The distinctive character of 4GW (which is, by the way: 4th Generation Warfare see http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/4th_gen_war_gazette.htm) is that it is prosecuted by NGOs/NSOs. The tactical and strategical features of 4GW are no different from those of its predecessors, but like them correspond to the means and organizational forms of the warring parties. Considering that "4GW' is persists throughout the periods of 1, 2, and 3GW the concept appears to me to be an excuse for a couple of articles by several USMC and USA intellectuals who needed to fill their yearly article quota.
Your use of the fashionable concept of 4GW in the analysis of the Hamas/Hezbollah-Israel war is misleading for three reasons. First, you argue that it is the "4GW character" of the war that has granted Hezbollah a military advantage over Israel's defense forces [4GW is here some sort of special tactical practice]. Second, you describe Hezbollah as a 4GW entity that is successfully battling Israeli forces [4GW is now some sort of special military organization]. Third, you describe 4GW as an option for military operations [ once again as military method] of the state contradicting the essence of 4GW as military actions carried out by NGOs and NSOs. Despite these unfortunate conceptual short-comings, your focus on the significance for the current Lebanese conflict of Hezbollah as an NGO engaged in a military confrontation is highly relevant to the current state of affairs in S Lebanon.
NGMO's (Non-governmental Military Organizations) have indeed been useful tools for aggressive national policies for years; not, of course, as technique, but rather as proxies for their own forces when for political, geographic or other reasons, direct confrontation is problematic or impossible. Note the effective mobilization of the Viet Cong by the DPRVN in the first (pre Hue) phase of the campaign against the US aided and reinforced ARVN, the employment by Israel of the SLA in an earlier phase of the Lebanese Civil War, and the US's military intervention against the Sandinista government by arming and providing professional leadership for Mosquito Indian guerillas in Honduras. The role of Hezbollah in the current conflict (hopefully the last stage of the Lebanese Civil War) is exactly that of an NGO hijacked as a proxy for state interests that really have nothing whatever to do with the function of the organization within the Lebanon. The tragic fate of the Shia inhabitants of S Lebanon, who where and probably still are the political base of Hezbollah, is the most salient indicator of just how far Hezbollah adventurist military action contradicts with its justifiable existence as an organization for the defence and improvement of the Shia communities of Lebanon (see Henfields recent post on Hizbollah for details and sources)*.
II. Is Hezbollah winning? It's a hard guess until the political consequences of the war are hashed out in subsequent negotiations, rearrangements of political relations, etc.
>From the point of view of military and civilian losses in life and property,
Hezbollah has fared poorly. The ground forces committed by Israel have been
small, and they've had to suffer losses in learning the appropriate methods
for managing military interaction with Hezbollah units [An orderly tactical
retreat is usually the sign of a well trained, professional force]. Still,
Israel's military potential relative to that of Hezbollah is large, and the
learning curve of the Israeli army has in the past been very steep so a
momentary setback under current conditions is hardly the basis for a victory
party. Moreover, while I have considerable respect for the professionalism
of Hezbollah's Iranian advisors, I doubt that even they can develop an
effective responseto a massive Israeli ground strike by what is essentially
a specialised militia of infrantry and artillery. The fate of the PLO forces
faced with the assembled might of the Israeli military machine in 1982,
does not bode well for Hezbollah's fortunes in a full-scale ground war.
The political outcome of the war is even harder to assess. True, "the Arab street is cheering for Hezbollah, often across the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, while the governments of states such as Egypt hide under the bed". This is not a new phenomenon. The "Arab street" also cheered for Saddam Hussein in 2001 and 2005, and the governments took cover until the excitement was over. However, the "Arab street" has neither the endurance nor the political acumen to influence much the future settlement of the current situation. As the enthusiasm wanes, the street "remembers" all the divisions that characterise the armed pluralisms of Eastern Mediterranean society, the governments reminds it who is boss, and everything returns to the usual unsatisfactory state of governmental suppression and desperate. Anyway, it's one thing to derive cheer from Israel's discomfort, it's quite another to actually go to war for the interests of other states.
Besides the fact that Hezbollahs military objectives represent aims of specific states, whose interests are either irrelevant or even in conflict with Israel's nearest neighbors, there is no neighbor that is sufficiently prepared and/or equipped for an armed confrontation with Israel. For those with economic and political relations with Israel there exists the option of sanctions against her either to pacify the street or to express official anger at Israel's treatment of the civilians of S. Lebanon. Of course states such as Syria, Iran, Iraq and Saudia that have no significant relations with Israel will be reduced to the usual impotent methods of angry words, supervised mass rallies, flag burnings and nasty letters to the editor. Thus the likelihood of a serious local challenge to Israel's current policies towards Lebanon and the Hezbollah at this time is small.
*The question, "why are there children on the battlefield? " is precisely the right question to ask of a responsible political organization that decides to go to war on their behalf.
Victor Friedlander-Rakocz victor at kfar-hanassi.org.il ----- Original Message ----- From: "mike larkin" <mike_larkin2001 at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:13 Subject: [lbo-talk] Welcome to my parlor,says the Hezbollah spider to the Israeli fly.
http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=9435
Welcome to my parlor, says the Hezbollah spider to the Israeli fly. The Israeli high command continues to express its faith in the foxfire of air power to destroy Hezbollah, but, as always, it's not working. Lebanon is taking a pounding, to be sure, but Lebanon is not Hezbollah. Slowly, reluctantly, Israel is edging toward a ground invasion of Lebanon, for which Hezbollah devoutly prays. When air power fails, what other choice will Israel have?
A story in the July 24 Cleveland Plain Dealer gives a good idea of what awaits the IDF once it crosses the border in earnest. Israeli ground forces have been fighting for days to take Maroun al-Ras, a small village less than 500 yards into Lebanon. The battle has not gone well. Israel has lost five or six troops dead, with undoubtedly more wounded. It still does not control the whole village. According to the Plain Dealer piece by Benjamin Harvey of AP, officers at the scene confirmed there was still fighting to do.
"'They're not fighting like we thought they would,' one soldier said. 'They're fighting harder. They're good on their own ground..'
"'It will take the summer to beat them,' said [Israeli soldier] Michael Sidorenko..
"'They're guerrillas. They're very smart.'"
"Guerrillas" may not be exactly the right term here. As best I can determine from the wilds of Cleveland, Ohio, Hezbollah thus far seems to be waging a conventional light infantry fight for Maroun al-Ras. The line between guerrilla and light infantry tactics is thin, but Hezbollah seems to be putting up a determined fight for a piece of terrain, which guerrillas usually don't do, because they can't. The fact that Hezbollah can points to how far this 4GW entity has evolved.
Operationally, Hezbollah's rocket attacks on Israel are the matador's cape. That too is working. What of the strategic level? The Arab street is cheering for Hezbollah, often across the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, while the governments of states such as Egypt hide under the bed. The goal of Islamic fourth generation forces is the destruction of most, if not all, Arab state governments, so Hezbollah is winning strategically as well. One can almost watch the legitimacy drain away from the region's decrepit states, with incalculable consequences for American interests.
Not that Washington is doing anything to protect those interests. On the contrary, it has rushed more bombs and aviation fuel to Israel, lest there be any unwelcome letup in the destruction of Lebanon. In no previous Israeli-Arab war has the United States revealed itself so nakedly as a de facto political satellite of Israel. Perhaps the neocons have convinced President Bush that Israeli olive oil can substitute for Arab petroleum as fuel for America's SUVs.
An interesting theoretical speculation is whether, if Hezbollah's 4GW success continues, some Middle Eastern governments might try adopting fourth generation techniques themselves. Lebanon's fictional government has suggested the Lebanese army may join Hezbollah in defending southern Lebanon from an Israeli invasion. Militarily, such an action would be meaningless, and it probably reflects a desperate desire to keep the Lebanese Army (which is 40 percent Shi'ite) from fracturing, along with Lebanon itself. But what if instead the government called for a million marchers, mostly women and children, to head toward the Lebanese-Israeli frontier, waving palm branches and singing songs? That's how Morocco took the Spanish Sahara, and it would present Israel with a sticky wicket indeed.
Similarly, the Iraqi puppet government, whose impotence is now almost total, may call for a complete domestic cease-fire so it could order the "New Iraqi Army" to Lebanon. Even al-Qaeda would have trouble saying no. The U.S. would howl bloody murder, but such an open breach with the Americans is exactly what the Green Zone regime needs if it is to gain even a shred of legitimacy. The possibility is far-fetched, but an emerging Hezbollah victory over Israel will make many far-fetched possibilities real.
A Hezbollah success against the hated Israelis will give governments throughout the Islamic world a stark choice. They can either snuggle up as close to Hezbollah and other Islamic 4GW entities as they can get, hoping to catch some reflected legitimacy, or they can become Vichy to their own peoples. Since the first rule of politics is to survive, I think we can look forward to a great deal of the former.
>From that perspective, the Tea Lady, AKA U.S.
Secretary of State Condi Rice, may just have uttered
the most significant words of her remarkably empty
career. Departing on her meaningless "shuttle
diplomacy," meaningless because we will only talk to
one side, she said current events mark "the birth
pangs of a new Middle East, and whatever we do, we
have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the
new Middle East, not going back to the old one." Don't
worry; we are, we are.
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