Air Power’s Illusion? Israel’s 2006 Campaign in the Lebanon
This article is based upon one produced for the Royal Air Force’s ‘Air Power Review’ journal, which was written with the aim of exploring some particular aspects of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) campaign in the Lebanon last year—namely those specifically related to the use of air power. The focus on air power should very definitely not be seen as indicative of a belief that this was the only important area of the campaign—although it is the author’s contention that the way in which Israeli air power was used that had a great deal to do with the final outcome.
The 2006 conflict that took place in the South of Lebanon is one which will be much discussed in years to come, and hopefully be studied by many prescient observers. One of the reasons that the campaign deserves further study has to do with the particular manner in which air power was employed, and the title of this article was chosen to reflect the general understanding within the media of the way in which events in this area had played out. In fact, headlines for articles during the course of the conflict ranged from “Air power won’t do it” (The Washington Post 25 July 2006), through “Air power assumptions shot down” (Reuters 2 August 2006) to “The illusion of air power” (The Economist 24 August 2006). Enough, certainly, to make any serious exponent of air power wonder exactly what had happened, and perhaps more importantly, why. If any further justification for study were needed, the resignation of General Halutz earlier on this year, the first-ever airman to be the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), due solely to the performance of the IDF during the conflict undoubtedly provides it.
It is highly likely that there will be more and more ‘lessons learned’ that will be drawn out from the conflict as the facts become more widely available.1 However given the limits of a short article, this particular paper will limit itself to answering one central question, which is, quite simply, did air power indeed fail to deliver in the 2006 Lebanon conflict?
All of these articles centred around the same point—that air power throughout its existence has promised to be a ‘silver bullet’ solution to military problems by producing independent strategic effect, but has consistently failed to do so. Or in other words, it is suggested that there is a fundamental problem with the theory that underpins air power’s ability to produce such effect by itself. This allows a more precise question to be framed, which is: did the Israeli use of air power in the Lebanon illustrate a failure of underpinning air power theory which resulted in the inability to achieve the desired strategic end state? One caveat needs to be raised before proceeding any further, which is that this paper is entirely based upon opensource material, and not on the basis of any privileged information. In terms of organisation it will consider the background to the conflict, provide an overview of the campaign, and analyse the aims and end states before answering the question and drawing some lessons in conclusion.
It is hard to imagine now, but for the first two decades of its existence Israel’s border with Lebanon was one of its most secure. However, all that changed when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) began to establish itself in the area, initially in 1967 after the defeat of the Arab forces in the Arab/Israeli war that year, but significantly reinforced in 1970 when the PLO was effectively evicted from Jordan. From this point onwards, cross-border terrorist activity steadily grew—and with it the question as to how Israel was to respond. Initially this took the form of artillery bombardments, air strikes, and raids against likely targets, but as Lebanon fell into civil war and much of it came to be influenced by Syria, Israel felt this was insufficient, and in 1982 it invaded Lebanon, reaching Beirut within a week and establishing a buffer zone south of the Litani River. But instead of being able to impose its will within the country that it occupied, it found itself fighting a counter-insurgency campaign that would last for the entire 18 years of its occupation—and it was during this time that the organisation that now known as Hisbollah2 grew up amongst the Shi’ite communities of Southern Lebanon, gaining support first from Syria, and then latterly from Iran.
However, Israel’s experience during its long and bloody occupation of Lebanon convinced it that such an approach was to be avoided again if at all possible. Accordingly a new doctrine was developed by the IDF Institute for Campaign Doctrine Studies3 (ICDS) after the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, although the first public version appeared in an academic paper entitled “The Vulture and The Snake”.4 Although this is a long and detailed exposition regarding the use of air power in countering guerrilla warfare, the basic concept was that Israel would rely upon its proven air supremacy to build an asymmetric advantage. Under this construct the Israeli Air Force (IAF) would become the predominant offensive element (the vulture) that would operate against the terrorists or guerrillas wherever they were located (the snakes). This would require a combination of elements: unmanned air vehicles (UAV) to provide persistent surveillance, fast jets and precision guided munitions (PGM) for kinetic effect, a robust and rapid C2 system to allow time-sensitive targets (TST) to be dealt with, and helicopters both for strike and air manoeuvre operations.
Ground forces would be expected to operate in defence of Israel’s borders, but offensively would only be used in small, rapid operations in enemy territory to handle particular groups of the enemy who could not easily be dealt with from the air or where the aim was to capture individuals or equipment. In other words, such actions would effectively only use Special Forces (SF). The overall concept was heavily reliant upon the fact that ‘aerial dominance’ would produce battle-winning results, and was politically acceptable because it meant that known weaknesses in the IDF ground forces could be ignored. It also played to a long-standing Israeli preference to use technology as a means of avoiding losses of their own people in ground warfare, especially in urban areas. Whilst not an effects-based approach in its own right, the doctrine came to be associated with the introduction of effects-based methodology and taxonomy into the IDF, again led by the ICDS. This concept appeared to have worked relatively well on the West Bank, when dealing with Hamas, and had also been exercised, at least at command level, against other possible scenarios. Indeed an exercise was conducted in June 2006 based, rather presciently, on the kidnapping of an IDF soldier by Hisbollah.5 In the exercise, the IDF launched a short but intense air and land stand-off campaign against Hisbollah, to which Hisbollah responded with rocket attacks on Israeli towns. The IDF countered with a ground operation whereby three divisions took over Southern Lebanon and during the course of a month, operating closely with aerial support, destroyed Hisbollah’s ability to operate in the area.
Hisbollah’s doctrine is more difficult to determine, although achievement of their longer-term political objectives certainly shapes all of their activity.6 But what is clear is that they had studied Israel’s doctrine very carefully, as well as looking at their practices as evidenced in the Palestinian territories, and it is probably safe to say that such concepts and doctrine as they did possess were based around enabling the organisation to survive an Israeli attack and continue to operate, and at the same time being able to strike at Israel itself, and to confront Israel in the area where it had traditionally prided itself—the performance of its fighting troops on the ground. The other element that should be made clear at this point is the extent to which Hisbollah had been armed and advised by Syria and Iran during the preceding years. In particular a wide range of missiles had been obtained, with much greater capabilities than the Katyushas which had formed the bulk of their offensive capability in the past. A range of surface-to-surface, surface-to-air, anti-shipping and anti-tank missiles had entered the inventory, including the Fajr 3 and 5, Zelzal 1 and 2, Raad 1 and Khaibar 1 surface to surface missiles.7 Other weapons believed to have been used by Hizbollah include the C-802 or C-701 Chinese anti-ship missile, and a range of anti-tank systems such as the AT-3 (Sagger), AT-4 (Spigot), AT-5 (Spandrel), AT-13 (Metis-M) and AT-14 (Kornet-E).8 The ranges of some of the surface-to-surface weapons are shown in figure 1. Although details were obviously sketchy, in 2004 the Head of Israeli Intelligence had suggested that Hisbollah probably possessed around 13,000 missiles, with a small but significant percentage of the longer range weapons in their inventory.
Looking at an overview of the campaign itself, viewed on a week-by-week basis,9 beginning with the Hizbollah attack on Israeli forces on the Lebanese/Israel border, where in a well-prepared action on 12 July 2006 they abducted two IDF personnel, destroyed an Israeli main battle tank, killed eight soldiers and injured a further six. The Israeli government immediately stated that it held the Lebanese government responsible for the actions of Hisbollah, and even though the Lebanese Prime Minister and Parliament denied any knowledge of the raid and publicly stated that they did not condone it, Israel commenced a massive military operation from the air. The head of the IDF, General Halutz, threatened that unless the prisoners were freed then the IDF would “turn Lebanon’s clock back 20 years”. The initial approach chosen was to blockade Lebanon, signalled by the attacks upon Beirut’s international airport, and destroying road links to prevent re-supply. At the same time strikes were undertaken to remove Hisbollah’s military capability by destroying its leadership and command and control functions, along with its weapons. However whilst Operation ‘Change of Direction’ (also known as ‘Just Desserts’ and ‘Appropriate Retribution’) was being launched, Hisbollah responded with a missile attack against Haifa—the furthest South that it had ever managed to reach into Israel. The following day an Israeli Sa’ar 5-class missile boat, INS Hanit, that was blockading the waters 10 nautical miles off of the Lebanese coast was severely damaged after being hit by a C-802 (Yingji-82) anti-ship missile, with four sailors killed.10
The first two weeks saw the Israeli forces attempting to put their pre-war doctrine into practice with a considerable concentration of force being applied from the air, averaging over 200 sorties a day, but although air strikes were credited with having destroyed five long-range and ten short-range missile launchers in the first few days, they were unable to prevent Hisbollah from firing over 700 missiles into Israel during the first week of the war. Moreover the rocket strikes did not just pose a random threat to the civilian population; they also caused significant damage to a regional air base within Northern Israel that was involved in directing the campaign, and also forced the move of an IAF logistics and maintenance centre for its Apache and Cobra attack helicopters to the South of the country. Considerable use was made of UAVs to provide round-the-clock surveillance and direct strike activity, but some targets proved particularly difficult. A raid against a single Hisbollah headquarters facility saw 23 tons of ordnance dropped to no apparent effect, and whilst road links to both Beirut and Southern Lebanon were systematically destroyed to prevent the possibility of re-supply, the flow of rockets against Israel continued unabated. Indeed during the course of the conflict over 5,500 Israeli homes were hit, 300,000 civilians displaced, and up to a million were regularly having to move into bomb shelters, effectively paralyzing normal life throughout a third of Israel’s territory. Hisbollah’s television and radio stations remained on the air, and meanwhile worldwide public opinion began to show evidence of disquiet regarding Israel’s attacks against Lebanese civilian infrastructure targets such as water facilities, electrical plant, fuel supplies, hospitals and industrial sites and factories.
The third week saw the struggle moving into a new phase, as Israel began to move into Lebanon, with two brigades in operation—firstly in the village of Marun Al-Ras, and then in the town of Bint Jbeil—whilst an additional three divisions of reservists (15,000 troops) were mobilized. An aerial assault was carried out against a hospital in Baalbek, an area described as a “Hisbollah stronghold”, with the intended target of the raid reported to have been a senior member of Hisbollah as well as a Lebanese representative of the Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, although the IDF denied that this was the case. The deaths of 4 unarmed UN observers after an Israeli air strike hit their observation post added to international pressure regarding the nature of the Israeli air campaign. Although there was no let up in the aerial campaign over Lebanon, Hisbollah continued to launch significant numbers of missiles at Israel, peaking at around 130 in one hour. Even though the majority were the short-range Katyushas, others were landing 50-75 km to the south of Israel’s northern border. There was also by this point a public disagreement between Mossad which stated that it believed that Hisbollah was capable of continuing fighting at the current level for a long time, and military intelligence which believed Hisbollah had been severely damaged. Military academics began to question publicly the Israeli reliance on air power in the current operations.
By the fourth week three IDF divisions were operating in Lebanon, but still struggling against Hisbollah’s first line of defence—the Nasser brigade. The IAF continued to attack Hizbollah targets within Lebanon, as well as more general infrastructure targets, and Hizbollah’s leader vowed to strike Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israel’s bombardment of Beirut. The Israeli Defense Minister announced that he had instructed the IDF to prepare for “a swift takeover of the entire area south of the Litani [River]” and to operate in all the areas where rockets had been launched, which would represent an incursion of around 30 km. After bombing the last land routes into Beirut, and effectively cutting off the Lebanese capital from relief supplies, Israel issued a statement saying the attacks were designed to thwart Syrian attempts to re-supply Hisbollah. Almost simultaneously Hisbollah rockets struck Hadera, about 40 kilometers north of Tel Aviv, the southernmost point the Islamic militia reaches with its attacks during the conflict, and fifteen people were killed in a single day by Hisbollah’s deadliest wave of rocket attacks on Israel since fighting began. A UN Security Council vote on a resolution to end the conflict was delayed, and the Arab League accused the UN of doing nothing to solve the crisis, saying that the conflict would sow “the seeds of hatred and extremism across the Middle East”. Israeli military officials announced that the Israeli army was now holding land up to 8km inside Lebanon, and that they were expanding their ground offensive, pushing troops up to 20km over the border—but it was only on the 29th day of operations that the Israeli cabinet approved a significant expansion of the ground operations—four days before the ceasefire came into being.
The final week of the conflict saw intense activity, both military and diplomatic, leading up to the ceasefire. The UN humanitarian relief coordinator criticised both sides for not stopping fighting for long enough to allow aid to reach 120,000 civilians who needed help in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile Israeli forces made their deepest push into Lebanon, with some troops reaching the Litani River, whilst Hisbollah continued to fire considerable numbers of rockets into northern Israel (200 on the last day of the war) and put up fierce resistance to Israeli forces on the ground. On Sunday 13 August the prime ministers of Israel and Lebanon agreed to a cessation of hostilities beginning at 0500 GMT on the following day, whilst the Israeli cabinet approved a UN resolution calling for a halt to the month-old war in Lebanon, and at the same time also asked the US government to speed up delivery of short-range anti-personnel rockets armed with cluster munitions,11 which it could use to strike Hisbollah missile sites in Lebanon. Some of the fiercest fighting of the month-long conflict took place in the final hours running up to the UN ceasefire coming into effect. At 0500 GMT guns fell silent, although with isolated incidents reported across southern Lebanon.
It is difficult to give an idea of the absolute military overall scale of the campaign in such a short space, but the statistics below, largely based upon data issued by the IDF, should help to fill in the gaps.
| Length of conflict | 33 days |
| Overall Casualties | Israeli – 119 military, 41 civilians |
|
Lebanon – 500 Hisbollah fighters, 900 civilians (both approximate) |
|
| Israeli Air Force | Manned – over 10,000 fighter sorties |
| UAV – over 16 000 flying hrs | |
| Discrete targets struck – over 7,000 | |
| Aircraft lost – 5 (1 shot down, 4 lost due to accidents) | |
| Israeli Army | Artillery shells fired – over 100,000 |
| MBTs lost – 20 (14 to ATGMs, 6 to mines) | |
| Hisbollah | Rockets fired on Israel – 3,970 |
| Rocket launchers destroyed – 126 |
In terms of analysis, consideration of the aims of both sides in this conflict is vital as military activity in and of itself is not purposeful, but requires some desired political end state in order to give it rationality. While it may appear to make sense to look at Hisbollah first, as they were the initial aggressor, it is simpler to begin with the Israelis, since their objective are much easier to ascertain. Two key aims were outlined by the Israeli government to the world at large: first to free its abducted soldiers, and secondly to remove the terrorist threat from its Northern border by destroying Hisbollah. As is often the case of course, public statements and internal policies whilst linked may be slightly different, and it appears three aims were outlined by the Israeli government and handed to the IDF to translate into an operational level plan. The first of these was to create the conditions for the return of the prisoners, the second to damage significantly Hisbollah’s military capability, and the third to coerce the Lebanese government into assuming more effective sovereignty over Southern Lebanon. To this the IDF added a fourth aim of its own, which was to strengthen Israel’s deterrent image with its Arab neighbours.12
Hisbollah’s aims are more opaque, but it seems highly likely that they regarded their activity on 12 July as being at a ‘normal’ level—that is not significantly escalatory—and aimed at securing prisoners who could be used in their own long-standing campaign to gain release for prisoners held in Israeli jails. Certainly comments made after the war by Sheikh Nasrallah indicated that Hisbollah were taken aback by the strength of the Israeli response.13 Another suggestion is that Hisbollah’s principal backers, Syria and Iran—each with their own agenda—were looking to see some return for their significant investment. What is beyond doubt is that even if they did not expect the response that did occur, they were not found wanting in terms of preparation, a point we shall come back to later. In one way Hisbollah’s war aims could be seen as simply being defined by those of Israel: if Israel wanted to release the prisoners and destroy Hisbollah, then all Hisbollah needed to do to ‘win’ was to retain the prisoners and remain in being.
Taken on one level the actual end state is quite straightforward—the prisoners had still not been released,14 and Hisbollah remains in being, with a considerable portion of its inventory intact. Martin van Creveld suggested, two months after the conflict ended, that the final end state might be more advantageous for Israel than it appeared at first sight, with a neutral force inserted between Israel and Hisbollah in southern Lebanon, and a ceasefire that appeared then to be holding.15 Hisbollah’s leader also implied that they were not content with the outcome for the Lebanese people, stating in a public interview that if they had believed that there was a one percent probability that Israel would have responded in the way they did then they would not have taken the action.16 And what about Hisbollah themselves—they have not noticeably improved their ability to secure the release of prisoners from Israeli jails, and indeed have conceded a number of further POWs. However, what they have achieved is perhaps a greater gain from their perspective, in that they have made clear the limitations of the IDF in the starkest of forms. Hisbollah has demonstrated that it could survive despite Israel’s massive military advantage, could inflict substantial and painful losses on the Israeli army (in relative terms) and above all take the conflict to Israel itself whenever it wished through rocket attacks—in other words, directly undermining the myth of Israeli military invincibility. To some extent whether this is correct or not is immaterial: it is the perception that is important, and the popular perception amongst the Arab world, as well as in a considerable part of the West, and most tellingly in Israel itself, is that in this particular conflict, Hisbollah outperformed the IDF in most areas. In other words the ‘battle of narratives’, which in modern terms is often as important as the action on the ground, appeared to have been won by Hisbollah; a view certainly evidenced by the Economist on its cover for the week beginning the 19 August 2006.
It is possible to discern two distinct threads to the IDF operational activity—the first aimed at directly attacking Hisbollah and thus reducing its military capability, and the second aimed at coercing the Lebanese government into taking responsibility for the sovereignty of its own country, and thereby reducing Hisbollah’s ability to operate. So in air power theory terms, the two elements ‘on trial’ were firstly the ability of air power to deal substantively and decisively with an insurgency or conflict with irregular forces, and secondly the capability to create coercive effect against a state actor.
The IDF’s activities were obviously planned from the outset as a predominantly air-led campaign—in accordance with their existing doctrine—and this was particularly evident in the way in which the Israeli army was called up, with decisions being made very late in the day. From the Hisbollah side, it is evident that not only had considerable preparation been made in terms of the acquisition of weapons systems, but a great deal of work had been carried out in terms of preparing hardened and secure command and control facilities—including television and radio broadcasting services, both vital to convey Hisbollah’s views and influence perceptions. Considerable work had also gone into the building of fortified positions along the border with Israel, and in some depth, with much thought given to both strengths and concealment. A high level of training and courage was also evident in their operations against the Israeli army, where despite being out-gunned they used their weapons to good effect—even if the kill to loss ratio stood at approximately 5 to 1 overall in the Israeli’s favour.
Taking the question of air power in counter-insurgency first, it has become very clear that the IDF’s most overwhelming conclusion is that they failed simply because their doctrine was wrong, with this being blamed upon ‘aerial arrogance’ amongst senior officers17. Their development of a doctrine of counter-insurgency which effectively ignored the need for ground-based activity meant that when ground forces were eventually introduced, it had (to quote one of their reports) “created confusion in terminology and misunderstanding of basic military principles” which led to confusion at all levels from the operational down to the tactical—van Creveld tellingly states that ‘units continued to receive contradictory, ever-changing orders’,18 and the team who investigated the General Staff’s performance concluded that ‘General Halutz was unjustifiably locked on the idea of an aerial campaign, postponing time and time again the launch of ground manoeuvres’19 and when land operations did begin ‘forces were not given specific objectives and time frames to attain them’,20 which may be a side-swipe at the effects based approach as applied under their extant doctrine. The clearest indication of a change in approach has come in the form of the IDF’s work plan for 2007, which sees ‘a significantly larger investment in ground forces, after years in which the air force was favoured over other services.’21
In terms of the coercive nature of the air campaign, putting aside any questions of legality regarding the targeting of significant portions of the civilian infrastructure, the fundamental feasibility of the approach must be considered. Israel was keen throughout the conflict to compare their actions with NATO’s operations with regard to Kosovo,22 and they themselves made clear that they were attempting to coerce the Lebanese government into undertaking particular courses of action. But the Lebanese parliament is split almost down the middle, with attitudes towards Syria and Hisbollah marking the dividing line. Of the 128 seats in the parliament, the anti-Syrian camp has a small majority (72 seats)—although this is an alliance grouping, and the Prime Minister’s party only has half of these seats. The rest of the seats belong to pro-Syrian and pro-Hisbollah factions, who thus hold a commanding position within the parliament (and indeed hold two government appointments). Without descending too much into the complex and finely-balanced world of Lebanese politics, what is clear is that the Prime Minister’s authority is quite limited—certainly when it comes to any authority over Hisbollah—which makes the situation very different in terms of the likelihood of a successful coercive approach compared with the situation in Kosovo, where effectively one individual had the power to turn on or turn off military action. A dogmatic approach to the application of doctrine appears to have resulted in a considerable amount of effort being expended, as well as a significant loss of life amongst a civilian population and devastation of much of a nation’s economy. All this without any appreciable gain in terms of the desired end-state or potential political advantage.23
Returning to our consideration of air power’s role, it is now possible to look at the two aspects in a slightly different light. The IDF doctrine which stressed the primacy of the IAF in the counter-insurgency role without doubt ignored some 80-plus years of previous experience and doctrine, and appears to have resulted from an over-stated belief in the impact of new technology. Fundamentally it was bad doctrine. On the coercive front however, there appears to have been a dogmatic application of doctrine without an adequate appreciation of environmental factors at the operational level. Overall then neither aspect of air power appears to have failed due to any inherent flaws in theory, but instead due to either poor doctrine or a failure in imagination and understanding in application. And whilst the doctrine writer’s get-out clause which states that doctrine is ‘authoritative, but requires judgement in application’24 has become somewhat hackneyed, it is nevertheless fundamentally true—doctrine should not be applied in a checklist-type manner.
When considering the overall outcome, due precedence must be given to the (unclassified) interim report produced by the highest level examination into Israel’s conduct of the war, the Inquiry Commission, which was set up in September 2006 by the government to consider all aspects of the campaign.25 This very firmly lays the blame for the conduct and outcome of the campaign on a triumvirate of the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Chief of Staff, with a number of extremely telling observations. Perhaps foremost amongst these is a statement that “ some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and ... were not achievable by the authorized modes of military action.”26 Furthermore, the decision to respond to the kidnapping with an immediate, intensive and escalatory response was not based on any detailed analysis of the situation, but instead on an impulsive reaction and a “weakness in strategic thinking”. This in turn led to military activity which quite simply was unlikely to result in the achievement of a particular end-state.
In other words—it is quite clear that this was not a failure of air power per se. Instead it represented a failure at the strategic level to define an end-state that was militarily achievable, or to consider the desired end-state and apply the most appropriate levers of power to achieve it. No form of military power was likely to have resulted in the stated aims being achieved, and in that sense air power, at the theoretical and practical levels cannot be held culpable. However, the development of a doctrine which espoused the use of air power in ways that arguably ignored the lessons of both history and common sense is a different matter. This significantly contributed to the immediate response, which simply applied doctrine and training as expected, but there also appears to have been a dogmatic approach to the use of that doctrine, which in turn led to sterility in thinking at both the strategic and operational levels.
This should be a clear warning to any military organisation, but to air forces in particular. Whilst they have tremendous ability to create strategic effect in the right circumstances, they also have limitations, especially in ‘small wars’. In this regard it is certainly worth paying heed to the cautionary note sounded by retired USMC Colonel ‘TX’ Hammes, when he recently suggested that perhaps we should be concentrating on Mission Sensitive Targeting, as opposed to purely Time Sensitive Targeting. Here the emphasis is on the observe and orientate elements of the OODA loop, together with the need for an appropriate response, rather than a defaultsetting kinetic response.27 And indeed there is a significant body of experience about how best to carry out counter-insurgency operations, much of it British—and all of it points towards the need for a genuinely ‘comprehensive approach’.28 Air power has a tremendous amount to offer in such campaigns, but it needs to see itself as a partner to, rather than a replacement for, surface forces. Its most important contribution will generally be in enabling those surface forces to be far more effective—by providing unparalleled mobility, intelligence, and when required devastating firepower. But unless these elements, together with those of the wider military approach, form part of a broader strategy that addresses (or at least accepts) the underlying causes of the insurgency then success is most unlikely.
Whilst any strategic doctrine has to represent a statement of belief in how war will be fought in the immediate future, and the impact that changes of technology and the environment will have on that manner of fighting, unless it is equally grounded in lessons from the past it is unlikely to prove ‘sound’. Certainly it could be argued that one of the key lessons from the past is that if your doctrine is based on faulty premises, so much time and effort is spent defending it that when it comes to a situation where it is needed, it tends to be applied in a very rigid manner. An intellectually-defensive stance does not encourage the free-thinking and questioning approach necessary to develop genuine strategic thinkers!29 This latter aspect certainly includes the necessity to understand, not underestimate, your opponent, and Hisbollah’s ability to manipulate the media is perhaps an obvious example of this. Indeed Sheikh Nasrallah has even managed to use the Inquiry Commission report to his advantage, having been quoted as being impressed by Israel’s war report, in that “it has finally and officially decided the issue of victory and defeat.”30
One of the oft-quoted dictums in military learning is that whilst it is good to learn from your mistakes, it is even better to learn from those of others. The Lebanon campaign of 2006 presents a unique opportunity to consider a set of lessons that have been costly to obtain, and which contain much that is relevant to the type of operations that the RAF is either already engaged in, or may be in the future.
The lessons may make unpleasant or difficult reading, but to ignore them would be foolish in the extreme; if they are not learnt, then the next time round it might indeed be fair to categorise the results as ‘a failure in air power’.
Endnotes
1 Other first-pass areas identified by the Israelis as requiring further examination include intelligence, army training, air/land co-operation, media operations, littoral operations, combat logistics support and combating modern anti-tank weapons.
2 Various interpretations of the Arabic name (Party of God) are in use, e.g. Hizbullah, Hizbollah, Hezballah, Hizballah, and Hizb Allah, but for the sake of consistency Hisbollah is used throughout this paper.
3 The Institute was set up in 1994 both to develop doctrine and educate senior commanders (Jane’s Defence Weekly, Debriefing Teams Brand IDF Doctrine ‘Completely Wrong’, 3 January 2007, p. 7)
4 Shmuel L Gordon, “The Vulture and The Snake. Counter-Guerilla Air Warfare: The War in Southern Lebanon”, Mideast Security and Policy Studies, No 39, July 1998.
5 Jane’s Defence Weekly, Israel Introspective after Lebanon offensive, 23 August 2006, p. 18–19.
6 Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, “Hizbollah’s Outlook in the Current Conflict Part One: Motives, Strategy and Objectives”, August 2006, www.carnegieendowment.org/files/saad_ghorayeb_final.pdf
7 An insight into the selection of names for Hisbollah’s missiles can be obtained from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizballah-rockets.htm
8 Anthony H. Cordesman, ‘Preliminary “Lessons” of the Israeli-Hezbollah War’, http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060817_isr_hez_lessons.pdf
9 A wide range of sources were used to compile the campaign overview, ranging from websites such as the BBC, Israeli Government, Al Jazeera and a range of American commentators, through to publications from Jane’s Defence Weekly to the Economist. For the sake of keeping footnotes to a manageable length for this element, specific items are not individually referenced.
10 An Egyptian civilian merchant ship was also hit by a Hisbollah missile in the same attack and sank in a matter of minutes, although the casualty figures are still disputed.
11 The M-26 rocket, for use with the MLRS weapon system.
12 Israel Introspective after Lebanon offensive, p. 18.
13 Lebanese television interview as reported on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5291420.stm (“We did not think that there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war of this scale and magnitude” Sheikh Nasrallah said.)
14 Indeed still have not been – and there has since been a suggestion that both of them were so seriously injured that they might not have survived the day.
15 Martin van Creveld, ‘Israel’s Lebanese War: A Preliminary Assessment’, RUSI Journal, October 2006, p. 40-43.
16 Reported via various sources – see http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFul… for an Israeli perspective.
17 Jane’s Defence Weekly, Debriefing teams brand IDF doctrine ‘completely wrong’, 3 January 2007, p. 7.
18 Israel’s Lebanese War: A Preliminary Assessment, p. 42.
19 Debriefing teams brand IDF doctrine ‘completely wrong’, p. 7.
20 Ibid.
21 Jane’s Defence Weekly, IDF shifts focus to ground forces, 10 January 2007, p. 7.
22 In fact Prime Minister Olmert made a direct (if misleading comparison) with the NATO campaign during an interview with Welt am Sonntag on 6 Aug 06 (From where do they actually take the right to preach to Israel? The European countries attacked Kosovo and killed ten thousand civilians. Ten thousand civilians! And none of these countries had to suffer before also by only one rocket!) The original interview can be found at http://www.welt.de/print-wams/article145804/Sie_haben_Israel_sowieso_ge…
23 Indeed, if the aim of the Israeli government was to encourage the Lebanese government to take more responsibility for security within its own borders, then it appears to have had the opposite effect with Syrian-backed elements now challenging the government at every opportunity. See Analysis: Lebanon’s New Flashpoint (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6684337.stm)
24 JWP 0–01, British Defence Doctrine, p1.2
25 “To look into the preparation and conduct of the political and security levels concerning all dimensions of the Northern Campaign which started on July 12th 2006”. (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2007/Winograd+Inquiry+…)
26 Ibid, para 10d.
27 Thomas X. Hammes, ‘Time Sensitive Targeting: Irrelevant to Today’s Fights’, RUSI Defence Systems, Autumn 2006, p. 119-120.
28 Malaya and Oman provide particularly good case studies in this regard.
29 An example is the RAF’s defence of strategic bombing doctrine during the 1920s and 1930s, which resulted in a very rigid approach to the employment of bombers at the beginning of the Second World War.
30 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6A735E29-A013-47F3-B40F-62408AFD…
