Monday, August 14, 2006
The Curse of High Expectations
So it seems with the current war in Lebanon. Amongst the punditocracy, Israel seems to have lost and Hezbollah won. Uh, okay. How's that?
Since Hezbollah still has weapons, Nasrallah is still in charge and alive, and Hez can still fire rockets at Israel, Hezbollah has won. In comparison, since Israel has been unable to decimate and disarm Hezbollah, kill Nasrallah and suppress Hezbollah rockets, Israel has lost. Hezbollah wins by virtue of a very low bar; Israel loses by virtue of impossibly high expectations.
Ok. Let's return to this planet from the alternative universe we just visited. This "war" is about a month old. Hezbollah is reputed to be the toughest Islamist militia on the planet. The IDF is reputed to be a very tough fighting force in its own right. Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of Israel. Near as I can tell, Hezbollah has killed a small fraction of Israel's 8 million people (as compared to Lebanon's total population of around 2 million people). Nobody in Israel seems prepared to come out with a white flag and their hands up. In fact, most statistics aficionados would likely admit that in the bodycount category, Hezbollah and Lebanon have faired poorly. Hence the malarkey about an absence of proportion. Israel's fighting capability is simply more effective.
Now, let's talk real estate. Near as I can make out, the IDF is parked in Southern Lebanon. About a month ago, that was Hezbollah's real estate; no IDF. They left in 2000, right? Now they're back. Cease fire or no cease fire, the IDF and its hardware are all over Southern Lebanon.
Northern Israel, however, hasn't a trace of Hezbollah personnel on it, just poorly aimed rocketry. No significant infrastructure damage, no military damage, no strategic damage. If Hezbollah is serious about taking out 8 million Israelis, they've got a ways to go. Nice allies they've got in Syria and Iran too. Nice that they weighed in with all of the firepower they had to offer -- not much, hmmm? Do we even need to catalog the infrastructure losses in Lebanon?
Last bit to evaluate - politics. The Israeli cabinet voted 24 - 0 with one abstention to accept the cease fire. For Lebanon's part, they said they would march the Lebanese army into the south and disarm, er, blend together with Hezbollah. Nasrallah already told the Lebanese PM to pound sand. So, we have the makings of a potential standoff between the Lebanese Army, whose job it is to march into Southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah. So much like the stand off which plagues Hamas and Fatah in the Palestinian territories, we now have a similar and related standoff in Lebanon.
I have to admit, I am having a hard time seeing how Israel lost here -- as if anyone can actually win a war in 4 weeks. The tortured calculus of the Hezbollah victory evades me. Everybody acknowledges that Israel defeated Egypt and Jordan in 1967 and again in 1973. Why? Well all Israel really had to do was survive. That's what everybody has forgotten. That's all Israel needs to do to win. Survive. It's the other guys who are trying to destroy Israel, not the other way around.
But then, so much in the Middle East is beyond logic, that it is easy to understand why even the brightest lights make it too complicated. There is a silver lining to the current perception, though. When this cease fire fails, Israel may again recover its underdog status -- something which certainly is to its benefit in dealing with Europe, in particular.
22 Comments:
By 
C. Owen Johnson, at
Mon Aug 14, 05:12:00 PM:
Thanks for the clear-headed post. I'm frankly puzzled why people who should know better -- like PowerLine and NRO -- seem to be so relentlessly in flogging the "we lost!" line based on uncertain and incomplete data assessed according to some false premises. They must be aware of how litle they actually know and I would think they would suspect that they don't grasp the big picture.
So in contrast, it's nice to read someone who doesn't suffer their afflictions.
By 
, at
Mon Aug 14, 05:28:00 PM:
Thanks for the thoughts-I'd bought into a lot of the defeatism.
By Cardinalpark, at
Mon Aug 14, 05:31:00 PM:
I like the Pwerline and NRO guys alot. They're really smart, and I usually agre with their analysis. And seriously, it would be great if Israel smoked Narallah, as they managed to do with a bunch of Hamas leaders.
My guess is, they will in time, get to it.
But to conclude that Israel "lost" and Hezbollah "won" really does set logic on its head, and is based on emotional intensity more than it is rational analysis. This is especially true if you agree that Israel can't realistically stomp all over Lebanon without hurting a lot of innocent allies.
At the end of it all, the IDF has to help to create the conditions that allow the Lebanese Army to assume responsibility for all of Lebanon. But it cannot be an allied force with the Lebanese -- only France or other Arab countries can do that. And that will severly complicate Hezbollah's staus as independent militia.
They have begun this process, but it is in all likelihood, incomplete.
By , at
Mon Aug 14, 05:32:00 PM:
Well the naysayers like Powerline are correct: The #1 goal of war is to break the enemy's will to fight. If this is not achieved, further warfare is guaranteed. Israel not only failed to do this, one can easily argue Hezbollah's will to fight has actually been strengthened significantly. Nasrallah perfectly understands this very ancient maxim about warfare and therefore he is correct: Hezbollah won.
They live and they are strengthned to fight another day only perhaps next time they will be armed with WMD capability.
Unless you think the UN has a good track record for implementing its worthless resolutions do you? Or do you think France wishes to risks its soldiers lives by actually trying to disarm Hezbollah? I think the question naturally answers itself.
Or perhaps you think liberals make good warfighters ala Ohlmert?
Oh the UN will be there in even bigger force, but it will actually hamper Israel's ability to fight Hezbollah again. Next round of war you'll see Chirac getting apopletic because French troops were killed because Hezbollah launches rockets right next to French troops.
Oh there will be war my friend, there will stillbe war...except I do not like Israel's chances on the next round.
Dan
By , at
Mon Aug 14, 05:54:00 PM:
The Romans ability to conquer and smash the hordes it opposed broke the barbarians will to fight for generations and it brought forth an empire unmatched in the ancient world. It can be said that the fall of the Roman Empire boiled down to Roman's lack of will in the end.
The US Civil War Confederacy's will to fight was smashed to bits hence the nation was able to heal itself.
Germany was thoroughly broken of its will to fight. It was able to correct itself and join the circle of democracies.
Japan was likewise obliterated of its will to fight and became a shining beacon in this modern world.
Ths US lost the will to fight in Vietnam (and never really had it with gusto I might add) and hence we retreated and lost. Vietnam fell, we lost.
Gulf War 1 displayed such awesome military might that Iraq's armies were surrendering in the 100's of thousands, their will to fight totally smashed.
Will to fight. #1 rule of warfare. Do not be fooled into "modern" wars shown in modern hi-fi media by foolish liberal media. That is not the classroom! It still comes down to imposing one's will on your enemy and breaking their will.
Those who retain the will to fight will find the means to fight. And there are plenty of willing suppliers to Hezbollah. And the West will rebuild their strongholds for free no doubt. The money is already pouring in.
Must the lessons of 1938 be repeated yet again only one generation removed?
Do you not see this is ideological warfare just as much as bombs and bullets? Who do you think won that ideological round? Israel or Hez?
You fools! Wake up and take a stand for the West!
Dan
By , at
Mon Aug 14, 06:48:00 PM:
Mr. Cardinalpark, we too agree with the conventional wisdom - strategic risk has increased for Israel as a result of this clash with Hezbollah.
We discuss our views in this post:
An intermission between acts.
We believe that Israel's capacity to deter its enemies with intimidating military power has been degraded. Hezbollah's confidence, by contrast, has gone up. This will make some of Israel's adversaries, some perhaps currently passive, more aggressive. It also increases the chance of miscalculation.
Many observers are assuming that the Israeli army will now be able to clear out south Lebanon as the UN force and the Lebanese army assembles. This is a questionable assumption - Hezbollah is currently reinforcing the area.
With its political fortunes boosted, Hezbollah stands a fair chance of becoming the de facto ruler of Lebanon. This will tie Israel down in an endless expenditure on its northern frontier. It may also remove the northern portion of Israel from useful economic activity, both adding to Israel's costs and reducing its productive output.
This is a particularly poor time for Israel's military expenditures to be diverted in this way. Israel needs to greatly step up its spending on strategic programs such as missile defense, a survivable long-range ballistic missile force, and a submarine-launched deterrent. And it needs to reform the army, moving it from a draftee-reservist force to a professional force. Israel may not be able to bear these financial burdens.
And need we discuss the demographic trends in the region?
Israel needed to enhance the image of its military deterrence with this conflict. It failed to do so. Its strategic risk has increased.
Westhawk
By Cardinalpark, at
Mon Aug 14, 07:02:00 PM:
Westhawk - When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, the case was also made that Israel was more at risk than it had ever been.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the case was made that Israel was more at risk than it has ever been.
This is nonsense.
On a relative basis, Israel has never been stronger than its avowed enemies. This is not to say that Israel isn't in danger. Its enemies are prepared to do things Israel will not do unless it feels more jeopardy.
But just as people in the "current events" business overstate the challenge of Iraq (in any historical context), so too do they overstate the threat from Hezbollah.
By C. Owen Johnson, at
Mon Aug 14, 09:14:00 PM:
For the record, I like Powerline & NRO a great too [and I'm rather a fan of Capt. Ed] so I tend to be hard on them when I see them putting emotions ahead of evidense. This should not be seem as a sign of disrespect; quite the opposite.
By Steel Monkey, at
Mon Aug 14, 09:45:00 PM:
Great post, even if I am not sure I agree with it.
I think it is difficult to separate the pros and cons of the UN resolution and Iran's nuclear program. If Iran obtains nukes, everything Israel has recently accomplished militarily will not matter one iota.
So, the doubters of the UN resolution are saying, "Hizbollah will be back. Next time their rockets will have nukes in them."
So, anything less than the complete destruction of Hizbollah (or perhpas regime change in Iran) is less than victory in the eyes of the UN resolution skeptics.
By Steel Monkey, at
Mon Aug 14, 09:49:00 PM:
Hillaryneedsavacation,
I remember a year into the Iraq Operation, NRO suddenly produced a very odd, entirely defeatist, and alarmist editorial.
I kinda remember that editorial.
It is interesting how the news would show nothing but bombs and terrorist attacks in Iraq and then on January 31, 2005, the media was forced to acknowledge that the first Iraqi elections were a huge accomplishment.
That "pick me up" lasted only a few weeks, if I recall correctly.
But how's Iraq doing now? What do you think? Is it as bad as NRO is saying now? I always get a little pessimistic when David Frum and Ralph Peters are starting to wonder about whether we can be successful.
By K. Pablo, at
Mon Aug 14, 10:21:00 PM:
Is a cease-fire even possible if both sides can't claim victory? No one would agree to it unless they could. However, with an external imposition of time constraints, disputants calculate a real-time cost/benefit analysis which is largely dependent on their own incomplete perceptions.
It is clear we are in an intermezzo while the antagonists re-group and the patrons of the clients re-assess. The Islamists can be relied upon to overestimate the potency of the mob dynamic of the "Arab Street" (perhaps this "Arab Street" formulation should be re-engineered to include e.g., Persian and Indonesian populations?), the craven Europeans can be relied upon to attribute excessive weight to these mob sentiments, and the U.S. left-wing will inevitably continue to synthesize Woodstock clueless pacifism, closet anti-semitism, and Bush Derangement Syndrome into their potent recipe for impotence.
I am most interested in seeing who is lulled into a sense of complacency by this cease-fire. These people may as well tattoo "idiot appeaser" on their foreheads. In the 21st century, this would represent an abject failure of the creative imperative of survival, marking one as utterly incapable of fathoming the evil of our enemies. These people are unfortunately in the same state of shock as European Jews who meekly submitted to boarding trains to Auschwitz because they could not comprehend the obscene motivations of their destroyers. There are so many of them.
By , at
Tue Aug 15, 12:10:00 AM:
The Casus belli was their kidnapped soldiers, where are their kidnapped soldiers?
The wanted to disarm Hezbollah, Hezbollah has demonstrated they can rain rockets on the length and breadth of Israel the IDF didn’t stop them a ceasefire that the agreed to for their own reasons did. While that reason may have been their eminent collapse or some other wholesome nasty, it wasn’t demonstrated to their followers or more importantly their potential followers.
Most importantly another power waged proxy war on Israel with impunity, Israel will pay dearly for this.
Right now Hezbollah is claming victory and they are right, they won one for their political masters.
So Israel won some real estate, one of the big reasons Hitler lost the eastern front was his insistence on holding every inch of ground captured without regard to the military necessity of concentrating his forces; this real estate won’t help Israel either unless they neuter Hezbollah.
If it’s over Israel lost and lost bigtime, if Hezbollah isn’t disarmed it was all for naught.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Tue Aug 15, 12:37:00 AM:
I'm reserving judgement until Lebanon's next election. If Hezbollah wins there, I think Israel won the battle but lost the war.
By Final Historian, at
Tue Aug 15, 02:00:00 AM:
I think that what may be going on at the moment is a replay of the "Phony War" during World War 2. A brief lull in the fighting meanwhile both sides prepare themselves for the next round of fighting, which both realize is sure to come.
By , at
Tue Aug 15, 02:17:00 AM:
What If?
What if Israel was shocked at the amount of weapons/rockets/tunnels and tactics and used the first 2 weeks to probe using ground forces as their air force took all the attention away. Gotta love Russian antitank missiles.
What if?
What if Israel knew that their enemy will never go for the ceasefire? I think that's why the Israeli's rushed to the Litani River and hold on to higher ground.
What if?
The Lebanon Army is deployed to the south & north of the Litani River and Hellsbellsolah takes parts of them hostage as shields as they attack Israeli postions south of the river. Shia's have captured members of the Leb Army before. If your not in their sect your cannon fodder.
What if?
The Israeli know this and after the "ceasefire" is broken head to the Bekka and that path leads to Syria.
I've never seen the IDF not take revenge on their enemy in someway. The have alot in store for certain people.
By C. Owen Johnson, at
Tue Aug 15, 05:21:00 AM:
It seems to me that the doomsayers are now relying more on marshalling lists of those who agree with them, in place of making arguments, so I’m going to try to recap their arguments, as I understand them. The argument that Hezbollah won seems to based pretty much on two premises: 1) that if Hezbollah claims it won, then it did; and 2) the idea that Israel will for some reason interpret the agreement as preventing them from attacking should Hezbollah not be disarmed or should attempt resupply.
The first premise holds that Hezbollah’s resolve and prestige are enhanced and this is somehow a problem. I say ‘somehow’ because resolve and prestige do not win wars by themselves. Hezbollah has taken a beating; they have suffered [reportedly] about 25-30% causalities; they have used up much of their existing stocks and had more destroyed. There are what — about 30,000? — Israeli troops in the area and they are powerless to make them leave. I don’t see what enhanced prestige and resolve gets you under such conditions. Hezbollah has to be able to turn those intangible traits into tangible advantages —more fighters, more weapons — and doing either violates the agreement and invites an immediate Israeli response. So I don’t see how this is win for Hezbollah.
The second point seems to envision an Israeli withdrawal, per the agreement, when an ineffective multinational force moving in [it’s pretty much a given it will be ineffective], and a failure of the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah [also a given]. All this is said to be a problem, but again I don’t see how. Failure to comply invites attack. If that happens, the international force is certainly not going to attack Israel on Hezbollah’s behalf. Some seem to think their being in the way would be an impediment and it might be, but that hardly a given and not insurmountable in any case. [The UN forces have been quite expeditious in bugging out to live-fire zones in the past.]
Anyway this situation is sliced, Hezbollah invites attack by doing anything but sitting on its hands. It can crow all it wants, but it is badly weakened and any attempt to fix that gets it hammered again. Sure, if that happens the agreement will provide minimal cover for Israel; the same people will still condemn them, but so what? Aren’t we used to that by now? Condemning Israel, like anti-US feeling abroad, is pretty priced out of the equation by now. But the logic of the UN and the anti-Israel faction will be even more tortured and they will seem even more irrelevant to the only constituency that matters at all, US taxpayers, and that is some help. [ I can think of several other reasons why this agreement might be good idea right now, but that to one side. ]
The oddest thing about this debate to me is the claim it is a victory for Iran. I can’t fathom the logic here. What I have heard is the prestige argument, which conveys no actionable advantage to Iran either, and an argument that it buys Iran more time. How does that work?
Assume for the sake of argument that on Sep 30 2006, Bush is going to launch a major offensive to topple the Iranian government. If so, why would this cease-fire cause him to postpone that indefinitely? How has this fracas changed anything in that regard? Israel is militarily stronger, mobilized, and has a significant force in the field; Hezbollah is significantly degraded. The only change the cease-fire make is to possibly allow some soldier to go home where they will be available for other missions. How does that deter any offensive we might have planned against Iran?
Now assume the opposite: Bush has no near-term plans to deal with Iran. In that case, Iran has plenty of time. How can the cease-fire then give them more time if they already have enough?
The only way this fight potentially affects Iran is the following: it has beaten down Hezbollah to point off to where they can’t be much of an active threat to Israel. If Israel doesn’t have to fight Hezbollah, that preserves resources that might be used to give us a hand with Iran if it turned out to be necessary. Viewed in that light, this could then be a loss for Iran, since they may have lost their ability to pin down substantial Israeli forces on the Lebanese border.
The last thing I don’t get is the idea that this is the end of something. Powerline referred to “the end of a close match” and I’ve read similar sentiments over at NRO, where someone talked about “years down the road.” That seems completely nonsensical. Either this is a just an episode in our greater conflict, in which the concept or winning and losing applies only so far as one party or the other going into the next round with an advantage, or it is not. If Bush has no plans to deal with Iran, then we have lost and Israel has lost, and we lost the moment that decision was made, not because of anything Hezbollah did or Israel failed to do. Either way, there is no “years down the road.”
Because in the final analysis, as I think most people know by now, Hezbollah is irrelevant. Iran is what matters. Fail to deal with Iran and Hezbollah is the least of our problems. Deal with Iran and Hezbollah dries up almost over night. We will win or lose based on how we handle Iran — everything up until that time is just hors d'oeuvres.
By C. Owen Johnson, at
Tue Aug 15, 05:41:00 AM:
Something of a postscript: I’ve read here and there about this cease-fire being a bad deal because it doesn’t bring about peace, it risks a wider war, etc. What are these people thinking? I cannot tell, but it certainly seems that either they assume this conflict is taking place in a fish bowl or they still have their head in the sand or both. The range of possibilities we currently face is this:
1) We take down the Iranian government by diplomatic means, by which I would include sanctions and fomenting internal rebellion.
2) We take down the Iranian government by military means.
3) We wait until Iranian government obtains nukes and then:
a) live with nuclear blackmail
b) attack a nuclear-armed Iran
c) wait until Iran nukes a couple of cites killing some millions of people, and then decide if we want to engage in a) or b) above.
Unless someone has convincing reason as to how 1) does not most probably lead to 3), our best and most prudent course of action is 2). And that means precisely a wider war in the Middle East. One of the potential advantages of this cease-fire agreement is that it might bring that about, and make it their fault. While it is not absolutely necessary that they be the aggressors, it is very much better to respond to an attack than to initiate one, especially when it happens at small risk to our side.
By , at
Tue Aug 15, 12:50:00 PM:
"The #1 goal of war is to break the enemy's will to fight."
By that definiton Hezbollah, which was the aggressor and whose objective it is to destroy Israel, lost.
By , at
Tue Aug 15, 03:09:00 PM:
Anonymous that is a faulty analysis. Hezbollahs’s goal is indeed to destroy Israel and they have moved one step further toward that goal by displaying a fanatical ability to withstand an Israel military onslaught. Their stock is WAY up and will enable new money, recruits and weapons to flow into the organization. You think South Lebanon was an armed camp before, wait till you see it 1-2 years from now.
And by the way, who do you think lost the nerve to fight? It certainly wasn’t Hezbollah. It was Ohlmert’s government who clearly lost the nerve and tried to fight on the cheap.
Hezbollah’s goal of destroying Israel is very much intact because their will to fight is intact (actually strengthened). Who doubts that they are at this very moment planning and scheming their next aggressive move against Israel? Who doubts that they will arm themselves even more next time?
Wishful thinking in believing a UN resolution will save the day for Israel.
There will be more war my friends, much more war, this “ceasefire” guaranteed that.
You know nothing of warfare, only what you see on TV...
Dan
By Mashiach, at
Tue Aug 15, 03:40:00 PM:
Maybe someone can tell me how this makes any sense. The Israelis went in after being attack by a savage enemy. Their soldiers were kidnapped and murdered on Israeli sovereign soil. They had 4 weeks to conduct a war and smash a guerilla group far less advanced than they were, kill its' leader and free their kidnapped soldiers. The spineless Israeli government, headed by non other than the mastermind of the latest brilliant idea of kicking Israelis out of their homes and land in gaza, has been unable to achieve a SINGLE one of their objectives. What does defeat mean? What else could this possibly be called? The Israeli prime minister, whose only talent has been to weaken Israel, needs to step down and resign.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Aug 15, 07:58:00 PM:
"Stated this way, can you say who achieved their goals?"
Easy. He lied. Or at least, was not completely truthful. (by the by, a cease fire kind of includes the stopping of rocket attacks so that's de facto been achieved, right?) Governments say one thing and mean another so often it's taken for granted.
A case in point (just because I happen to be reading up on the American Civil War lately) was President Lincoln talking on about how he didn't want a war, the wayward states would come back eventually, there was no reason to come to blows and 'destroy our mutual bonds of affection' (or some 19th century rubbish like that) but then he deliberately provoked an attack at Fort Sumter by sending in a flotilla of ships (for the second time) knowing full well that General Beauregard would fire on the fort and 1) give the North moral superiority, since they could say that they didn't shoot first and 2) it would unite moderates and extremists in a common effort. Voila.
From the Israeli perspective they have traded 2 kidnapped soldiers and pretty minimal national damage for: international recognition of Hezb'allah cross-border attacks (which have been going on regularly for what, 6 years?) as a serious problem that needs to be addressed including foreign forces (which I distrust immensely, but the Israelis may think differently), getting Lebanon to agree to step up and at least try to control al-Hezb, serious degradation of Hezb'Allah's strength through the very straight forward method of killing a whole lot of them, (a problem with Muslim martyr armies is that many of them are more eager to die and go to Paradise than to live and kill the enemy...) demonstrated a credible deterrent which HA might have deliberately tested, and have proven that the vaunted rockets and other 'surprises' were not enough to break the Israelis; just piss them off.
Lastly, it has left even leftist Israelis seething and desirous of finishing the fight, rather than worn out and sick of it. This makes it far more likely that the next time they are attacked (and let's be honest, it'll happen) whoever is in charge of the Israelis will have all the political capital necessary to crush the opposition in its entirety with none of this dilly dallying and 'oh should we use the Army? What do we do? What will people think?' crap.
By C. Owen Johnson, at
Tue Aug 15, 11:02:00 PM:
Comments in this thread provide an excellent example of the expectation problem. The people on one side argue that Hezbollah won because Israel did not achieve it’s objectives as they understand. But their understanding is based on public statements and commentary which is to some extent rhetorical, and always subject to interpretation. Further, what it is claimed that Israel lost because they failed to kill Nasrallah and completely destroy Hezbollah, they are applying the 95%+ solution: if we didn’t absolutely achieve everything then we have failed.
In any adversarial case, whether a war or a contract negotiation, each side has objectives; those objectives are ranked in both priority and in the order they should be achieved, as some will enable others. There critical objectives and one that are nice to have; the critical ones are kept hidden from the adversary as long as possible. But success or failure depends on achieving the critical objectives not the rhetorical objectives.
Achieving the critical objective gives one the option of going back and fighting for the rest later from a position of enhanced strength. To say that Israel failed to achieve any it’s objectives — which is clearly not the case even at this stage, since they did occupy the sub-Litani, they stop the firing, and they did inflict large casualties at minimal loss and push back and pin down Hezbollah — is to fail to recognize this basic and fundamental truth.
Thus basing one’s perceptions on the rhetorical objectives almost always leads to expectation failure. Once upon a time, this was generally understood. Unhappily this is no longer the case.
The people on the other side of the argument are looking at things from a fundamentally different perspective. To us, what matters is who is currently in the stronger position; who has the initiate and is in control of the next phase of the conflict. This is obviously Israel. We acknowledge that we lack detailed understanding of both Israel’s critical objectives and the facts of the ground that influence how and when those are achieve, so we have not formed unrealistic expectations about how this conflict should be prosecuted and what the timeline should be. Hence we are not yet disappointed.
