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What Does War with Hezbollah Look Like?
The question on everybody’s mind in Israel is: how far do we have to go to make the north of the country safe again? In 1982, the answer was Beirut. A week ago, the answer was perhaps Tyre. But today? Today, the answer might be something entirely new. Israel might be able to neuter Hezbollah without a ground invasion.
Hezbollah’s two main threats are rockets (150,000 at the beginning of the war) and infiltrators (5-10,000 in the Radwan force). There is a long history of infiltration from Lebanon. In 1974’s Ma’alot tragedy, 22 children and 12 others were slaughtered by infiltrators from Lebanon. The north of the country remains keenly aware of the threats faced by one terror group after another on their northern border. In a way, Hezbollah has simplified the equation. It is Hezbollah that controls Lebanon — and they are effectively the only armed group north of the border. Unlike many terrorist organizations, Hezbollah is a highly professional force with extremely skilled and experienced fighters. They most recently demonstrated their capabilities by successfully defending the Assad regime in Syria. They are legitimately feared.
Hezbollah’s long-demonstrated organizational capabilities mean they run a disciplined force capable of complex operations. However, it also creates a weakness. They have a clear command and control structure, one whose leaders have been in place for decades. In years past, Israel killed Nasrallah’s predecessor — a mistake in retrospect. Here, as in Gaza, Israel has been far more focused on mid-level and senior commanders, but not the top. The goal is to undermine the talented administrators who make these organizations actually function.
In Gaza, Israel has killed at least 30 Hamas fighters for each Israeli death. This is despite the tunnel infrastructure. Current ratios are probably far higher. They began the war by very aggressively targeting mid-level commanders and hollowing out the layers between the top and bottom. One of the side effects of doing this is that it creates tremendous opportunities for intelligence operations. Imagine using AI to conduct a deepfake conversation between a now-dead commander (whose recordings Israel had been gathering) and either his reports or those higher up the chain. The result is increasing distrust and chaos. The same dynamic is clear in Lebanon. Israel knows far more than it should, and Hezbollah fighters up and down the ranks must be wondering who (and what) they should trust.
The “what” is what was demonstrated in shocking fashion last week — but it must run deeper. Remember, organizations like the IRGC and Hezbollah must source materials from outside their world. Iran needs F4 parts. They are hard to procure. If you find middlemen who can score you the good stuff, they can become your suppliers for a wide range of parts and materials. Now, you can’t trust any of them. The US just arrested an Israeli in Miami for selling parts to Russia. Was he a scumbag making a quick buck supplying our mutual enemies, or was he building a fake supply chain that would ultimately undermine those same enemies? Everybody buying shady parts and materials must be asking the exact same question. And none of them know.
This sort of distrust can tremendously weaken the organization. How does Israel know where the launchers are? How does it know when they are timed to go off? However, this sort of distrust won’t neuter the organization. Neutering it requires removing its men and material from the conflict. One way of doing that is denying those men sufficient material to be a significant threat.
Because of Lebanon’s tremendous self-inflicted financial crisis, Hezbollah’s fighters are entirely dependent on Iran for food. If you watched the pager-bombing of the man in the vegetable area of his grocery store you may notice two key things. First, nobody helped him. Second, a stack of cash fell out of his bag. He was literally a bagman. Hezbollah has storehouses of food (for now). Without food, they will cease to be an effective fighting force. Given the massive financial problems in Lebanon, the local population won’t take being taxed to support Hezbollah’s war. You could see it in the shoppers’ responses.
Killing top commanders fundamentally messes with the money supply. Iran can’t just pour money into the country and hope to get a result. They have, over decades, created a chain of accountability that means the funds go where they are meant to, and deliver the expected results. Without the accountants and intermediaries who manage all of this, the cash flows become not only harder to deliver, but far less effective. Hezbollah’s annual budget is around a billion dollars. Imagine handing a guy who was a junior operator in your client organization until yesterday 85 million a month and telling him to distribute it to his 100,000 fighters. How effective is he actually going to be in delivering results? The answer — even if he really wants to do a good job — is not very. A second-tier operator could have pulled it off, he would have been groomed for a top job. Many of those secondary commanders are no longer with us.
This isn’t helped by intelligence failures blunting the pointy end of that $85 million.
In the very near term, a lack of invasion means a lack of safety for those in the north. We currently have warnings in place down to Haifa telling people to be near shelter. There is no lack of food or munitions, and even if Nasrallah has to go on TV to give orders, he can. (Of course, an Israeli ‘Nasrallah’ could go on the radio and give other orders to really mess things up.) A major strike can come now. But with an organization of this size, which has maintained steady management for that many years, replacement of the top two tiers, and many further down, it isn’t going to be simple. With enough spanners in the works, Hezbollah might actually devolve in this critical time.
And with just enough weakness, other forces in Lebanon — Sunni, Christian, Druze, even Shia and Alevi — might decide they’ve had enough and finish the job for us.
So, what would I do, given all that is new?
One approach is the classic one: recreate January 2000 with an occupation of South Lebanon that costs a few soldiers a week in a war of attrition. Nobody wants that — not the Lebanese and not the Israelis. But it was, until recently probably the only way to secure the north.
The other, newer approach is to try dismantling Hezbollah mostly from afar. How?
- Make the cash and paymasters the next target. Videos and records generated by the pager attacks will help tremendously with that. We are surveilling the heck out of that country, we can probably retrace even the steps of the guy in the supermarket.
- Continue to use the remarkable intelligence to blunt Hezbollah rocket and Radwan attacks.
- Make peaceful noises to all non-Hezbollah forces in the country. Offer to hook up electricity and water and offer use of Haifa port, so long as Hezbollah is taken off the board. Nobody can officially respond positively to such noises (they would face jail terms or worse), but it can dig at them.
- Create organizational chaos through AI. Surely, we are hooked into their fixed-line communications. Deliver trick orders, reroute funds, gather intel through fake conversations.
- Launch targeted cross-border raids for intelligence or other purposes. Mesh arrays of drones in tunnels have proved to be a very effective tool, but you have to be on the ground to use them. It is possible these assaults might occur entirely under the surface.
I still think Netanyahu is the wrong man for the job. His domestic and international currency is just too weak. But the plan being implemented might just be the right one after all.
What do you think?
p.s. I would love to destroy Terminal H (Hezbollah) at the Beirut Airport, but the collateral damage would be far too large.
Published in Foreign Policy
I am not a military strategist. Plus, I know nothing about Hezbollah and its methods. So, I’m not offering advice on that front. But, in general, I would urge that Israel remain unified. Now is not the time to nitpick Netanyahu based on less relevant issues than the current war. He has made numerous speeches to the entirety of the US Congress. I don’t know another foreign leader that can say that. Furthermore, those speeches have been iconic. I believe Israel needs him now as much as they ever have.
I am not a military strategist either – but this has entered a whole new world because the very concept of combat has changed. On the political side, Israel isn’t united. And a lot of it personal. Netanyahu, personally, is seen as fundamentally evil because… no hostage deal, Oct 7, judicial reform etc… etc… He has certainly gone the extra mile to stay in power and has been quite divisive.
I prefer Bennett. Also very articulate. Also crazy smart. But he actually governed with a very broad coalition of Israelis, which we need now.
I should have added that I know nothing about Israeli politics either.
And while I know nothing about Israeli politics, I believe no crazy smart, aggressive in defense of Israel and its borders leader will be accepted by anyone outside Israel. The Hamas/Hezbollah lobby in the West has been very effective in normalizing antisemitism, and it’s not just about Netanyahu.
True. Switching leaders and keeping policies (or getting more aggressive) would just result in an extension of ‘all Jews are fundamentally evil.’ I get that and I agree.
Internally, though, it is a somewhat different story.
I think I understand. And Israel must drive its own path and make its own decisions and reject the judgments of non-ally, non-Israelis about how it should defend its borders and citizens.
Operation Phoenix
Heh heh. Neuter.
How things change. An “AA battery” used to be a different weapon entirely. Fitting that most devices use two of them.
You mentioned Hezbollah controlling Lebanon.
Did you mean all of it? The northern coast and Mt. Lebanon, all of the south (including Shia areas previously controlled by the Lebanese Army and police), East Beirut, West Beirut?
Is the Lebanese Army gone, and the Christian, Druze, and Sunni militias?
They control it all politically. Their militias are not in all areas, although I have heard reports of installations in southern Druze and Christian towns. None of the other militias have the wherewithal to challenge them… at this point. The army, which has been kept weak, certainly doesn’t.
Great post and thread. Thank you, Joseph.
Wonder what the Iranian regime is using the pallets of cash for?
Great post!
I am a keen believer in creative warfare – Israel used an army in Gaza, and I am on record that a proper medieval siege would have been far more effective with far fewer casualties among innocents.
In Iran, the same is true: Israel should be using balloons to drop small arms across population centers.
In Lebanon, I think the post is right. Sow mistrust and create paralysis in every way possible. Exploit the differences between Hezbollah and others. Heck, consider helping Christians and Druze and others to throw off Hezbollah’s yoke. I would keep assassinating all H leaders, including Nasrallah. If nobody officially and openly speaks for the organization, it loses power.
I like the idea of rapid-deployment small drones, releasable by longer-loiter bigger drones or balloons. Gives you the ability to cheaply and quickly take out any H who sticks their heads up. Especially at or near launch sites.
Eliminate the NCO level of leadership. Work your way up the chain.
If you don’t have the NCO level to lead you to the next level up, how do you find it? Or are there other means of finding them?
My understanding of the history is that Israel did not invade Lebanon in 1982 in order to “make the country safe.” As I understand it, Israel’s pretext to invade Lebanon was to attack the PLO, in purported retaliation for an assassination attempt on Israel’s ambassador to Britain, which was apparently not carried out by the PLO but by different Palestinian organization, led by Abu Nidal, that was hostile to the PLO.
Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was a failure, again as I understand it. There was a notable slaughter, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Lebanese Christian forces supported by the IDF, killing many civilians, apparently more than last year’s October 7 attack, with estimates ranging from 1,300 to 3,500.
The invasion destabilized Lebanon for a very long time. It led to the death of about 240 Americans the following year in the Beirut marine barracks bombing.
Interestingly, it appears that Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon caused the creation Hezbollah.
This is typical of Israel, in my view. Israeli aggression, violence, and conquest — including some terrorism — leads to the creation of new enemies that hate Israel, for good reason. It is a failed strategy.
Doubling down seems likely to make things even worse.
I read a lot of history books that have footnotes or endnotes to provide information about information sources. In modern academic histories, there can be an endnote for at least every paragraph, and sometimes for the sentences within paragraphs. Sometimes I read books mostly to read the endnotes, because I expect the main text to be superficial stuff of no particular use to me, or written by a young academic who is wet behind the ears and with no understanding of humans and their behavior, but the endnotes might point me to information I don’t yet have.
There is no need for Ricochet to be that way, of course, but as I was reading Jerry’s post it occurred to me that I’ve never seen the phrase “as I understand it” in an endnote or footnote.
Thus ends my digression.
The Lebanese Civil War started in 1975. The 1982 invasion did not destabilize the country, it was already unstable.
Here are the terrorist attacks conducted by Palestinian terrorists based in Lebanon prior to 1982.
May 22, 1970 – Avivim, Israel
Terrorists attack schoolbus, killing 12 (9 of whom were children), and wounding 24.
Apr 11, 1974 – Kiryat Shemona, Israel | 18 killed, 8 of whom were children, by PFLP terrorists who detonated their explosives during a failed rescue attempt by Israeli authorities.
May 15, 1974 – Maalot, Israel
27 killed, 21 of whom were children, and 78 wounded by PFLP terrorists in a school, after an unsuccessful rescue attempt.
Mar 11, 1978 – Glilot junction
36 killed, and over 100 injured, in a bus hijacking by a female-led Palestinian terrorist gang. (attackers were based in Lebanon)
Apr 7, 1980 – Kibbutz Misgav-Am, Israel | Terrorists attack children’s house on the kibbutz, leaving 3 dead, one of whom was a child.
The 1982 war was clearly a failure. That said, there was only one more notable attack prior to Oslo ten years later:
Nov 25, 1987 – Northern Border, Israel (near Kiryat Shemona)
2 Palestinian terrorists cross into Israel from Lebanon on hang gliders, killing 6 Israeli soldiers and wounding 8.
As terrible as this reality is: violence worked.
The alternative is to ignore terrorist attacks – when the organizations behind them have clearly stated their desire to erase Israel and their Arab compatriots have driven their entire Jewish populations out. Those terrorist organizations then grow stronger and stronger and more and more bold because they aren’t being shut down. We tried this strategy in Gaza – withdrawing in 2005 and facing rocket fire that same day that we ignored. It didn’t work out well. We tried it in Lebanon, withdrawing in 2000 with no promises and then again in 2006 with the promise that Hezbollah would be held north of the border. It didn’t happen. Unilateral peace offerings are clearly not a great strategy in this neighborhood – despite our deep desire for it to be so.
Israel isn’t going to go to war with Jordan, despite the occasional attack. We aren’t going to go to war with Egypt, despite their tacit enablement of Hamas. We aren’t even going to war with the Palestinian Authority, despite them paying terrorists who kill Jews lifetime pensions.
We don’t want war. We sure as heck don’t want Lebanon or Gaza. They are disaster zones. We don’t want to govern the Palestinian areas of the West Bank, but we need those hilltops to stop the people there from raining rockets down on us.
There is no great solution. We’re a tiny country, smaller than New Jersey. When we had a 9 mile distance from border to shore (up until 1967) we faced brutal wars of elimination. So we needed more strategic depth than that and thank G-d we got it. Even so, we don’t have the strategic depth to just ignore terrorist raids or massive missile formations just north of our border meant to hold us in check until Iran gets the Bomb and completes its plan to eliminate the State of Israel.
That all said – as is clear from the North Gaza plan – I personally don’t want war and I don’t want Palestinians locked in a permanent, devastating and tragic conflict with us. I want a plan to get us past war and to get Palestinians full rights within their own political system.
To start that process, the terrorist government and army of Hamas has to wiped off the face of the earth. And the terrorist army of Hezbollah has to be pushed back to the point where their rockets don’t pose a major threat against Israel and Israel itself can have the ability to deal with the existential threat of the Ayatollahs if we need to.
Sorry, we aren’t going to just roll over and die by ignoring our enemies and their desire to erase us.
Joseph,
Thanks for an eloquent rebuttal to Jerry’s attack and his version of history.
Oh, is that what that guy said? I do not read anything he writes anymore.