Military Review English Edition September-October 2013 | Page 29

H YB R I D T H R E AT

the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel struggled to execute intelligence collection that assembled a full understanding of conflict and threat characteristics.44 This intelligence gap exacerbated Israel’s difficulties in developing a comprehensive strategy to defeat Hezbollah in a hybrid conflict. A vital part of understanding a hybrid threat is grasping the lack of moral or ethical restraint displayed in the execution of adversary operations. Rule of law and Geneva Conventions will not limit a hybrid threat’s operations. This adversary fails to acknowledge and abide by both the legal and military concepts. In hybrid warfare, “the enemy does not fight fair and is fighting not only a fight in theater, but also in the living rooms of America.”45 Hybrid threats will use information warfare to achieve a marked advantage during critical times in a conflict to sway indigenous and international support in their favor. The U.S. Army dedicates itself to honorable service to the Nation. The Army employs Landpower in a manner that upholds U.S. laws and American values.46 Hybrid warfare entails engaging in an unfair fight. The hybrid threat will fight “dirty” in an attempt to draw U.S. Army forces into compromising situations. During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah employed operational shielding to protect key components of its force from IDF attack and interdiction.47 On numerous occasions Hezbollah used operatives dressed in traditional Lebanese attire and carrying white flags to redistribute ATGMs among different fighting positions.48 For larger resupply operations, Hezbollah used “ambulances and other rescue vehicles for cover in its movements.”49 “Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult,” Clausewitz once espoused in reference to the fog and friction of war.50 Hezbollah’s resupply operations were no different in regard to this theory. The operational shielding tactics employed by Hezbollah made targeting, disrupting, and interdicting their sustainment operations problematic for the IDF. The psychological fog in war once again challenged Israeli military commanders by forcing them to make moral and ethical decisions on engaging questionable military targets. Consequences of these decisions surfaced in the international media and degraded the honorable merits of the Israeli campaign. “Throughout the 2006 war, the Lebanese news media reported, and the international news media largely repeated, that
MILITARY REVIEW ? September-October 2013

Israel was attacking hospitals, health care facilities, and ambulances; schools, mosques, and churches.”51 By broadcasting attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure and inadvertent civilian causalities, the media swayed international opinion away from Israel and helped to foster a UN resolution for a cease-fire.52 In this conflict, Israel viewed itself as an honorable nation with high moral and ethical standards. However, the negative strategic communication narrative that Hezbollah, who openly committed war crimes by attacking Israeli civilians and using their own population for operational shielding, crafted against the IDF brought Israeli’s honorable intentions under significant scrutiny.53 Historians argue that Israel did not lose the information war and honorable cause case because they had poor strategic communication techniques. Instead, the Israelis lost because “they had to tell the truth while Hezbollah told lies.”54 These Hezbollah l ???????????????????????????????%??1??????I?????
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