The USMC would be well served to study the Israeli Defense Force war with Hezbollah in 2006.
The parallels are remarkable. For the first time in its history the IDF was led by an Air Force man. The "new" style of warfare would involve network centric systems, rely heavily on aerial ISR and would shift the IDF from a ground centric force to one where the IDF Air Force would play the lead role.
Hezbollah basically read the Israeli play book and kicked their ass. While I wouldn't characterize this as an Israeli defeat, neither would I call it a victory.
Anthony Cordesman writes a must read lessons learned (you can read it below) but this passage from page 49 stands out to me.....
The IDF may well be able to adapt. The Brodet Commission haslooked beyond the narrow issues of the Israeli-Hezbollah War and hasrecommended comprehensive changes based on the conclusion that“the Israel Defense Forces and the entire defense establishment sufferfrom a multidimensional crisis: budgetary, management, organiza-tional, cultural, and strategic.”The force that the Marine Corps is designing will be easily defeated on a modern battlefield. We need to reverse course now to maintain faith with the country we are sworn to defend.
It has radically increased its defense budget and has cancelled theplanned further cuts in ground forces.
It has a new minister of de-fense, Ehud Barak, with practical combat experience in dealing with asymmetric threats.
The IDF has a new, ground forces-oriented chief of staff. The land forces commander, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Gantz,has called for new training methods, a new emphasis on decisive ma-neuver, and a reorganization of many elements of Israel’s land forc-es. Israel is restructuring its entire training program, with a major new training center for asymmetric warfare in the Negev and major exercises in the Golan.
No one can predict Israel’s level of success,but the country is clearly making a massive effort to adapt to thethreats posed by forces like the Hezbollah and is extremely unlikely torepeat the mistakes of 2006.
The goal must also be to learn what cannot be done and to avoid setting goals for netcentric warfare, intelligence, targeting, and battle damage as-sessments that are impossible, or that are simply too costly and uncertainto deploy. Modern military powers need to approach these problemswith ruthless realism at the political, tactical, and technical levels
The IDF is not unlike the US military -- overstaffed, overequipped, and underperforming.
ReplyDeleteHaaretz, Nov 3, 2013
The portion of the defense budget allocated for salaries, pensions, rehabilitation and payments to families is hitting a record high of NIS 18.6 billion this year - that's more than the total Public Security Ministry budget, Israel's higher education budget and the entire Social Affairs Ministry budget.
In 2014 and the years that follow, the budget is expected only to grow. Official Finance Ministry data from the online government database reveals new information about defense expenditures on salary-related expenses. These details, which were not public until now, explain to a significant extent the budget crisis awaiting the defense establishment in 2014.
Jerusalem Post, May 9
Gantz, Ya'alon cancel annual Home Front drill due to budget crisis
Defense source says move is "first step" toward almost complete halt of training for IDF, defense establishment.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz canceled an annual Home Front Command drill scheduled for June due to what they described as a lack of funds.
i hope that the new COmmandant does a back to basics movement inside the Corps. we need a top to bottom cleaning of the house.
ReplyDeletecut Generals, civilian staff, redundant facilities etc....and then when we have the credibility again of saving the taxpayers money and being good stewards, we need to CHOP THE FUCKING F-35 to pieces and spread it over the lawn of the Chinese embassy.
Dont be surprised if the chinese then hire small sweat shop children to collect those pieces and then piece them back together.
DeleteOne of the big lessons of that war was how clearly Hezbollah understood how the Israelis fought and how to defeat the IDF advantages.
ReplyDeleteTo counter the Air Force: Hezbollah stayed hidden from the air. They positioned weapons ahead of time so they did not have to move them during the fighting. They provided decoys so the Air Force would see what it wanted to see. Mostly they stayed in buildings, caves or under trees.
To counter the IDF Armor: Hezbollah acquired every anti-tank weapon they could get their hands on. Everything from the latest Russian AT-14s to American TOWs. They knew that the IDF would want to stay in their armor and that the IDF generals would be reluctant to risk heavy infantry losses. Therefore the Hezbollah positions were built around anti-tank defenses first and foremost. This enabled Hezbollah to hit the IDF armor hard then withdraw before the IDF could recover or call in heavy air. Coupled with the IDF attempting to use the same targeting and fire support procedures it had used for the previous decade fighting in Gaza and the West Bank prevented them from using fires to nullify the Hezbollah anti-tank defenses.
Fort Leavenworth has done several excellent studies of this war.
I know you trying to give a summary of what happened, not a detailed account of operations, but saying Hezbollah mostly "stayed in buildings, caves or under trees" is a bit too simple as an explanation ... Had that been the case, they would have been shred to pieces.
DeleteBut you're right in so far as Hezbollah had prepared itself for a certain kind of warfare and Tsahal did more or less what Hezbollah expected them to do. So there you already have a first and basic flaw in the IDF's approach to the operation: at top level of IDF, people were so full of it, they thought they were unleashing some kind of COIN 2.0, while they actually let the enemy dictate the terms of the engagement. That's what i understand from your post and i would agree with such an assessment.
wow. you've obviously been to the Staff College. i'll check it out and see what they have available online.
ReplyDeleteNo. Just someone with a CAC that considers learning actual military history and operations to be important.
DeleteSolomon, look at the links I sent you. As I recall, at least one Israeli analyst thinks the folks at Leavenworth got some of it wrong, It should help round out the picture.
ReplyDeleteoh i will and thanks for sending it. they're going up on tomorrow's posts as additional reading on the subject. i haven't had a chance to drink them all in so it'll be later in the day probably.
ReplyDeleteThere are several "reports" available online about the operations in 2006, two of them actually published by the CAC in Fort Leavenworth. If i remember correctly one of the reports has a title that would sit in well in the category of famous last words ... "we got caught unprepared" or something like that.
ReplyDeleteHaving seen to the events in 2006 from a little closer, I would just like to give my five cents worh of personal wisdom about it: as i said in a previous post, you're only as good as your last fight. So getting into skirmishes with Hamas (and coming out as perpetual winner) is not good enough a preparation for a stand-off with Hezbollah. The other thing that has to be mentioned, is that the quality of your adversary's weaponry is not nearly as important as his ability to use it efficiently (and get away with it). Put simply, having tandem-charge RPGs and ATGMs doesnt mean you have the ability to use them in combat environment. You need men who are properly trained and determined to do so whatever the consequences. I've seen Hezbollah fighter (not even from unit 910) sneak in behind a Merkava MBT, take aim and fire a RPG-29 while standing quietly at distance of about 60 feet ... Anyway, that's the one side of the coin. The other side of it, is that after years and years on crowd control and anti-terrorist operations in west bank and gaza, Tsahal ground forces (even Golani and Tzanhanim) were not mentally prepared for the challenge. And i'm not even talking about reserve units that were called into action, was FUBAR of epic proportions sometimes ... Stuff you would never imagine, in some cases equal to shooting fish in a barrel ... I remember veterans from 1982 campaign shaking their heads in disbelief at what they saw on the border. But the whole thing was f*ed up from top to bottom basically ... Only good thing, is that the lunatic "SOD" vision of warfare that was promoted by Halutz, was completely dumped after this reality check. Personally, i didnt even understand even 10 % of SOD doctrin, so imagine COs, NCOS in reserve units ... But, as always in those cases, there are those who want to look like they got it all covered, even if events on the ground make them look like a*holes afterwards.
Sounds like US armed forces might have to go through some tragic event of their own before everybody realizes that turning away from combined arms training and basic skills at individual and operational unit level can get you in trouble ... And what i've read about 2nd Cav at JMRC is not very reassuring.