Hezbollah¿s conduct of its 2006 campaign in southern Lebanon has become an important case for the U.S. defense debate. Some see the future of warfare as one of non-state opponents employing irregular methods, and advocate a transformation of the U.S. military to meet such threats. Others point to the 2006 campaign as an example of a non-state actor waging a state-like conventional war, and argue that a more traditional U.S. military posture is needed to deal with such enemies. This monograph examines Hezbollah¿s conduct of the 2006 campaign. The authors use evidence collected from a series of 36 primary source interviews with Israeli participants in the fighting who were in a position to observe Hezbollah¿s actual behavior in the field.

Many now see future warfare as a matter of nonstate actors employing irregular methods against Western states. This expectation has given rise to a range of sweeping proposals for transforming the U.S. military to meet such threats. In this context, Hezbollah's 2006 campaign in southern Lebanon has been receiving increasing attention as a prominent recent example of a nonstate actor fighting a Westernized state. In particular, critics of irregular-warfare transformation often cite the 2006 case as evidence that non-state actors can nevertheless wage conventional warfare in state-like ways. This monograph assesses this claim via a detailed analysis of Hezbollah's military behavior, coupled with deductive inference from observable Hezbollah behavior in the field to findings for their larger strategic intent for the campaign.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. The fact that the outcome of the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War was, at best, a stalemate for Israel has confounded military analysts. Long considered the most professional and powerful army in the Middle East, with a history of impressive military victories against its enemies, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) emerged from the campaign with its enemies undefeated and its prestige tarnished. This historical analysis of the war includes an examination of IDF and Hezbollah doctrine prior to the war, as well as an overview of the operational and tactical problems encountered by the IDF during the war. The IDF ground forces were tactically unprepared and untrained to fight against a determined Hezbollah force. ¿An insightful, comprehensive examination of the war.¿ Illustrations.

Hezbollah's conduct of its 2006 campaign in southern Lebanon has become an increasingly important case for the U.S. defense debate. Some see the future of warfare as one of nonstate opponents employing irregular methods, and advocate a sweeping transformation of the U.S. military to meet such threats. Others point to the 2006 campaign as an example of a nonstate actor nevertheless waging a state-like conventional war, and argue that a more traditional U.S. military posture is needed to deal with such enemies in the future. This monograph seeks to inform this debate by examining in detail Hezbollah's conduct of the 2006 campaign. The authors use evidence collected from a series of 36 primary source interviews with Israeli participants in the fighting who were in a position to observe Hezbollah's actual behavior in the field in 2006, coupled with deductive inference from observable Hezbollah behavior in the field to findings for their larger strategic intent for the campaign.

This is the first comprehensive account of the progression of the Second Lebanese War, from the border abduction of an Israeli soldier on the morning of July 12, 2006, through the hasty decision for an aggressive response; the fateful discussions in the Cabinet and the senior Israeli command; to the heavy fighting in south Lebanon and the raging diplomatic battles in Paris, Washington and New York. The book answers the following questions: has Israel learned the right lessons from this failed military confrontation? What can Western countries learn from the IDF's failure against a fundamentalist Islamic terror organization? And what role did Iran and Syria play in this affair? 34 Days delivers the first blow-by-blow account of the Lebanon war and new insights for the future of the region and its effects on the West.

"Explores various dimensions to the confrontation initiated by Israel on July 12, 2006 in response to Hizbollah provocation. The sixteen analytical essays and three appendices compiled here provide a strategic overview of the war and discuss the rationales underlying this violent clash. They delve into different dimensions of the war: its background, its nature and implications, and the strategic conclusions that can be drawn from it" -- p. [4] of Cover.

Contents: Introduction; Chapter 1. Hard Lessons Learned: ¿Training, Training and Training as Well as Innovative Thinking¿: The IDF Response to the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War; Hezbollah; The Gaza Conflict; Conclusion; Chapter 2. Hamas and Hezbollah: A Comparison of Tactics: Introduction; Application of the PMESII+PT Variables; Hamas and Hezbollah; Political; Military; Economic; Social; Infrastructure; Information; Physical Environment; Time; The 2006 Second Lebanon War; Hezbollah TTPs; 2008-2009 Hamas/Israeli Conflict; Hamas TTPs; Conclusion. Charts and tables.

In response to a surprise incursion by Hezbollah combatants into northern Israel and their abduction of two Israeli soldiers, Israel launched a campaign that included the most complex air offensive to have taken place in the history of the Israeli Air Force (IAF). Many believe that the inconclusive results of this war represent a "failure of air power." The author demonstrates that this conclusion is an oversimplification of a more complex reality. He assesses the main details associated with the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF's) campaign against Hezbollah to correct the record regarding what Israeli air power did and did not accomplish (and promise to accomplish) in the course of contributing to that campaign. He considers IAF operations in the larger context of the numerous premises, constraints, and ultimate errors in both military and civilian leadership strategy choice that drove the Israeli government's decisionmaking throughout the counteroffensive. He also examines the IDF's more successful operation against the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009, to provide points of comparison and contrast in the IDF's conduct of the latter campaign based on lessons learned and assimilated from its earlier combat experience in Lebanon.--Publisher description.

Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.