Martin van Creveld on The Lebanon War
Eminent and controversial military historian, Martin van Creveld, analyzes the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War in the latest issue of Infinity Journal. Some Excerpts:
The Second Lebanon War: A Re-assessment
….Though the decision to retaliate in force was inevitable, it also meant that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) was taken by surprise and did not have time to prepare properly. Of the entire vast order of battle, only five regular brigades were immediately available. Moreover, these brigades had spent years doing little but carrying out counter-insurgency operations in the Occupied Territories. As a result, they had almost forgotten how to fight a real enemy; he who fights the weak will end up by becoming weak. Some of the burden fell on the Israeli Navy which shelled Lebanon’s coast, imposed a blockade, and cut the country off from the world. In doing so, one of its modern ships was hit by an Iranian-built surface to sea missile, suffering damage and taking some casualties. Since this was the first time in thirty-nine years anything of the kind had happened, it was a considerable propaganda victory for Hezbollah. At the same time it proved how much the crew had underestimated the enemy, since they (perhaps acting on their superiors’ orders) had not even switched on the vessel’s electronic defenses.
….”Stark raving mad” (majnun, in Arabic) was, in fact, the way many people in Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world reacted to the Israeli attack. As the statements of several of Hezbollah’s top leaders indicated, they too were surprised by the strength of the Israeli reaction. None of the organization’s original objectives were achieved. Its fighters remain in prison; the Israeli “occupation” of Shaba Farm continues; and Jerusalem, which it set itself as its ultimate objective to liberate, remains as firmly in Israeli hands as it has been during the last forty-four years. What the war did do was to show that, in case of war, neither Syria nor Iran would necessarily come to Lebanon’s rescue. The country’s infrastructure was left in ruins. Thirty thousand dwellings were destroyed or damaged, and dozens of bridges, underpasses, and gas stations demolished. Hundred of thousands of people were forced to flee, and as many as 2,000 killed.
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This piece is heavily IDF-centric in the analysis, perhaps reflecting van Creveld’s established authority on command and logistics and his recent work on air power, but I was surprised by the lack of space devoted to Hezbollah’s operations, given the author’s deep influence on 4GW theory and the study of postmodern irregular and asymmetric warfare. That may reflect, in part, the thrust of Infinity as a publication or the need for brevity but there’s an almost Clausewitzian subtext in the conclusion.
June 27th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Van Creveld concludes that because following the Lebanon War Hezbollah has not conducted missile attacks, etc., against Israel, that – despite appearances to the contrary – Israel’s operation succeeded in its objective of ending those attacks.
This is an example of the post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy – for it assumes that Hezbollah’s post war conduct was caused by Israel’s operation and not by some other factor.
We would need an in depth study of Hezbollah to determine what impact, if any, Israel’s operation has had upon its subsequent conduct.
June 28th, 2011 at 2:33 am
"We would need an in depth study of Hezbollah to determine what impact, if any, Israel’s operation has had upon its subsequent conduct.’
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It ain’t forthcoming 🙂
June 28th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Anyone volunteer to go in there and interview those guys?I wonder what would happen if someone from, say, the French or Chinese equivalent of the Army War College asked Hezbollah for permission to go in there, interview people, and do a study of their side of the war.
June 28th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Lex,.You bring up a good point. Your idea is fascinating. There are enough rabid anti-Israel academicians to have street creds to do just that—and I’m quite serious..Wonder if anyone will give it a whack?
June 28th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Hi Zen, Lex, Scott:
I don’t think you have to be rabidly anti-Israel, and I’m not sure you have to go to the Lebanon to do it. After all, Mark Juergensmeyer (UC Santa Barbara) interviewed Algerians in Paris, Abdul Aziz Rantisi in Gaza, and Mahmoud Abulhalima in prison at Lompoc, along with Sikhs and Christians and others, for his book Terror in the Mind of God, and Jessica Stern (Harvard) interviewed others for her book, Terror in the Name of God. But those are both religion scholars rather than strategists or guerrilla warfare specialists…
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And what about the "formers" who have been attending the Google AVE event in Dublin these last few days. Are any of them ex-Hizb?
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Abu Muqawama / Andrew Exum recently posted his dissertation abstract on his blog with CNAS:
How close do you suppose that might come to offering the kinds of insights you’re hoping for — and not finding in van Creveld?
June 28th, 2011 at 10:40 pm
My understanding of Hezbollah, which is admittedly out of date and generalist perspective, is that the org compartmentalizes it’s military- terrorist wing operations pretty rigidly from their political org personnel. Not only would Hezbollah spokesmen not shed light on their actual strategic and tactical assumptions, they can’t bc the folks running that section keep them in the dark and need to know within their own units. Good basic security.
June 29th, 2011 at 12:40 am
Hi Charles,
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Thx! That selection by Ex was exactly what is needed to fill in the blanks, both his dissertation and the two just published books he described. Read the Stern book, it was good work, going to motivation, psychology and social environment
June 29th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Interesting abstract, article is available on the web:
June 29th, 2011 at 6:07 pm
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial} span.s1 {font: 10.0px Arial} Hi Charles, Thanks for the references. There is one more I’d like to throw in that I’ve skimmed but not read through: Marc Sageman’s "Understanding Terror Networks."