The current Israeli-Hamas
conflict has perfectly illustrated one of ComNavOps’ themes: a war with less than total victory is a war
that will be repeated. I covered this in
detail in a previous post, “Ending War – True Victory”. Read it.
For decades, Israel attempted
to wage constrained, proportional, partial wars with Hamas and, as a result,
kept having to refight the war, over and over, with the ultimate result that we
see today. Worse, each clash with Hamas,
though technically victories for Israel, taught Hamas valuable lessons and
allowed Hamas to come back stronger, wiser, more determined, and more
experienced. In other words, Israel kept
strengthening their enemy through repeated conflicts that left their enemy
intact and with lessons learned.
Had Israel reacted initially,
the way they are now, none of the subsequent endless conflict and deaths would
have occurred.
The lesson is simple and
obvious: if you fight a war, fight it to
win, totally and completely, so that you don’t have to fight it again.
It will be interesting to see
whether Israel has finally learned the lesson and truly finishes this conflict
or stops with some sort of partial victory (as the US did in Desert Storm)
thereby guaranteeing that the war will be fought again and yet more people will
die.
Also, if Israel doesn’t
finish off Hezbollah when they’re done with Hamas, they’ll have to face yet
another war in the future after more years of conflict and deaths. Again, this is not a judgment on the politics
of the situation, just a recognition of the military realities.
This conflict and the lesson
from it should serve to influence and guide US geopolitical and military
strategies.
Note: This is,
emphatically, not a pronouncement about the politics of the situation. It is purely about the military aspect of
total versus partial victories and what the negative implication of partial
victory is. I will not tolerate any
political comments, whatsoever. We’re not
going to debate who’s right or wrong.
Fair warning.
True observation but only if you forget that war is a continuation of politics by other means. War is only one, and the most brutal and wasteful, way to solve a political problem. If the political solution is to subjugate (France to Germany after WWI) then there will be another war. If the political solution is to exist separately (US and Great Britan after 1783) then an eventual powerful alliance is possible.
ReplyDelete( US and Great Britan after 1783)
You might recall that the US and Britain DID refight their revolutionary war. Neither side achieved total victory and they refought in the War of 1812. Nevertheless, the US and Britain are a unique case in that there was no underlying animosity, just a difference in policies. Most (all?) wars have a deep-seated, underlying hatred which leads to eventually refighting the war if there is no total victor.
DeleteOff hand, I can't think of an example of a war where there was no total victor and was not refought. There probably is an example somewhere in history but the fact is that the overwhelming number of examples follow the premise and an occasional exception does not invalidate that premise.
Possibly Korea? Stalemate to this day in a way.
DeleteWell, there was no victor in the Korean war and the war is essentially being refought every day with both sides maintaining massed militaries at the border, constant skirmishes, a sunken SKorean ship, sunken NKorean mini-subs, ballistic missile 'test' launches, regular invasion defense drills in Seoul, etc. The US maintains some 30,000 troops and lots of aircraft in Korea. You can debate whether that's war but it's certainly not peace.
DeleteAs stated in the premise, the non-victory left both sides engaged in a continual quasi-war, teetering on the verge of active war because the US and SKorea refused to finish the original war.
True, but that's almost cold-war-esque, as some of these types of engagements happened between us and the USSR.
DeleteComment deleted. I said in the post we weren't going to discuss politics.
ReplyDeleteNever fight a war that you don't intend to win.
ReplyDeleteWinning is not enough. You must win totally, leaving nothing for your enemy to rebuild with. Israel won every go-around with Hamas and still kept having to refight the conflict because they refused to win totally. The US won Desert Storm and then had to refight Iraq because they refused to finish the war and kill Sadaam Hussein. And so on.
DeleteWinning means winning totally. Anything else or less is not winning.
DeleteYou kill everybody that needs killing, you break everything that needs breaking, and you make sure that the people you don't kill understand that if they don't behave you will be back to kill them.
DeleteIt's a lesson learned and forgotten after countless wars. Unfortunately our politicians are continuously forgetful, ignorant, and don't have the will to fight a war how Clausewitz theorized it.
ReplyDeleteI know it goes against the world's mentality today about fighting 'clean' wars, avoiding civi casualties, etc, but frankly, fighting like we did in WWII would not only deliver the desired victory, but it could actually deter others from putting themselves in our sights. Vietnam was a "loss" because the military was hamstrung, and we've been doing the same thing ever since. I suggested elsewhere that not only shouldnt we be pressuring Israel to play nice, but encourage them to completely root out Hamas and destroy it. No matter what it takes. At the same time, we should spend an afternoon eliminating the Houthi threat. Then, turn our focus to Iran, whos been funding, arming, and egging on everything that going on in the region. Destroy their navy, shipyards, air force, any weapon manufacturing plants, and the nuclear sites as well. Leave them with the militant capability of a medium sized Boy Scout Troop. Then, destroy any oil shipping, production, or processing facilities. We then close the strait to any Iranian exports until we decide otherwise, and hopefully the people decide theyre tired of the mess the mullahs put them in.
ReplyDeleteAnything less than crushing an enemy is a waste of effort and lived. Youll hafta forgive me, but "Make America Scary Again" isnt a bad goal...
Vietnam is generally perceived as a loss. However, the ARVN did quite well after the US withdrew all combat troops in 1973. It was only after Nixon was forced out and the Democrat Congress cut off all military supplies in 1975 that the RVN fell.
DeleteYou are making a purely military judgement and toy are dealing with Hamas as purely a military organization.
ReplyDeleteHamas is:
- a military organization
- a political and administrative organization
- a political and Islamic movement.
A large part of its military strength and personnel can most definitely be destroyed in a determined (and long-term) military operation. It is almost impossible to use military means to destroy it as a political and Islamic movement/entity.
Germany and Japan were not just defeated militarily during WWII. They were completely transformed culturally, politically and socially in the deepest way possible using a multi-year policy.
How do you envision that second part taking place in the case of Gaza?
"You are making a purely military judgement"
DeleteAs explicitly stated in the post.
"You are making a purely military judgement"
That's what total victory is! That's the premise of these posts!
"How do you envision that second part taking place in the case of Gaza?"
Using the examples of Germany and Japan, how would you go about forever eliminating the Hamas threat so that Israel never has to re-fight the war?
For Israel to definitely eliminate the threat of Hamas, it would mean not leaving much of Gaza standing, or breathing.
ReplyDeleteAnd regardless of whether they'd be willing to go to such lengths, it would simply move the conflict between moslems and jews to a different area since the "other neighbours" would react violently.
" it would mean not leaving much of Gaza standing"
DeleteNo. Use the example of post-WWII Germany and Japan. We didn't kill every last person in those countries. Instead, what did we do? How can Israel apply those methods to Gaza?
This is a very easy solution.
1. Apply martial law and mass re-education of the populace as the allies did to Germany. Anyone who seems to be a threat gets detained indefinitely.
Delete2. Take a page from El Salvador which recently jailed ~70,000 gang members.
3. Treat them humanely as POWs, but only release those determined most likely to be sincerely unlikely to take up arms against Israel again, slowly, and in controllable numbers.
4. Require strict censorship of schools and religious gatherings and don't tolerate the "kill the Jews" stuff that's been accepted up to this point.
5. If 2-4 mean that most of a generation of Palestinians live as POWs, then they live as POWs
"martial law"
DeleteThat's the beginning but you've left out the long term actions which ultimately made Germany and Japan peaceful contributors to the world. You have to give them a better way of life: more prosperous with more opportunities for personal growth and gain. Once they see that life under your new system is better than what they had ... the 'rebel' faction will die out naturally. This doesn't happen overnight but it can and will happen, as we saw in Germany and Japan, under steadily decreasing US control.
Control the early years, construct a thriving economy, and you've won the long term peace.
Alternatively, and less desirable, you expel every person from Gaza and repopulate the area with your own people. That ensures a good military solution but the problem just moves to another country.
"We didn't kill every last person in those countries."
DeleteThat is correct, of course: the course of action was to 'merely' kill a lot of them and unleash enough horrors (plus, in Japan's case, the atom bombs) on the survivors until they were willing to say, do and think anything to make it stop.
Note that this wasn't a particularly American approach: the Soviets behaved the same way in Eastern Germany, if not more brutally.
That said, the situation in Gaza is somewhat different.
First, while Germany and Japan are fairly large countries, Gaza is geographically tiny: replicating Hiroshima or Dresden (which was the same thing with different means) would have a proportionately larger impact, even assuming Israel could get away with that internationally, or should.
Secondly, if memory serves the median age of Gaza is somewhere around seventeen, which again has the implications you can imagine.
Beyond, the war between USA and Germany was due to temporary (historically speaking) political circumstances and didn't really 'need to be', in a way: 1940 Germans and Americans were a lot more similar to each other than some may think, while in Gaza we're witnessing the umpteenth chapter of a religious conflict that has been going on fot centuries, and neither part seems particularly willing to just let it go.
Also, in 1945 America could do almost anything to the defeated nations, since it wasn't like someone else was going to stand up for them.
In this case, there's a lot more moslems outside of Gaza who aren't exactly looking at Israel with approving eyes.
Lonfo, the current conflicts result from the Franco-British
Deletedefeat of the Ottoman Empire in the area.
Another effect of the War the Ended Peace aka WWI.
"unleash enough horrors (plus, in Japan's case, the atom bombs) on the survivors until they were willing to say, do and think anything to make it stop."
DeleteThat's kind of the definition of total victory. Anything less leaves the survivors ready, willing, and able to continue fighting either in an insurgency or a 'rise from the ashes' rearmament (post-WWI Germany, for example).
"replicating Hiroshima or Dresden (which was the same thing with different means) would have a proportionately larger impact"
Israel is in the process of doing exactly that and 'the world' is not stopping them. So ... easily done.
"neither part seems particularly willing to just let it go."
Germany didn't seem particularly willing to just let it go, having initiated two world wars. Their willingness to 'just let it go' was imposed on them by the Allies total victory.
" in 1945 America could do almost anything to the defeated nations, since it wasn't like someone else was going to stand up for them."
In 2023, Israel is doing almost anything they want to Hamas and no one else in the world is standing up to them. In a similar vein, no one has stood up to Russia's various invasions. Let's be honest, supplying arms is a pretty weak response (I don't like what you did but I'm not willing to take any direct action to stop you so I'll just trickle arms to your opponent so I can say I'm doing something without having to actually do something).
You're greatly overestimating the impact of world opinion. It doesn't actually do anything.
"a lot more [muslims] outside of Gaza who aren't exactly looking at Israel with approving eyes."
How do you think they'll view things in a couple of decades when the survivors who remained are thriving and prospering under Israel who followed the post-WWII control/guidance philosophy?
Are you sure you're not looking to portray this as more difficult than it has to be? It worked for two large countries post-WWII. It should, if anything, be easier to implement in tiny Gaza. Easier control. Easier monitoring. Easier guidance. Plus, potentially tons of aid from pro-Palestine movements the world over.
What does this mean for an eventual war with China? Do nuclear weapons change the equation of 'total victory' or nothing?
ReplyDeleteConflict with China could break out deliberately (Taiwan invasion) or accidently (bumps and escalations in the SCS). Assuming the US and Allies get the upper hand, does the US switch to some combination of blockade and systematic bombing of industrial targets until China can't produce any military hardware? Would we require regime change to a democracy and relinquishing current territorial claims? We certainly won't invade with ground troops.
And at some point, Chinese leadership might decide it's worth gambling with nuclear escalation if they think their days are numbered otherwise. We might decide it's safer to have a weakened but whole China than risk a nuclear exchange.
The choices do seem to be total victory or continued conflict. I'm trying to envision a successful end to a US/Chinese war.
What does this mean for an eventual war with China?
DeleteWhat do you think?
"Do nuclear weapons change the equation of 'total victory' or nothing?"
Do they? If so, how?
Questions are good; possible answers are even better. Offer your thoughts.
"I'm trying to envision a successful end to a US/Chinese war."
It starts with defining what end result you want and then it's just a matter of figuring out how to achieve it. I've offered my desired end state in a previous post. See, China War - Setting the Stage
"We might decide it's safer to have a weakened but whole China than risk a nuclear exchange."
This would be foolish in the extreme on our part. Failing to achieve total victory simply assures that the war will be refought with China having learned military lessons and the future war(s) will be fought with even more potent weapons, AI, killer robots, lasers, biological weapons (China has already loosed one global pandemic on the world - they won't hesitate to do another), chemical weapons, cyber attacks, etc. Do we really want to guarantee a war with even more lethal forms of those weapons?
We can cower under the fear of nuclear weapons but that just guarantees future death and destruction on a massive scale. China's leaders aren't suicidal. They're not going to guarantee their own deaths by using nuclear weapons. There's no point being a dictator if you're dead. Dictators have the primary goal of staying alive and the secondary goals of amassing power and wealth. You can't do that if you're dead and your country is a radioactive wasteland.
We're cowering in fear of nuclear weapons. Isn't it odd that China seems to have no fear of nuclear weapons?
"The choices do seem to be total victory or continued conflict."
Absolute truth. Now, which do you choose?
As horrible as WWII was, it totally eliminated the threat of Germany and Japan forever. The horrors of WWII were infinitely preferable to the horrors of a continually resurrected Germany and Japan and WWIII, WWIV, WWV, and so on which would have happened if we had not insisted on total victory.
We had the chance to completely finish the Soviet Union (by applying the Germany/Japan post-war philosophy) when they collapsed but we chose, instead, to isolate and alienate them - while leaving them with the means to rebuild their military - and now the Soviet Union has risen again and we're re-fighting them. Our wisdom and resolve failed us and now we're paying the price.
I do think nukes change the calculations. If we get to the point where China has lost offensive military capability, we establish an effective blockade, and we then start dismantling their (military) infrastructure with explosives, the Chinese leadership could see their future as the equivalent to death. Nothing to lose. Backed into a corner with no way out.
DeleteIt's not that the Chinese don't fear nukes, it's that they could see two choices: 1) Do nothing, let their country be destroyed conventionally, and probably be killed by their own people 2) Fire off some nukes, gamble that the US seeks a negotiated peace, and have a chance to live another day. If you're going to lose anyway, make sure the other guy doesn't win. In this situation, nukes might seem the better (rational) choice.
From the US perspective, the choice could be 1) certain, incomplete victory or 2) risk nuclear armageddon trying for total victory. I see a negotiated peace more likely than playing chicken with someone who has nothing to lose. It might even be the better choice! Nuclear mistakes can be permanent.
The next question is if there could be a negotiated peace that avoids future conflicts. I know, the historical data says clearly not. Some ideas:
- Permanent Blockade - Apply the North Korea treatment. It only freezes the conflict (doesn't end it), but it limits the threat as it limits their ability to produce/develop their economy and new weapons.
- Regime Change - I don't think this is realistic. Any new leadership would hate us as much as the previous regime. So would the people.
The "permanent blockade" option might be enough for China. Their population is a demographic bomb with a large aging population and fewer young workers to support them. Today there are ~8 workers for every retiree. By 2050 it's supposed to be ~2 workers for every retiree. Two decades of isolation and China won't be a serious threat to anyone but their immediate land-connected neighbors.
I completely disagree with your reasoning and conclusions but this is a well written and presented piece and I'm happy to leave it as is with no further critique. Readers can decide for themselves about the merits. This is an excellent contribution to the discussion. My agreement is not a requirement for a worthy piece of writing. Well done and thank you for the effort!
DeleteI'm not sure whether this will count as political. If it does, please feel free to delete it. I'm simply pointing out that the Israel situation may be the exception to your general rule, which is correct in 99% of cases.
ReplyDeleteThe problem Israel has to contend with is that the world will not allow total victory. In other conflicts, total victory was secured by military victory and unconditional surrender, followed by occupation, establishment of a friendly regime, and maintenance of military bases in the country for the long term. In this case, that would not be sufficient, as total victory would require an additional step, expulsion of the population, which the world will not allow now (note that the post WWII period had significant population transfers mandated, i.e. Germans from Poland) and a renunciation of any claim to the land by other nations/peoples (which would be effectively all of the Arab world).
The hatred the Palestinian population has for Israel is so deeply embedded and of such a unique quality that it would take several generations to root out, and even then I'm not sure it would be at a governable level. Add in the additional complication of a global Palestinian refugee diaspora and surrounding Arab nations fueling discontent and you have yourself a real quagmire.
Wars always create enmity between peoples. One of the goals of occupation and establishment of a new regime is to lessen and eventually eliminate that enmity and create conditions so that conflict between the two nations will never happen again. I'm not sure that is possible in the Israel - Palestinian conflict.
-Huskers1995
Although I disagree with it, you offered a nice piece of writing and I value that.
Delete"The problem Israel has to contend with is that the world will not allow total victory."
You might consider that Israel is in the process of establishing total victory as we speak and the outside world is not stopping them. Israel seems more determined to finish the job than the outside world is to stop them.
"total victory would require an additional step, expulsion of the population"
That's one option in total victory but not a requirement nor even a preferred approach. Consider the example of post-WWII Germany and Japan. We didn't expel the entire populace; we controlled and guided them until they were ready to assume a peaceful and productive place in the world. That would be the preferred approach for Israel.
"The hatred the Palestinian population has for Israel is so deeply embedded and of such a unique quality that it would take several generations to root out"
It would not take nearly as long as you think. Again, consider the example of post-WWII Germany and Japan. The immediate survivors hated us but after one generation that feeling was reduced and after the second generation recognized the personal and societal prosperity that Allied control brought, the hatred could not be sustained in the face of prosperous personal benefits. Handled correctly, the survivors in Gaza would follow the same path. It's hard to stay mad at your 'enemy' when their presence is benefiting you enormously.
Consider one small (well, large, actually!) example of how this works. Untold billions of dollars in cash and aid have flowed into Gaza over the years from outside pro-Palestinian groups but little of it has reached the average person. By simply ensuring that such future aid actually reaches the people and/or is used to their benefit, Israel's presence benefits the people and hatred fades away. When you're thriving it's hard to stay mad!
Israel can, and likely will achieve victory on the battlefield. However, social victory, which is what I term the sort of transformation we saw in Japan and Germany, will likely elude them.
DeleteI wish the strategies that worked in Germany and Japan would work in this conflict. However, in those cases you weren't working against generations of education/propaganda specifically targeting the occupying power. While there was a religious component in Japan, I think it's safe to say the religious fervor of the Japanese of that era pails in comparison to what we're dealing with in the Middle East. Also, in Japan, we had a singular religious figure (the Emperor) who we could use to defang the religious issues. No such figure exists in this situation.
You also have the issue of external forces seeking to undermine the occupation. The Soviets certainly worked against us in West Germany and Japan, particularly in the communist movements in those countries. In each country, this was a relatively small portion of the population that we needed to monitor. In Gaza and the West Bank, the vast majority of the population would sympathize with outside actors seeking to inflame the situation.
Now, if Israel is going to try the Japan/Germany strategy, I think there are a few questions they need to answer:
1. Where are the elites/bureaucrats who will work with them to help manage the population?
2. How do they keep those people from getting killed (the polling of Palestinian civilians leads me to believe that any collaborator would not last long)?
3. How do they keep the Palestinian diaspora from enflaming the situation?
4. How do you keep Arab states and Iran from enflaming the situation?
5. How do you tamp down the religious aspect of the conflict?
Big news! See my comments in the previous post as to why the USS Ford was sitting in a Greek port for weeks forcing the USS Ike to move from the Persian Gulf.
ReplyDelete"The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group will leave the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where it was sent just after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, in the "coming days," two U.S. officials tell ABC News."
And note it wasn't replaced by another carrier in the Med while the SecDef just visited her a few days ago and announced she'd have to stay in the Med for several more weeks. Here is some background from an article I wrote back in 2018. I suspect all four catapults broke down over the past few months and she can't launch anything but helos. The huge flywheels break after a few weeks and can't be fixed at sea, and apparently in port either, needs yard work back home.
https://g2mil.com/EMALS.htm
Here is something I posted here a year ago. No author and published from Hong Kong, but it gets into the real tech problem of the Ford.
DeleteG2milJanuary 24, 2023 at 12:26 PM
I just googled to see any new info on the flywheels.
A new article just appeared today, claiming the Navy knows they don't really work and plans to replaces them with supercapacitors, which may not work either. There is no author name, but he provides details. Also says the elevators barely work too.
https://min.news/en/military/00a35e526045d41a3e0c7b32c8a3c3a8.html#:~:text=Each%20Ford%20electromagnetic%20catapult%20is%20equipped%20with%20three,kinetic%20energy%20has%20resulted%20in%20considerable%20energy%20loss.
@G2mil. It will be interesting to see what happens when she comes back and what level of repairs she will need, if it's not much, guess EMALS works, if we hear she will be away for a year, then maybe NAVY has some serious issues on thoer hands....
DeleteThe great challenge isn't killing people its killing ideas. When we conquered Germany we outlawed the Nazi party and pro-Nazi . When we conquered Japan we quite literally changed their religion. Yes, literally as the Emperor was treated as descended from the gods . Part of our surrender demands included him admitting he was not divine.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem we have now is failing to understand just how far we curtailed civil rights in those nations. During our occupation, they did not have free speech if said speech included anything pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic, or militarist. They did not have freedom of religion if it meant saying the Emperor was divine. Since Japan was not bordering on the Warsaw Pact like Germany, we even cut down on their right to defend their country, forcing a constitution that made a "Self-defense force" instead of an Army and navy and difficult for troops to even deploy overseas at all.
The US never really dealt with militant Islam the belief system, just with the obvious armed wings. We were to afraid of inciting more to their cause by interfering in their religion. But good decent people who are raised in a system of hatred for others like Hamas does too often fail to see the evil they do. We see support in this country for Hamas by young people who haven't seen militant Islam in action but are constantly being told they are the good guys and Jews (and the USA) are the bad guys. For Israel to succeed they will need to be spending the next two decades (a generation) ensuring that Hamas' beliefs are not being taught and putting protesters and Hamas journalists in jail. It is not democratic but the same the US did in WW2. It is also the same thing we have spent the last 20 years not doing in Afghanistan.
I'm going with the reality that the IDF lacks the ability to conclusively defeat the Palis. Relying on the US as a supplier of strategic armaments is not what the Tribe requires to defeat the various threats in the region. Most assuredly a weakened Israel would invite various 'friendly' neighboring Arab countries into the fray as well.
ReplyDeleteTotal war against Gaza makes sense, but tac air and poorly performing ground troops are not going to do more than conduct a siege. Whether the IDF can conduct a two front war is doubtful. No matter the case, their economy will suffer to the point of regime change. For better or worse