Unrest in the IDF
and could it happen in our military?
By streiff Posted in Military Roundtable — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
This week's post at the Military Roundtable is from long time RedState member tankertodd. Guest writers are welcome. Really welcome. All the time.
I'm sure most Americans with a military background read with interest this article about reservists protesting the IDF leadership during the Hezbollah war. The thought of American servicemembers doing the same seems nearly impossible, but then again, consider the significance of the outcome of the Hezbollah War, a rough comparison between the two forces, and one starts to wonder.
Several articles, including this one discuss not only the shortages the IDF suffered but a lack of training on the part of reservists as well as indecisive leadership. Criticism from reservists made its way directly to the Chief of Staff LTG Dan Halutz. It is surprisingly blunt but apparently well-received.
Are these complaints valid?
Is the IDF whining or are they making excuses for losing the war?
Read on.
Logistics troubles and warfare go together like PB&J. ("Thunder Run" contains harrowing stories of fuel resupply while under fire during the Battle of Baghdad.) And if you want to read complaints about indecisiveness I'm sure Abe Lincoln could spin some stories about Union generals. Or are the IDF reservists genuinely concerned about their inability to defeat Hezbollah on the battlefield and has that realization shaken the organization to the core?
I would presume that these complaints surfaced because the IDF lost. No one complains when you win but everyone complains when you lose, because that's when you either look for blame and/or seek self-improvement (depending on your outlook). Let's face it: the IDF did not accomplish its goals militarily. The kidnapped soldiers were not recovered unconditionally (and to date, not at all). The rocket attacks were not halted through force of arms. The former must be especially painful for the IDF reservists, who are aware that these are fellow reservists. The latter hurts because it means that someday they'll be back to retake the same Lebanese redoubts.
So what's this got to do with the American military? I'm no expert on the IDF, so I can only look at this through the eyes of a former American Army soldier. Although it's arguably specious to compare the IDF to the U.S. military, there are similarities. Both are 1) civilian-led, 2) actively leading the war on Islamofascism through force of arms, and 3) are forward-deployed. (A subtle difference is that Israel, unlike the U.S., has experienced daily attacks upon their homeland.) So if these forces are not so different, what lessons, if any, can we extrapolate for our military?
There are the obvious ones: reserve readiness, tactical leadership, logistics. I would argue that these are issues that are constants but are managed. The more interesting notion to me is the willingness of the IDF to publicly and vociferously complain about these things. This just does not happen in the American military, but could it? Assuming the forces have the same culture and ethos (a blind leap on my part) then could we assume that if we were defeated on the battlefield would the American military break its silence?
Such a protect, ironically, is made more likely by the fact that the only way we'll be defeated is by losing the political will to fight. Such a loss would be manifested by a Democratic takeover of government followed by a Murtha Plan to retreat unilaterally. This would provide veterans with someone to blame directly. And of course, we see that such a turn of events is quite possible given American impatience and Democratic opportunism. So then using the IDF experience, would the American military, with veterans who have deployed into theater 2-3 times each, take a defeat sitting down? Or can we expect a culturally significant resurgence of the veteran, not seen since the Bonus Army?
Again, I suspect this is all possible. This is not the Vietnam military of conscripts either. This is a much more compact force that is more ideologically committed and morally invested in this war. There are thousands of terribly maimed soldiers who will be asking why we lost. The anti-war Left uses arguments about the war "tearing the nation apart" yet if our military were to rise up in this fashion that itself could tear the country up in a more significant manner.
« Thoughts on "A Failure of Generalship" — Comments (8) | Civilian Agencies And Counterinsurgency — Comments (1) »
Unrest in the IDF 6 Comments (0 topical, 6 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Screw Up you can damn well bet we would be hearing about. But only if a republican were in office. If a Dem were in office the blame would be deflected to the troops.
From:
Yoni Doesn't Understand
by Yoni Tidi, former IDF master sniper, special operations anti-terrorist unit
http://www.yonitheblogger.com/2006/08/yoni_doesnt_understand.html
It is becoming more clear that the so called leadership in Israel are not just cowards, scum and traitors as I have been posting for some time, they are also just plain stupid.
First they have given Israel our first loss in war.
Second Olmert has said he wants to go ahead with his immoral and stupid policy of throwing Jews from their homes, not learning the lesson of Gaza and Lebanon that when Jews give up land, Jews die.
Now we learn that a senior diplomat out of the Foreign Minister Yaacov Dayan has been appoint by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as the person that will head negotiations with Syria.
If Israel wants to survive there is only one type of negotiations that needs to be carried out, that is if the representative of Syria wants to sign the document of surrender with a blue ink pen or if they would prefer a black ink pen.
So once again we see Israeli leaders are cowards, for they do not have the courage to stand for a strong Israel.
They are scum for two reasons, first they are destroying Israel and second they are corrupt.
Lastly they are traitors. They have turned their backs on 2,000 years of collective hopes, dream and prayers of the Jewish people.
I just don't understand how all the leaders in Israel can be so bad?
He has said that the reserves have been completely neglected for years... with very little training.
---
"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
of bumps in the run up to Gulf War I. Very similar complaints from NG and reserve units but those mostly revolved around the amount of training required for those units to make it to combat ready. As I recall many of the training protocols and rotations were re-vamped as a result of this. What makes it a bit different, at least as I remember it, is that our problems came to light as a result of chain of command type complaints that were ultimately followed up on (by the IG) , sometimes with harsh consequences (I know of at least one bird colonel in the NG that got cashiered over it) and not as a result of whining to the press, although they did go nuts once blood was in the water.
Also different, for Israel, is that these guys were essentially activated and sent to the front very quickly - without the nice 6 months or so of lag and prep time that many similarly tasked units in our Army get.
All that aside I do have to say that the IDF position sucks. They did not achieve any of the stated Israeli objectives for the war, although they did punish the enemy. I'd have to go with Yoni - the objectives and the guardrails around them were both political constructs. Even though saying that the Israeli government held off too long on going to the river, or relied too much on air power smacks of monday morning quarterbacking, the fact remains that the government set the rules and made it pretty difficult for the IDF to actually accomplish the mission they were tasked for.
One other point: Sometimes you just have to accept that the other guy is really that good. The IDF, much like America, is pretty open about their war-fighting methodology and their strengths and weaknesses on a strategic level are hardly a secret - we share a great many of them. The fact that the enemy is capable of digesting this information and of coming up with a plan that hits them at their weak spot (as Sun Tzu would say in attacking their plans and their will to fight with more zeal than attacking their cities and armies) should not come as a suprize. These folks may be murderous, but they are not stupid.
How much of this is due to the fact that every Jewish Israeli to the Left of the Ultra-Orthodox serves in the military and is part of their reserves?
Moe
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.