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The IDF's Gamble in Lebanon

(BESA Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Brig.-Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal - Following the chain of blows inflicted by Israel on Hizbullah's high command in August and September, its rate of rocket launches on Israel was much lower than expected. More importantly, the quality of those launches - the ability to concentrate barrages of rockets to overcome Israeli air defenses, and the ability to locate and accurately hit targets in Israel - was significantly diminished. Yet Hizbullah's ground army in southern Lebanon was only slightly damaged. The deployment of the IDF on a very thin strip, in the face of a Hizbullah army that maintains significant military strength, including anti-tank and mortar capabilities, raids and ambushes, exposes the IDF to dangerous enemy initiatives. At least one battle so far, in which almost 50 fighters of the Egoz battalion were injured, illustrated this risk. To deny the enemy a return to operational equilibrium and to bring about the disintegration of its tactical arrays in the south, it may still be necessary to capture the Hizbullah army in southern Lebanon through rapid divisional moves deep into the south and encircle the enemy based on the river lines (the Litani, Zahrani or Awali rivers) - quickly and aggressively surrounding and squeezing the enemy. The current Israeli caution stems, at least in part, from an understanding that on the military level, our forces are dangerously vulnerable to enemy capabilities and not effective enough to cleanse the south without sinking into an eternal guerilla war. At the moment, Israel's strategy strives for the demobilization of South Lebanon by some kind of political agreement, apparently in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Yet Israel has bitter experience of the unreliability of such mechanisms. No one will dismantle Hizbullah in Lebanon for us. If a significant part of its power is preserved, its deterrence of Israel will improve, and Israel will not be able to enforce demilitarization by force. Hizbullah's survival in defeat will simply turn over the hourglass for the next clash with a smarter enemy that is eager to restore its honor. The writer is former commander of the Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies of the Israel Defense Forces.
2024-11-07 00:00:00
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