Stratfor: Red Alert: The Battle Joined

Stratfor intelligence ^ | 07/21/2006 | analysis@stratfor.com

[fireforeffect]

Agreed.

All a well fortified bunker complex makes you is an easy target. Bomb it till it stops shooting at you (HE or thermobaric) then stick a long hose (with a blow back valve of course) from a propane tank down a hole and fill'er up. CO2 works well too if you want to see what they had down there.

All these articles about 200 foot deep bunkers are funny. Did not do the talaban much good did it?

[Little Bill]

A bunker is a grave by another name. Fortifications were meant to channel an attack not as an end in itself, if the rag heads cannot maneuver off of the fortifications in strength, then all the Israelis have to do is isolate and eliminate.

[GOPJ]

O'Rielly had a Stratfor guy on the other night and he said Israel would attack soon - he said Rice would also cancel her trip if so since going in after a ground war started it would do little good.

What would Rice have to offer at this stage? Doesn't it seem better to stand back for now and let Israel handle this?

[chilepepper]

exactly right!

[evets]

Power of prayer.

[SunkenCiv]

move into an Iraqi-style insurgency from which Israel -- out of fear of a resumption of rocket attacks -- cannot withdraw, but which the Israelis also cannot endure because of extended long-term casualties. This appears to have been a carefully planned strategy, built around a threat to Israeli cities that Israel can't afford.

Occupation isn't in the future for Hizbollah. Come to think of it, nothing much is in the future of Hizbollah.

[2001convSVT]

Good point. If I remember correctly when the Japanese where defending the bunker complex that was Iwo Jima the Marines also used bulldozers to bury many bunkers under many feet of dirt.

[colorado tanker]

Won't do any long term good so long as the Syrian regime remains in place as a conduit to Hezbollah to rearm, resupply and re-fund.

[LZ_Bayonet]

It would be interesting to look at a topographic map. Maybe with a few big explosions and some digging they could make the area a part of the Mediterranean Sea. [just a little Friday afternoon "thinking outside the box"]

[Mike Darancette]

I see an Israeli advance to the line of Az Zahrani to the Northern tip of the occupied Golan Heights.

Thankfully Israel did not give the Golan back to Syria.

[Texas Jack]

Many of the prognostications from Stratfor are as accurate as touts from a Track junkie. I don't put a whole lot of confidence in its analysis or predictions.

I agree with you.

This sounds just the like the French strategy with the Maginot Line and look how good that worked.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Hezbollah may have miscalculated. The Israelis don't have PC, as far as I know, and they don't have people like John Murtha and Paul Craig Roberts to undermine their efforts from within Israel.

[TalBlack]

"Hezbollah wants to draw Israel into protracted fighting in this area in order to inflict maximum casualties and to change the psychological equation for both military and political reasons."

This will turn out to be the big Hez mistake.

They, as an "insurgency", have taken on an army AS an army.

Their big plan as analyzed here will FORCE israel to obviate the threat that they pose(and have ALWAYS posed).

Now Israel only has to kill them.

[Candor7]

I hope the Israelis get their hands on the american anti tank weapons, so that they can be traced. There is a betrayal in there somewhere.

[bert]

.....Don't play by their rules.....

Flame spewing tanks and massive naplm charges over the entrances...... over and over till crispy.

Provide imbedded tv to scare the dog**** out of others

[Candor7]

If General MacArthur were in charge of the Israeli forces he would bring a large assault on the bunker line from the south using armour and artillery with ground forces. He likely would bring an amphibious assault around Sidon and drive East toward the Syrian border, and destroy the supply and com lines into Beirut from the South. This tactic would force the Hezbollahs to retreat to Syria as the Sothern forces link up with the Eastwqard amphibious force. Maybe the US MArines will be in on it yet. This would take about a week with laser desifgnated air support and would be an end run without the Bunkers having to be taken individually. The Israelis could take their time roasting the Hezzy assholes ( POTUS's Term) oout of their holes with armored flame throwers.

That is my prediction for the strategery that is about to be used.

[GreyFriar]

Been there, done that; and it isn't all playing with toy tanks and soldiers. Many hours of reading dull reports, creating and examining possible courses of action. Determining capability versus intent, and short-term versus long range goals.

And if the bad guys do something different or before or after what/when you estimated...you name is mudd and folks scream "intelligence failure."

[sono]

Two words : "Bunker Busters"

[Mike Darancette]

Looking at the map again I wonder if Hezbollah might not be attacked from the East and the South. They could be cut off.

[Capt. Tom]

Israel might get a double bubble here by driving out Hezbolla and extending its northern security zone to include the Litani river

Source: Geographical Review, Jul93, Vol. 83 Issue 3, p229, 9p.

Access to the Litani River was a concern during Israel's formative years. The diaries of Moshe Sharett, an Israeli prime minister during the mid-1950s, reveal that Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan, chief of staff and defense minister, were strong advocates of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon to the Litani River (Rabinovich 1985).

In the wake of the 1967 war and in view of Israeli territorial gains from three of its four neighbors, Dayan reiterated his long-standing opinion that Israel had achieved "provisionally satisfying frontiers, with the exception of those with Lebanon" (Hof 1985, 36).