The 2006 Lebanon War: Lessons Learned

Abstract

To critics of airpower, Israel's 2006 with Hizballah exposed the fallacy that targeting centers of gravity, such as population, command and control, and infrastructure could coerce the adversary into surrendering, and that airpower could obviate the need for land forces and independently win wars. Given Israel's unexpected challenges in waging the Lebanon war, airpower and then Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, seen as the overzealous proponent of airpower, became easy targets in after-action reports, criticism that ultimately led to Halutz's resignation and replacement by Gaby Ashkenazi, a former infantry commander. (1) But does the Lebanon warrant a swing of the strategic pendulum back towards favoring ground forces? What contributed to Israel's unprecedented military challenges in confronting Hizballah? What are the appropriate strategic lessons to glean from the summer 2006 in Lebanon? In examining the Lebanon campaign, this article highlights three weaknesses in the Israeli strategy. First, the Israeli leadership's faith in airpower as an antiseptic, low-casualty answer for modern warfare clouded the possibility of other strategies that may have been more effective in achieving its objectives. Second, the leadership suffered from the classic fighting the last war mentality, internalizing the lessons from a military campaign-namely Kosovo--in which airpower was successful and applying it to an incongruous environment. Third, airpower was ultimately counterproductive against an asymmetric adversary such as Hizballah. By launching mobile katyusha rockets from holy sites and schools, Hizballah virtually ensured that Israel would inflict civilian casualties; through its strategic use of the media, Hizballah used the collateral damage to intensify support for its ideology and recruitment. In this asymmetric environment, airpower and perhaps military force more generally may be limited in their effectiveness. As this article suggests, only a comprehensive strategy that integrates airpower and military force into a broader political strategy will ultimately bring this type of adversary to its knees. The Airpower Debate Proponents and opponents of airpower have debated its use for almost 100 years, taking on both the general utility and applications of airpower compared to ground forces. Soon after the advent of aircraft, and with World War I stagnating in the trenches, General Giulio Douhet of the Italian General Staff saw airpower as the way out of the standstill. He envisioned the use of bombers to render the enemy useless by destroying their cities, population, and will to fight; command of the air, Douhet promised, would translate into victory. (2) His contemporary, Brigadier General William (Billy) Mitchell, responsible for US air units in France during WWI, shared Douhet's view though he applied it more judiciously, arguing that if airpower successfully targeted transportation and industry, it could defeat the adversary. Mitchell, like Douhet, tirelessly promoted the view that airpower should transform what he saw as the atavistic reliance on land and sea forces. Both men found their views heavily challenged by senior leaders, and Billy Mitchell's efforts to prove the value of airpower by sinking German battleships during peacetime (the 1920s) ended with his court-martial and resignation from the military. The Cold War's airpower advocates, including Curtis LeMay, chief of Strategic Air Command--responsible for the US bomber and missile-based nuclear arsenal--further cemented the reputation that the use of airpower meant strategic bombers to the exclusion of tactical air and ground support operations, let alone other instruments of power, whether military or diplomatic. Colonel John Warden (USAF Retired) more elegantly conceptualized the logic behind airpower and strategic bombing by defining the adversary's centers of gravity and explaining how airpower would cause physical paralysis and eventually lead to the enemy's resignation. …