Lebanon. If one
stronger army in Middle East failed to win their objective (to
eliminate poor Hezbollah movement) and facing humiliating war, how
about well equipped army? It will be bitterer isn’t
it? The tactics is ambush and run within 10
minutes to void close artillery support, and hey! Once again they
use tunnels, same as Vietnam. Why Israel too afraid to advanced far
inside Lebanon? It will make them suffer a great loses because the
invader got more difficulties to recognize the terrain compare to
defender.
Actually I do not
think they were afraid, but simply they lacked the will or
motivation to bring the war to its conclusion. If it was a full
scale war without restraint ie. the Israeli-Arab wars Hezbollah
would have been simply crushed, tunnels or not.
The
thing is, the whole affair started because of two soldiers, but
will the nation of Israel be willing to go to out-all war and risk
their economy and plunge the entire region into a flashpoint? I
don't think so. The whole affair in Lebanon was an issue of a lack
of motivation and that basically the IDF was fighting a war in
which their objectives were unwinnable to any decisive
conclusion.
That’s basic.
That’s why US pay a lot of money to Iraq commander during the
invasion. Further more Israeli infantry back bone – their armor -
been ripped out and air strike failed to provide maximum
impact to military assets except for civilians.
IDF kills a lot of Hezbollah army but the main issue is, they
failed to achieve their objective even though by using most
sophisticated tools and it been agreed by IDF.
Hmm seems to be more of the version we get on CNN then what
really happened when the IDF took a cold and hard look into what
happened.
IDF armor was extremely useful in that conflict, the fact that
it bore so much firepower points to it's widespread use in the line
of fire. At the end of the day tanks are always useful in urban
warfare along with infantry when you need to mail explosives to
certain locations.
And if you look at it, it's actually it's the
airstrikes that Hezbollah fears the most. To the point they needed
to put their rocket launchers right beside civillians to make sure
that even if they got wacked they would get some media mileage out
of it.
The failure of the IDF was a failure of resolve and political
leadership, not the army and it's soldiers. The politicans got into
a fight they had no clear way out of and left their army to clean
up the mess.
War is an extension of politics, if you go into war with bad
politics you will get bad results even if you have the best armies
in the world.
Saying about Iraq,
always remember, it’s under sanction since 1990 before second Gulf
War broke out. The ratio 110:1 happen due to poor equipped
Hezbollah army and Iraqi soldier. For sure MAF better than that.
Even during joint training, they keep certain thing in their
pocket.
It’s really hard
to say something tactical isn’t it. Except something that everybody
already knows. MAF and SAF will more to conventional war but what
about combination of CW and CIW together? Is it
possible?
If you are better equipped you won't be fighting an insurgency
but try to go for a more conventional battle.
This is because insurgencies are inefficent ways of fighting any
battle. In any pitched battle between insurgents and organized
military forces the insurgents have always taken heavy losses. The
idea of an insurgency is not to win the war by force, but by
politics. If your enemy is in a war with no clear objectives in
sight (ie. Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq) and constrainted by plenty of
politics, an insurgency is a great way of messing with them and
affecting their morale. But materials and manpower wise
insurgencies don't really inflict that much damage on the
enemy.
Look at Iraq for example, the current insurgency is costing
lives, no doubt. HOWEVER the amount of damage actually done to the
US military is minimal, some single battles in WW2 exceed the
deaths and material losses the US army suffer by far. The main
effect is on morale, of being stuck in a hellhole for months where
you don't know who will be next to draw the IED card.
But then again the SAF does not intend to fight this kind of
occupational war, hence it would be difficult to organize an
insurgency, nor will it have much effect. Additionally you
need several conditions for such a thing to exist as
well, such as a ready pool of recruits and support from
the populace, and an abundance of weapons to distribute.
Unfortunately Malaysia does not have such conditions. The
population is educated and relatively well off, and would be less
convinced to fight and die for a cause which they view is more of
that of their government's then some higher religious calling or
something like that. Most of them, I suspect, like us, will want to
war to be over as soon as possible and to get back to our lives
under whatever new government that is left at the end of the day.
The vast differences in worldviews and political opinion in
Malaysia will be another factor.
Additionally jungle warfare will be an issue, but not as much as
we'd think. I suspect the SAF will be reluctant to engage the MAF
in the jungles and will instead focus on controlling the main
highways to create safe sectors for the "buffer" zone. In other
words, bypass the enemy like the US Military did in Iraq to strike
at the heart, Network Centric Warfare will be vital for this.
