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?

1. 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.
2. Continue to use the remarkable intelligence to blunt Hezbollah rocket and Radwan attacks.
3. 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.
4. Create organizational chaos through AI. Surely, we are hooked into their fixed-line communications. Deliver trick orders, reroute funds, gather intel through fake conversations.
5. 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.