Israel's Second Lebanon War: A Failure of Afghan Model Warfare?
Abstract
The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon provides a useful illustration of some of the challenges the United States might face during a military intervention to engage an active non-state terrorist or guerrilla threat in a weak, failing, or failed state. During this conflict, Israel sought to substantially degrade the threat posed by Hezbollah, a non-state guerilla militia operating with free rein along Israel's northern border from within Lebanon. Wishing to avoid a re-occupation of southern Lebanon, Israel sought to achieve its objectives through the application of precision standoff firepower and special operations forces. Israel's failure demonstrates the limits of these capabilities, widely credited for the U.S. success in Afghanistan in 2001, when employed without the benefit of an indigenous ally and against a more militarily developed guerrilla adversary. Further, comparison of the al Qaeda enemy in Afghanistan and Hezbollah enemy in Lebanon demonstrates the dramatic impact that substantial state support can have on the tenacity and lethality of an irregular non-state force.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 10, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA470727
Entities
People
- Ralph Shield
Organizations
- Naval War College