A Different View of the Israel – Hezbollah Conflict
August 10th, 2006
Modern man has moved through three different ages in the last 10,000 years. The Agricultural Age was from around 8,000 BC until the 1700s. The Industrial Age was from the 1700s to the last two decades of the 20th century, when the Information Age began. The great Alvin Toffler referred to these ages as the First Wave, Second Wave and Third Wave. Each wave or age had different economic characteristics. The dominant economic structure in Second Wave societies was a centralized hierarchy. The dominant structure in Third Wave societies are flat networks.
In speeches I give and in the book I am writing, I call the period from 1985-2005 “The Threshold Decadesâ€, because it is the time that is between what was and what is and will be. In 1985, the values and institutions of the developed nations were still Second Wave or Industrial Age; by 2005 they had become Third Wave or Information Age. During this twenty year period we fully moved into the Information Age. Just think of all the things that came along or occurred during this time: cell phones, Cable TV, numerous communications satellites, the Internet, PC market saturation, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the beginning of the Global Economy and high speed broadband to name just a few significant things. Large organizations were down-sized and lost layers of management. Entrepreneurial companies sprang to life and flourished, organizations became flat and dispersed all over the world. The network model largely replaced the centralized hierarchy.
In looking at the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah I see it, in part, through this filter. The reporting in the main stream media has had several angles. One of the most prominent is the “Israel is fighting a tougher opponent that in the past†or “Israel is meeting stronger resistance than expected†or “Israel is taking much longer to win this timeâ€. This is largely due to the conditioning we have had about the superiority of the Israeli military. Why? Because of the overwhelming victories and the lightening speed in which they achieved them in 1967 and again in 1973. The Six Day War; what a historical oddity!
The difference can, in part, be explained by looking at the conflict through the Wave or Age theory of history. The Israeli military, just like the US military, is a centralized, hierarchical organization formed during the Industrial Age as were all the supremely successful organizations of that age. The Threshold Decades time of 1985-2005 was when that type of organization came up against the newness of the Information Age. When were the great and fast military triumphs of Israel? 1967 and 1973, an Industrial Age time when the Israeli military hierarchy clobbered the Egyptian and Syrian military hierarchies. Hezbollah however, is a flat organization with little or no hierarchy, that is easily dispersed and very mobile. It is a virtual organization. Sound familiar; like you are reading about a new company in one of the new Information Age business magazines? Yes, exactly. As entrepreneurs can operate from anywhere if they have the latest, most powerful technological tools and connectivity, so can a terrorist organization such as Hezbollah operate with the latest technological weaponry of killing and murder.
Hezbollah is an Information Age military organization in its structure, the Israel military is an Industrial Age structured organization. The old model meets the new model. The old rules of engagement meet the new rules of engagement. This is why it is taking Israel longer to ‘win’ this time, though if one values human life, wars are never really won, just ended..
August 10th, 2006 at 6:02 am
Hezbollah is a highly flexible organization with military, political and social service operations (the latter being what we call in America “faith-based initiative”). It is not, however, “a virtual organization” with “little or no hierarchy.” It has a command and control structure and military discipline. Its success is based on its record as a resistance force since the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. While I have no use for its theocratic ideology or its particular theology, I find it absurd to label it “terrorist.”
Hezbollah hits military targets to the best of its ability. Due to the primitive quality of its weaponry, its strikes are pretty random in terms of where its rockets come down and who they kill, on a tragic but small scale — unlike the U.S.-supplied Israeli precision weapons which bring down massive apartment blocks with the civilian residents inside, killing noncombatants by the hundreds and automatically recruiting thousands or tens of thousands more to the cause of resistance or jihad. “The old rules of engagement” employed by the U.S.-Israeli attack on Lebanon are, indeed, old — they go back to the medieval siege, aimed at reducing cities to starvation, waged with modern techniques.
— David Finkel
August 10th, 2006 at 7:10 am
I think this topic is very difficult to form a fact-based opinion on because of the lack of, well, facts.
Look at how much spin has been put on stories through the media, not to mention the pictures that have been “manipulated” with photoshop to exacerbate the carnage stemming from the war.
One thing is for certain, however, in that the traditional rules of engagement put you at a disadvantage when you fight an untraditional war.
It should lend some insight into the values of the people who make up military forces who blend in to civilian population for security and defense.
Should the blame of civilian casualties rest on the shoulders of the guy who fired the missile or the 30 guerillas who set up camp in the elementary school?
On top of that, how can a school teacher not think she’s just become a target when these guerillas sit down next to her students?
Think about this: How would we feel about our military if they started wearing jeans and t-shirts and setting up headquarters between the skyscrapers in New York?
If you worked in one of those skyscrapers, would you still show up to work?
Just something I’ve thought about over the last few weeks.
-Grant
TheCornerOfficeBlog.com
August 10th, 2006 at 10:33 am
We’ll see another match between a flat guerilla and
hierarchical army when the Lebanese army supported by
International (UN?)troops deploys. It is ironic that the main weapon that powers the Hezbollah is WW2 vintage Katyushas. Is their great innovation really a mark of the information age -non hierarchy, flatness?
When we go back to Algeria and Vietnam did we not see these same guerilla (insurgency) characteristics..including civililan shields. And, in each of these instances the guerillas were not defeated by a traditional army. They evolved into a national order. Unlike the Vietnamese, the Arab record is not encouraging as witnessed by the PLO and even Lebanon. And, Algeria is not a very robust model either.
The conundrum is that the power found by eliminating hierarchy disappears when there are no longer social, political, and military structures (hierarchies) to pivot off. Whether a guerilla fighting force or entrepeneurial force,
its power depends on facing a hierarchical (command) environment. I think that democracy building and representative government and ultimately rule of law will have a far better chance in such an environment. The inescapable conclusion is that a flat world requires a hierarchical or at least curvy world in which to operate..so as long as we have guerillas we will also have traditional command military force.
August 10th, 2006 at 11:14 am
David:
I have heard two terms to describe the Israeli – Hezbollah conflict.
The first term is an “asymmetric war.” There have been many of these through history, at least back to the 18th century. From a US perspective, I include at least: American Revolution and Viet Nam.
Compare this to symmetric wars in which the US has participated: Civil War, World War I, World War II, Desert Storm.
I believe that the US Army has internal officer classes now on asymmetric warfare.
I also heard the term last wee of “netwar,” referring to the nature of the Hezbollah network. This is what you are driving at also, it seems to me.
Asymmetric war can be seen to have a long tradition (and we owe the beginning of our freedom to it). It is now maybe evolving into netwar or whatever anyone wants to call it.
Finally, I really appreciated the very end of your blog entry: “…wars are never really won, just ended..” In fact, they sometimes do not end. They just pause and come back under another name 20 or more years later.
August 10th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
David,
I am intrigued by the comparisons you draw and applaud your closing statement. Each time an international conflict flares to war, I realize how primitive the human race remains. The hope of the Information Age is that global consciousness can help humanity to evolve to a higher state of being. I am the eternal optimist and look to this future. The Internet is a unifying force that “flattens†relationships and speeds communications. Nicholas Negroponte writes of narrowcasting to an audience of one in Being Digital; however, we still choose sides in groups, fail to connect on an individual basis, and revert to age old primitive instincts. Rodney King’s eloquent statement, “Can’t we all just get along†rings true but seems so difficult to achieve. Perhaps the Information Age will enable humanity to move to a higher level; hopefully, sooner than later.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:08 am
Henry-
I completely agree. It is a large part of the book I am writing. The world is being reorganized because of the Trend to Global and the Trend to the Individual. I really believe that the bright future for us all is the direction you see.
David
August 11th, 2006 at 7:14 am
It is really clear that what ever one’s perception is of the current – or latest chapter- of Mideast violence is the ‘reality’ based on all these comments.
I would like to point out two things.
First this conflict is not like Viet Nam because that was a civil war that America picked as side and lost with. Algeria was about independance from a colonial power. Both were internal conflicts. Hezbollah is a mobile, shoot and run force that initiated this particular conflict by attacking another country.
Second, I hate that civilians are being killed on both sides. However, to bring WWII to an end, the US killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden alone.
David