventional ground
operations in Lebanon, which was markedly different from COIN
operations against Palestinian groups during the Intifada.
3. New strategies and the ability to implement and
operationalize. Whenever a new strategy is
implemented, the strategy should be easy enough for Command to
implement it at the tactical
level. Strategies that are complex, technology heavy, and
politicized often fail at the tactical level
as ground commanders cannot readily apply the strategy amid the
friction occurring in the Battle
Space. Such was the case with Israels strategy.
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4. Strategy and the nature of unconventional warfare. What is
asymmetrical warfare? It is not just
using low risk, low technology, and survival strategies to
prolong a war and thereby erode the
opponents home front support and will to fight. It simply
involves mobilization and
operationalizing one's assets to offset the opponent or strike
his weak areas most effectively (this
sounds a lot like Sun Tzu). Thus using more conventional forces
against an opponent oriented
toward fighting a counter guerrilla war is indeed asymmetrical.
Many of you in your postings aptlygleaned that fact.
5. Strategic vulnerability/psychological vulnerability.
Hezbollah rightly knew that no Israeli gov't
could stay in power if its people were not protected. The
continuity of operations (Indirect Fire)
against northern Israel was sustained throughout the brief war,
which caused not only many Israelis
to deem the IDF incursion a failure, but home front support for
the Tel Aviv faltered. Are we
surprised that "heads rolled": many IDF and gov't officials
resigned and were fired in the wake of
the 2006 Lebanon War and the release of the Winograd Report in
2007, which chided Israel's
political and military leaders.
6. Tactical agility: use of cover, advanced weapons, survival,
and complex operations marked
Hezbollah's operations. Advanced training, weapons, and
effective Command and Control (C2) also
marked its operations. Irans and (to a lesser degree) Syria's
role in training Hezbollah were
critical.
7. Failure? I am adding this for historical context. Like all
modern war, politicizing the issues is
common. And the political turmoil in the Knesset (Israels
legislature) was heated. There were
indeed major failures:
a. failure to disrupt the rocket attacks of Hezbollah on
northern Israel.
b. Failure to decapitate, blind, or paralyze Hezbollah's
leadership.
c. Failure to prevent the movement and operations of Hezbollah
combat units, which operated to a
much higher degree and greater freedom than compared to other
opponents of the IDF.
d. Failure to degrade C2, etc.
But there were substantial successes from the IDF campaign
including:
a. high losses of Hezbollah forces.
b. Pushing them out of southern Lebanon (near the border
area)
c. replacing Hezbollah with UN presence in southern Lebanon
d. Less militant activity in the areae. Strategic surprise on
Hezbollah, which did not expect such a strong IDF reaction.
