4GW ain't about winning, it's about losing the right way
COLUMN: "The Key to Peace In Mideast May Be 'Sacred Beliefs,'" by Sharon Begley, Wall Street Journal, 25 August 2006, p. A9.We can console ourselves that, in Third Generation Warfare terms, Israel kicked Hezbollah's ass--or more to the point, Lebanon's ass.OP-ED: "Hezbollah Didn't Win: Arab writers are beginning to lift the veil on what really happened in Lebanon," by Amir Taheri, Wall Street Journal, 25 August 2006, p. A14.
ARTICLE: "Case Tests Malaysia's Faith in Secularism: Woman's Court Fight to Stop Being Classified as a Muslim May Set Off Political Shocks," by Cris Prystay, Wall Street Journal, 25 August 2006, p. A6.
And, of course, it was an incredibly pyrrhic victory for Hezbollah, whose leader, Mr. Nasrallah, is rightfully described as "Stalinist" by his Lebanese Shiite critics. As I wrote earlier, this guy has no problem sacrificing as many Lebanese as it takes to rule the roost because fundamentalist Shiite politics simply won't play in a peaceful, stable, integrated Lebanon--not a chance in hell.
So Nasrallah needs a wartorn, chaotic, disconnected Lebanon to prevail. When he triggers Israel's response, at Iran's behest, he gets what he wants.
Then Nasrallah wages a careful PR campaign to weaken the West's willingness to follow-up, and pursue the "green flood" strategy of distributing U.S. dollars at will (supplied by Iran, of course).
Now you can get all jacked and say Iran supports international terrorism on this basis, although you'd be more accurate to describe Hezbollah more as a national liberation movement or political insurgency within Lebanon that wages a non-state actor or terrorist war with Israel primarily for selfish means (it needs an outside baddie to justify its militias/tactics/etc.). Best yet would be to describe Iran's use of Hezbollah as simply asymmetrical war waged by an emerging nuclear power against an established one (the U.S.) that threatens that emergence.
All these things are true, and all these tactics were waged at an enormously high price to the average Lebanese. But measuring that pain and calling it a loss instead of a victory misses the point. It was never about winning in any conventional sense, but creating, through the right kind of 3GW loss, the conditions within which a 4GW victory is possible.
Nasrallah knows he's pursuing a risky strategy that creates resistance within all of Lebanon's multiethnic population. He's simply gambling that he can subsequently overcome that anguish and resistance by doing what Hezbollah has proven it can do well in the past: play the postwar SysAdmin function better than the weak government of Lebanon can.
Overall, Nasrallah has done incredibly well. We can deny his achievements or we can try to fight him symmetrically. But right now he's got Europe cowed enough that it's big news that France is going to send a whopping 2k peacekeepers--2k!
Sure, he's pissed off plenty of important people in Lebanon, but their being pissed off doesn't equate to having serious assets or networks to play out the postwar game. It just means they're not stupid.
Nasrallah's strategy is to make sure Lebanon never slips back into its "Lexus" status as a connected, functioning economy (Lebanon, for example, was the region's banking and publishing sector way back when, before all the troubles). If it does, "sacred beliefs" regarding the land, honor, the abstraction of women, and so on, simply fade away by generations, and you end up with things like what's going on in Seam State Malaysia right now: a court case in which a woman wants to shed her ID as "muslim." Once women get uppity like that, taking their wars of identity to the courts instead of the mosques, the ball is rolling, and the dreams of Hezbollah are torpedoed.
So Nasrallah can't let Lebanon get back to that level of connectedness. He needs war, not peace, and so his calculus is dramatically different from ours--thus the ease with which he scares off serious peacekeeping efforts by the Core.
So yeah, no doubt that Hezbollah lost the war. But also no doubt that that was never the point in the first place, so giving us the scorecard of opinion on the war is rather meaningless. If the scorecard is unfavorable to Hezbollah a year from now, then we're talking real failure. But I'm not optimistic that Lebanon the government can manage that on its own, especially since Hezbollah has so effectively scared off or restricted our ability to do anything particularly constructive in the peace.
Comments
...and now presenting the SysAdmin Academy-Asia Campus
2000 French peacekeepers will be more than enough to provide Command and Control when the professional SysAdmin corps is available.
Washington Times
August 25, 2006
Pg. 15
Peace Training In Land Of Genghis Khan
U.S. commander in Pacific backs Mongolia's role
By Richard Halloran, The Washington Times
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia -- Adm. William J. Fallon, commander of U.S. military forces in Asia, had hardly settled into his chair when the chief of Mongolia's general staff, Lt. Gen. Ts. Togoo, ran down a list of requests for American assistance.
The Mongol general, whose country is celebrating the 800th anniversary of its founding by the warrior Genghis Khan, asked for help in expanding a training site into a regional peacekeeping program, and for financial and professional assistance in establishing a military hospital.
Then, Gen. Togoo said sheepishly: "Admiral, I apologize for laying out all these issues right after your arrival, but you are a busy person."
Adm. Fallon appeared to be generally in favor of his host's request but did not commit the United States. "We want to do anything we can to help," he said, particularly in training peacekeeping soldiers.
Pointing to plans by the United Nations to send peacekeepers to stricken Lebanon, he said: "The need for highly trained, professional peacekeepers is growing."
Adm. Fallon serves political and diplomatic duties in a region stretching from the West Coast of the United States to the east coast of Africa, and from Mongolia in the north to Australia in the south. He is responsible for preparing 300,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines for war.
He was in this landlocked nation specifically to inspect the training of peacekeeping troops from seven Asian and Pacific nations, including the United States, in an exercise called "Khan Quest 06." Unlike military fighters on the battlefield, peacekeepers are taught to use measured force to restore and maintain order.
At the Five Hills site in a vast green valley of the low mountains west of Ulan Bator, the capital, Adm. Fallon watched a platoon of 40 Thai soldiers sweep through a mock village, arresting insurgents, breaking up demonstrations by prodding rather than shooting protesters, caring for a pregnant woman and tending soldiers with simulated injuries.
"This is high-quality, professional training," he said. "We will continue to support the training of peacekeepers," particularly in the regional training center envisioned by Gen. Togoo. Mongolia has decided on peacekeeping for its small army as it seeks a niche in the international arena.
On a broader scale, the admiral came to show U.S. interest in the smaller nations within his area of responsibility. With wide-open spaces, Mongolia has a population of only 2.3 million. Soldiers from the island nations of Fiji and Tonga also were here for training.
Mongolia is situated between two giants: Russia to the north and China to the south. It was dominated by the Soviet Union from 1921 until its breakup in the early 1990s.
Before that, Mongolia was ruled by China's Manchu Dynasty.
To maintain its independence, Mongolia has adopted a security policy based on what it calls the "Third Neighbor," which is primarily the United States, to ward off the Russians and Chinese. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Mongolia in October to support the concept, and President Bush and first lady Laura Bush followed in November. They were the first to make such high-level visits to Mongolia.
Adm. Fallon was the highest ranking American officer to visit Mongolia. All have applauded Ulan Bator's efforts to bring to fruition its fledgling democracy.
Mongolia plans to replace its 150 soldiers in Iraq but is under domestic pressure to withdraw its force.
Adm. Fallon encouraged Gen. Togoo to send fresh troops, saying: "I feel very strongly that, if the decision is taken to commit soldiers, we will do everything possible to meet your desires on equipment for your soldiers."
Adm. Fallon called Baghdad to speak with Gen. George Casey, who leads U.S. troops in Iraq, and told Gen. Togoo: "He said he would make available to your soldiers in Iraq the equipment they need."
In a separate meeting, the American admiral told Defense Minister Mishig Sonompil that he hopes Mongolia will send more troops to Iraq. "This is important," he said, "to the coalition as well as to the United States."
Posted by: Marc DiPaolo | August 25, 2006 1:04 PM
While we comment on whatever saviness Hezbollah has done, we need to point out that it could not have succeeded without the blatant strategic mistakes of Israel and diplomatic mistakes of USA (by encouraging Israel's mistake). It always takes two to dance. Hezbollah's strategy is not undefeatable. If it has set up a trap, someone needs to walk into it voluntarily.
Without the courage to recognize this, Hezbollah or the like will win the next conflict again.
Posted by: sun bin | August 25, 2006 3:00 PM
Lebenon was a key component of West African entrepreneurship in the late 1960's when my wife and I lived in Sierra Leone.
The Lebenese were the connection. They supplied the connection between the West and the Middle East. Even in Sierra Leone.
The fact that they have become disconnected illustrates the problem we need to address.
I will grant it took 30 years to go from connected to disconnected, so let us not fret that it may take 30 years of knowledgeable, concerned, concerted effort to re-connect them.
Posted by: Dave Fischer | August 26, 2006 3:43 AM
I would like the Indian government to reconsider its withdrawal of their offer of troops to the peace keeping effort. We need more than the Old Core to make this work, we need the New Core as well.
Posted by: Dave Fischer | August 26, 2006 3:45 AM