Ray

It is a little extraordinary that there is Israeli reports that there is a possibility that Syria is about to attack. It is believed that it will be a conventional attack, Syria having gained confidence because of the Hezbollah successes in the last conflict in Lebanon.

This view is a little odd. A nation cannot adopted guerilla tactics against its adversary in the event the nation declares war! Covert operations can use guerilla tactics and not officially declared wars. That is axiomatic.

Therefore, no matter how much Syria maybe buoyed with Hezbollah's success, by no stretch of imagination can they ever think of embarking on a war unilaterally and without the umbrella of an Arab War because no Arab conventional army has an iota of a chance against the Israeli Army.

Even if the Israelis are surprised, the Syrians will be routed.

It appears that the Hezbollah success has seriously impinged on the Israeli mind and they are underestimating themselves.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Officer of Engineers

Sir,

There is a simpler explanation - budget time.

__________________
Chimo

Ray

You are real cynic!

But then you have caught the bull by the horns!

S-2

Brigadier,

The colonel is correct. Still, I wouldn't want to be the Party of God or Syria in the next go-around. The IDF got a wake-up call and that's an altogether good thing.

__________________
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

Ray

S-2,

I rub my eyes in surprise as to how Hezbollah could halt the IDF.

Have you any link or article which analyses how the Dickens that this could come to pass?

The silver lining is that the Sunni Arabs have got the shivers of a Shia ascendancy and so they are feverish about negotiating peace with Israel!

Ray

S 2

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/wo...html?ref=world

On the eve of the publication of an official report on the Israeli government’s failings during last summer’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the main topic of public debate is whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be able to hang on to power.

S-2

I haven't yet looked at the J.P. or Haraatz today to see the findings and haven't been following it nearly as closely as I should.

Last summer we had a young man fresh from Israeli Armor Basic assigned as a driver to a Merkava III (I believe) from an active force. He sent sporadic posts as they came off the line.

Brigadier, I could be wrong, but I never sensed in the battle that the POG was as great an impediment as the Israeli government. I did sense dismay and some confusion that POG militias would engage in close combat, but there was such a start-stop-start quality to Israeli ops that they never seemed to achieve any momentum.

Too, I was never clear as to whether they were actually conducting a breach with an objective in the operational rear (Litani? Bekaa?), or a breach to envelop the defensive barrier, or whether they were breaching at all!

I will look around for some analysis. I know OoE and myself had a discussion on this matter last fall. I bet he's got a handle on some good source analysis.

S-2

PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Spring 2007

Brigadier,

Honestly, I haven't read it. I shall. I simply hate coming to a general with problems, not solutions, so my apologies! I'll look around for a bit more.

Druze

The recent war may have boosted Hezbollah's popularity among radicals. But it didn't diminsh Israel's repuation as a nation that will respond very harshly to violations of its sovreignty. If anything Israel's massive response raised Israel's reputation for better or worse.
Also Israel's conventional abilities were very impressive from a military standpoint. Israel's defense industry got a major sales boost after that war. I think a lot of that war involved showing off weapons to potential market nations.
The result merely confirmed what was already known, that it is difficult to fight non-uniformed insurgent groups.

In regards to Syria, Israel's very sophisticated Radar operated field artillery battery it keeps on the Golan which Syria knows well about but may be non-official for most public sources is something they won't ever send their tanks against. Syria is beyond incapable of ever mounting a successful military campaign against Israel. Its not something that can be disputed.
What Syria can and will probably do is use its proxy Hezbollah again as many experts think Iran used in the last war. Rockets are hard to find, and the only way to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets during another outbreak of war is to seize territory and create an immediate buffer zone. Israel failed to do this in the initial stages of the war and ultimately didn't do it in full force. While some forces reached the Litani River it was more symbolic then strategic. Israel didn't even call up its reserves, Only 5,000 non-active duty troops were called up.
Israel tried fighting an "American styled" war with its shock and awe air campaign and it didn't do much tactically other then make those Lebanese who already hated Hezbollah hate them more and those who loved them love them more.

Syria has learnt from Iran that war via proxy is the best way to engage your enemy and not risk power. Iran has fought the US by proxy since its revolution. It's not a very brave way to fight and it doesn't really harm your enemy but it is a safe and secure method of them fighting their wars.

Officer of Engineers

Sir,

Preliminary “Lessons” of the Israeli-Hezbollah War
Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah War - A Preliminary Assessment
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - PART 1: Winning the intelligence war
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - PART 2: Winning the ground war
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - The political war

Lunatock

Let Syria come, the Jewish Assassin is ready.

Also I want to get still photos and/or video footage of a war. Syria invading Israel and most likely getting thier asses kicked back across the border could be as good a photo-op as any.

Druze

Most IDF companies sat on the border waiting for the full advance into Lebanon for days, then they'd finally get their orders only to have them rescinded minutes before deploying. This indescision and back and forth lasted until the last 48 hours till Israel made a smalll symbolic push to the Litani with a very limited amount of soldiers.

When I came across the border back into Israel after the war I was deeply suprised that many full regiments never went in and spent the whole war pretty much throwing pebbles at one another and didn't even cross north.

The political leadership and its Air Force oriented Chief of Staff made horrible mistakes.

Rather then awe Lebanon with immediate airstrikes on their National airport, bridges, and power facilities, an immediate force could have pushed straight to the Litani and clean up crews could have followed immediately to locate tunnels, weapons caches, and secure the area which would have stopped nearly all of the rocket attacks on Israel. But Top command decided they could stop the rockets from the air instead of from the ground so Hezbollah was able to launch their crude rockets up until the third to last day of the war. Big mistake.

The fact that IDF soldiers deep behind enemy lines had to actually hydrate themselves by taking water canteens from Dead Hezbollah fighters shows clearly that the top commanders knew all along the political leadership was not willing and did not plan for a full scale assault. It was also a source of humour among many soldiers returning with Hezbollah flags and jokingly saying that if it hadn't been for those twenty Hezbollah fighters that they got into a firefight with they would have died of thirst!!!!

I have some video from my unit as we crossed back that I am still trying to get back from military censors. It is pretty much a twenty minute collage of clips of joke on the government, some very funny such as one commander saying that if Ariel Sharon had woken up today and saw how Olmert had handled the war he'd force his doctor to re-induce his coma at gunpoint. Because mention was made in the video of the tunnel system my battalion discovered those bastards took my memory card away and I'm still waiting to get it back.

Officer of Engineers

Hold on a second. A 32 day war, 20 canteens about 20 litres of water lasted how many men?

You were in the US, right? Did you had to return to Israel to do your annual call up?

Ray

S2 and Colonel,

Thanks for the links.

Will read. Saved them.

Druze

I am a Druze who served in an all Druze battalion known as "Herev" which means sword in Hebrew. The Druze don't sit out battles. The village elders issue an edict for all Druze veterans to volunteer back to their active duty units. In Druze culture you have to answer that call. We are very modern but honor is still important and had I not returned it would have brought great dishonor on my clan. My late Grandpa peace be upon him was a very well respected village elder.

Anyway my unit is an all Druze unit with some Circassians, 90% of us are grandchildren of sheperds, we were raised as trackers. We would walk fields as children and were taught how to check for footprints of neighboring Muslims who would come into steel our livestock. We learned how to read footprints, how many footprints, what direction they headed in, we learned that the heavier the footprint the more likeliness that whosever footprint that was walked away with livestock. We learned to turn that into great military knowledge of enemies, as we can track a pattern of footprints and by the imprint of a footprint we can tell if that person who left that footprint is carrying a heavy load of weaponry possibly anti-tank missiles, or Katyushas. We can quickly determine that their is a good chance for example that a unit of about 10 Hezbollah fighters just passed by a certain area, we can relatviely determine by how fresh the prints are when they crossed, what weaponry they are carrying based on the ratio of heavy footprints to light footprints. We can also determine that if the footprints start to get closer and closer to each other then the enemy is fatigued and that we are gaining on them. These tracker skills are something that only the Druze and Bedouin soldiers of the IDF can employ and while it was attempted to teach tracking skills to Jewish soldiers that training never took hold with non tribal soldiers.

The units I mentioned who ran out of water were not mine. Those were other units who suffered logistical supply breakdowns. We had no such problems.
We operated mostly by night, and watched Hezbollah at times even sipping Arabic coffee without them even knowing we were there. Our mission was an S & D and we stayed behind enemy lines for almost the entire duration of the water. We operate on less water, move faster then any other infantry unit.

Would you like me to post some links Officer of the Herev Battalion? We have some videos and some news links of a portion of the fighting we encountered. After the war and our zero casualty rate the IDF high command wanted to take our unit and make it a special ops unit. I had to return back to the US to get back to work. Anyway if you have any interest in the Druze method of fighting in the recent war I think I can provide you with some interesting links.