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The Outlook? More of the Same

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The formula is familiar. On one hand, there is some of the world’s greatest armed forces. Raised, maintained and paid for by the state, which means that they can operate in the open without any need to conceal what they are doing. Commanded by men—yes, nowadays, a few women too—with dozens of years’ experience during which they attended every kind of military and civilian academy, course, staff college, war college, super-war college, one can think of. Armed to the teeth with the most modern available weapons including, in many cases, warships, submarines, bombers, fighter bombers, ballistic missiles, anti-ballistic missile missiles, cruise missiles, and drones of every size and kind. And including, in many cases, nuclear arsenals which, had they been put to use, are fully capable of wiping out entire countries almost within the twinkling of an eye.

On the other side, groups made up of rebels, terrorists, guerrillas, insurgents, or whatever they may be called. Without exception, they started from nothing at all. Just a few men and women getting together in some room and swearing not to cease struggling until they achieve their aim. Operating underground against the state, either their own or a foreign one, they have great difficulty in obtaining bases, weapons and equipment, training, refuge, medical care, briefly everything an armed force needs. Initially they are very poor—to the point that, starting operations in Rhodesia during the mid-1960s, some of the groups involved were unable to pay their telephone bills. One even contacted the Israeli embassy in London, asking for help! No wonder some of them, including the Jewish ones that fought the British in Palestine before 1948, resorted to robbing banks.

Yet somehow the terrorists very often manage to win. In fact, taking the post-1945 period as a whole, it would be hard to find even a single case when a modern, especially but not exclusively Western, armed force did not end up by losing the struggle. Excuses there have been galore, but this does not change the situation on the ground. Or the fact that some of the greatest and most powerful empires in the world have been humiliated, defeated, beaten.

The latest episode of this kind, so typical of the contemporary world, unfolded last week in an around the Gaza Strip. On one hand, there is the Israeli Defense Force. One of the most powerful in the world, fully at the disposal of a democratically-elected government, able to make use of conscription, tightly organized, and armed to the teeth with a variety of modern weapons, many of them so advanced that they have turned into export hits. Plus, it is a force which, unlike so many others before it—just think of the Americans in Vietnam Afghanistan, and Iraq—is not obliged to operate far from home at the end of a long and impossibly expensive logistic lifeline. A force which, thanks to the vast array of intelligence-gathering people and instruments at its disposal, knows the terrain almost as well as its enemy, operating on home territory, does.

The enemy, Hamas, was established in 1987 by just two men, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al Rantissi. Both are long dead, sent to the delights of paradise by the kind of precision strikes that are the specialty of the IDF and the IAF in particular. It is a multifaceted organization; including a religious core, a political arm, a military arm, and various sub-groups that engage in charity. It also has a financial wing which is responsible for obtaining funds from Palestinians as well as several Arab and pro-Arab governments around the world.

Some males could not gain or maintain erections during a session of physical intimacy. canada viagra generic http://raindogscine.com/?order=7732 uk generic viagra This is because the sudden break from the medication can cause priapism, a painful erection lasting for more than 4 to 6 hours. This is not shameful because if there sildenafil india is a problem faced by millions of men. It order generic cialis raindogscine.com is better to speak to your doctor about all those concern regarding your intimate function or speak to your partner and their issues. Right from the beginning, Hamas has emphasized its opposition to any kind of deal with Israel that would involve recognizing the latter. Its objective, openly proclaimed, is to wipe the Jewish State off the map and establish a Palestinian one in its place. In this it differed from the Palestinian Authority which seemed prepared to take a road towards compromise, culminating in the 1994 Oslo Agreements. In so far as both Israel and the Authority fear Hamas and operate against it, the agreement between them has lasted to this day, more or less.

Meanwhile, starting in 2001, Hamas activists have been launching rockets from Gaza into Israel. In 2007, following the Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, they chased out the representatives of the Palestinian Authority and set up they own government there. Since then Hamas has greatly increased its attacks on the neighboring Israeli settlements, engaging in endless rounds of fighting, most small, others quite large. Starting with potshots across the border with Israel, passing through the “attack tunnels” dug into Israeli territory, changing to incendiary-carrying “terror” balloons, kites and drones, and culminating, for the time being, with thousands of rockets capable of reaching most Israeli targets south of Haifa.

If Hamas’ history is ever written, no doubt it will bring to light an epic struggle. One during which the organization faced formidable obstacles, went through periods of intense Israeli offensives, suffered any number of setbacks as well as countless casualties, yet allowed nothing to divert it from its chosen path and always gathered strength. The kind of epic, in other words, that commands respect, perhaps even admiration.

And Israel? Like so many others who have tried their hands at this game, it has used practically every trick in the book. Doing so, like so many others it stands accused of clumsiness, heavy-handedness, and using greatly excessive force. All, be it be noted, to no avail. Like so many others who tried their hands at this game, Israel has been unable to overcome its enemy by breaking his will. But unlike so many others who tried their hands at the game, it has nowhere to retreat to.

The outlook? Since both sides have claimed victory, each in his own camp, more of the same.

Stuck in Gaza

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The good news is that, here in Mevasseret Zion not far from Jerusalem, things have been less exciting than during the first week of Operation “Firm Rock.” The same applies to many other Israeli cities located relatively far away from Gaza. Possibly this is due to the fact that Hamas has a problem with its long-range rockets which, owing to their size, are harder to conceal and take longer to launch. The bad news is that elsewhere, and especially in the Israeli districts that surround the Gaza Strip, the rockets keep falling. Thus it would appear that the struggle, which has now lasted for two weeks, is far from over.

In this situation it is interesting to take a fresh look at what Clausewitz—I assume readers of this website will know who he was—has to say about wars of this kind. As I have written elsewhere, most of On War is couched in terms of the classic division of labor between the government that directs, the armed forces that fight, kill and die, and the people who pay and suffer. Still the maestro did include a short chapter—five pages out of over five hundred—dealing with what he calls “the People in Arms,” (Volksbewaffnung), AKA terrorism, AKA guerrilla, AKA insurgency, AKA asymmetric war. Drawing upon the wars in Russia, which he witnessed in person, and in Spain, which he did not, he lists the following as “the only conditions under which a general uprising can be effective:”

  1. The war must be fought in the interior of the country.
  2. It must not be decided by a single stroke.
  3. The theater of operations must be fairly large.
  4. The national character must be suited to that kind of war.
  5. The country must be rough and inaccessible, because of mountains, or forests, marshes, or the local methods of cultivation.

To which one might add:

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  1. A country that borders on another from which the terrorists/guerrillas/insurgents can be resupplied and which will afford them refuge when they need it.

To what extent does the war Hamas is waging against Israel meet these conditions, and what are its prospects of gaining a victory? To answer this question it is perhaps best to change the order in which Clausewitz proceeds. Let us start with condition No. 2 as the most obvious of all. Elsewhere in On War Clausewitz says, quite rightly, that war consists of the interaction between the belligerents. A war that is decided by a single stroke to which the opponent has no answer is, by this interpretation, not a war at all. So weak is Hamas that, starting on the first day of the war, it and the people of Gaza whom it claims to represent have been taking roughly a hundred casualties for every one the Israelis suffered. Nevertheless, of the latter ending the struggle by a single blow there can be no question.

For as long as guerrilla and its relatives have existed, one very important way of making sure the struggle cannot be decided by a single stroke is to rely on No. 6. Alas for Hamas, in this respect its situation is well-nigh hopeless. The sea- and land routes to and from Gaza are blocked by the Israeli navy and army respectively. The Egyptians, who police their own border with Gaza, do the rest. Only the fact that the Israelis allow 200 or so truckloads per day to cross keeps Hamas and the population of Gaza going. Israel has even deployed a field hospital where the sick and wounded of the other side can be treated. But for these and similar measures hunger and disease would have spread very quickly. The probable outcome would have been the disintegration of Hamas rule and the creation of chaotic conditions like those prevailing in large parts of Iraq.

All this enhances the importance of proposition No. 4 (the role played by national character.) As both the history of the Arab-Israeli wars and the two Gulf Wars have shown, Arabs are not very good at waging modern conventional war against similar opponents. The question why this is so deserves to be considered in depth but is beyond the scope of the present article. Arabs have, however, done much better in waging guerrilla struggles. Even without considering wars such as the one in Yemen (1962-70), during which they chased away the British, they have forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and the Americans, from Iraq.

Whatever else may be said about the current war in Gaza, so far Hamas troops—not the leaders, who hide in bunkers deep underground—have been fighting courageously in spite of the overwhelming odds they face. Here and there, as in their attempts to penetrate Israel either by sea or by way of tunnels that pass under the border, their courage has been well-nigh suicidal. In part because the Israelis, who have good cause to worry about international reaction, do their best not to inflict too many civilian casualties, the population of Gaza has also been holding up well. Judging by events so far, if a ceasefire is finally established it will not be because the population forced Hamas to accept it.

“The theater of operations must be fairly large,” reads proposition No. 3. Generally speaking, that is true. A large territory will make it hard for the counterinsurgent to focus on one point while affording the insurgents many opportunities to escape, disperse, and hide. But by no stretch of the imagination can the Gaza Strip, 32 miles long and just 6.8 wide, be considered “large.” In the entire Strip, there is probably not a single target the Israelis, had they wanted to and been prepared to take the necessary casualties, could not have reached in an hour or less. To say nothing of the ever-present fighter-bombers and drones that can reach those targets in minutes if not in seconds. That is why, in Operation Firm Rock, proposition No. 2—regarding the inaccessibility of the country in which the guerrillas must operate—is as important as it is. Though in this case it is urban terrain and its plentiful civilians, not “mountains, or forests, marshes, or the local methods of cultivation,” which obstruct the Israelis.

Considering these factors, which side is more likely to win? In the absence of a ceasefire, the outcome is likely to be a struggle of attrition from which the side with the last ounce of willpower will emerge triumphant.

Yet there remains one very important point Clausewitz does not mention. Henry Kissinger, with Vietnam in mind, once said that the counterinsurgent, as long as he does not win, loses. The insurgent, as long as he does not lose, wins. Even if—which, at the moment, seems unlikely—Israel succeeds in forcing the other side to accept a ceasefire based on a return to the status quo ante, Hamas leaders will be able to claim that taking on the worst its enemy can do, standing like a firm rock, and surviving represents a triumph which will enable them to look into the future with some confidence.

And in making this claim they will not be very wrong.