By Uri Avnery, 16.12.05
WHEN THE Israeli government decided, in the space of a few hours, to start the
Second Lebanon War, it did not have any plan.
When the Chief-of-Staff
urged the cabinet to start the war, he did not submit any plan.
This was disclosed this
week by a military investigation committee.
That is shocking.
A plan is not an
optional extra, something nice you can do without. A war without a plan is like
a human body without a spinal column. Would anyone think of building a house
without a plan? To put up a bridge? To produce a car? To hold a conference?
After all, unlike a house, a bridge, a car or a conference, a war is supposed
to kill people. Its very essence is killing and destroying.
Almost in every case, to
initiate a war is a crime. To start such a war without a plan and proper
preparation is totally irresponsible - heaping crime upon crime.
WHEN A STATE starts a
war, the sequence is - in simplistic terms - as follows:
(1) The government
adopts a clear political aim.
(2) The government
deliberates whether this aim can be achieved by war - after it comes to the
conclusion that it cannot be achieved by other means.
From this point on, the
emphasis moves from the political to the military leadership. Its duty is:
(3) To draw up a
strategic plan for attaining the aim decided upon by the government.
(4) To translate the
strategic plan into a tactical plan. Among others: to decide what forces are
needed, which forces will be employed, what is the target of each force and
within which time it must achieve it, as well as to foresee possible moves by
the other side.
(5) To prepare the
forces for their tasks, in accordance with their training and equipment.
A wise government will also think about the situation
it would like to have after the war, and will instruct the military to take
this into consideration while planning their operations.
Now it appears that
nothing of this sort happened. There was no clearly defined war aim, there was
no political or military plan, there were no clear objectives for the troops
and they were not prepared for the tasks they were given. Without a central
plan, nothing of these was even possible.
A war without a plan is
no war at all, but an adventure. A government that starts a war without a plan
is no government at all, but a bunch of politicians. A General Staff that goes
to war without a plan is no General Staff at all, but a group of generals.
THE WAY events
developed, according to the inquiry committees, was like this: the government
decided on the war in a hurry, within a few hours, without defining any aim.
In the following days,
several war aims were thrown around. They followed each other in quick
succession and contradicted each other in many ways. That by itself is a recipe
for disaster: every aim demands its own methods and means, which may be quite
different from those demanded by another.
Among the aims that were
announced: the release of the two captured soldiers, the destruction of
Hizbullah, the elimination of the arsenal of missiles in South Lebanon, the
pushing of Hizbullah away from the border, and more. Beyond that there was a
general desire to have a Lebanese government that was completely subservient to
American and Israeli interests.
If competent army
officers had been instructed to draw up a plan for each of these aims, they
would soon have arrived at the conclusion that all of them were unattainable by
military means, certainly not under the circumstances.
The idea that the two
prisoners could be liberated by war is manifestly ridiculous. Like going after
a mosquito with a sledgehammer. The proper means is diplomacy. Perhaps somebody
would have suggested capturing some Hizbullah commanders in order to facilitate
an exchange of prisoners. Anything - except a war.
The destruction of
Hizbullah by a necessarily limited war was impossible, as should have been
clear from the beginning. This is a guerilla force that is part of a political
movement which is deeply rooted in Lebanese reality (as can be seen these days
on any television screen). No guerilla movement can be destroyed by a regular
army, and certainly not in one single stroke and within days or weeks.
The elimination of the
missile arsenal? If the army command had sat down to elaborate a military plan,
they would have realized that aerial bombardment can achieve this only in part.
A complete destruction would have demanded the occupation of all of South
Lebanon, well beyond the Litani River. During that time, a large part of Israel
would have been exposed to the missiles, without the population being prepared
for it. If that conclusion had been presented to the government, would it have
taken the decision it took?
The pushing of Hizbullah
from the border by a few kilometers north is not a proper war aim. Starting a
war for that purpose, leading to the killing of masses of people and destroying
whole neighborhoods and villages, would have meant frivolity where serious
deliberation was required .
But the government did
not have to go into such deliberations. Since It did not define any clear aim,
it did not demand nor receive any military plan.
IF THE recklessness of
the political leadership was scandalous, the recklessness of the military
leadership was doubly so.
The army command went to
war without any clearly defined aim and without any plan. There were some plans
that had been prepared and exercised beforehand, without any specific political
aim in mind, but they were ignored and abandoned as the war started. After all,
who needs a plan? Since when do Israelis plan? Israelis improvise, and are
proud of it.
So they improvised. The
Chief-of-Staff, an Air Force general, decided that it was sufficient to bomb:
if enough civilians were killed and enough houses, roads and bridges destroyed,
the Lebanese people would go down on its knees and do whatever the Israeli
government commanded.
When this failed (as
should have been foreseen) and most Lebanese of all communities rallied behind
Hizbullah, The C-o-C realized that there was no avoiding ground operations.
Since there was no plan, he did without. Troops were sent into Lebanon in a
haphazard way, without clear objectives, without time-tables. The same
locations were occupied time and again. The end result: the forces bit off
small pieces of land on the edges of Hizbullah territory, without any real
achievement, but with heavy losses.
It cannot be said that
the war aims were not attained. Simply, there was no war aim.
THE WORST part was not
the lack of a plan. The worst part was that the generals did not even notice
its absence.
The investigators of the
State Comptroller disclosed last week a startling fact of utmost importance:
most members of the General Staff have never attended any of the high command
courses which are the Israeli equivalent of a military academy.
This means that they
never learned military history and the principles of strategy. They are
military technicians, equivalent to engineering technicians or bookkeepers. I
assume that they are well versed in the technical side of the profession: how
to move forces, how to activate weapon systems, and such. But they have not
read books about military theory and the art of war, have not studied how the
leaders of armies conducted their wars throughout the centuries, have not become
acquainted with the thoughts of the great military thinkers.
A military leader needs
intuition. Certainly. But intuition grows from by experience - his own
experience, the experience of his army and the accumulated experience of
centuries of warfare.
For example: if they had
read the books of Basil Liddell Hart, perhaps the most authoritative military
commentator of the last century, they would have learned that the battle of
David and Goliath was not a confrontation between a boy with a primitive sling
and a heavily armed and protected giant, as it is usually presented, but quite
on the contrary, a battle between a sophisticated fighter with a modern weapon
that could kill from a distance and a cumbersome combatant equipped with
obsolescent arms.
In the Lebanon war, the
role of David was played by Hizbullah, a mobile and resourceful force, while
the Israeli army was Goliath, heavy, routine-bound, with inappropriate weapons.
ANYBODY WHO reads this column regularly knows that we blew the whistle well before the war. But our criticism then was suspect because of our opposition to the war itself, which we considered immoral, superfluous and senseless.
Now we have several
military inquiry committees, appointed by the chief-of-Staff himself (about 40 of
them!), and they, one after another, confirm our criticism almost word for
word. Not only confirm, but add a wealth of details that paint an even darker
picture.
It is a picture of utter
confusion: improvised operations, an anarchic command structure, misunderstanding
of orders, orders that were issued, cancelled and issued again, General Staff
officers giving orders directly to subordinate commanders bypassing the chain
of command.
An army that was once
one of the best in the world, an object of study for officers in many
countries, has become an inefficient and incompetent body.
The committees do not
answer a basic question: how did this happen?
EXCEPT FOR a few hints
here and there, the committees do not say how we got here. What has happened to
the Israeli army?
This, too, we have said
many times: the army is the victim of the occupation.
Next June, the
occupation of the Palestinian territories will "celebrate" its 40th
anniversary. There is no precedent for such a long military occupation regime.
A military occupation is by its very nature a short-term instrument. In the
course of a war, the army conquers enemy territory, administers it until the
end of the war, when its fate is decided by a peace agreement.
No army is happy with
the role of an occupying force, knowing that this destroys it, corrupts it from
inside, damages it physically and mentally, diverts it from its most important
function and imposes on it methods that
have nothing to do with its real mission - to defend the state in war.
With us, the occupation
became, almost from the beginning, a political instrument for the attainment of
objectives that are foreign to the function of "Defense Forces". In
theory, it is a military regime, but in practice it is a colonial subjugation,
in which the Israeli army mainly fulfills the shameful task of an oppressive
police force.
In today's army, there
is no officer on active service who remembers the Israel Defense Forces from
before the occupation, the army that grew up in the "small" Israel
within the Green Line, that defeated five Arab armies in six days, commanded by
the brilliant General Staff under Yitzhak Rabin. All the commanders of the
Second Lebanon War started their career when it was already an occupation army.
The last military success of the Israeli army was achieved early in the
occupation period, a generation ago, in the Yom Kippur war,
An army whose job is to
uphold the occupation - "targeted killings" (approved this week by
the Supreme Court in a shameful decision), demolition of homes, mistreating
helpless civilians, hunting stone-throwing children, humiliating people at
innumerable roadblocks and the hundred and one other daily doings of an
occupation army - has shown that it is not fitted for real war, even against a
small guerilla force.
THE CORRUPTION of the
Israeli army and the rot that has set in, exposed in all their ugliness by the
investigations of the war, are a danger for the State of Israel.
It is not enough to
remove the Chief-of-Staff (whose clinging to his post is another scandal added
to the scandals of the war), nor is it enough to change the whole high command.
There is a need for reform from the top to the bottom, a change of the army in
all sectors and all grades. But as long as the occupation lasts, there is no
point in even starting.
We have always said: the occupation corrupts. Now it has to be said with a clear voice: the occupation is endangering the security of Israel.