Israel’s getting smarter, letting Hezbollah “size” its forces

ARTICLE: “Israel revamps its training after Hezbollah conflict: General says tough fight in Lebanon showed need for improvements,” by Yaakov Katz, USA Today, 4 December 2006, p. 15A.

Started getting USA home delivered because I like it, even as former newspaper editor spouse declares it almost unreadable.

Still, I’ve learned to like it so much on the road…

Good story here on how Israel’s already learning from Lebanon’s and Hezbollah’s splendid little war-not-designed-to-be-won.

Art Cebrowski liked to say that the Sovs sized our forces (Leviathan) during the Cold War, so the logical question today is, “Who’s sizing our emerging SysAdmin force?”

One would assume the best candidate is the best operating version out there on the web today: Hezbollah.

So if Hezbollah isn’t sizing our SysAdmin function somewhat (and I use the term “sizing” very loosely here to mean a lot of things), then we just ain’t paying attention.

Israel, on the other hand, is like our Marines: too small and too often surrounded to not pay attention to everything, especially those teachable moment of loss.

Israel lost almost as many soldiers (119) as we did in Iraq during the first phase (estimated at 137). The length of each conflict was roughly the same (roughly a month).

Israel claims to have killed 500-700 Hezbollah, not that that mattered whatsoever.

Like the U.S. military, then, Israel’s military “is overhauling its training and expanding a guerrilla warfare school in response to problems the army had in fighting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon this summer.” New items include a Hezbollah-style “red unit” (opposing training force) and a new urban ops training center.

All of this is back to the future for Israel, and it’s a fairly short and familiar jaunt.

Part of the blame for this poor display? Israel’s long-term focus inside the West Bank and Gaza. Too much occupation and not enough guerrilla work, apparently, along with a growing unfamiliarity among many troops with more high-end items like tanks.

Even within a military as SysAdmin-oriented as Israel’s, spanning the breadth of skills from high-intensity to the more mundane policing is difficult. Again, the similarity to our Marines shows.