September 2006
BESA Center Israel
ENCLOSED PLEASE FIND
Perspectives Paper No. 22,
September 28, 2006
http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa.perspectives22.html
The Second Lebanon War
Avi Kober
Executive Summary:
This preliminary assessment of the summer 2006 war in Lebanon discusses five central
problems in Israel's management of that war: adherence to the rules of
"post-heroic" warfare despite its limitations, playing into the enemys
hands, operation on the basis of false assumptions and beliefs, violation of basic
military principles, and hesitancy on the part of Israel's leadership. The article then
examines the outcomes of the war on the battlefield, on the grand-strategic level, in
terms of victory, and in longer-term perspective.
Part One Conduct of the War
Five main problems were revealed in the way Israel conducted the war: Israel adhered to
post-heroic warfare despite its limitations, played into the enemys hands, operated
on the basis of false assumptions and beliefs and violated basic military principles,
while the country's political leadership acted with hesitancy.
Adherence to "Post-Heroic" Warfare
Since the 1978 Litani Operation, Israel has conducted its low-intensity conflicts in
post-heroic fashion. "Post-heroic" warfare is characteristic of non-existential
wars fought by Western democracies. It has two main rules: (a) avoid casualties to your
own troops, and (b) avoid killing enemy civilians. Such warfare has enabled Israel to
combine operational effectiveness and moral standards in combat with enemies fighting in
"heroic" fashion, ready to sacrifice their own fighters and determined to kill
as many enemy civilians as possible. After a long period during which Israel has conducted
post-heroic warfare, quite successfully against the Palestinians and with partial success
against Hizballah, the recent war has revealed its limitations. Israel found itself caught
in a dilemma. On one hand, in order to achieve the ambitious political and military war
objectives, it was necessary to sacrifice both troops and civilians. On the other hand,
deviation from the rules of post-heroic warfare might have limited Israel's freedom of
action. This indeed occurred when the pursuit of Israeli goals caused many Israeli
casualties and much collateral damage in Lebanon.
Playing into the Enemys Hands
A non-state player such as Hizballah seeks to attack its militarily and technologically
stronger opponent's weak points. On a tactical level
it engages in guerilla-type warfare against small units of the enemy army, while on a
grand-strategic level it uses various forms of terror against the enemy population and
economy. In the recent war, Hizballah fighters used their defensive capabilities (advanced
but easy to operate weapons, effective evasion tactics, a network of bunkers, and
familiarity with the territory and population) to engage small Israeli combat teams in battle under advantageous conditions. By firing
Katyusha rockets, they also managed to paralyze social and economic life in northern
Israel, bring about mass desertion of populated
areas, cause casualties and damage property. Israel's failure to send in large ground
forces with massive firepower and maneuverability at an earlier stage, with the mission of
occupying the areas from which the Katyushas were being fired, harmed its ability to
achieve the war objectives (see below).
False Assumptions and Beliefs
Reliance on Airpower. Many years of airpower advocates preaching in favor of
investing the bulk of available defense resources in airpower developed high expectations
on the part of the Israeli leadership and public, which were only partially fulfilled.
While the IAF successfully destroyed Hizballah's long-range rocket launchers from the air,
it was unable to destroy short-range rocket launchers, which caused most of the damage in
northern Israel.
Particularly flawed was the tacit assumption that airpower could decide the outcome of the
war. Battlefield decision at the strategic level has never been achieved from the air
(only at the tactical level). Kosovo was a grand-strategic decision, achieved by denying
the Serbian society the ability to carry on the war (not that of the Serbian army,
which remained almost unharmed). Lebanon differed from Kosovo: the Americans would not let
Israel damage Lebanese infrastructure, and the Israeli civilian rear, unlike that of the
countries attacking Kosovo, was under attack throughout the war.
Small High-quality Special Forces. Increased reliance on airpower was accompanied
by cultivation of special units. Instead of conquering territory the traditional
role of ground forces the special units were expected to operate as small,
independent units, in cooperation with the IAF. By applying network-centric joint warfare
they were supposed to shorten the sensor-to-shooter loop to near-real time, destroy
Hizballah targets and control the south Lebanese battlefield via fire tasks which
were only partially fulfilled. Hizballah, on the other hand, operated grand-strategically
and tactically in a manner compatible with the battlefield conditions. The organization's
combination of determination and tactical skills and use of advanced but simple technology
proved to be effective and sophisticated.
Cult of Technology and Belief in Near-perfect Real Time Intelligence. The IDF has
been inspired for many years by the technology-oriented American "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA), which emphasizes
information dominance, "dominant maneuver," precision strikes, "focused
logistics," etc. The cult of technology has already had a weakening effect on
traditional military capabilities such as close combat or combat intelligence. The
assumption that thanks to the IDFs "Ground Forces Digitalization" program
(ZAYAD, in Hebrew), ground forces would have access
to much more precise intelligence, proved problematic, whether due to gaps in intelligence
(which will always exist), outdated intelligence, or failure to distribute intelligence to
troops on the battlefield in general or in real time. Forces often operated blindly, were
occasionally surprised by enemy munitions (advanced anti-tank or ground-to-sea missiles),
and fell victim to Hizballah's tactics. To the credit of the ground forces it must be said
that their transformation into a digital army has yet to be completed, but doubts
regarding the expected effectiveness of this development are already present.
"Controlling" Instead of Conquering Territory. With the increased
emphasis on firepower, as opposed to maneuver, new concepts began to permeate Israeli
military thought, among them that of "control" a concept reserved until
recently for air and sea contexts in which conquering territory is irrelevant. Control,
however, is insufficient for purposes of destroying infrastructure or achieving
battlefield decision
Reorganization of the Logistic System. With the increased emphasis on
firepower as opposed to maneuver, the IDF decided to reorganize logistically. The current
system, based on modularly structured area logistic units, is meant to allow the
allocation of logistic resources to the combat units in accordance with operational
planning and developments on the battlefield in real time, while their modular structure
is meant to provide availability, flexibility, and efficiency. However, the centralized
nature of the new system, which comes at the expense of the combat units' autonomy,
already seems to have created logistical constraints. It is unclear whether the new
logistic system would have met operational requirements if the war had involved
large-scale ground maneuvers.
Reserves Units. The emphasis on air power and on small high-quality forces, the
assumption that the era of traditional ground war is over and that "control" can
replace conquering territory, the reliance on the new logistical system to meet
operational requirements, the IDF's emphasis on "current security" activities in
the territories, and budgetary constraints, seem to have resulted in the creation of two
armies: the regular army, which is more professional, better equipped, and better -
although not always sufficiently - trained; and the reserve units, which are less
professional, less well trained and inadequately equipped. The events of the recent war
re-open the debate regarding the IDFs force structure.
Protection of the Home Front. Israel still lacks the ability to defend its
home front from short and medium-range rockets and missiles. Development of a protection
system has been delayed due to operational and budgetary problems as well as a sense that
the threat would be tolerable. Those who opposed such projects could now claim that the
rockets proved to be imprecise, and that since civilians remained in protected spaces,
only 40 people were killed as a result of approximately 4,000 known rockets falling in
Israeli territory. On the other hand, it could be argued that this low rate resulted to a
large extent from the fact that hundreds of thousands of residents of northern Israel
sought refuge elsewhere in the country, something that Israel would not be able to
tolerate in the future.
Investing funds in the development and production of active defense systems is an issue
for further investigation. Active defense would decrease the likelihood of civilian
casualties and significantly increase social resilience, but its contribution to Israeli
deterrence is debatable.
Ill-prepared public shelters raised the question of who is responsible for preparing
shelters and ensuring their readiness at all times. Is it reasonable to demand the
government to take on this responsibility, which should naturally be that of local
authorities or perhaps, of the civilians themselves? Similarly, the question of whether
the home front command should remain in the hands of the army arose once again.
Violation of Basic Military Principles
The ground operations, if indeed they were necessary, should have opened with quick
flanking and encircling operations and by taking over the northern parts of Southern
Lebanon. Modern strategy prefers to avoid sysiphean accumulation of achievements at the
tactical level and their translation into operational and strategic gains, and emphasizes
instead the creation of optimal conditions for entry into combat by operation at higher
levels. Harming Hizballah's political and ideological leadership would have helped to
crush its war effort, but given Israel's failure in this area, and on the assumption that
ground operations were inevitable in light of the objectives of the war, the air campaign
should have been followed by a large scale ground operation. An indirect approach a la Sun
Tzu or Liddell Hart would have caused confusion in the enemy ranks and brought about their
psychological collapse much better than the Clausewitzian direct approach, which helped
Hizballah recover and stand strong.
The debatable performance of the IDF during the war also stresses the need for renewed
thought regarding the infiltration of post-modern approaches into the officer corps
training processes at the expense of classic military theory. Some believe that delving
into non-military post-modern philosophical theories will equip senior officers with good
tools for dealing with the complex and changing realities of war. Classic military
thinkers have become no more than names, whose sayings are cited occasionally, but whose
writings are no longer read or learned in depth.
Hesitancy on the Part of the Political Leadership
While there is a measure of justice in complaints about the lack of clear instructions and
regarding missions and objectives in the recent war, partially directed at the political
leadership, its hesitancy is also understandable. The political leadership was led to
understand that the majority of the work could be done by the IAF, accompanied by small
special forces, which also meant that the war could be fought with a minimum of
casualties. When these assumptions were proven false, consideration of the
cost/effectiveness of a large-scale operation began, with the ceasefire drawing closer.
Pressure to display clear-cut military results during the UNSC discussions tipped the
scales in favor of a large-scale ground operation in the hope of affecting the impending
resolution in Israels favor. If at the beginning of the war the politicians had
known what difficulty the IDF would have on the ground and how limited the IAF would prove
in responding to the threat posed by the Katyushas, they would probably have refrained
entirely from a ground operation, or clearly stated, "We are at war and in order to
put an end to the threat posed to the civilian rear by the Katyushas and end the war in
unequivocal victory, signaling Israel's determination and military capability, a
large-scale land operation that might entail quite a heavy cost is necessary."
Clausewitz noted the need for political leaders to base their instructions to the military
on military assessments and the need for the military leadership to understand the wider
political picture. The tension between the broad political considerations and the
"narrower" military perspective is built into civil-military relations and its
existence is no novelty.
Part Two - Outcomes and Achievements
The sense of missed opportunity after the war was sharpened by the fact that the war began
and was mostly fought under almost optimal conditions: internal consensus, broad
international support - including tacit support on the part of moderate Arab states, and a
sense of having almost unlimited time to achieve the war objectives. While it is still too
early to assess the wars long-term repercussions, the short-term achievements can be
examined according to the following criteria: battlefield decision, grand-strategic
decision, victory, and long term outcomes.
Battlefield Decision
There are those who claim that battlefield decision (more popularly known as military
victory), which is about denying the enemy the ability to fight, is irrelevant when
fighting a guerilla organization, except at the tactical level. The battlefield decision
achieved by the IDF against the PLO in 1982 disproves this claim. In 2006 however, despite
tactical achievements, the IDF did not achieve a battlefield decision against Hizballah.
Grand-Strategic Decision
A grand-strategic decision is achieved by denying the enemy the ability to carry on the
war by attacking counter-value (population and economy) targets. Such an outcome could not
be achieved due to limitations on attacking infrastructure targets in Lebanon, whose
government is considered one of the great achievements of the US quest for democratization
in the Middle East.
Victory
Victory is about the correlation between political or military objectives and their
achievement. Unlike battlefield decision it is subjective and can be manipulated by
changing the objectives. It is therefore possible to have more than one side presenting
itself as victorious.
The unrealistic Israeli war objectives (e.g. destruction of Hizballah's infrastructure in
South Lebanon, its disarmament and return of the hostages) raised the level of
expectations, and, when they were not achieved, deepened the sense of failure. Also, the
realization of some of Israel's objectives depended on foreign players the Lebanese
government (for deployment of the Lebanese army in South Lebanon) and the UN and other
countries (for deployment of an effective international force).
Long-term Outcomes
We still lack the perspective required to estimate the long-term implications of the war.
These will have to be examined in various contexts: Israel-Hizballah, Israel-Syria,
Israel-Iran, the Muslim world, Israel-US relations, internal dynamics in Lebanon, Israel's
response to the threat posed by rockets and missiles, preparedness of the civilian rear,
Israeli military doctrine, etc.
It seems that one consequence with positive significance is deterrence-by-punishment. The
IDFs debatable performance notwithstanding, Israel's strong response to Hizballah's
provocation which triggered the war, and the extent of the damage in Beirut and South
Lebanon have broken Israel's pattern of restrained response, raising the price of
provocation in the foreseeable future.
Dr. Avi Kober is Senior Lecturer in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and Senior
Research Associate at the BESA Center.
For the BESA Center website, go to http://www.besacenter.org
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BESA Perspectives No. 22 - The Second Lebanon War - Avi Kober
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Sep 28, 2006