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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Hezbollah's Strategy in Syria Won't Help Against Israel |
| 2016-08-18 |
| [WEEKLYSTANDARD] Over the last three years of the Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah has increasingly operated as a regular army rather than in its traditional, decades-long role as a guerrilla force. The Shiite group has operated Syrian tanks and artillery, jeeps with recoilless rifles, and is even rumored to have acquired its own 75-tank armored brigade. As a result, some pundits have begun suggesting that Hezbollah has transformed into "an army in every respect," as Haaretz columnist Amos Harel has written. Others, like Foreign Policy's Nour Samaha, have suggested that "Israel may have reason to be concerned," that Hezbollah will "transfer the skills learned in Syria to any future confrontation with Israel," and fight the IDF as a conventional army. That's unlikely. As long as the Jewish state remains the vastly superior conventional force, Hezbollah will continue to fight it according to its old successful guerilla methods. To confront the Israelis army-to-army would all but ensure Hezbollah's defeat. Hezbollah participated in the Syrian Civil War almost from its outset in 2011, but by 2013 had transformed from its traditional insurgency tactics to acting as a counterinsurgency force against Syrian rebels. Since then, it has been conducting open warfare along established frontlines to conquer and control territory and knock out its foes, participating in combined-arms maneuvers with Iranian, Syrian, and Russian forces. Its fighters have even acted as battlefield commanders of Syrian troops. Still, despite its growing strength and battlefield experience, Hezbollah is far from closing the gap in conventional strength with Israel. The Israel Defense Forces has made clear it intends to exploit that asymmetry "in the most muscular way possible" to score the decisive victory against the group that has eluded them in the past. The IDF's new plan, which it would follow in a war with Hezbollah, is called the Gideon Doctrine (outlined in a shorter, unclassified version titled "IDF Strategy"), which calls for a rapid deployment of ground-forces, simultaneous with aerial, naval, artillery, and cyber attacks. Israel's new strategy is to quickly penetrate Hezbollah's territory to damage its political and military infrastructure, while at the same time raining overwhelming fire on its targets. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 This, for once, is not about Israel. The Hizzies are learning how to take over Lebanon for good. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2016-08-18 10:08 |