Israel’s offensive against Hizballah sought to degrade the group’s operational capabilities, muscle the group from its infrastructure in southern Lebanon , and possibly establish a punitive cost to the Lebanese people and government for active or tacit support of the group’s activities, compelling the Lebanese to take national action to rein in and disarm the group. However, Israel’s seemingly unbalanced counter-guerrilla campaign may have disadvantaged Israel’s overall strategic prospects of weakening Hizballah by rallying Lebanese, aggrieved by Israel’s offensive, to support the group as a national resistance force.
Hizballah was borne from the crucible of national resistance against occupying Israeli forces and has seized that raison d’etre as a national-liberation resistance force for Lebanon’s Shia and the country as a whole. Many observers regard the group and its constituency as a de facto nation-state within Lebanon?Hizballahstan–because of Hizballah’s militant and political strength, societal entrenchment, and control of the south. The two primary sources of Hizballah’s strength are its advanced militant training and weapons, courtesy of Iran and Syria , and its support within Lebanese, and particularly Shia, society and politics. As noted often in these pages, societal support for a group is often advantageous in providing the group with clandestinity in its operations, local intelligence and smuggling networks, and a pool of potential recruits. Further, in addition to seeking societal camouflage, the guerrilla intermingles militant assets with the civilian population to either constrain or deter options. Similarly, should the adversary strike the attacks would likely harm the surrounding constituency and drives them to support the guerrilla group as the self-proclaimed defenders and resistance against the adversary (see this WAR Report). Hizballah has cultivated and exploited this dimension of its organization and guerrilla strategy to an accomplished degree. Thus, advantageous counter-guerrilla strategies must balance and optimize efforts to both directly degrade the group through militant direct action and cleave the group from its societal support and the operational advantages offered therein through a careful calibration of counter-guerrilla militancy, political warfare, and societal engagement.
Israel’s counter-guerrilla offensive against Hizballah seemed unbalanced, focused too heavily on blunt militant action. Israel’s bombardment of civilian infrastructure and densely populated areas caused massive casualties, displacement, and physical damage. While it may have been imperative for Israel to hit certain Hizballah targets in civilian areas from a tactical perspective, from a strategic perspective, Israel has likely crossed the threshold of proportional response to Hizballah’s aggression in the eyes of the Lebanese, running the risk of driving many Lebanese to support the group. Israel had the right to mount a riposte against a guerrilla force on its northern border, particularly following Hizballah’s direct attacks on Israelis. However, Israel could have employed a more advantageous counter-guerrilla strategy, causing long-term damage to Hizballah’s operational capabilities and its societal support. This strategy might have employed more discrete air strikes, restrained targeting in densely populated areas, and employed the earlier use of ground forces able to pick out more surgically Hizballah’s fighters and militant assets, while minimizing civilian casualties. Further, this strategy would emphasize the political dimension of counter-guerrilla warfare. Israel could have exploited the general disapproval of Hizballah’s unilateral kidnapping of Israeli soldiers that the governments in Saudi Arabia , Jordan , and Egypt called “reckless adventurism” and that served as the casus belli for the Israeli response. Israel could have allowed ‘space’ for a galvanizing of popular will around those in Lebanon who are calling for Hizballah’s disarmament to undercut popular and political support and legitimacy for the group’s actions. As the political and social support for Hizballah erodes, so too does its perceived freedom of action and its organizational stability.
Israel’s strategy may have resulted in a near-term strategic improvement in national security by degrading Hizballah capabilities and in compelling the deployment of an international force to buffer Israel’s northern border. The nature and extent of the long-term damage done to Hizballah will not become apparent until the dust settles, a reading of Hizballah’s residual operational capabilities is conducted, and the post-conflict politics and popular sentiment decide on both Hizballah’s and Israel’s role in the conflict. Whether the Lebanese lay blame for the dead and the destruction at the feet of Israel and its bombardments, at the feet of Hizballah for its perceived provocative adventurism that invited Israel’s riposte, or a combination thereof will determine the long-term success of Israel’s counter-guerrilla offensive.
Israel’s unbalanced counter-guerrilla strategy likely pushed the reckoning to favor Hizballah, whereas a more refined strategy may have both eroded some societal support for the group and created a political climate more constraining of Hizballah adventurism in the name of Lebanon. Hizballah seems to be winning. Hizballah will move quickly to offer humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to its Shia constituency in the south to assuage feelings of Hizballah responsibility in provoking the conflict and to cultivate support for the group whose stature and raison d’etre has been invigorated. Lebanon will suffer through a period of flux?in political, societal, humanitarian, and militant terms?as the fallout of the conflict runs its course.
