Opinion | Israel, Lebanon and the historical cycle of miscalculation

By Tom Fowdy

Throughout history, there has been one recurring theme: That wars and invasions are frequently started on the basis of miscalculations. The story is always the same, the attacker believes that they have assembled a "master plan" which if executed correctly, will pre-emptively and decisively cripple the enemy in a knockout blow, handing them a swift and relatively bloodless victory avoiding a long and destructive war. Thus, we see drastic examples of this through Hitler's plan to conquer the USSR in 1941, Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran, or even Putin's belief he could rapidly topple the Ukrainian state in 2022.

Each time, this mindset of the "master plan" can only be attributable to a man's ego, or the belief he has no other options left, and so much confidence is placed in the idea and the outcomes they believe they can achieve that they tend to fatally underestimate the resolve of their opponents and thus the broader consequences of their actions, leading to catastrophic, long and bloody wars that they ultimately lose control of, more often than not ending in defeat.

This historical cycle is happening again in Lebanon: Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu erroneously miscalculated that he could pre-emptively wipe out of the leadership of Hezbollah through a series of covert actions and decapitation strikes, and that by doing so he could subsequently launch a ground invasion into the country and sweep aside what he assumed would be a leaderless, disorientated, and broken militia in a state of chaos with no organized resistance. This would, as he thought, allow for the destruction of Hezbollah and its "infrastructure" for once and for all. These assumptions have in fact aged poorly, as the IDF has found that it is meeting heavy resistance and has suffered losses, with Hezbollah also successfully drone striking a base on October 13th.

Why is it a miscalculation? First, history again shows even the most formidable powers have struggled in wars against highly motivated militia or guerilla forces, even when they had the privilege of occupying the country in question. As the experience of the United States in Vietnam and Afghanistan has shown, carpet bombing the enemy may produce mass civilian casualties but it seldom wipes out their opponents, who are often organized asymmetrically and disparately than in tangible lines or columns. This is not about bombing tanks or trucks. Secondly, such wars are not truly about zero-sum control of territory. When you are an insurgent force, your primary goal is to defeat your enemy through a prolonged war of attrition and your mode of organization gives you the ability to move fluidly operate inside their territory and strike covertly.

Thus, even if the IDF occupy southern Lebanon, the war doesn't "end" and Hezbollah "aren't defeated" but rather they become locked into a quagmire. Hezbollah after all, are not a "sovereign state" opponent, they are a sub-state militia and political actor within Lebanon and their organization is scattered throughout the country. While Netanyahu and IDF have vowed to "destroy their infrastructure" and "clear the border area", this is a nonsensical objective because the span of the war they have opened up, and what they would need to do, far exceeds their claims of their "limited objectives." This already evident through the mass bombing of Beirut, the mounting civilian casualties and United Nations peacekeeper being attacked in collateral damage.

Thus, rather than a limited border war as was misleadingly marketed to the western mainstream media, Netanyahu has already fell into the trap of a huge cat and mouse or a "whack-a-mole" game which is hugely costly and simply unsustainable. Likewise, the resolve of Hezbollah is also fatally underestimated. Insurgent forces always have a completely different mindset to the armies of sovereign states in that they are motivated by ideology and a desire to defend their homeland or people to a far greater degree, making them undeterred by a risk of death. Again, Afghanistan and Vietnam are critical historical examples of this. A state entity may forcibly conscript young men, but insurgent forces are often voluntary by extreme motivation.

Hence, even one year on, the IDF has not even been able to destroy Hamas within the tiny confines of the Gaza Strip, even with its borders blockaded. Did the destruction of every building in sight end the conflict in Netanyahu's favor? Or decapitating elements of their leadership? When this is viewed in context, what chance do they have in the much larger and mountainous expanse of Lebanon? In which case, we can only conclude that Benjamin Netanyahu has gravely miscalculated in invading this country.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:

Opinion | Historical Revisionism with a Taiwan Recipe

Opinion | Great power competition, multipolarity and war

Opinion | Israel has launched an invasion of Lebanon

Opinion | American Opportunism in the name of 'National Security' strikes again