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Unconventional Warfare on the Rise in Mideast
BEIRUT - Violent conflict is hardly new to the Middle East, but increasingly it is taking the form of unconventional warfare.
In the military dictionary, unconventional warfare means military and paramilitary operations, normally of long duration, predominantly conducted by indigenous or surrogate forces that are organised, trained, equipped, supported, and directed in varying degrees by an external source.
View taken on January 20, 2009 shows alleged burning white phosphorous at the UNRWA's warehouse (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) destroyed during Israeli strikes in Gaza City. UN chief Ban Ki-moon reiterated Wednesday his demand for a full explanation of recent "outrageous" Israeli attacks on UN facilities in the Gaza Strip during a Security Council briefing on his Middle East tour. (AFP/File/Olivier Laban-Mattei) It includes guerrilla warfare and other direct offensives, low visibility, covert or clandestine operations, as well as subversion, sabotage and evasion.
"A major turning point for warfare in the Middle East came after the great defeat suffered by conventional Arab armies at the hands of Israel in 1967," says Firas Maksad, executive director of the independent research group, Lebanon Renaissance Foundation. "The loss of Sinai, the Golan and the West Bank convinced many in the Arab world that resistance groups had a role to play alongside conventional armies."
The analyst says that while the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was the primary beneficiary of such official and popular support, by the seventies and eighties other resistance groups had begun to mushroom. "Today some of these militant organisations - primarily Hizbullah and Hamas - have grown powerful enough not only to threaten Israel, but also the societies and state structures within which they function."
Guerrillas, who focus essentially on wearing down enemy troops, often cannot afford a sustainable type of engagement. "They generally rely on limited resources and thus try minimising losses as much as possible. Their primary concern is to live to fight another day," says Prof Timur Göksel from the American University of Beirut and former advisor to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Regular armies are on the other hand more visible, have defined structures and lines of command as well as clear supply and recruitment approaches.
There certainly are strong similarities among non-state actors employing unconventional warfare techniques throughout the region, whether in Iraq, Lebanon or Palestine, although each has adapted its approach to its particular environment.
"All depend on strong financial and military backing from a neighboring state actor looking to increase its regional clout," says Maksad. "They all also need a relatively strong degree of popular support within their immediate environment to survive. This is usually achieved by adopting a strong nationalist or religious agenda that is difficult for more moderate forces to repudiate."
According to Göksel, the 2006 war (between Hizbullah and Israel) combined conventional and unconventional war characteristics, with Hizbullah resorting also to classical military techniques and using weapons such as anti-ship missiles.
In Gaza, Hamas has certainly been trying to apply the unconventional approach of Hizbullah. "Hamas has a less regular supply of weapons and is far less trained than the Party of God, but they benefit from the loyalty of their constituency," says Göksel.
Maksad says non-state actors are at different stages across the region, with some more violent than others in their targeting of civilians. "As they grow in political stature and popular support they generally tend to refrain from activities directly targeting civilians and easily characterised as terrorist." Maksad believes that although unconventional warfare and terrorism are often used interchangeably in reference to militant groups in the Middle East, they are not the same if unarmed civilian populations are not targeted. "In the late nineties Hizbullah refrained from activities described as terrorist, and instead focused its military campaign against Israeli soldiers in Southern Lebanon. Hamas has also recently refrained from using suicide bombings despite the recent conflict in Gaza. Both organisations, however, have repeatedly employed methods described as terrorist, and have not repudiated them." Such as the firing of rockets into civilian Israeli areas.
In conventional war, if an army's supply line is cut or its command centre destroyed, the military structure is left paralysed. "This approach was adopted in 2006 by Israel, which misjudged Hizbullah's centre of gravity and tried unsuccessfully to destroy its command centre and lines of communication," says Maksad.
All armies are by nature ill-prepared for unconventional wars. During the Israeli occupation of Lebanon (1982-2000) Hizbullah often attacked the Israeli army on Sundays when supplies were brought in and soldiers came back from leave. "Armies need to work more like an Amtrack train (known for its irregularity) and less like a Swiss train when fighting guerrillas," says Göksel. The Israeli army, he says, seems to be learning the lessons of unconventional warfare; it built a mock-up of Gaza to better prepare its soldiers.
"The human element is crucial for the survival of groups employing unconventional warfare and at times terrorist techniques," adds Maksad. Without the belief in a larger cause, a strong nationalist or religious fever driving militants to take up arms, many of these groups, which rely on indoctrination, would cease to exist.
The U.S. is now adapting to the new trend by bringing social scientists into the military. They have studied tribal and communication norms in Iraq to be able to reach out to the local society, the backbone of guerrilla movements. But as guerrilla warfare spreads with the rise of Islamic groups, will unconventional warfare become the norm?
"Given the growing asymmetry of power between Israel on one hand and conventional Arab armies on the other, some states will continue their growing reliance on violent militant groups employing unconventional warfare," says Maksad. "In addition to the military advantages of such an approach this also allows Syria, Iran and other regional state actors to act through third parties with relative impunity."
Göksel says more frequent uprisings, leading to changes of regime and the adoption of more radical ideologies, would allow new leaderships to resort solely to guerrilla warfare against Israel. "Nonetheless, there is still a long way before this scenario is implemented."
11 Comments so far
Show All'Unconventional' is one of those misleading words, one used to hide things.
Hideous weapons is far better. Weapons that plumb the depths of human depravity gets closer to the truth. Fiendish weapons used by amoral monsters, yes, not bad!
These weapons expose humans for what they are. Saddam was deposed because he used gas against the Kurds. His nation was invaded, destroyed and occupied.
So what should be the punishment for those evil people who used these weapons against Palestinians civilians and kids?
www.dangerouscreation.com
What should be the punishment be you ask? Well if you ask Prime Minister Ohlmert, he wants his darling little war criminal soldiers to have immunity from international war crimes prosecution.
"These weapons expose humans for what they are." I'd say exposed for what they can be, otherwise you're stuck back in Freudian psychology, part of the "sheeple" problem.
"Saddam was deposed because he used gas..." I'd say Saddam was deposed because he was ripe for the pickings after 10 years of sanctions following how many years of war with Iran(?).
"what should be the punishment for those evil people..." Despite the hideous qualities to crimes of murder, restorative justice over retributive is the way to go. Restorative justice still contains the aspect of quarantining dangerous agents, but doesn't usually move in the direction of dehumanization through labeling people as evil though the outcome of their actions are evil.
For some reason we're trapped in being habituated to the excitement of labeling "evil agents" without at least a counter balance of labeling pleasure states. The human structure is exquisitely designed to carry out two functions, avoid negative outcomes and extend and reach out for/in pleasure; almost all of our language is constructed around the former. An example of this is at the Dangerous Creations web site where the statements about being a haven for peace meekly follow the bold red highlighted Anti-, Anti-, Anti-, Anti-.
There is hope in the intelligence of DavidG writing, but I would couple that with the pleasure of global networked communications (which has the greatest chance of "exposing humans for what they are" in both their lighter and shadowy aspects[yes, this includes admitting to being hurt...yikes!]), then with such a preponderance of focus on the abhorrent actions humanity has taken. And of course "forcing the sheeple" to awaken to pleasure and recognize their dirty laundry will most assuredly cause a deeper coma and a greater soiling of their undergarments. So we come to the question: how to culture and nurture human recognition and insight, without scaring the flock?
You evidently can't read. This article is (mildly) critical of Hamas, not Israel.
The Jewish Military of Israel is the 4th. strongest in the World and is out to kill poorly armed peasants who are resisting illegal occupation lasting over 60 years !!!!!!
This Jewish Military has the state of the art weapons such as ariel "drones" that can kill via unseen military operators many many miles away.
The Jewish Israeli Military calls on Arab resistance fighters to come out into the open to fight and get "shot like fish in a barrel".
The Resistance Fighters instead choose to hide underground but the Jews have the American Bunker Buster Bombs which may even be nuclear to kill underground.
This all happens because the Jews refuse to return stolen Property !!!!!!
Seems that one side is a psychotic bully here !!!!
Until Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice...face criminal charges this country is without a legitimate government.
This is the same Picture that was shown on Friday with a completely different article that mentioned the names of this father 3 sons ages 14, 10 and 8 that were hugging each other and a 15 month old daughter that was breast feeding with her mother when they were melted with Phosphorous into what we see here. Is that right?
Bandleader2
What is omitted from this article: at some point Hizbollah or Hamas may become too large to hide within a population. At that point, you're back to conventional warfare.
Unconventional warfare?
How unconventional is homemade tincan rockets fired by a destitute impoverished people vs. the latest US military expermental weapons provided almost free of charge to a wealthy client state?
Walk in peace.
"Puck..Twain January 26th, 2009 5:48 pm
...
"Saddam was deposed because he used gas..." I'd say Saddam was deposed because he was ripe for the pickings after 10 years of sanctions following how many years of war with Iran(?)."
I think that more to the point is that he wouldn't let up on keeping Iraq's energy resources nationalised, instead of open to the West's profiteers, oil tycoons, .... Of course having used the preceding 10+ years to destroy Iraqi defences, destroying the Iraqi economy, etc., this made him all the "riper" for easier removal in 2003; not that it was all necessarily planned to occur with this particular timing, but the criminal bombings of Iraq and the criminal economic sanctions against the Iraqi economy certainly were meant to make Iraq much less of a power than it was before; all of this, plus the decade of UN weapons inspections to disarm Iraq of wmd sort of weapons.
He wasn't deposed due to having been "ripe for the pickings", but was "ripened" for easier removal and for the ultimate purpose of adding Iraq and its natural resources to the "full spectrum domination" plan of the rulers of the U.S. govt and who include, most certainly, the financial and big business "elites". They think they're elites, but I put the word in quotes for they're not elite at anything noteworthily good or beneficial to [anyone]; they're dumb animals, very when it comes to how real capitalism should be, for a sane, instead of brat, kind of capitalism.
He was against the privatisation plans of the "elites" of the West, who rule the more powerful govts of the West, so he had to be removed, for they want everyone's resources whenever they are profitable. Geopolitics for "full spectrum domination" with economics as a central interest or objective.
I don't like the "tone" of this article. While it is not stated explicitly in the piece, what I read in it is pro-West, -Empire, imperialism, etcetera; including pro-roguest of govts and their ruling elites. After all, there's nothing really negatively or critically said of Israel, the U.S., and so on, the real criminals and the real causes of the militancy or efforts to resist in all of this; and there's plenty of negative criticism of Hamas, Hizbollah, and other resistance groups. They may have used methods at times that should not be employed, but they're [far] less guilty of crimes than our govts are.
Far better than this piece of propaganda, brain-washing, ... sort of junk from IPS, and it's unfortunate that it produces this sort of crap at all, is the article by Scott Ritter posted here over the past few days or so. The above IPS piece may not be solely of this negative kind that I'm describing it as, but I see too much of that in the article, and I don't see any other point in it at all and disagree with news media producing this ambiguous and skewed article. There's too much in it that's against, or easily enough understood as being against anyway, the defenders, people fighting for freedom and their rights, while there's no significant criticism of the aggressors.
It's like the author's saying, without necessarily meaning to be saying, that the resistance groups that form because of state aggression and the extreme crimes this entails, as well as oppression, are to be defeated; meaning the really rogue elements in this, the states, are to win. That would be a totally bogus, imperialist, hegemonic, ... position to adopt for view.
Some readers may not perceive the article in this manner, but I believe some people would read it this way and while taking it in the sense of it being a good idea to adopt or continue to support promotion (as explicit or inferred as it may variably be present) of the aggressors, criminals, Israel, U.S., etc., while condemning the groups fighting for defence. People who would do that, adopt such wrongful support for ... wrong, that is, would be people who pretend to be right to adopt such views and we have too many war-mongering-like people as it is, and don't need to be encouraging them or any more (!).
Perhaps this could be better worded, but what I'm saying will hopefully be fully clear. Cussing would be words I'd use right now, cussing about this article, but will omit these words here at CD. F*cking damn piece of sh*t article! (say or f.e.)
Ritter's article is http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/24-0 . He has the right perspective and Mona Alami (and others) would do well to learn from it.
The writer didn't make any grammatical or spelling mistakes, though; therefore, I guess the person can get a point for this.