Posted on 01/28/2010 1:03:46 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
When Israel and Hezbollah battled for more than a month in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the result was widely seen as a disaster for the Israeli military. Soon after the fighting ended, some military officers began to warn that the short, bloody and relatively conventional battle foreshadowed how future enemies of the United States might fight.
Since then, the Defense Department has dispatched as many as a dozen teams to interview Israeli officers who fought against Hezbollah. The Army and Marine Corps have sponsored a series of multimillion-dollar war games to test how U.S. forces might fare against a similar foe. "I've organized five major games in the last two years, and all of them have focused on Hezbollah," said Frank Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico.
A big reason that the 34-day war is drawing such fevered attention is that it highlights a rift among military leaders: Some want to change the U.S. military so that it is better prepared for wars like the ones it is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others worry that such a shift would leave the United States vulnerable to a more conventional foe.
"The Lebanon war has become a bellwether," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command. "If you are opposed to transforming the military to fight low-intensity wars, it is your bloody sheet. It's discussed in almost coded communication to indicate which side of the argument you are on."
(Excerpt) Read more at yalibnan.com ...
Send in the troops, squash the peasants, blame it on the Jews.
PC wars cannot be won, if Muslims do not want to disarm and shelter terrorist groups, that is their problem. Israel has to do whatever is necessary to survive.
I agree
By the author of this articles defintion of a war victory, Hitler beat the allies because it took them till 1945 to get to Berlin.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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The INS Hanit did in fact mount a Phalanx as its CIWS. However, the Israelis reportedly had it (and their other defense systems) turned off. If the C-802 (the Chicoms claim it was a Kowsar, an Iranian knockoff of the Chinese TL-10 with a much smaller warhead) had actually detonated, the corvette would have been much more seriously jeopardized. I don’t think any reasonable person contests that the Israelis won, but Hezbollah put up a much stiffer fight than anticipated. Whether that’s due to increased jihadi competence or Israeli overconfidence (ala ‘73) I don’t know, but it’s worth looking into since the mad mohammedans will remain enemies of decency for some time.
Yes, the main blunder Israel made in 2006 against Hezbullah was being hot-headed and leading a hot pursuit into Lebanese territory. A Hezbullah team infiltrated into Israel and ambushed a forward Israeli base - I think they killed 1 and kidnapped (later found dead) 2 others. The Israelis called in and were told to give chase into Lebanon. Suddenly all these new recruits who were never expected to go into combat were thrust into an invasion, without a war plan, without experienced commanders, without a complete war-supply chain, etc.
The brass probably decided that if they did not go then, the politicians would have prevented any invasion. In other words if they waited 3 or 5 days to mobilize the invasion, the politicians would have gotten cold feet - not to mention that the kidnapped troops would have been hostages which no Army wants on its conscience. But they did not get up to speed fast enough once they went go.
The worst result of the war was the loss of the Christian Lebanese militia which is now a political ally of Hezbullah.
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