Redstate

By crosspatch Posted in User Blogs — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I was watching a news report this evening about an Israeli bombing raid in Lebanon.  The target of the raid had been a truck depot and Israel said they were targeting trucks that could be used to transport missiles.  The TV reporter noted that the locals were complaining that the trucks had only been used for civilian purposes. It is my opinion that the reporter missed an excellent chance to inform the public on why this depot was bombed and to explain other such attacks.

Hezbollah is not a national army.  While they do certainly have some dedicated logistics resources, in times like we find ourselves in now, they are also capable of pressing unconventional resources into service.  While these trucks had not been used to transport missiles in the past, they certainly could, as Israel noted, be used for that purpose in the future and Israel is not in a position to wait until after they have been used for that purpose to take them out of the picture.  

This brings up an important strategy in how to defeat or at least constrain an enemy using unconventional/asymmetrical techniques.

(more)While an enemy can engage in unconventional tactics in the fighting of a war, they are bounded by the absolutes that define their environment.  If there are 10,000 trucks in a region, then they have potential access to any of them. By reducing the number of functioning trucks capable of transporting missiles, Israel is shaping the environment within which Hezbollah must operate.  Hezbollah is difficult to pinpoint because many of their supporters and members may be in civilian clothes and operating civilian equipment.  If you limit yourself to only targeting known Hezbollah resources, civilian replacement resources are then obtained and placed into service.  Rather than reacting to Hezbollah moves, what one wants to do is force Hezbollah to react to a changing and more difficult environment.

You do this by controlling the absolute environment.  By targeting vehicles suspected of transporting missiles you reduce the truck fleet and by targeting vehicles capable of transporting missiles, you reduce the available supply of replacement vehicles.  One hoped-for result of such action would be civilian truck operators removing their vehicles from the area of operations which reduces the supply of them still further.  Then you assume every single vehicle on the road in the area of operations is a legitimate target.  If you absolutely eliminate every single vehicle capable of moving missiles from the area, it doesn't matter how many missiles Hezbollah has stored in the Bekaa valley bunkers because they can't get them to within range of Israel.

The news reports seem to convey some expectation that civilian vehicles would not be struck unless they were actively in the process of being used by Hezbollah.  That is an unreasonable expectation.  To gain the correct mindset for living in that area you would have to expect every truck in the region that could POTENTIALLY be used by Hezbollah to be struck.  Yes, this places a hardship on the people living there but those people have already been warned to leave the area.  They shouldn't be there to begin with to need those trucks and if they are, I would have to question their sanity.

I noticed the same complaint when Israel targeted what appeared to be every single gas station in Southern Lebanon.  These were targeted for the same reason.  If places to obtain fuel are scarce, it makes it more difficult to move troops and weapons with vehicles.  This absolutely limits the sources of refueling for any vehicles that might be missed by Israeli surveillance.

Sitting here typing this, I watched another report of Lebanese civilians complaining that there was no food, water, or medicine in the region and people were suffering.  Remember that these people had been advised to leave the area some two weeks ago. Apparently some decided or were forced to stay.  As stocks of basic supplies run out, one would expect the number of remaining "human shields" to diminish as they leave or are let go for lack of these supplies.  Again we have control of the absolute environment defeating attempts at unconventional tactics because even these tactics are a slave to the operating environment.

Unconventional tactics can be countered within international law by giving adequate warning and allowing civilians time to evacuate and then applying measures that dictate the conditions in the area of operations to an extent that an enemy will find impossible to operate within.