Gophers by TKO « Isegoria

Gophers by TKO

Thursday, September 14th, 2006

In Gophers by TKO, “war nerd” Gary Brecher shares some lessons from Lebanon:

The IDF hasn’t been a real underdog for a long time. Amateurs look at the map of the Middle East, see poor li’l Israel in the middle of all that Arab real estate and think the IDF is still the underdog. Nope — Israel was set up by a bunch of smart, educated Europeans, and when you match an army of those guys, backed by billions in US military aid, against peasant conscripts, only a fool bets on the peasants. Doesn’t matter how much real estate they have, peasants in uniform are useless in conventional warfare against smart, motivated Western troops.

Till now — till Hezbollah. Hezbollah chose when and where and how they were going to fight Israel. Here are the lessons they learned. Read’em and weep, because they work just as good against US armed forces and tactics as they do against the IDF.

The lessons:

Take the defense tactically, the offense strategically.
When you’re fighting a force that depends on firepower and air power, dig in.

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