The Israeli Strategic Memento by Serge Lewkowicz
Adapted from Hebrew & French.
Introduction
The "regular" citizen is confused, he does not know how to change the situation: it seems that both the Right and the Left political sides hold at least part of the truth concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So who to vote for. How to choose?
He doesn't feel that he holds the whole knowledge and tools in order to understand the situation and to analyze what is happening in our region.
At the end of the day we remain with TV screen full of politicians, one left one right, repeating their eternal mantras and voila!
Remains our despair about the way to find a long-term peace with our neighbours .
It's surprising! Why? Because, like so many in our nation learn and teach every generation the Bible and the Talmud, different people around the world, for more than two thousand years already, wrote about war and strategy. Books on these issues easily fulfill a nice library.
But "davka", it turns out that in a country like ours, in constant war for survival, even among our leaders and officers, there is a huge and amazing ignorance time after time about strategic subjects. Ignorance that makes you cry.
Many people, from the "simple" citizen up to the leaders, do not base their opinion on all accumulated knowledge from the beginning of history. Despite that all is written.
They are moved [when clean] by ideology only.
The ordinary citizen like you and me, wanting to live a normal life in this country, and left with little free time to think deeply about so critical issues, remains a part of the silent majority, hostage shaken between "blablaters" supposed to represent the suicidal left and the crazy right.
This is why I'm trying to create this memento, a small book on the principles of war and strategy; to concentrate it as small as possible all the time, recalling quotes and explanations of the experts. I added circumstantial questions about our selves and our regional events, far away as possible from the familiar emptiness of our politicians' claptrap.
I hope that by this easy linear walk [from the foundation until the today new trends] into the subject, with that participation of the world's greatest strategists, I will let you, dear reader, more confident and that you will better understand what is happening.
I aim the memento to be short, focused and clear. Everywhere I tried to concentrate on what really needs an Israeli citizen. I had to cut in "living" material sometimes. My wish is to bring you to come back from time to time to this memoran dum, to consult it over the next few years.
I will not take a position beyond the words of the wise strategists quoted here. I will ask questions and remind facts. No one is forced to agree on every topic, that's fine, strategic issues are not a closed debate.
A BASICS AND ELEMENTARY DEFINITIONS
1
From long time ago people started to learn the subject
We learn young the Latin quote "Si vis pacem para bellum", if you want peace prepare for war. In China
At every time and place people wrote on war and strategy. Kings, generals, diplomats, military officers, intellectuals, all enriched the thinking and the knowledge.
It was not always a practical teaching or a simple battle description. A certain amount of people created so a solid basis of thought to understand the world and the necessary rules to survive.
We are a strong country but still small in the Midlle East, we cannot let ourselves to live without understanding, as adult citizens, the importance of war, the actual conflict and its consequences influencing all the actions we engage ourselves in.
War is a very serious thing. The Wise presented us conclusions that build the lessons of History. All is already written, it is only to get back to the ancient cumulated wiseness when it remains relevant.
As they already wrote (almost) all on strategy and war, I will limit myself to echo their voices. With their help we will try to go ahead into the comprehension of the world around us.
The subject is not glamourous or nice (euphemism) but hard, but the lies that so many people throw on us [and on themselves] cause us harsh crises and hard awakenings.
This is why this memento exists.
Two important messages that I must transmit from the beginning:
2
Violence
Clausewitz: "War is [so] an act of violence aimed to compulse the enemy to implement our will".
Carl von Clausewitz is considered in the West as the prophet of war, the greatest strategist and philosoph of war in modern times (until the nuclear period).
To his definition we will have to refer very often, better to remember it by heart.
Message 1: you cannot separate war and violence. There is no act of violence without victims, true for the attacked side, true also for the attacker.
Consequently, to even envisage that there will be no wounded or death inside the populations, of the enemy or ours, is a dangerous illusion.
It is obvious that we have to try to reduce the victims' number, but there is not zero option in this field. A violent action brings (can bring by essence) casualties, destruction, devastation. One who thinks that it can be avoided is wrong and lies. On the contrary, he can cause a bigger loss. It occurs also that death of some avoids the death of thousands of others. We'll let this debate aside for the time being to remind ourselves only, that violence is inside us, i.e. it is not an external exogen part of mankind.
Clausewitz: "At war the errors made because of soul goodness are the worst thing... to ignore the element of brutality is a waste of force, not to say a mistake..."
Clausewitz adds at the start of his book journey that we have to separate the enemy from its armed forces. This aim is by definition the objective of the military operations.
We cannot introduce a principle of moderation into war itself because of, in theory, its infinite use of power. This is why it is important to shorten the active periods until victory.
Sun Zu, because the existence of the State is on the balance, explains how important it is to hit the enemy strong and fast, and everybody after him followed.
Differences between Sun Zu and Clausewitz on violence are only in appearence. On the principles when there is no choice, it seems to me that both agree.
Two important things from Clausewitz that I put away for the memento:
1. The difference between the hostility and the hostile intention. It will request a future comment as we see how much it impacts on the tentatives made to re-start the negociations process.
2. The unlimited use of force in theory is dropping down in practice, as there is only a riposte from the Israeli side and from the Palestininan side the tentative to conserve the conflict a "limited intensity". This issue will be evocated only through the limited intensity reminding.
Story of the people is full of individual tragedies.
But a real leader cannot, it is forbidden to him, to consider his actions, even once, under the discretion of these individual or familial tragedies.
I will insist on this separation to be made on the moral issue, between Good and Bad, on the difference between the individual behaviour and politics; the management of the collective needs in general - the necessity of the existence of Israel and its policy.
You can't reasonnably compare standards for a man and a State. (It does not mean that an immoral State behaviour is authorized, here is not the issue).
3
Nature of "normality"
Machiavel (the Prince III): "The wish to conquer is surely an ordinary matter and very natural; and every time that men will do so, they will be praised or at least they will not be blamed."
In 1943, in the heart or W.W. II, was published an anthology of military strategy ("Masters of strategy") under the direction of Edward Mead Earle.
In the second part, modern times, we start with the emergence of the civilian leaders managing war. Here, few years before the creation of the State of Israel, it is written: "the hypothesis is widely agreed [claiming] that peace is the normal [natural] and the permanent situation of the Society..." Of course the writer does not really agree.
Message 2 : war is a natural fact, eternal, a part of the world. To conserve peace demands a constant effort. In the whole mankind history, very few years, maybe 250 in total, have known a period of "peace" in every part of the globe.
Always there was a strong nation which tried to obtain the property of the neighbour, always in the name of God, of wealth, of the internal or international politics, always we fight. This phenomenon is made more extreme when it is spoken of dictatorships which demand the existence of an external enemy.
The idea for peace to be the balanced, normal, basic situation is nice but a crime of blindness without any precedent for leaders. A dreaming leader founding his diplomacy on this thought is a criminal aimed against his people. So, it is not possible for the leadership to be hold by the obsession of the search for peace at any price, as a natural thing, that you can always reach. The conditions to reach a stable peace are totally different.
Despite the legitimate wish of the individual in an enlightened civilization, the leader cannot enter the "trip" of the drugs addicts like: "I want to believe in peace... we have to do all, to give all for peace... it cannot be that there is no partner at all, there must be a solution... here, it is here a few meters from here... (of course at hand's reach)...".
There are even "victims of peace"!!!
No, there is not always a solution for every issue we face in life, a situation or a place; not always an immediate one. Consequently, as we speak about human suffering, we must be ponderate and cautious in our acts, and before all to learn from the past.
War is maybe an art because there is nothing scientific on its functioning and success. However, do exist clear rules that make the success of the armies and the nations or bring them to catastroph. Remindings and explanations on these principles are at the heart of this memento.
4
The true victory (1st part)
I don't pretend that peace is not the desired situation. Of course it is! It is even possible under certain circumstances. Only a primitive culture (there are some) can clearly justify war and victims. Always the Gods are thirsty for blood.
No matter if their chief really believes in them or is using other religious arguments, or if it is only a simple string of propaganda, and the crowd, the herd, will swallow everything.
Because all the experts in all ages considered that even the winner is losing, and that war is the worst solution, they reached this simple conclusion; no one of the great strategists did like war for itself.
Sun Zu: "Generally to make war is not the good means. Only necessity must cause its use. Whatever their end and their nature, fightings are disastrous for the winners themselves".
For Sun Zu, the best military commanders-in-chief have won already before any action on the ground: he meant that on the other side, the neighbour understands that you are organized and powerful, and the cost of the battles will be high too much compared to the advantages - so he renounces.
Certainly, these strategists that avoid war by their only presence and leadership will never receive public credit for their victory; their name will be forgotten, because the rivers of blood did not flow for their glory. "So these specialists of the art of war make the ennemy surrender without fighting".
Under the "Avoider" is the leader that with no choice prevents a war using the ruse, tricks but still not violence. He is better and more moral than any leader in need of violence.
After, you have the leader who manages to shorten suffering and damages on both sides.
Under, you have the leader using violence. Again, who wins quickly try to save power and violence is estimated better.
For the "real strategists", including commanders-in-chief, the leader who likes fighting and prolongs the campaign with no real reason is a poor man and a criminal.
Even if the subject is hated, we must understand the phenomena.
5
Types of war – from theory to reality
There always have been attempts to classify the different types of war.
Intervention, occupation, aggressive or defensive, to build a State, to help dictators against their citizens, because of legitimate defense, to help allies, according to the power level involved, the technologies or the competences levels, before independence, to modify frontiers, limited to satisfy national or economical needs, wars of religion etc…
Wars were also separated by continents, air and sea, with or without civilian presence…
Very difficult to separate the wars by sorts because they usually include some mixed factors, and these factors can modify themselves inside the process. This without speaking of the real reasons of the conflict
So un-useful to enter this debate, we will just notice a few subjects:
A. The "classic" war between states is not the only gender (before it was not so obvious).
This war itself was fully transformed in the two last centuries.
B. Some important strategists define civil wars as the worst, the cruelest and horrible. For them there is no bigger catastrophe for the people than civil war. I want to insist on this aspect, turning to every responsible citizen, especially those who preach brotherhood of love in their mouth only.
Clausewitz explains in the representation of his parameters that war is to reach an infinite level of violence and a non stopping search for resources. Nevertheless, he points out that in practice, wars will (almost) never achieve these most extreme points.
According to him, the objective of the commander-in-chief is to look for the battle, the privileged moment to reach the decision (= the act of submission), by which he will defeat the enemy army.
Yet, if it happened that destiny of empires was decided within few hours, in most cases war is not limited by one battle but by a series of battles.
Of course Clausewitz starts to define war by the [decisive] battle but he quits the idea fast towards the "campaign" concept. This late becomes really general and sucks dry all the resources from both sides of the conflict.
Once more, in this total war, Clausewitz explains that the extermination of the enemy - this ultimate goal of the fighter – is far from being the result in practice.
War is almost always defined as a series of battles, closely consecutive or not, until the end of the campaign. The decisive battle, if there is one, can be the last of the series. Strategy is considered as the management of the whole war (including periods between battles!).
To force the enemy to accept this fateful battle was always the objective of the strong side, by its power or numeral superiority. This side always forecast that it will end this very day (the Judgment day) and that's all. One Clauswitz' pupil, Delbruck, deepens the issue by defining in reality the existence of two strategies:
Strategy of annihilation of the enemy, by a clear victory for a long future period, when the other side is with no capacity to continue to fight – Niederwerfungsstrategie
To chose the time and battle field, how to place your forces the best to the fateful battle, with total victory as goal. These cases are rare (or History forgot most of them).
In most of the wars we are in fact under the other strategy: erosion, wearing out the forces – Ermattungstrategie. It leans on two principles: battle AND manoeuvres [see below]. In this strategy battle is only a means to reach victory, not the only one.
When military force is not enough, or that the enemy is big too much, that you cannot conquer him or destroy its country; you cannot impose your will on them. Remains to your c-in-chief to play between battle and manoeuvre .
In this case he will try to reach physical contact between the armies when at the same time
the weakest side will make its utmost to avoid this contact, as long as situation remains unchanged.
It means that we remain with two sides which are able to recover, to develop themselves once more after a campaign. We start to leave the world of absolute, the white / black dimensions to get closer to the world of reality.
Conclusion: we have to be cautious with the one shot ["zbang"] solutions and work is done. It is possible in theory, it hardly does occur.
Conclusion: war does not end with battles, it is not limited by a military zone, as broad as it could be. It consists in phases, pauses between fighting, different forms – until the moment you can say that the conflict is over.
It can also end itself without destructions only, but by clear expression that there is no more conflict; that the reason of the conflict isn't anymore.
This is what Ehud Barak asked for at Camp David [in 2000 with Clinton and Arafat]: a Palestinian declaration confirming the "end of the conflict" on the way towards the concessions recapitulation. Here, concerning the issue of competition and the necessary tools to face it, war is close to marketing and we can strengthen the similitude between both systems: long period, fighting, goals and control. It is not for nothing that marketing people use the military vocabulary although aim is not to kill (?), "only" to win.
What will do the weak side?
Of course the 2nd strategy is the right one if you are the weak. Hope is that, slowly, with a lot of small battles and by use of other tools like ruse and paralysis, you will be able to impose your will to the enemy and why not, to destroy him.
Rare are the moments in a long campaign where you reach the total effort. There are pauses between the fights, forces are dispatched on a wide field, political interests do not continuously justify this extreme effort, one side is interested by a lull, a temporary pause…
"Real life complications replace the absolute extreme theory" Clausewitz.
We saw for instance how during the Cold War both super powers managed to avoid any nuclear conflict.
Most of the time, at a moment of truth, one side is ready to get back, to destroy its own plans; countries and leaders are usually (mentally) balanced.
6
War and conflict
"War is (so) an act of violence aimed to force the enemy to implement our will" (Traduction by Yoshafat Arkabi:"Act of violence aimed to impose our will on our rivals".)
At Clausewitz' time, violent action was belonging to the State, not as today when violence belongs to non governmental or terrorist organizations.
The second subject of Clausewitz parameters which should raise our attention: the shock of the wills.
We are in a duel between nations, above them in a duel between the armed forces, and finally above in a duel between the leaders. Flying over the morale (of the troops), circumstances, there is a race between leaders to break the will of the other side.
This part of war doesn't work only under functions of logics.
"Because man's will does not draw its forces from logical subtilities".
When I was insisting on the duel between Arafat and Ariel Sharon, we were in fact simplifying, like an allegory, the fighting of the wills between the peoples
(although Palestinians are not a real democracy), between their goals and ours.
Clausewitz (Ch.2) - "Three components of war: "the military forces, the land, the will of the enemy" [so much in such short a sentence!]
Because his definition is limited by physical violence (soldiers and battlefield only), because the concept of war today does not satisfy itself by this scale,
we must pass to a broader concept including all war situations but also all the elements and situations which do not belong to the "peace" situation.
What the French general and strategist Lucien Poirier calls the "conflict".
Conflict
Poirier prefers this word instead of the Clausewitz' duel because it is more convenient to include the complexity of the subject.
Once we could compare with a duel between marshals or princes that were managing similar military forces. Then the armies were their belongings and importance was on the "how" of the execution at the crucial instant, at the battle and along the campaign.
A conflict starts before war itself and should end after cease-fire (at worst) or the signing of peace agreements.
Considering time, physical space and the other factors, the conflict notion is far more relevant.
As we'll see later, it is true also for strategy in the Far East: war dies not start with soldiers, some events previously occured.
7
Strategy and tactics - 4 levels
Said in a simplified way, for Clausewitz, tactics are linked to the use of the armed forces in the engagement (moments and phases of the battle);
strategy is about the use of these engagements serving the war effort. We can divide these 2 sections in 2 parts and we reach 4 levels.
We need experts in all these fields.
1. From the soldier up to his chief, occupied at calculationg operations and movements in his zone, and to implement orders and missions he received. In this small limited zone, action is considered as tactics. This is the small tactical activity we call tactics.
Stil,l we know that in today's world, any small action can have a strategic influence, even if counted in minutes or seconds.
2. In the preparation of the fight positions on the battlefield, at the rendez-vous of violence from the start to its end, the commander on the field organizes a complex disposition but still local, linked uniquely to this specific fight.
In reference to the complexity and the importance of the forces, within these limited circumstances, inside a much more complex structure, we say that the commander is dealing with "grand tactics".
3. At the military level, the strategist, the commander, deal with the "small strategy", which includes the whole carings, preparations and military administration all along the conflict.
Pressure on him is strong. A detailed description of the demands to fulfill the mission was written 2400 years ago by Sun Zu. (It will be possible to say more in another opus).
4. Above all is the head of the State, the Statesman, the supreme strategist. For him war and military issues are political tools like diplomacy, money, alliances, international agreements and more.
Please remind: it is not because someone was an expert in one field that he will be performing so nicely at another level. How many deceptions on this issue did we know these last years!
Marketing and war – conflict management from the best direction:
Similarity between war and marketing is amazing, the parallel is almost perfect.
To manage to reach realist objectives, to use the proper means, it is forbidden to start form the summit, from this ivory tower in which the "great strategist" should fix a policy – and only after we should go down to the people / the field to send his messages and orders.
On the contrary of producing marketing programs based on grandiose and inflated objectives, strategy must be founded on real data, even if you can change [in future] this reality.
I would compare also the operations based on price drop only as un-numerous Pyrrhic victories: you may win the battle but remain with no power or resources, you don't lose less than your competitors.
8
General definition - strategy
Simple and basic definition: there is a goal, the will to realize or to catch something.
There are some means to reach this objective, organized by a certain order.
Target + organization of the means = strategy.
To notice: you must fix a realistic objective and reasonnable measures related to reach it.
A little more complex definition: strategy = goals + means + the way you use these means to reach the goals.
Here, means are material like military capacity; the way is directed by the choice of the channels: use of force or violence, non-violence, diplomacy...
Wills
In most cases, we call the goals wills. But sometimes these "wills" are in fact imposed on us, not to confound. When we are attacked and that we have to defend ourselves.
Wills are in total our real political aims: to survive and win, to establish a State, to conquer...
The general frame I mention here will not be enough if I do not heavily insist on the importance of this will: goals and the consistency until their implementation.
Back to Clausewitz: "War... to force the enemy to accomplish our will... "
A more modern version by General Andre Beaufre: "Strategy is the art of the dialectic of the wills, using force to solve conflicts".
There is no good strategy without clear, realistic and pertinent objectives.
What do we want (the Israelis), what is important to us?
Being a democracy, we are more sensitive and weaker than the other side to fix our objectives and means. We all the time dispute between us; it is our known weakness, specially in this so divided Israeli democracy. The impression is that we are constantly in defense position in order to avoid the non return process of a new State creation. Life of our citizens is very important, it is not only a tool like it is for the other side leader (was much more relevant with Arafat, but still...).
Not that we are divided, in a large majority, on the desire to live in peace with our neighbours. Not that we consider as a real "necessity" the creation of a (supplementary/one more) Palestinian State
We dispute on the ways to reach peace; when we know that the road itself is a part of the solution, that it will characterize peace itself at the end of the process.
Some of us believe in a blind peace, a part of us is in complete despair and does not believe in a possibility to reach a genuine agreement with our neighbours. But because we are a democracy and most of the time our leaders are weak, we did not decide yet on our final red lines (our maximal concessions).
We were lucky indeed when Arafat himself awakened a part of our Left when starting the second intifada; so they understood at the end (this part of the left only, I insist) that they made a mistake when signing agreements with him.
Who can guarantee that we are not continuing making mistakes, once and once more?
Result: we are still with no clear objectives, any coherent position. Only the extremists among us have a solution, everything is so simple and obvious for them (Left or Right).
On the other side, more than 30 years, same people were sitting, with clear objectives, without renouncing any of them. Is it possible that "we", by Oslo
To help you, my dear reader, to formulate minimal directive lines, and to refresh you from the massive amount of concepts I started to develop from first page, I kindly invite you to ask yourself the following series of questions, pitiless and without any blindness.
9
Few first questions
Them and us: objectives and means. Partial list as an illustration only
What does want the enemy? What country? What army, on what land?
Do we know what we want for us? Are they acceptable principles for the other side?
Are we decided for the merchandise we buy and its price?
Why such a tangible difference between the goals of the Palestinian Authority and the goals of our political leaders?
Are we in war? Is the semantic discourse – combat/war/conflict – relevant? To fight for or to be active against are much nicer formulas that we can bear, compared with war, sounding dirty and exaggerated, as we saw in 2006 (Lebanon
Are we now trying to get back weapons from the other side? Who is the enemy today?
The fact that this conflict is between two peoples different by their cultures (with no doubt), their economical situation, religious, and that it is mediatized and emphasized out of any logical proportion compared with all the other worldwide existing conflicts; all this makes harder to find a solution in a short-term limit.
Who does hold the most clear and realistic objectives?
What to do if "truth is offending" [French idiom]? Keep on lying - to ourselves?
We will now try to understand what the Palestinian objectives are.
10
The other side objectives
For the Palestinians of the after Arafat era, it is an independence war, the war of liberation… if not more. Not important for the time being if we speak about the whole land of Israel
War of liberation, in which the enemy systematically holds every building stone of Zionism and appropriates it to himself as a part of his historical experience. All is permitted (really?) because of the occupation and oppression.
Discourse is valid also - of course – for the territories under their control, already "freed" years before.
It is important to remark that because even after the Oslo land of Israel
Curious to see the pressure on Israel-Netanyaou about the "2 States for 2 nations" when moderate Palestinians, our partners, reject this idea as it would be recognizing the right to a Jewish State .
Even the Israeli extreme left was shocked in 2001 in a public assembly with "Palestinian intellectuals" [their to be "Peace Now" movement]. The idea did not enter their mind, except a tactical retreat in a foreign language (never in Arabic!), that the Jewish People has a right to his State. Please awake.
Concerning Hamas, everything is clear and understood.
Consequently, all our goals if limited only to conserve the status quo are condemned to fail. To conserve the existing situation in a prolonged static way is not relevant. Never
The issue of the goals is crucial. It is not only words, only semantics.
We saw that conflict is a shock between objectives. The first hesitating is losing.
To really end a conflict the other side must stop dreaming and impregnate itself by the idea that he will not receive his wishes in their integrity.
It is not enough that conditions do not permit continuation of the fighting, they have to internalize that they must renounce to victory (Jews in the sea as our best scenario), they must know in spoken words, in written and in their hearts that the dream is over. That this dream is impossible to reach, at any case
Do we know any similar traditions to Naksa and Nakba days by any other refugees or children of children of refugees on Earth? What is the real signification of these days?
The Palestinians from decades, because their leader used them as cannon-fodder to his objectives, were conditioned into the obsession that it was not important if their situation was bad. The important thing was that it should be bad for us. What we call the policy of the worst.
Curiously, at least for the last decade, the contrary occurred: the Israeli society developed itself and seems prosperous, strongly at the opposite of the Palestinian society in constant deterioration, going decades backwards.
What sadness for them: they see the world around them keep on going forward, including a part of the Arab world. There was a time wherein they were a part of this "advanced" Arabic world. At the same time they see us developing into the international community, they even lost any piece of pride and became the eternal whimpering and whining, the greatest beggars [shnorers] in the world.
They are more important even that the Darfour refugees, that the Rwanda
[Curious this unbalance in the human and media treatment, what reasons?]
It is not only the case for the very sick entering Israel
They could be a bridge between Israel
Any tactical point that they manage to glean on the propaganda field do not help them in their tumbling voyage. After all, it is their right…
They too see the worsening of the Israeli society as a human fabric, with solidarity and personnel security weakening. They see the increasing rot process of our authorities, how the State becomes a banana republic and their last hope is that the social spider web will tear and destroy the State from inside until the last real fight meeting. (We have been compared by Hizbolla's Nasrallah as a spider's web easy to tear to peaces).
Fear exists among numerous citizens - I am one of them - in front of this real danger closer every day.
So, addicted by generations of leaders, not only Palestinians, that promised them everything, they did not internalize yet, they still do not renounce.
The "moderate" leaders continue to not say the truth to their inhabitants, keep on promising all, and of course never speak about a price. Everything is for free.
In this intentional psychological fraud, only the "strong" side should give, give up, abandon. They? They deserve all. Negotiations the Mediterranean way
A leadership empty and rotten on the other side (ours) too. Is this for them and for us the right leadership both sides deserve? When [to come] a Palestinian spring like the nowadays Arabic spring?
The fact that they are under manipulation of foreign countries (Iran Syria
From our side? All time long we limit ourselves to react instead of taking the initiative and to change the situation in our favour. It is very bad because in a conflict, a war, situation can always be reversed, time plays always against us. I will remind this issue later.
We also renounced victory, on this I will speak also. The war we successfully manage against terrorists attacks, we must copy it on other aspects of the conflict.
Let's go back a few steps, before warlike activity. How can we check if war has to be started? The Chinese answered this question long ago. The first chapter of Sun Zu is called "computations" [calculations, estimations]. The test is made by formulas relatively simple in order to know if you have to launch a campaign by now.
B TOWARDS WAR
11
Basic examinations to verify the value (profitability) to start a war
(The below proposed calculations are appropriate also to persons, organizations and commercial firms, it is after all a close to SWOT analysis)
Before you think of attacking another country, best is to use a simple matrice of risks calculation. We check with equations first, evaluations and questions if it is worthy to fight or if there is another method to reach our goals.
It does not depend on hazard but on a focused examination. Generally, all the questions call for answers as precise as possible, no chance, no hazard, no divine oracle but only very realist considerations.
Then only, if we start an action, we enter the art (of war), because only then we enter the world of uncertainty (occidental regard). Let's be clear, this memento does not come to present solutions or magic formulas to win. Thers is no such a thing. Nevertheless (by using these keys), you should avoid at least a defeat "written on the wall", i.e. clearly foreseeable in advance.
1. Do we & our enemy have a good army and good laws?
From Machiavel to Delbruck, the link between political regime and the state of the armies was proved.
To check the armies situation is obvious. When we speak about the laws, it means the relationships between the government and the population; the legitimacy of the government, if the leaders are strong and if the nation will follow them as a solid, united mass. An enemy both powerful and with a stable regime is the worst enemy. Cardinal foundation. The internal stability of the regime is a key to victory.
2. Between the first Sun Zu questions:
Do you know yourself? [Your military general situation]
Do you know the enemy? [His general military situation]
Answers: if you know both parties and evaluate a victory, you can attack.
If you are familiar with one only of those elements, your chances to win are close to 50%. You have to improve your knowledge before you start any action.
Negative answer to both questions: you cannot go to war.
Under other circumstances, it would have been interesting to think about these questions in July 2006.
3. In his first estimations, Sun Zu presents 7 questions.
Who can better unite army and population ? Who is the best commander-in-chief?
Who holds the advantage of climate and land? Who holds the best discipline?
Who has the greatest military power? Who holds the best trained soldiers?
Whose party has the most accurate system to recompense and punish?
He pretends that you can forecast the result of the war from answers to these questions.
12
Basic elements for a war campaign
Sun Zu mentions 5 general elements in the art of war:
1. Moral justice. It is the expression of the same feeling inside the government and through the nation. This because people are ready for great sacrifices for their fatherland
The ordinary citizen belongs to the nation and feels he does so. He will consequently do anything to protect his "home". Here we find, we will return to this at the end of the memento, the greatest existential danger from inside for the future of the State of Israel.
2. Nature: climate, seasons, climatic changes, limits of day and night.
3. Situation, territory: surface, distance, nature of the territories, geography in order to find preferred means to evacuate forces.
4. Commandment: the needed qualities for a chief of war.
5. Discipline, recompenses and punitions (concerning the soldiers).
Those who do not understand these criterions or ignore them in their judgement will lose.
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First feature of war: consistency towards the goal (until the implementation of the objectives, political and military) - perseverance, firmness to the aim. I underlined in a former chapter the importance of the objectives.
By fact, persistance is the first principle driving us all the way long until the end of the campaign. To know if we won or lost, we look at our objectives (secret or public), those we determined.
If, during the campaign, we replace goals or modify them, it does not really change the process, even if it is possible to interprete this change as a retreat (or a progress if you add more objectives!).
This principle of adhesion to objectives is not for free the first war caracteristic according to Yeoshafat Harkabi, who defines it ats "the basis of the attack action". Without principal objective, no need for war, there is nothing!
Consequently, all the forces in the campaign, even if it doesn't look sometimes so obvious and easy to be seen work towards the realization of this ultimate objective
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The magic/bewitched square of war
Numerous attempts have been made to classify the principles and caracteristics of war in an ordered and clear manner.
I will detail these factors in the simplest way it seems to me, starting from the base towards deduced or subordinate features. I will start by what qualifies the nature of war before the eternal principles of combat. I understand that the order I chose will not please everyone, it is just my point of view to expose the elements in a proper way.
War is a human action that does not know - because of its complexity, the dangers, the importance of chance and its mystery - any equivalent in any other human activity.
A complex duel with multiple levels
This dynamic dialectic exists and is self cumulating from the (battle)field up to the headquarter in power and fateful results.
To understand the phenomenon called war, we must look deep inside its organic components, the most fundamental, those who explain and manage all.
We will start with a basic matricia of these properties. I chose 4 elements: blizzard, friction, manoeuvre, economy of the forces - for the whole strategy and war.
14A blizzard (uncertainty)
This uncertainty appears in every domain, every place and moment of the campaign.
First, at war, you don't know all, issues and details. If a thing is clear, it is that you miss a lot of data to fix your decisions.
The peculiar in war is that you must decide under uncertainty (it is true also in business but comparison is here not at its place) for you but also for your enemy.
You broadly know what happens in the other side (like Israel
But the deepest you try to know the things, the least you really know them. Like for instance the definitive plan and implementation programs inside the head of the enemy commander-in-chief, and this is precisely a major element for our strategist.
It is true at the start of the event but of course it intensifies during the combat, according to time and the dimensions of the battlefield.
Clausewitz: "The news that reach you at war time are mostly contradictory, and false for a greater part; main of them are passably doubtful."
More: there is what we know at a certain time on a certain issue; there is our interpretation of the enemy activities; there is this mix of truth and lie on what it seems he intends to do... and inside this confusion we must keep on going towards an objective that we fixed, to read between the lines, between data true or not and the intoxication produced by both sides.
Because the natural blizzard is always increased by the enemy.
It is essential to understand that uncertainty is here anyway, that it cannot totally be neutralized. It is useful to try to reduce it, more precisely to reduce its influence - by certain tools like spies and intelligence and certain methods of thinking or deciding.
The one who does not want to take blizzard into account will be its victim.
14B friction
Clausewitz: "At war eveything is very simple but the simplest thing is complicated".
An example from the bottom: a soldier must know his field [according to the orders], when to shoot, who is the target. They are thousands like him at different places, different levels, inside great corps of soldiers (divisions...), in movement. Headquarter transmits its orders to move the troops, to lead the effort in one direction.
Problems start to occur: non understandable communications, imprecise commands, fear of the soldiers not working according to the orders but by feelings, surprising resistance points, damaged material, ruptures, defaults, all time long at every level.
Friction is like sand in the machine. Great difference between order prepared in the staff office and facts on the battle ground. Friction is a factor endommaging, transforming, harming the program implementation.
Because of the scale of the organization, of difficulty and danger in a battle, because of the pressure of time and that we are constantly in interaction with the enemy forces... and because of our "lean on me - trust me" culture, this friction is un-avoidable.
We know that in life between thinking, planification and execution there is often no link.
[Same for marketing plans made by people in nice offices with no connection with the ground]
At war this is worse: movement, transmission of orders, dramatic situations and plans changings, there is often a feeling that nothing works. Of course it provocks frustrations and dangers. The commander-in-chief needs here a long breathe capacity in order to continue to make the way and organize the manoeuvre of the forces.
Napoleon:"Art of war is a simple art and all of execution".
Strong example: at Waterloo, Napoleon is waiting help from General Grouchy but instead comes Blucher to help the English side. This same day Napoleon makes some tactical errors and his system, generally well lubricated all recent years is falling into pieces.
14C manoeuvre (concentration and movement of the forces)
I gather here 2 elements linked by nature:
- Freedom of action in general and specially the possibility to properly move forces in relation to the objectives and plans. Freedom to gather them at the place and moment you wanted in order to assemble a tremendous force at the critical point.
- Conservation of the troops as a potential threat because as long as the army exists, a victory is still possible.
Napoleon: "Art of placing the troops is the great art of war... passage from defensive order to offensive order is one of the most delicate operations at war". His best interpret, Jomini, tries to resume the principles of strategy at war:
"The fondamental principle of all war operations... consists in...
1. To bring, by strategic combinations, most of the forces of an army, successively on the decisive points of the war theatre...
2. To manoeuvre in a way to engage his strong power against fractions only of the enemy.
3. The day of the battle, to convey... this main part of the forces to the decisive point of the battlefield...
4. To do so that these masses will not be present on this fatal point only but will also be put in action with energy and altogether, in a way to produce a simultaneous effort".
A chess-mat or go or draughts player, easily understands that the base of freedom of action relies on a good movement of the forces. An error in the position and the moving of forces from one place to another reveals weaknesses that the enemy will be able to exploit
More, a non clever move from your side could help the enemy understanding your objectives and to act consequently.
Of course, in the same period, if you are strong in a certain place, it means that you are weak in others. At the same time you will need to be able to move fast in any direction in case you are attacked.
Clausewitz advised the Prussian army, may Prussia
So strong is the power of manoeuvre. In case of risk or destruction, escape is compulsory, to conserve the potential power of manoeuvres.
When you are trapped inside a closed place, you are more vulnerable because you cannot manoeuvre. We know that there is no fixed place that cannot be conquered.
14D economy of the forces (their optimal use, saving and conserving them)
(Budgetization and economical management on two levels, national and military)
Like for every living organism (family, society), the capacity of action has a budget.
You cannot do all you want, waste all the State assets for victory. No matter if a question of limited conflict or total war. In all cases, money, the "nerve of war" is limited.
The military principle of the economy of the forces is usually related to Marechal Foch during WWI. I broaden it to the use of the whole resources, not only the military ones.
Said simply by Foch: who wants to defend all - does not defend anything
It is for him the most important principle, for some reasons:
- The more the campaign lasts, and more the damages to the economy are important, the more the populations ask for ending the combat. For Foch too, the essential is to "pour out all the resources at a certain moment in one point; to use there all the troops..."
But over the manoeuvre, you attack the enemy everywhere until you find a weakness.
This effort weakens you elsewhere: this is why you have to choose what is more and what is less important to protect, you have to give clear priorities and be ready to sacrify certain points.
- Foch during World War One, "the Great War", saw the amplitude of the damages for the european winners: countries are destroyed, in every domain, for a long period of time and with an intensity never known before. For the whole generation it was a deep traumatism.
(This partly explains 20 years later the pacifist movements' strength)
- It is relatively easy to attack with a grand force and to occupy a certain area. But then you go forward and leave behind few troops only as a defence: double lose. Here you diminish the principal power, there this remaining defense force is limited. (This is why attack is preferred to defense). Dispersion is weakness.
How do you place your forces the best? You have to take care for reserves, fresh troops for special missions and replacement of tired ones, plus damaged material.
The main goal of the economy of forces consists in a proportionned ratio of the used forces compared with the task importance. For any requested action, different scale of power and effort. Harkabi calls it "saving force and effort".
I mentioned here indirectly the issue of concentration at a critical point because of Foch.
I cannot separate it from the economy of forces (same nature object), but we will revert to it later.
Because of the wars scale and their effect on the economy, only the government, above the
Headquarter, is capable and legitimate to manage the global conflicts. Let's not forget that (classical) war is a tool of the political power when diplomacy is not sufficient. On the same principle the commander-in-chief budgeties his forces and like him all commanders below him.
If we add to violence, blizzard and friction, necessity to be able to manoeuvre and economy of forces, we manage, not so badly, to define and characterize war at its core and to understand more or less all situations
It is important for me, dear reader, for this matricia to be always present in your head, and linked to consistency towards the realization of the targets. By the combinations hereby revealed, we can deduce additional principles and characteristics.
In conclusion, we work under uncertainty, a lot of our work is sinking, we must always ensure that our forces can move freely and budgetize them with measure. All this in permanent evolution beause of the inter-reactions with the other side. Multiply by the number of spaces and battlefields, by levels of leadership, add importance of moral, psychology and media. Who said it is easy?
At another level, this work of commander looks like the entrepreneur, the CEO.
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First conclusions - additional principles and characteristics
As a human complex action, strategy and war management needs all along and alternately one thing and its opposite: be concentrated at the critical point but spread your forces to defend all your important connections; be concentrated on the principle target but be flexible according to what happens on the field; move and ensure yourself a margin for manoeuvre but the more you move the more there is friction etc...
From the basic matricia
1. Uncertainty alone has huge influence on the whole process: you (the leader, commander-in-chief) do not know the situation of the enemy's army, what are his political & military objectives, the level of readiness of the troops before and facing the battles (let's remind for instance some surprises like Sovietic Russia in Afghanistan, Irak against Iran).
This is why you develop, in order to know, permanently and even in peace, an intelligence net. Your enemy too of course. The last chapter of Sun Zu, the 13, deals with spies only.
2. The principle that could break balance at war because of this uncertainty is surprise.
It can be local, with a power suddenly appearing and changing the deal during the battle, until something much bigger like the japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which caused tremendous damages (but not definitive) on different levels in the USA.
This is why you conserve more troops for reinfo rcement (what we call reserve, cf further), to avoid any surprise.
You also despatch your forces differently from the original desired objectives and weaken your attack. You reinfo rce also your supply and communication lines, another power absorber. You don't give clear orders and your people do not undestand them well.
Fear of surprise can paralyse an organization. This paralysis danger is not less important.
Because the will to create the surprise exists also to influence the mood of the enemy forces.
At the end of the day, history proves that the more war is lasting and the less parties are vulnerable to surprise. There have been very few cases of decisive influence of surprise enough to win. May we say that fear of surprise is more dangerous than surprise itself?
3. Over the unique surprise, uncertainty, at both sides, makes everyone mix truth and lie, will use "fraud and deception". (The Yehoshafat Harkabi's expression tries to cover both meanings of the French word ruse, a word in French very rich of meanings and variations).
Ruse is a fundamental element in strategy and war.
I devote further a full chapter to this so important subject (and fascinating as we do not speak only about small tricks).
On a chess-mate, on a daughters board, on the map of certain strategy games, all soldiers are visible. There is nothing hidden. Even though, we can fall trapped in a deception.
So what can happen in real war, when so little we can see and so badly?
4. Because uncertainty and multiple situation changes, despite the necessity of keeping on towards the objective, to be able to succesfully face almost all surprises, to be able to take any passing by opportunity, the army (true also in political strategy) must be commanded according to the principle of certain flexibility.
It is reflected for example in the capacity to modify partly and fast the structure of the divisions and their direction: flexibility in thinking, in the movement of the troops, in modification of the plans...
5. Blizzard and specially surprise demand us all time long to look for security. It includes calculations concerning possible gains vs inherent dangers of the mission.
How to ensure that any of your actions does not endanger you, does not enter you inside a trap. Everything is relative, so security will be so.
6. Because of friction (Clausewitz: "at war...very simple...but complicated"), we must work with simplicity (and clarity). I gave some examples of friction when I presented it.
To reduce this friction, orders and messages, missions and organization must be simple, with clear definitions. For instance the far headquarter must not enter into details of what happens on the ground. It will satisfy itself with small and clear objectives.
Every message is easy to understand, no double minded, with no options to various interpretations.
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Four important principles for an active use of forces during the campaign
7. Attack and initiative. At war and of course in a conflict, we must initiate, create situations (or to take advantage of new situations in our favour), to attack and chose the battlefield: if not the enemy will do so instead of us.
You cannot win if you are always only busy to answer, to react, after a hostile action.
(So important this sentence!).
Or you want to reach a goal and you created a conflict, then go and don't lose the initiative; or you have been attacked and you must not give the enemy the privilege to determine when and where fighting will take place.
Who does not remind the Israeli Army (and its reputation, an issue not less important), victorious because of the initiative? Thanks to the commanders leading at the head of the troops they manage?
Today? The question is not only a military one but not less a political one.
A clear message must serve politics and strategy.
The other side must be directed, managed. Issues and topics must be our choice. This calendar must be fixed in function of our will (yes everything starts with clear objectives). In every domain we must initiate and create the surprise.
A military action often caused instability to the other side. So, over prevention of terrorist activities and reinforcement of our moral, using this method with brain is fully adequat.
"Who has not the initiative usually loses, who conserves it usually wins". [Griffith interprets Sun Zu]
8. Concentration of the forces, the mass effect. Not only that you attack but you act with wisdom: I quote here a fundamental principle, the heart of the war effort (of marketing too, although many managers prefer to ignore it).
Napoleon underlined it as the key to success. For him, the decision on the battlefield is made because the concentration of great forces - as much as possible - in the briefest time - at the decison point.
Be the strongest [power will be concentrated] where decision must be made. Almost no matter with what happens somewhere else, where importance is secundary.
In fact, the whole manoeuvre is justified simply by this moment, where the shock is produced, the iron fist which dispatches an army, crushes the other one, this latter understanding that it lost its gravity center and that, consequently it lost (the combat).
>> If you cannot win without fighting, you must concentrate your forces to neutralize or destroy the enemy forces; and to reach this objective, you must be clearly the one who hits at the decisive place. From the moment you cannot avoid physical contact of the forces, no escape; there is no other means to reach a decision.
I know I repeat myself on these issues but we are in the heart of the subject.
The natural question is, where is this place, how can we know that we hit at the right place, and nowadays, are there similar points external from the physical battlefield? On this also we'll speak.
9. Reserve. They are the fresh troops, available, that you conserve for different missions. From Sun Zu to the last of the recent Generals, all recognize the need to conserve fighters and material, to be used at the proper moment.
Sun Zu for instance separates two types of forces: the normal one, which acts in a foreseeable conventional way, the Tchang; and an extraordinay force for special missions or sometimes to achieve the sudden decision, the Tchi.
With flexibility and according to the needs on the ground, every Tchang/Tchi force can pass from a nature to the other, everything is "liquid", i.e. versatile.
A very useful point in business: no to waste reserves (money and men) in vain, not to try to change a bad situation by a temporary push of fresh troops when there is no real chance to transform the real situation. Harkabi's translation: "Never to reinforce the failure, the check".
It is a classical business example when pumping resources for products or project that fail instead of investing more in the succeeding ones.
Nowadays generally, the word reserve is more focusing on the potential reserves of troops not yet recruited and the civil industrial equipment in the country. To manage this potential is a mission for the government only. This meaning for "reserve" is not relevant here.
Other issue about the reserve: if we are attacked by a first strong wave, what do we have still to ripost, is it enough as a means of dissuasion?
Here too it is spoken of a strategic reserve, opposite to tactical reserve on the field.
Threat of a possible ripost is a capital factor of dissuasion.
10. We attacked (even if we are not the ones who started the hostilities). We gathered forces, put aside a reserve, and now we are to win. What remains us to do? Eradication
If the goal is to overcome the opponent, at worst to destroy his army, so there is no choice, you have to end the work and eradicate the defeated force: the re-organization process must be made impossible. There must be no more chance to rise up once more.
How worthy it is to wish to combat when you are not able to realize this desire?
Most of the strategists advise to let open a way out for escape as a means to fight against a desparate adversary. Combat against cornered soldiers without any way out is much more difficult and bloody because they have nothing to lose and are ready to die. Those who run escaping with their backs to you are much more easy to hit.
So let's not be naive: when the other side starts to escape, you must - without taking risks - run after and neutralize them.
Victory is made real, amplified, by pursuit and eradication. Napoleon starred on this issue.
I remember first President Bush, very proud of himself, marvelling at the success and commanding ceasing fire after 120 hours in Bagdad. The Americans preferred to conserve a weakened adversary instead of a new leader. We see how successful this idea was! Dear reader, don't think that only Israel can miss.
Because work was not done and ended by the USA, they came with his son to "end" the job - ironical word, not really ended yet.
By the way, the idea of leading a weakened dictator is with no doubt a big mistake: circumstances change.
17
Remain few more principles, less important (to my opinion, in theory), but we must mention them as Harkabi did. Each subject is easy to understand.
Administration: things are so complicated at war that it must be founded on an efficient administration.
New theories insist on the level and quality of the organization as a key factor to victory or defeat. [ref Cohen/Gooch, "military misfortunes" I did not read yet]
It is much more that the simple administration level.
Cooperation - and not competition - between the different units and forces, between allies speaking different languages. Among other you must avoid competition for prestige and ego conflicts between commanders. This too is translated in human losses.
To maintain the moral of the troops - I mean the mood bellicose enough to hope for a "good" ending of the campaign. On the psychological aspect of war we'll revert to.
Another approach of the principles of war could be for instance a comparison between the triple negative – uncertainty, friction, surprise – facing an active triangle, more positive – manoeuvre, ruse, flexibility.
With time running and non stopping additions to the list, there is perpetual risk of adding too much components into the soup and to lose focus on the importance of each element in the process.
Blizzard and intelligence, friction, manoeuvre, economy and concentration of the forces, persistence, surprise, fraud and deception, flexibility, security, simplicity, initiative and attack, reserves, eradication; we made a nice broad walk of these great principles.
Some of them ask for a deeper study.
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Warnings
1. After examination of these principles and characteristics, a rule is important to know: there are no laws promising - in advance - victory at any case. There is no receipt for victory but there are, yes, conditions for defeat; from this side it is much more easier to foresee. There is not "if you do so... it will give exactly this result".
Most of the time, elements of war, properties and principles are all inside the process, in the campaign. But every one appears there in a different way, by intensity and at times varying from one war to the other. Over the precautions you took , you cannot foresee what will happen.
There are complications, chances that part of them you can translate into formulas, but the importance of the unknown, hazard, blizzard and friction are so great that results cannot be determined in advance. Did you hear about "grapes of wrath" operation in 1996 and the second Lebanon war? So if someone does expect a book supplying sure victory key, he will be desappointed.
Nice enough to avoid mistakes.
July 2011 and now the newspapers (Yediot) inform us that Hizbollah places were known by the Israeli intelligence. Yes but... the info was not given to the regional headquarters but put into bureaucratic cimeteries. No one thought that useful to transmit these crucial data.
No one single voice to ask. An army of robots, and here is the result. Despairing
2. Strategy is not an exact science. It is the first conclusion of the first warning.
The "strategic building site" [Lucien Poirier's expression] is in perpetual changing. Books dealing with strategy are not theories that the following person is checking but were written based on the experience of generals, officers, diplomats, statesmen and ingenieers that lived war and strategy.
They accumulated their experience and reflexions to a general knowledge that enrished itself. In strategy we started from facts and we tried to understand, not the contrary.
Strategists always learned a lot from examples pulled up the past. Who can say if Clausewitz could have written his masterpiece without losing and having been prisoner of war of Napoléon.
This is why we say "art of war", peculiar alchimy on the way to mix characteristics and principles, not a science with recurrent precise results.
The strategist who moves forces and resources, leading his troops in a unique texture in given space and time is a "master" [artist], not a scientist. Context is sad but the term "art" is justified.
So the competences of the chief in his "coup d'oeil" [immediate broad comprehension] of the situation, to see the ground, the essential, in a sea of information full of lies.
To understand by the coup d'oeil the battlefield, how to move, is an art, a talent.
No matter if being a natural gift or resulting from hard work and specialization.
3. Whatever their opinion or religious belief, attitude of the great strategists was to separate faith and the real now world concerning war.
In certain cases only at the edge of strategy, like geopolitics at its start, mix between religion and facts let destructive results, with no doubt.
I would like to add a personal note on two aspects of this issue.
First of all, we learned with France History how the kingdom was built many years long. The King was not in charge by divine command at the beginning, far from this. He was moreless first among equals. It took hundreds of years until he was governing under Heaven's Grace. The process is linked to the civilization and its progress, and to the dynastic fundation of the kingdom.
Over this story, in French and world history, help of the gods has always been very generous ("God is with us" it is well known), each side can count on His support. Every soldier was sure, wherever, that he was fighting on His behalf (against the heretics).
The traumatism from wars of religions that, more than once, crossed over France, Italy, Germanic territories, often causing mass massacres; makes me separating - completely - the actions of men and faith. Certain die in the name of God. Good pretext for the governants to send cannon-fodder and to hide other reasons for war, with no doubt, but no more than this.
These lines as a warning
Yes I think that those who justify by God or whatever divine reason - war and violence, suicide, human sacrifice and crime - are mental insanities and they represent primitive barbarian thinking models. To everyone freedom of his choice.
The Occident, after Judaism, as free nations, has known, even if it is recent, to free itself from this type of divine ideology. Amen!
C FACTS AND HISTORICAL LESSONS
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Before we reach certain historical characteristics of war, I would like to remind here
4 regular and recurrent historical mistakes, so we'll be able to learn from them some political principles. These rules are elementary - these mistakes are (so!) familiar.
1. With whom do you sign?
"Peace is very good by itself,
I agree, but what's its use,
with faithless ennemies?" (La Fontaine, the wolves and the sheep)
When we make an agreement, the first thing we check, is who is engaging himself to us. Who signs, who is the guarant.
The story is famous enough with the question on Richard Nixon: "Would you buy a second-hand car from this man?" [it did not avoid him to be a good president, despite the stincking impression of his personnality and his falling down]
Why do I ask? Because of the Oslo agreements. All the Arab leaders and some of the Palestinians warned us: Arafat never respected any agreement he signed upon.
Specially here he would start?
Let's put the agreement aside, good or bad, it is simply not the issue!
First, you don't sign with a crook. We discovered years along (not the illuminated ones of course that still believe he was a genuine partner) how, all this time, Arafat never thought of respecting the agreements. He said so, himself, to his guys the same morning before signing at the White House.
In an interview at the first channel of Israel Tv, one anniversary of the signing date, Shimon Peres explained that the agreement was a good one but that Arafat did not implement the things he engaged himself to do. No need for superfluous commentary!
The story of Louis XI king of France is (was) well known by all pupils of French elementary schools. I mean the main topic concerning his character: king but a supreme liar, manipulative artist, signing a treaty that he combats the day after, although he promised - facing God - in a solemnal declaration.
This sombre side is easily balanced by verifying the situation of France at both the beginning and the end of his reign: a more stable government, a kingdom bigger, healthier, which knew a period of peace into the dark frame of what we call the Hundred Years War.
Yes Louis XI paid with his money tributes to other kings to avoid war. The state of his kingdom was important for him before all. So what the value of criticism on him?
The French appreciate him as a good governor, a great king. (About moral values, we'll revert later).
Let's go back to Arafat. His strategy never changed along the years. The time factor had no importance for him, and from his point of view his own people could continue to suffer a lot. The goal remained the same: to destroy the State of Israel. At the same period (we will speak again on this issue) it was more convenient for him to go towards an agreement which would re-place him on the international scene and into the territories.
And we, the great intelligent [ubber-khukhem], we gave him the gushpanka, once more (without dealing with the agreement itself yet).
In classical litterature, Doctor Faust signs with the devil and sells his soul.
After Camp David, before the second intifada started, Ehud Barak said, with great courage, that there is no partner. Yossi Beilin in Tv broadcast explained us that saying and thinking so, it is terrible, awful, grave. [Now some say that Barak's declaration was a spin. Indeed?]
2. Time works always against us, politically and militarily, always against us.
Because the unstopped pumping of resources needed for war, it is clearly forbidden to prolong fighting for a not essential reason. All the long lasting conflicts end for us by losses. No matter what happens with the enemy.
On the other side, it is forbidden to delay the un-avoidable, even if democracies awake always late. The painful lesson from Europe of the 1930's must be for us an iron law.
In his chapter III, Machiavel gives his appreciation about the Romans' wisdom who never let their enemies grow up and preferred to combat soon and far from Rome.
"A war you avoid is only delayed at the advantage of the adversary".
But Machiavel insists in undersigning the idea, he repeats: "Never did they work according to the sentence that the false wise of our time have in mouth from sunrise to sundown - let time work for us".
And Machiavel adds: "We must never let occur a disorder to avoid a war; because we never avoid it, we delay it to our disadvantage".
On this point too, facing Yasser Arafat, some leftist politicians thought that it was worthy to try to reach partial agreements instead of putting all on the table (like Ehud Barak did in 2000).
If the intentions of the other side are genuine, and that he really cannot go forward to other concessions, there is a logic for partial agreements. But if his objectives are other, the question is not relevant anymore and will only humiliate us by the lack of perspicacity of our representatives.
Concerning the illusion of a clean war, Machiavel wants to help us in the field of Public Relations: (VIII) "Doing harm must be made all in once: as there is few time to taste it it will offense less, doing good must be made little by little, to be better relished."
At war, we must hit fast and strong to avoid the rottenness to develop, to take out stability from the adversary's brain. There is no room for hesitation or stammering that weaken us. Clausewitz strengthens this opinion.
The second meaning of this princip is clear too: at its beginning, the hostile power is still weak, it did not invade a territory big enough, recognition and influence. It is time for eradication inside the egg. The more we wait and let it develop itself, the more it will take spring and it will be difficult to destroy.
This is what happened with Hamas, Hezbollah (in a foreign country that should be sovereign). Where are the responsibles of all those years?
Yes. The mix of time and lack of initiative altogether is a delayed-action bomb pointed on our face. Even when the Chinese consider time differently from us, they reach here the same conclusions.
3. Don't introduce a foreign/enemy power into the territory.
On the strategical level only, this part treats about the familiar and tragic mistake in History. On this only base, we were wrong (in 1993), at any case, to reach an agreement with the then P.L.O. direction.
Machiavel (III) enlightens for us this mistake, famous in History but that always repeats itself. He gives the example of Louis XII, king of France, who conquered Italy but did not know how to take advantage of his victory.
So he writes: "The king Louis made therefore five mistakes: by ruining the weakest, by uncreasing in Italy the power of a local already very powerful person, by entering there a very powerful stranger, by not residing there, by not sending there any colony".
The point is here important: no need to reinforce another power which could be once a potential enemy.
"We can learn a general rule never unfailing, or almost never: who is causing the ascension of another is ruining himself".
Another example? closer to us? How Libanese elements asked for Syrian intervention inside their internal conflict and so helped Syria invading Lebanon.
Here it is closer to the other La Fontaine "The Cat, the Weasel, and the little Rabbit".
We will notice here the silence of certain powers like France that, for years not missed any opportunity to humiliate itself down to the master of Damascus (until the assassination of Hariri). To give Israel lessons was easier.
"At the falling of your enemy don't rejoice" the newspaper wrote on Shimon Peres about Yasser Arafat. But this man, so long after his death is still considered [when alive], by a part of us as a partner, by will or because of no other choice.
Simple common sense, school of life, teaches us that enough to put a rotten fruit in a basket of hundred fruits to see effects of rottening develop themselves. We say in Hebrew that better a worm in the fruit than a half worm in mouth. And we, we ourselves brought the worm inside our mouth. Super wisdom.
We must remind that at the same period the terrorist organization was at the edge of collapsing. P.L.O. was in a constant decomposition process, economical drop. It was weakened compared with the young leaders who grew up in Judae Samaria and Gaza with the first intifada. Like a rotten fruit, this great terror organization was desappearing.
We ["the poodles, the jackets" Ytzhaq Rabin dixit], by our own hands, we re-birthed the golem.
Why reading so many books on History if to fall down in a trap from so high and so badly?
Because of our imbecility (the one of our enlightened leaders) we permitted a hostile force to re-birth, we gave it an international legitimity, military power, control of border-land territories. Why?
Because it was clear (?) that he was the only one possible partner, so we enthroned him the real partner, the important being in closing, to reach a solution. I mean that solution is bad but appears to be the only one so we go for it.
How could we be aiming to receive respect from others when to ourselves we don't grant it?
Is it a reason to get back once and once more to this mistake?
Hamas did solve this issue in an easier way: they took the power by weapons in Gaza, killing, torturing, butchering their "brothers" without any bad feeling mood.
If it were not tragical, we could die laughing strongly too much at this soul goodness so occidental-frenchy when it is spoken about Gaza but only when it is to criticize.... Israel.
Flotilla of "peace lovers" support Hamas criminal regime created by putsch against democratic regime. They simply don't want to see who the ruler is.
Exactly like pacifists protested in Western Europe helping the Soviets.
Good conscience of my two!
4. To try to conserve a chivalrous – fair play behaviour.
In a campaign, a conflict, to renounce an advantage to avoid dirtying our hands & soul because of the "way" to reach it; wanting a clear and honest battle with all the engaged forces just to be fair play, willing to give God and public opinion to decide who is right,
it is pure real lot of shit!
Like if dying on the battlefield would be a nicest death, more noble, and like if facing the battle we should be "great" souls.
[Although even the worst lie permits victory like with the marmara flotilla; this pseudo peace flotilla, full of Muslim extremists, not only occidental antisemitic extreme leftists, who came only to smash Israeli soldiers. It is only one more example.
It is after all only a remake of the false report from France 2 on the to be death of Mohmad al-Dura, the pretended child "killed" by Tsahal at the starting period of the second intifada. We are not counting plus minus one more swindle.]
The Palestinian leadership is lying every day for years but they manage to pass their messages. Truth? Who cares?
Fair behaviour. It happened more than once! For instance the Crusaders battle against Saladin, close to Tiberiad in 1187.
This battle gathers a huge strategic error and a variety of tactical mistakes which conducted to the result. The crusaders harassed, without water, their whole equipment on them on a very warm day. Not all: the essential is that they left teh town without any protection to walk until the enemy who was taking rest waiting. Is it a French unique misadventure? Let's revert on this later. Only French? Be kidding! Related to us too? Yes it seems!
On other mistakes and lessons we'll revert further.
The list is still long like importance of land (territory), blindness, paralysis, conception, lack of decision, exageration of static defense, the pretext of economical development which would save us from war...
After a pause presenting the warnings and first historical lessons, let's us go back to the main way of the memento. We will deepen now a fundamental element of strategy and war: ruse, fraud and deception. And chess, and poker.
20
Ruse (fraud and deception)
When we think about ruse we are automatically pulled into the world of stratagems, of these "small tricks", as we are used to call them.
A very negative connotation is linked to the notion of ruse.
We think that these ideas belong to the Far East or that the Middle-East is full of crafty people [but nothing more]. Contempt invades us.
Oy! How many idiot prejudices should make us cutting our head off!
Sun Zu (I):"The whole art of war is based on fraud". (He reminds this issue all along).
First, we saw that fighting is the worst solution, and that we use weapons and power only when no choice. Strategy serves political interests that can be usually solved via diplomacy.
If we don't succeed, then we start by using ruse. Morally speaking, it is clear that this is much better than sending thousands of people on the battlefield and to threat civil populations.
Why should it be nice, moral, intelligent to run directly to battle?
Ruse can help us in avoiding a war: we create a diplomatic conflict between allies (our adversaries), separating them like in the expression [to divide in order to reign more easily - divide and conquer].
For instance, to drop down credit of ministers, high civil servants, wise advisers from the other side so we can easily win in the future.
We maintain political disorder inside the enemy's territory, when it is a powerful country wishing to appropriate our wealth: to pay local leaders for them to refrain from any military action. Yes, corruption can also avoid war.
The ultimate use of fraud is aimed to avoid violent solution; this use is blessed and more than moral.
The subject is not positively considered already by the Greeks. Inside the notion of Métis and in the myths appears the contradiction between use of force and use of ruse.
You can win a conflict by two ways: or you are strong; or you can influence data by different means in order to change the balance of powers and grant victory to the one who appeared weak at the start.
It is more true in a state of uncertainty like in a dual, when are varied the means of influence by mixing reality and illusion. It is not since yesterday only that the fox is so successfully appreciated by mankind among the animals and it is not for free.
We are inside the world of double sense and double talk, unknown, blizzard, of the importance of psychological factors that interact and change all time long.
From this point of view ruse is not only a simple list of small receipts that you automatically pull out from your sleeves, prepared in advance, a solution for each problem.
We are higher very much at the reflection level. Facing any situation we must find the most appropriate solution adapted to circumstances, independantly from its past uses.
Do not think "It worked so then, it will work the same way now."
More than this, ruse allows us to create some of the circumstances.
As you manage different conflicts, complex, rich in changes, ruse will be there anyway. It is very important for me to separate the ruse notion from what we call hypocrisy. It is just another world.
After the Greeks, Rome. The roman tradition of the open battle, clear and murderous.
Hee is a quote from Polybus about the king Philip V of Macedonia: "Philip then had recourse to dishonest proceedings that no one would say that they suits a king, but others say that you should necessarily use them given the fact that these perfidious manoeuvres became common currency".
Let's not forget that in these times, Rome was the almost invincible power, and it was important for her to obtain a clear decision on the battlefield, in order to destroy any possibility of future resistance. Victory by the battle was the tool of reinforcement of the Empire. But let us not be mistaken: Roman generals did use fraud and manipulated persons all the time.
About the behaviour of the French in the battle during centuries, these "high actions of chivalry", we can describe it as a classical example of a closed world vision holding in itself the catastroph. A long series getting back from time to time.
So the comprehensive ruse did not succeed and we must fight ?
In this case, to win, you can use deception for a strategical objective: to mislead our ennemies concerning our real goals, on our operational plans, our situation, the movements and dispatching of our troops, weapons quality and number.
In this uncertainty world we must intensify the phenomenon to our advantage.
The more we can mislead the enemy, the more we will cause him to build a wrong plan, the sooner we win. Practically, the use of ruse at the strategic level is an inseparable, natural, obvious of war. The one who does not understand that does understand nothing.
At this level, in a decisive battle, any small fraud can become a strategical ruse when permitting total victory.
If not, the logical long and physical campaign starts, there are battles, manoeuvres, and we come back to the more familiar concept of tricks and stratagems.
21
Stratagems
I created this chapter in Hebrew as there is no real good book in the language to explain to my readers. Yet, I limited myself as the memento must be short and cannot stop too much on this issue.
This is why, in French and in English, I only give sources that you can use if the subject is interesting you. You can use wikipedia, nice base, although I do not agree with all in the introduction. Search at 36 stratagems and stratagems.
I would like just to emphasize some points:
Stratagems are so numerous that there is no end to explain and give examples.
Diversion is a classic and famous tool but only one of them.
Some stratagems can become strategic as we saw previously.
The last stratagem as listed [by intention] by the Chinese in the "36" is escape.
Yes, if no choice and you risk to be destroyed, run fast and far. We here get back to the manoeuvre essential need, already underlined.
I give you details of 2 fundamental books, according to me the two real basics.
1 Frontinus, a Roman real aristocrat, engineer and very high servant whote the Strategemata. Quoted by Wikipedia, the latest edition of the Stratagems is by R. I. Ireland (Teubner, 1990 )ISBN 3-322-00746-4 (Latin); English translation in Loeb Classical Library, 1925. Traduction from Charles Edwin Bennett.
If nothing new since 1925 it is high time someone will renew the opus, it is important. The French edition I quote is precious and much more recent.
2 From the Chinese: "the 36 Stratagems", a real classical book. Like every Chinese classic, mandatory to be read with commentaries, if not, you will miss most of it.
Wikipedia's presentation is a nice base although not obliged to agree with the whole presentation.
I did not see the book from Harro von Senger, in English at Penguin and in German. May be interesting too.
I warmly advise you to make a journey in the wonderful site I found when looking for English references: wengu.tartarie.com in English and French.
22
Ethics
Of course, every normal human hates war, although not everyone condemns all sorts of violence. But we fall here into two principal traps that confond us.
A Individual and collective
I could refer to Isaac's sacrifice, known by everybody, angle stone in human history as the end of the era of human sacrifices, at any case the denunciation of this fact by divine order. It is common inspiration to the words of the wise when they criticize war.
2,400 years ago in the Asian Far East, they knew as well how to firmly criticize kings that were dreaming of making war without any real reason.
Here is the example of the philosoph [prophet in biblical sense?] Mu-Ti (or Mu-Tzu). After severely criticising results of war for both sides, he emphasizes his critics against attack for nothing:
"If a man kills an innocent, steals his garments, his spear and his spade, he commits a crime more severe than entering a cow-shed or a stable to steel an ox or a horse... but when it is about the crime done by entering a country then we don't see any harm, people applause and speak about justice... If a man calls black what is black on a small scale, but calls white what is black considering a big scale, then he is a man not capable to distinguish black and white [=good and evil]..."
These lines were not welcomed to the kings of this era, this of the "six kingdoms' war", busy to last in an instable period, in which small kingdoms were absorbed into bigger, with always pending the danger of losing independance and dinasty.
So before all, let's separate between individual behaviour and the one of a collective identity - Yishuv, State. Man is limited by the laws permitting the existence of a society with rights and duties for all. Violence, justice, revenge have been taken out from his hands and given to the authority of the State, and so the social order can be set and conserved.
But the States, they do act inside the frame of political and economical interests, and first justice is to ensure continuation of a viable sovereign existence. Diplomacy, powers balance, opposite or common interests, these factors rule the followed policy and the standards.
It would be idealic if world justice and universal peace were law and reality. We know it is not so, the contrary is true. Like Stanley Kubrick said: "The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes".
As men and citizens in our country, it is good that we keep on dreaming and hoping that one day it comes, but the political leader, the Chief of State, cannot allow himself to fall, even an instant, into this trap and to bring with him a complete country or community.
A master who teached us how to see the world as it is and to conform us to it is Machiavel of course (XV): "But distance is great between the way we live and the way we should live, so one who closes his eyes on what happens and wants to see only what should be learns more how about to lose himself than to conserve himself…" (XVIII): "It is why an advised lord cannot, must not, respect his word if this respect turns back against him and if the motives of his promise are abolished".
I do not justify of course the permanent lie on every subject to the citizens. I separate between international relationships and internal regime. In front of our neighbours, threatening dictatorships, a language based on interests - put aside frienship and the proximity feeling - is the correct language.
At international relations' level, one question remains:
"Who can injure / harm who?"
A negotiation on cease-fire lines, defence agreements, exchange of prisoners (living or not); these are issues that need a cold treatment, thought and calculated, without falling into destructive mercy feelings. Rules must be very clear and we cannot be criterions changed according to interior circumstances or the will of the media.
Separation between general interest and familial tragedies does exist.
The worst on the other hand is to play with the families and to make them promises that you know you can't realize. This is not excusable.
Although we are in a democracy and our citizens can vote against the political leading parties (not the economical regime), our country uses spies, special forces, bombs places, and the courts have authorized (with drastic limits) the use of certain tortures in very limited cases linked to urgency. Theoretically, these means are not "kosher", they do not fit. So where is the frontier between authorized and forbidden? When does it move?
The nice Western and others fellows would like us to be fair but double weigh when considering that our civil populations are targeted by intention, not as a by-product.
Resumed in a sentence: moral ethics are related to the individual, States are related to politics, which are not always immoral.
B - Moral of intention and moral of results.
Moral laws of the individual are universal (thanks Kant) and globally eternal, fixed and known. But in diplomatic relationships, circumstances change all time long.
This is why an action must fit its period circumstances, there is "nothing" to learn from a nowadays explanation of past reality and then decisions. What we had to do yesterday can be a no option today. In politics, the use of certain means can be good or bad according to circumstances, there is no universal law concerning their use.
This is why it is good to check an operation not related to our desires or objectives but compared with the results. To be a statesman demands a moral, ethics, aimed to results.
Examples? Bombings in Serbia, Muscled intervention in Rwanda – or in Darfour where all silently continues, fall of the Talibans, invasion of Afghanistan.
There are people even that are convinced that atomic explosions on Japan in 1945 saved tens of thousands of lives if not more. Not that there is a clear response as we do not re-make history, but some arguments justify these ideas. So, better or worse ?
It means that you must not judge an operation by intentions but by its results.
An operation that seems justified by results that are forecast as sure seems reasonable.
We can understand the moral side too by the ration benefit/cost, as long as we base ourselves on the foreseeable result. A far-seeing statesman must be able to understand even the unpredictable, what can badly skid – or even turn well.
This means that he too must be capable to behave in an unforeseeable way, that he must avoid the enemy to foresee his reactions.
Example - no care with the results: the 2006 Lebanon war. Hizbollah knew the Israelis would riposte but they had been surprised as Israel started a war. The fact that "the boss got mad" (Hebrew expression) give not them the insurance they exactly know what will be our reaction next time. They can envisage, not be sure.
Other example: President Roosevelt used manipulation with a Congress reticent to engage the USA in a European war and a strong pro-German lobby. He simply lied the Congress and thanks to that, the USA sent weapons to England, becoming so a de facto ally of the democracies.
And what to say about Hussein of Jordan in September 1970 ? He conserved his kingdom, independent, his throne, he avoided civil war and the establishment of a much more corrupted and dictatorial regime. (It is not my only opinion!)
But he did not kill more than necessary compared with Franco, Pinochet, like in oriental Timor; in Indonesia… the list is long.
At the end, when we judge a military action, we compare cost and benefit, the wanted objectives and we check if we reached them. We check of course also [after the action] if the original decisions were made in a proper and logical way.
"A good policy is measured by its efficiency" (and not according to ideals), so concludes Raymond Aron.
We have in Israel to cope with a difficult dilemma: how to efficiently fight violent forces in territories under anarchy ("lebanized") or urban guerilla when terrorists use human shield. How to reach the Hamas soldiers when they hide in hospitals? There is no clean war. Yes, but there are justified wars even if not just wars.
The French discover the same dilemmas in Afghanistan, as free movies show it in September 2011.
C - Justified or superfluous war
There is a general consensus between the Israelis to justify the first wars of the country: Independence war, Sinai's war in 1956, 6 days war, Kippur's war.
We understand by instinct that they were of "no choice" [eyn brira].
Things changed with the First Lebanon war. Here, Ariel Sharon continued politics with weapons as described by Clausewitz defined it (I-24): war is "a real political instrument, a continuation of political relationships, a realization of these relations by other means."
For a democracy and a culture like ours, this use of Tsahal and life of soldiers for political goals - and not strictly for defense, and more than this without guaranteed results, it is not allowable. It is obvious that the enemy does not consider its public opinion like our leaders must do and that, for then Yasser Arafat, Palestinians were only cannon-fodder [compared with the sacred aim of destroying the State of the Jews].
No doubt on the fact that the veto on this way of using the army weakens us on a strategic level because of the paralysis caused by fear of recruiting and using forces for political goals; not only for a defensive use.
On the other hand it strengthens us as holders of a moral / cultural position, higher than of our neighbours [causing them more anger!!], but it limits our capacity of political manoeuvres.
In front of the "no choice", we gather all the wars made only by attacking, for national pride, to reinforce regimes [usually dictatorships], prestige etc...
The Chinese strategists, when they evocate the traits of character of the leader, always insist on his cool blood and the impermeability of his bursts linked to respect.
They hold in contempt any leader starting war because wrath, need for revenge, lack of self-control of thirst for glory. Even if they win (most of them lose), that are only butchers for free and criminals.
Resuming, we have to differentiate between individual and collective morality, between intentions and results. There are wars that must be made, that we have to fight in with the existing tools and not all are nice to see. Goals are legitimate to reach a better situation for the populations.
In the future I will add here the dilemma as it occurred between Clemenceau and Foch when ending combat at WWI. It is a good example, like atomic bombings in Japan, to show when ethics can be different when considering now and a possible future.
23
War developments
I make in this chapter a broad, simplified and fast flight over certain issues linked to the practice of war, in order to give the reader an additional perspective about its transformations.
1. When starting, we saw that military strategy focused at the origin on three issues: movement of the troops - general management of war - organization of the defense of the country. By time, it was enlarged to gather the whole war operations, in an organized and budgeted way, in order to realize a certain objective.
Please remind: there is strategy because there is a political goal. The State, the government, organizes all the country forces (army, resources & economy, psychology and moral of the populations) within a full, global strategy.
Two important qualifying issues: the global point of view and the conflict between identities who fight for their real existence [in extreme cases which is rare]. Management of resources was transformed with the French Revolution which instituted for the first time in modern era the mass and citizens recruiting. No more mercenaries or soldiers of the king, no more limited armies. This is this huge, immense power which frightened the whole European monarchic regimes who leagued against it.
2. Since then, we entered the modern era of the conflict, which will prolong itself even after entering the nuclear era.
The military objective to force the enemy to implement our will: to avoid him any capacity to keep on fighting. It is possible only if we manage to harm its center of gravity, among three possibilities: occupation of the capital, occupation of an important part of the national territory; and, better than both first, the clear reduction to zero of its military capacity.
3. Center of Gravity Each entity holds one or more centers of gravity. The occupation or destruction of these centers can signify the end of the violent action and the defeat.
It can be the capital town of the country when not replaceable, destruction of the supreme headquarter or its main military authorities, weapons plants, vital supply lines, a part of the army you can't fight without.
Each organization, each country is built in a unique way, a sort of net, made of points linked by lines. At their middle a central point working as the spinal column.
If this point breaks down, all the fabric is coming undone, and all can collapse.
It is not for free that Hizbollah (and Arafat too) described us as a spider cobweb.
They are convinced that our internal links (intra-national), the ones which "hold" the Israeli society are weak, fragile.
What is our center of gravity? Jerusalem? Tel Aviv? A mass massacre ?
I did not speak yet about the psychological side of war, but the center of gravity can surely be psychological. So, when it falls down, where no amending possibility appears, people "feel" the loss, the defeat and they surrender. A physical reaction does directly influence the in mind opposition force.
In classical war, it is relatively easy to identify the gravity centre. The main one is the adversary's army that we have to neutralize / annihilate. In priority scale, after the gravity centre you find the neuralgic points.
4. It is generally agreed to simplify separation of weapons by using difference between fire and shock.
The shock is identified with the dual, like cold steel when the hands power is the original base. Stick, sword, blade, spear.
The fire weapon allows us to wound someone by distance, without direct close contact with the enemy, without immediate danger. First weapon was stone, bow or sling. An arrows' storm could in good conditions and cause havocs at the enemy, break his lines and his capacity of moving properly before contact.
Shock and fire shared alternatively their hour of glory and leadership, one to the detriment of the other and debates were intensive between partisans of both arms.
Cross-bow, stick, powder and explosives, elephants, catapults, guns and then artillery,
Canons up to naval guns, bombardiers until chemical weapons… are only a part of the evolution of these both principal weapons.
5. In parallel of the transformations of these sorts and qualities of arms, changed also the laws of the movement of the troops and their dispatch; before the battle, during it and the positions taken between fights.
We have to remind that until the 19th Century, when the railway started its revolution, the infantry was mainly walking and there was a physical limit known by all concerning feasible distances for a certain time. Napoleon was the first to increase these numbers above the usual data. Prussia and Russia were the first ones to use railways successfully.
6. Over the movement (which means the manoeuvre), great discussions between strategists were on the setting up of battle lines; or on the contrary upon the need to build columns all the way till the battlefield. To reach it with several columns which suddenly turn to one fast assault, like a strong and closed fist, and break up the large but not deep lines of the enemy, which gives an enormous advantage.
How many debates have been organized and how many (serious) people tried to build scientific formulas on this issue.
This sort of debate persists as part of it can transcend technical changes.
The error is to look for fixed formulas facing changing circumstances.
7. Because of the changes in weapons quality and technical general progress, armies transformed themselves to such a point that forces disappeared like cavalry, except for internal order maintenance and parade. (Others appeared: submarines, aircraft carriers, satellites, DCA…)
The debate on strategy deepened itself with new points of view: the armour added themselves to shock and fire. Other important topic, the debate on the importance of the forces, and their new organization: creation of army corpses, divisions, real complete armies "in miniature" including all the weapons and sorts of forces, able to fight in as organic entities.
This trend of course, as you always need to be able to gather some of them, within limited time, in order to fight inferior enemy forces.
8. All these changes and this experience, after thousands of years, brought the strategists to abandon the idea of the fortified fortresses as a useful tool. It took time and let us not forget that today weapons are much stronger that the old ones. You can survive in a bunker, barely more.
Forts and blockhouses had weapons often dangerous but all of them fell down. Massada, Alamut, Byzance, Vauban's defences, all were taken. Aviation, new bombs, there is not any secured place or continent. Even superb lines like Bar-Lev or Maginot. These data strengthen the advantage of attack over defence: there is no defendable place under all sorts of circumstances, all time long and at whatever the price.
Military sentence:"Fortresses are the cemeteries of the armies".
We get back to the importance of manoeuvres, which forces us to move the troops towards the objective, before the enemy manages to do so before us.
9. With time running, technical improvements and modern empires, subjects like maritime or space strategies entered of course the debate.
Only because of their maritime strategy, active and innovative, The United Kingdom and after the United States became the world leaders. The American admiral Mahan established as a pioneer the maritime strategy as autonomous from the classical [essentially continental] strategy around the years 1890.
During WWI, aviation was only stammering. Twenty years after the battle of England saved mankind. And it was very close to fail.
10. Need for balance. In China like in Europe for hundreds of years, the main goal of the powers was to conserve a certain balance of forces between them, like this terror balance we knew between the United States and communist Russia. It was forbidden for someone to become powerful too much inside his geographical area and could start to threaten his neighbours. Peace is in face a cease-fire, very long sometimes, until one side feels itself, truly or not, strong enough to attack. The cold and based on reason calculation of cost vs. advantage is the factor which avoids wars. In any case, it works with balanced (in mind) leaders.
Furthermore, to conserve this balance implies not to look for war soon too much. You can be stranger that your neighbour but your second neighbour will be strengthened by your conflict.
I preferred to ignore certain issues that belong to this chapter, I preferred to limit myself in reminding the dynamics of war and strategy manifestations, worldwide and through time.
We saw the main ingredients: ruse, moral, but we did not indeed internalize, this in full knowledge, an essential aspect of war: its psychological aspect.
Strategists will say, historical examples will prove it too, that number only cannot fix in advance who will win – but also quality and inside it the psychological situation, the "soul force" [force d'ame] and the capacity to "hold" civil and military populations.
*Moral: can be linked to someone's mood, his moral, his state of mind – but also to morality, moral behaviour. I am sure that my readers will know how to interpret.
D. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT OF WAR
Psychology and moral (psychological war)
As a human operation, war is dependent on forces inside us: moral, mood, courage, fear, cautiousness, vanity, anger, vengefulness…
It is important at every level of leadership from the lowest fighter. It is much more important under extreme combat conditions.
"Spartans do not ask how many are the enemies, they ask – Where are they?"
(Agis II of Sparta)
"I am your king, you are French, the enemy is there, charge!" (Henri IV)
"A soldier said to Pelopidas: -We are under the claws of our enemy!
Pelopidas answered – Why would we be under their claws more than that they are under ours?" (Plutarch)
Clausewitz: "War is the sphere of danger, so courage is the first warlike virtue by excellence… (Clausewitz describes different sorts of courage)… war is the domain of effort and physical suffering. To be able to resist it needs a certain physical and moral force… war is the domain of incertitude… the heart-rending view of suffering and danger awakens feelings that easily dominate intellectual convictions..."
In 1805 already, Clausewitz insists on primacy of non material factors but moral ones.
Against his colleagues of the area, he takes distance from geometrical formulas and insists on people and the forces inside them.
To his opinion, there are numerical factors, technical, like size of the armies, situation of the material; but they are not the only ones and moral elements can fix[results] – at least until there is no decisive battle (there yes, size prevails if center of gravity really harmed). In immediate tactics physical size can prevail, in strategy no. As we cannot make countable all the elements of war, so we cannot get formulas for sure victory.
True, we cannot scientifically measure a certain degree of mood but we must take these data into account. Clausewitz separates even the warrior specificity of courage from the regular meaning of courage. This specificity is yes a moral measurable power. An army feeling this warlike courage is ready to suffer over the normal and to lose difficult battles without being broken.
Strategy and war, we saw it, act inside a frame of unknown blizzard, with perpetual friction, both of them avoid going forward, under mortal threat for every participant, all time long under danger of ruses. You cannot live and operate in such a world by refusing presence of the psychological factor as it leads more than once our actions.
Against the old (and idiot) economical theory pretending that the individual verifies options and chooses according to an economical pure logic; inside the financial world too, the consumer does not obeys less to his feelings and instincts.
At war it is much more intense: all conditions are extreme, and the streams that influence us are much more intense.
Sun Zu:"Good is when troops ask for combat and not for victory, because forces that ask for combat know that they have been trained and prepared; but these are laziness and arrogance which ask for victory and bring to defeat".
Psychological war gathers the use of all means that influence moral and states of mind. Among these elements, for instance, lies and contradictory messages, clever and rough manipulations, psychological pressure on the individual and public opinion, its use to create clefts in the other side and essential, a cleft also in the mind of the enemy commander-in-chief.
And let us be clear, all is kosher, allowed, legitimate.
(Would I remind one thing from Arafat, I would remind this.)
Flagrant example: Arafat signed the Camp David agreements and knew, he said it by himself at the White House the same morning to his close people, that it was only a temporary means to receive recognition and land. He did not intend to implement this agreement even a second but what importance?
Important is that at the start he received what he craved for and that's why it was legitimate. Yes dear reader, please absorb this in full, it was legitimate and good because it matched with his strategy, with his goals. There is nothing more legitimate than this.
The issue (my opinion) what not with him but with the blindness (see further) of our leaders (and the Americans) . Respect of agreements against long term strategy?
The question about what to choose between them is simply superfluous, rhetoric.
Because I believe that my reader considers as obvious the importance of the psychological factor in war and strategy, we can go forward. Before we enter the phenomena of psychological war, we will pass by the errors born before the physical campaign itself. Simply said: how can we by ourselves damage this campaign .
25
Conceptions
Yes, we must stop for a while on a problematic element which drives us to enormous failures and which are apprehended, after the action, as a lack of logical thinking and internalization of the lessons of History – in the best case – and as an immense and criminal silliness – in the worst case.
Of course, every army holds its doctrine which gathers a group of basic principles; and these principles lead the movement of the troops. The State of Israel had during Ben Gurion's era three principles leading the military conflict direction: 1* To bring the battlefield as far as possible from the small State territory. 2* To be the first to attack in a preventive way to create a balance until the reservists come and balance the forces power. This first hit must be important. 3* Don't attack unless you have the support of one at least of the [then] super powers [USA – USSR]. In 1967 this last rule was not taken into account.
I define the "conception" word as a vision of the world over the doctrine, as its inspiring source. When the world is not properly analyzed, then the whole chain is diverted. A conception, it is for instance: "Egypt and Syria will not attack without Jordan", "A good defense is enough to prevent a surprise attack", "They will not dare, they know they have no chance", "This leader is too weak to take risks"…
Of course every organized State with a well-ordered army must hold a certain doctrine, but this late must change with time, and above all it must be comprehensive and not enter too many details. More, it must not avoid expression of different opinions and debate. [Against the "unique idea", sole conception]
Both Clausewitz and Sun Zu lay stress on the need for flexibility, both put us on our guard against dogmatism, a fixed too much set of principles. As war is a dual depending a lot on hazard and chance, there is no unique good and eternal system.
For instance, according to weapons inventions and improvements in History, there have been periods giving advantage to defense, when others were more favourable to the attack.
But conception can be deficient also because you did not implement it till its end: Example, the Bar-Lev Line on 1973 Kippurs' day was not fulfilled with people and material and it should have been according to the headquarter orders and norms.
Other erroneous conception at Lebanon War II (2006): the out of proportion importance given to aircraft despite its incapacity to make the decision only on its own.
Don't be afraid my dear reader, History is full of thought deficiency in campaigns leading.
Conceptual error is not a military exclusive, in the political field which is the above and dominant one, people are not less mistaken. Lack of comprehension in events' reading does surprise us and attracts the catastrophes. Saddam Hussein thought he would close fast against Iran when he started. It took seven years, huge destruction, drawn game. He made it twice when invaded Kuwait.
In my mind the Oslo agreement enter this same category because it was signed with someone used to violate all signed agreements. The Israeli intelligence services never gave their opinion on these agreements (if I am mistaken and they did give their opinion, then someone damaged our national interests). This is said without even entering the text itself and considering that it was a frame agreement, general and superficial.
The important [here] was that nothing would move without Arafat, the unique Palestinian representative. So we sign with him, even if it is bad. Here too History is full of failures which would be named "experience".
How did we reach this situation? Because with or without a debate, generally, does prevail, even inside democracies, a "unique thinking", the "only-way" which shuts down in critical moments all other ideas. Generally this conception is fruit of a team placed at the leadership, and the media increase their power or do not manage to oppose it. The unique thought is the source of blindness before the physical war starts.
We build our opinion according to specialists but themselves do not understand the facts, they dispute until every different opinion is shut down – up to the army General Headquarter.
Wrong conception on Kippur's day war, when signing in Oslo, in managing Lebanon War II; these are among the most flagrant craziness cases which pushed us into the abyss. Our chance is that "they" also get crazy!
Please my dear citizen, when only one conception exists, unique thinking, which is called also the pertaining, start to be afraid and check by yourself. How do we say after events occurred? It was "written on the wall". No matters from what political side it comes.
With Oslo a small team took the power in hands and created fateful processes. Entering Lebanon in 1981 Ariel Sharon did the same with the 40km lie. I am not interested here in purity of intentions, I get back to comparison between moral of intentions and moral of results; and also on the way of taking the control of decisions. A small but motivated team brings strategic decisions by surprise, without the nation expressing itself and any serious debate.
Against so dangerous drifts we must identify the symptoms and face them.
How? In every organization, of any dimension, from the individual up to the State, a consensus does exist on main principles and laws. Even if permitted to think differently, the majority quietly respects these laws. Suddenly, a small active minority manages to be heard, to defend opposite ideas and the majority remains quiet. It fact it is the way democracies function.
When a group manages to impose its ideas which appear to the majority absurd or dangerous, there are auto-defense systems which rise against. When these tools are paralyzed, or their voice is not heard – in full conscience or with no [bad] intention – there is then almost no limit for the power of the minority. Its opinion becomes (it appears so) the opinion of the majority.
This situation can occur only when this idea - and it natural conclusions, gather the opinion of different groups even rivals. Example: the French position about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the war in Iraq.
Forty years of brainwashing, an Arabic-Islamic minority close to 20% of the population, a rich and more than old inheritance of anti-Semitism from both left & right, a Palestinian propaganda strong and established for years, supported by the great majority of the media and businessmen linked to the power; all this together built a start position with clear conclusions. A long lasting lie naturally becomes the truth.
In Israel the consensus is based upon our will for peace, on which was grafted for instance the strong belief that without peace process there is no economical development (and this justifies that there should be no reason yet to start cleaning the way the State is managed). It gradually went to the comprehension of the "need" of a Palestinian state. It developed itself at last into understanding that settlements in Judea-Samaria are an obstacle to peace.
It was intensified when people thought that depth of the peace would be depending on the depth of the retreat.
I don't say that part of these assessments is not true, at least by describing the situation. My will is not to express a position as we did not reach yet the conclusions in the list of the ideas. In addition, people should understand that with any sentence sounding harmoniously nice (to the ears), there are direct results and the creation of a situation made different after discourses and actions.
Another point that we will underline later: the enemy "helps us" to build false conceptions, he knows how to strengthen them.
The Oslo agreements were based on clear principles: we will settle an agreement with PLO because they only can make peace – and we will not check too much what are their real intentions. To search (find) below the streetlight.
We can set it right: simply to change direction after we understand or discover the real enemy plan, or the real situation on the ground. The worst is to keep on through the error in full consciousness of the fact to defend friends, ideas we presented and our belief in those ideas.
Although it is important to hold tight the line of our objectives, evolving circumstances demand flexibility, not only physical but also in thinking. It is better to make changes while moving than not doing any change; cost is much smaller than simply waiting for bad results.
Let's go back to the psychological field during the active campaign. We will need to remind what is written below all along till the end of the memento. Here are some typical sorts of psychological war elements.
The important here is not in the separation among the topics, everyone can change at his ease, but in the presentation of the broad variety of phenomenon. Heavy issues will be treated later separately.
Internal dangers, or, how to hit yourself.
26
Blindness
I want to speak of this self-blindness against facts or History lessons, to consider an illogic thing as if it were evidence.
I was reminding sooner the lines built for defense. The Maginot Line story is a classical example of an erroneous conception which did not correspond to new conditions (the armoured corps). A conception maybe justified in 1920, a mistake in 1940. During WWI doctrine focused on attacking, thinking was that powerful attack is the way to victory. Then the war, with almost no change on the western front during 4 years, with the importance of defense, made a new cards deal.
The French Headquarter who wanted to avoid catastrophes of this war took the side of defense focusing. As a defense tool what best than an immense richly equipped line to counter any attack? The existence of such a line was to discourage in advance any German thought of attacking France.
Once more people looked one war back instead of preparing the next one.
Huge financial investments, national pride and arrogance, of the Headquarter, of politicians who adored to having their photograph taken, the (then) up to date technology, the same unique conception on the need of… All this for what ?
In May 1940 within few days, the German armoured corps passed beyond the line and entered France which decomposed.
Only de Gaulle opposed himself on the issue against the unique thinking by asking for a supplementary effort and another partition of the forces.
The illusion of a "low probability" in front of the clear and true warnings given by the good king and neighbour, who personally alarmed Golda Meir .
Is the "transmission of messages" via certain bombings very targeted worthy more?
The importance of our capacity of absorbing hits, of the need of small hits which cost lives: this way we entered Nablus and Jenin and we lost there too many soldiers.
Not only that the enemy propaganda invented a massacre (let's look on a real one in Syria 2011-12), but we did not clean properly the ground before we entered.
Napoleon was mistaken when he ran to Moscow and did not manage to comply Koutouzov to his victory. The place was far too much from his bases and logistical center. Distance was great too much and deadly was the freezing cold.
With railways and modern equipment, 130 years later, Hitler runs towards the same destination, and despite all the warnings, he is obliged to stop.
Even when it was still possible to retreat close to Stalingrad, and to save tens of thousands of his soldiers, he forbade his forces to retreat and for the first time the Third Reich lost a battle.
Political example of blindness: the pathetic try of the German high bourgeoisie to buy Hitler's regime. They supported him with finance aiming to buy from him some "industrial quietness". Nothing helped.
All along the way with Yasser Arafat we lied to ourselves. Not that some people did not speak and laid stress on that situation did not change according to the nice wishes of our people at Oslo.
But it was not given room enough for different opinions, these people were scorned; and in main opportunities we were offered as spokesmen interested people or extremists who totally "crushed" in advance the arguments of the criticizers.
The Muhammad Def affair: The then Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, accompanied by the chief of Military Intelligence, meets Arafat. The Intelligence confirms that the researched terrorist Muhammad Def is sheltered in Arafat's residence. When they ask about him Arafat asks the – innocently – "Muhammad who?" as if he does not know who they are talking about.
Our PM shuts down with no strong reaction against this clear lie.
So we are shown by the enemy; why would they feel ashamed to hit us if we are so ridiculous? Are we strong?
The French proverb says "they spit out on your face and you say -it rains".
This is then what said Shimon Peres, this is what said some Tsahal officers, this is what said his successor, PM Benyamin Netanyaou when he pretended he found in Yasser Arafat a friend – and we, the Israelis, together with our leaders.
This intense will of (all) Israeli leaders to receive one more spittle from Arafat remained until the ripost operation Homat Magen (high defensive wall – March 2001) and Ariel Sharon's actions.
Arafat spoke for the first time and no one wanted to listen to him, It was in South-Africa, soon after Oslo agreements' signing. He was reminding a lesson of history in Islam when an agreement was signed between two parties but; for one side it was only to prepare itself for final victory (which is generally true). How many people then did show us the importance of this discourse? Benny Begin alone tried to warn us. Because he is known as a rightist, people did not want to grant importance to his declarations.
Oslo advocates claimed even that Arafat's lesson had been made in confidence, not publicly. Like if this would justify or ponder Arafat's explanations.
The absurd justification was that Arafat was obliged to speak so to his people to calm them down, that lot of time was needed until he would manage to change their opinion. So what? Or he is a leader and his role is to guide, to teach, to explain his people even if it is against the stream. Or he is telling – them – the truth, what he really thinks.
His truth expressed in Arabic, he never changed it. In English he always knew to say what the Western countries wanted to hear (he let them whistle for their money).
He always condemned every terrorist attempt; in fact there has certainly never been another leader worldwide who condemned terrorist attacks against us like he condemned them while, simultaneously financing most of them.
All along Arafat was saying the same things, acted, taught and used the media for his propaganda towards same direction. We acted too, but towards the opposite direction. The educational issue is here essential and critical.
In Israel, the Minister of Education, instructed and professor by himself, runs declaring that coming school year will be "year of the peace" and so we had the year of the peace. What a wonderful thing! Peace is something good, practical, esthetic, moral, normal, extraordinary, indispensable, ravishing.
All Israeli pupils wrote, sung, danced, acted in small theatre pieces about peace.
Drunk we were.
On the other side ? Arithmetic in elementary school book:"I reach occupied Haifa, enters the shop. There are 10 Jews, I kill 6, how do remain in life?" The Palestinian Authority (PA) distributed the books, organized the teaching programs, leads eth radio and TV broadcasts. In the books, never a word about Israel, a sign of its existence or his right to exist, same for the Jewish People . No need of course to take care about Hamas' books and their paramilitary youth organizations.
Who does check Abou Mazen today? His behaviour in speaking is the same as Arafat.
This shameful defeatism did not know any limit when it was describing deserters with full support, like if they were the consciousness of the nation, the last right ones, until the moment when the radio station "Galey Palestine" itself came back to be "Galey Tsahal" the army radio. This only because of the increasing wave of terrorists operations .
Indeed, it is important to report the truth, or at least to give – honestly – to every opinion a chance to say his part of truth. But to fall down into this exaggerated masochism; it is to give the enemy the basis to believe in his hopes that we will collapse from inside.
We are the champions of discussions, and the enemy, looking at us, does not manage to believe how easy it is to bet on an internal decomposition of the State.
Please dear reader, remind that it is on this basis that Arafat started the second intifada. (Nasrallah did not think differently, especially in 2006).
How much was he surprised when we started to rise head up and riposte?
How many deserters or peace protestors in the other side? To be a hero there, the only question is "how many Jews to kill?"
27
Other internal dangers
Self-paralysis
After the 2001 elections, when we received a national union government, we saw at the top of the ladder two entities functioning in parallel.
* The first one tries and manages to move the head of the enemy regime, Yasser Arafat, and pulls him off its legitimacy and his absolute power. Sane minded persons start to understand that he systematically remained the chief of a gang of terrorists.
Even some Western States who were used to humiliate themselves for his cause start to face the facts.
* The second still tries to defend him at any price, to conserve him aiming that, at a certain moment (which will come, which must come), he will be able to get back to the negotiations table.
The absurd of this opinion was manifest as under full day light for instance in TV broadcast Politika of Dan Margalit six months after the Intifada started. One after the other, two ex-generals, the pair Danny and Danny (Rothschild and Yatom) repeat this prayer: "But if tomorrow Yasser Arafat wants to come back to the negotiations table, he can, it is still time." If so great a blindness or ignorance on the real situation reaches a priori so high leveled people, why wouldn't it be spread over other sectors of the population? You can even, helped by this discourse, become a Knesset deputy.
The everlasting debate on terminology like liquidation/holding in check (of the terrorists) reminds us by its ridiculous side, the pathetic precedent debate between one more "degree rising up" vs. "aggravation" (on the conflict level). Enlightened journalists are able to explain us with great self-complacency that in fact, it is us who are causing another wave of reprisals, because we neutralize terrorist leaders.
The tentative to lie to ourselves and to the out-world continues until the dislocation of the union government, at least for what concerns military plans and information (propaganda). Until then we were acting with two heads, one paralyzing the other. The situation really changed with Homat Magen (high defensive wall) operation.
How many (peace) victims must have fallen for common sense tells us "Get up and defend yourself, stop speaking and receiving hits"?
This same evening, Avi Pazner on French TV and a francophone officer on Belgium TV started to answer, to explain, to defend. The evening Homat Magen started I finally could feel that the mental defective period of blah-blah was ended and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was ours, Israeli. Rare are moments of this kind.
Please dear reader, remind that it is on this basis that Arafat started the second intifada. (Nasrallah did not think differently, especially in 2006).
How much was he surprised when we started to rise head up and riposte?
How many deserters or peace protestors in the other side? To be a hero there, the only question is "how many Jews to kill?"
27
Other internal dangers
Self-paralysis
After the 2001 elections, when we received a national union government, we saw at the top of the ladder two entities functioning in parallel.
* The first one tries and manages to move the head of the enemy regime, Yasser Arafat, and pulls him off its legitimacy and his absolute power. Sane minded persons start to understand that he systematically remained the chief of a gang of terrorists.
Even some Western States who were used to humiliate themselves for his cause start to face the facts.
* The second still tries to defend him at any price, to conserve him aiming that, at a certain moment (which will come, which must come), he will be able to get back to the negotiations table.
The absurd of this opinion was manifest as under full day light for instance in TV broadcast Politika of Dan Margalit six months after the Intifada started. One after the other, two ex-generals, the pair Danny and Danny (Rothschild and Yatom) repeat this prayer: "But if tomorrow Yasser Arafat wants to come back to the negotiations table, he can, it is still time." If so great a blindness or ignorance on the real situation reaches a priori so high leveled people, why wouldn't it be spread over other sectors of the population? You can even, helped by this discourse, become a Knesset deputy.
The everlasting debate on terminology like liquidation/holding in check (of the terrorists) reminds us by its ridiculous side, the pathetic precedent debate between one more "degree rising up" vs. "aggravation" (on the conflict level). Enlightened journalists are able to explain us with great self-complacency that in fact, it is us who are causing another wave of reprisals, because we neutralize terrorist leaders.
The tentative to lie to ourselves and to the out-world continues until the dislocation of the union government, at least for what concerns military plans and information (propaganda). Until then we were acting with two heads, one paralyzing the other. The situation really changed with Homat Magen (high defensive wall) operation.
How many (peace) victims must have fallen for common sense tells us "Get up and defend yourself, stop speaking and receiving hits"?
This same evening, Avi Pazner on French TV and a francophone officer on Belgium TV started to answer, to explain, to defend. The evening Homat Magen started I finally could feel that the mental defective period of blah-blah was ended and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was ours, Israeli. Rare are moments of this kind.
Fear, submission, tiredness
There is a debate in Israel on who is the most tired: the leaders or the people, tired of wars, of a conflict with no solution at horizon sight. It is even said that Ariel Sharon felt that the nation is tired. First, let's remind two rules:
1/ A war is a long lasting fight (a conflict even more), even if intensity is weak. In dual, the one who "blinks" [hesitates] is losing. We, we don't have this right.
A strategy linked to the core existence can even last many years. It was often reminded that for Arafat time was not a factor. And he was right when the final goal was over the counted time. It is the essence of a war of attrition.
The issue is erosion (we only start here), to push people to despair, to the thought that never there will be a solution, or that we are obliged to make an agreement, even bad, and even with a bad partner.
2/ A nation who is not ready to fight for its existence will not survive. It is not like so many believe, basing themselves on moral arguments and not on the facts; claiming everywhere that every nation ha s the right for its existence [as a fact]. Nonsense, there is nothing like that, we must be ready to defend ourselves all the time.
It is not new: even in prehistory, Neanderthal man was eliminated by its more modern rival, the homo sapiens.
The real need is perpetual training, checking what happens across the frontiers, to create useful alliances, helped by common interests. On the strategic plan, against abandon and paralysis, only the initiative wins. Military initiative on the field, fixation of rules that we desire, diplomatic initiative on the topics we proposed and our demands. No stammering.
Semantics and sliding towards notions which oppose to classical Zionism
Before the other side interferes, between us, we create confusion and change ideas. But the words have strength and different connotations. For instance, concerning the Jewish inhabitants of Judea-Samaria (and Gaza for long), we started with pioneers, then with inhabitants coming back (in the Promised Land, with the understood link with History) and then the settlers.
In foreign languages, in comparison and not without [good or bad reasons], words like husbandmen or colonists are used with their pejorative connotation.
The notion of colonialism, so unknown and so many times mislead, gives liberty to unfair interpretations.
At last, for lots of people in Israel, sanctification went on to the earth, to the land, and so any parcel of land cannot be anymore part of haggling or compromise. This, without taking into account people entering the Messiah in the story and starting the count back.
In June 1967 did we free or conquered? It depends on who you ask. How can you be the occupier of your own land? We enter here into the sphere wherein ideology on a religious/messianic background grows up; and like any ideology puts totally aside the fact that other people live here. No matter their position (active or passive), there are simply not taken into account.
Ideology, as usual in History, holds weak link with facts. One day it can be considered as conception. At the beginning and with enthusiasm, the majority of the people receive it, at least with understanding. From the instant the ideology manages the conflict, nothing doing, it will face without a doubt some moments of glory and greatness; but its destiny is fixed, we saw their end of all.
The population plan until the creation of the State was only practical, to anchor position on the land, to use the settled villages for military defense, to create a net all over the land and finally to be able to check the enemy's actions in its opposition.
Not that Zionism took distance with the historical/religious Jewish feeling but this criterion was not the dominant. All changed after 1967.
Here too, like with Oslo process, but 30 years before, a minority, full of vitality and ideology, organized, makes a de facto putsch against the majority and creates a delayed-action bomb.
It is not my task to remind here the economical interests well understood from people who knew how to make a full State dancing and filling up their pockets under cover of pure ideology. It is difficult for a "believer" to accept that at the bottom line, everything is business.
It is important to remind this because huge resources of the State were invested there.
Once more, I do not enter here into the debate on the right, the legitimacy, the religious or other moral side. The global spiritual element simply weakens us and diverts us from the cold and logic reflection on the situation, the strategy and the way of managing the conflict.
More than this, it adds a very dangerous level because it encourages a counter- reaction of Islam as it were a war of religion when it is not [and must not be] the case.
Not enough with the problems we have with local inhabitants, but we create them a natural support frame when adding to them a religious army in the whole Islam. This without speaking of the murdering passion living inside religious minds, not only in the other side
We achieve the trend with olives trees destroying, an action contradictory by nature to Judaism and not less to the fundamentals of Zionism.
The worst is that the religious echo is glued also with a place it has no real link: the Gaza strip. Already in 1957 Ben Gurion forewarned us not to remain there. The strip cannot be governed, and even our Egyptian neighbours never wanted it for themselves. But we wanted it because of the old doctrine "defense line and tour" [Homa ou Migdal], in order to help the army and to part the strip in separated areas. This doctrine was good before the State was established.
As long as we were in Gaza were we able to create illusion to ourselves, but without military presence, to let civilians there was a mistake. Opposite to Judea and Samaria situation, there was no historical/religious link to send people to live in Gaza strip. This is why all this affected pathos on the subject is superfluous; it weakens us on other positions.
This movement knew and of course created a counter-movement, this late one pleading that the creation of the State of Israel ended its [populating] mission, and that Zionism itself ended its mission. All which is related to post-Zionism describes well this phenomenon. The supporters of this movement consider Judea and Samaria as conquered territories we have to leave at once. But nature hates vacuum and you cannot let the enemy organized, growing in force and threatening us from there.
Here started the trap.
The egalitarian Zionist culture did not survive the collapse of the kibbutzim, the damages caused by over-defense workers system and the rotten socialist-histadrut establishment. As a sudden and violent counter-bang slap, the will was to resemble to the United States, including in its bad sides that were hidden: a society egoist, without any organized welfare state structure, a society in which money value prevails on human value.
One of the (partial) symptoms is the importance suits and ties took as the "garments of the power", until the absurd. The important was to take distance from what founded the State, from the Zionist spirit for equality and a more just society.
But there was not, at the "believers" side, any group aimed to remind the laws of justice of Judaism; there were too much busy with the land and forgot the man (I speak here only of the Zionist factions).
There is in the post-Zionism movement a strong will to erase and Zionism and Judaism, and to become a n+1 regular state like any other, a vague European standard copy inside the Middle-East. I am of course not opposed to import Western democratic values, clearly not, and the rest also of the good things the West brought to mankind. But is it the final goal of Zionism?
This Jewish Diaspora craving to be received at any price among the international community, under the mask of belief in progress – There is this need to look like a goy [non-Jewish], above all not to look like a khaluts [a pioneer] or a religious guy of this period, of those times. The will to forget the roots brought the State to another failure, to another decadence . From there this running of the "enlightened souls", at any cost, even into the danger to see the State destroyed.
How sweet it is to belong to the "international business community", the one of the developed countries. Not important too that here people are hungry and rejected by the system, that the Shoah survivors, the elders and the handicapped become under-men.
All the semantics resumed in one word: blazer [in Hebrew the vest of the suit].
Do we really have the choice only between money and land? Is that Zionism?
Will we survive like that, will we live?
We then enter the whirlwind of empty sentences which sound fine at the start: "Peace you make with enemies." It is not true because the sentence is not complete. You make peace with an enemy ready to recognize your right to live, who is ready to leave in peace without hate, who does not want to destroy you; or, who simply understood that by force he will not achieve his goal. With an enemy you can live in relative quietness for many years, in a long pause, but not peace, even not a cool one.
"Arafat must not become s Zionist supporter". OK but he must stop to be an enemy.
What to do with the simple man, who only wants peace with a partner ready for, the ordinary citizen wanting a more just society with the State resources focusing to more judicious directions, with foot on the ground? Why should there be a choice only between a messianic and crazy right, and a suicidal and defeatist left?
Who are we and who do we want to be? Is it Zionism?
History re-writing
The Israeli media accepted, out of other topics, the claiming that the second intifada started with Ariel Sharon's visit of the Temple Mount and the death of the Al-Dura child.
If we convince ourselves that lie is truth, and we start again every year this diatribe, how the rest of the world could think otherwise? But facts are different.
Arafat prepared his plans far before. Very few days before Sharon visited the Mount of the Temple, a Palestinian soldier of a mixed Israeli-Palestinian patrol shot and killed an Israeli soldier. The Palestinians claimed that the soldier lost control of himself but it was only an experience and it worked as we did not realize.
Then Sharon went to the Mount, of course a little taste of provocation, and the visit was used as a pretext to fire up the atmosphere.
The religious echo works always better with the crowd.
The affair of the child to have been killed by Tsahal bullets continues for years to pass by French courts. Slowly but surely, the truth concerning the breaches of duty of France 2, of their "journ-list" Charles Enderlin – embalmed even by some Israeli pen-pushers who cover his bullshit and his treachery – this truth starts to see the light.
We, at the first fire line, we live with these lies aimed against us, the left of the "pure souls" runs to auto-punish themselves as if they were a part of the monster.
No, the second intifada did not start with Sharon but according to Arafat's plans.
When Arafat saw that [for him] he has no choice but to start the second intifada, as, he simply did it. From his point of view [before checking the results], he was right and it was legitimate for him, to act this way. Owing to some clever persons at Tsahal we were ready and this was translated in the very little number of casualties on our side, high on theirs, but as usual we miscarried in our riposte strategy.
This story almost occurred with Sabra and Chatila. I saw then how a newspapers press, crazy and anti-Semite in its blood (among them Le Monde – not to quote it – on 8 pages) creates the flux of never ending lies on who did what and what happened there [I do not care here on what happened].
Another example in 2008 when a mendacious and manipulative translation of the French philosopher Alain Finkelkraut by the newspaper Haaretz (about the Islamic veil in France) caused him harm in France. Why this giving ammunitions to the enemy to fire zones?
We are drug-addicted and we need more and more bigger doses. Sometimes, by chance, the enemy also makes some mistake and manages to awaken us, to show us what really happened. Until next time. All these auto-intoxication issues I listed above, you have to remind them now from the side of the enemy; in a clever psychological action built by the other side.
Or he strengthens our proper blindness, giving it supplementary force, or he creates by himself new material aimed to sow discord between us.
Re-writing of history? The Waqf destroying systematically remains of Jewish presence and starting to express doubt about the Temple existence in Jerusalem (and we let them do) or Mahmud Abbas (Abou Mazen) doctor in denial of the Shoa.
Blindness or auto-intoxication ?
More deeply the venom enters blood: "He is our unique partner, we must protect him" was shouting Yosi Beilin when Ehud Barak publicly admitted that there was no partner (after Camp David).
In 2001, after the elections that put off Ehud Barak and his Labour, Shlomo Ben-Ami, one of his dominant ministers, a University Professor with high leveled thinking, recognized, that only during Taba discussions, very few days before the elections, he finally understood that Arafat would not sign any agreement with us. Anyway. Simply because he was not in capacity [numerous meanings] to do so .
Of course, Ben-Ami did not give us his opinion before the elections but only some months after. Till then, he was accomplice of this hypocrisy and of the discussions on Taba agreement. It is not only small politician way of acting, it is much more: the symbol of blindness which hits everybody, even University professors.
"I want to believe in peace, this must be, look the Messiah comes (it worked also with Staline, also to death in the camps), how nice it will be, why did we miss once more, we must strengthen him in all ways, it is worthy at any cost, Oy (catastrophe) on us if it does not happen…"
Yes, self-poisoning.
28
External psychological dangers
The other side too has a psychological strategy, they try too to know us and to hit.
** He strengthens blindness. Typical example is this empty meaning sentence like "peace of the braves". In simple words it means "take risks". Understandable: you are the strong side, (we were told enough!) so it is your duty to take more risks (than the other side, or to give more to the success of the process. Not grave if no logic in your actions. The world applauds, stocks exchange rise up, drunkenness is sweet.
An important point could have been a chapter on this infatuation. It is also a rule famous in marketing: "Use the strength of your adversary, transform it into a weakness". What has been done was not good and not enough because we are the "strong". This is why we must give, renounce, to conform – more. Rough manipulation but so efficient - To base ourselves on a comparison which seems "logic" to a dishonest conclusion. In the judiciary world, we exclude an agreement within which both parties do not compromise at a balanced similar level. You can denounce an agreement in which a party "gave up" in a multiple proportion compared to the other side. It is known as unmoral.
But when it is spoken of the renouncements of the State of Israel… then everything is permitted and just. How could it be otherwise?
** He helps paralysis, plays internal division in your home, tempts you all time long because with a little simple effort [from you!] to be done here it is! I learned in Hebrew language that greenhorns are easily replaced.
To satisfy everybody, even a rightist Prime Minister, expert in terrorism and on which you cannot use make any pressure (Bibi Netanyaou 1st period) declared he found in Arafat a friend and signed with him agreements.
** He plays on tiredness and fear, the heart of war of attrition: so what, how much time will we fight again, how many citizens will pay, how silly you are you the occupants. We forget why we built this high wall of separation, why we came back to Judea-Samaria, why it should be always our turn to make "good will gestures.
All these years were we asked for gestures, nice actions, as if to free murderers would be a nice desired gesture . If not absurd, what is it?
In 2008 we start to make more flexible the list of criterions to free from prison. Murderers with warm blood, cold blood, moderate killers… The government gives all the signal on what is standing still. Like you cut the salami (sausage): debate on number, on the quality of the prisoners, on gangs and organizations . We could create more groups: almost killers, lukewarm blood killers, simple forwarders, forwarders but only of explosives (we must distinguish)…
** More than once confusion has a role: how many times did Arafat play the weak, the one who does not control the field. Our military intelligence was denying these allegations but the government was pretending. Abou Mazen is weak, he always was. Should we reinforce him? Like every nation for its independence, a leader who does not want the power does not deserve it. And what is the value of his signature?
There are nevertheless improvements which sometimes cause the surprise: in 2007-2008 leaders of our suicidal Left do not want to give more arms to the PLO/Authority. It took 15 years but they opened their eyes. Let's do not despair.
** On semantics, I already reminded without detailing that the Palestinians did appropriate themselves the whole Zionist story (and so the discourse): even the term "Palestinian" was used before 1948 for the Jews of the mandate. They tried to bring a liner style Exodus, they speak about their "diaspora", they put off in Jerusalem every trace of Jewish history on the Mount of the Temple.
But more than any other, they know, like qualified marketing workers, to speak the language of the interviewer and in every language to push messages – not important if they oppose one the other. To the Arab audience they continue to promise reparation of the nakba (the catastrophe) and continuation of the opposition to the existence of the State of Israel. To the West they only cry pretending that they only want peace and the end of the occupation. To the Israelis they send zero-weight or "moderate" speakers [without any weight] to "comment" what happens in their home territories.
On a part of the Israeli media it is still working.
** Over all, the other side knows how to make pressure on a part of us, parting us in two halves (who do want peace and the ones who want occupation…). This internal separation makes more difficult for us to fix clear goals. Is it by the way an important thing for them as they can remain alone to fix the agenda.
There are not in their place any "peace now" or "stop the violence" or any "mourning parents". On the contrary, they built a complete culture of the shahid, with financial, cultural, social [and religious] support. The West is really sterile in its thinking against a so barbarian vision of the world, a so deviating one.
We are far from the simple propaganda concept. To direct a movie on "massacre", violence, funerals of still leaving persons; or the dance ballet of the ambulances which pass the weapons from place to place, all this is past. Long term aimed propaganda, much more sophisticated, full of lies so huge that we should be forced to believe they must be true! Every day worldwide it flows drop by drop, at the end it must work.
And we, with an organized state, we do nothing. If the Israeli political advisers were using only a fourth of their efforts to defend the Jewish State in the media, we would be seen otherwise.
The Palestinians stole from us the Zionist pathos, they easily corrupt the true historical facts, they control the semantic field like the Communist did before against the West tens of years but not only. In their management of the conflict against us, their vision includes all means and tools focus towards a unique goal. True, they made also lots of errors, and more than once it saved us. But we cannot count on them for this too.
29
External semantics
Typical example: the occupation (without treating the term negative connotations).
There are still people in Israel to believe that it is THE cause of the conflict. They only forget that on the eve of the second intifada 90% of the Palestinian population was living under the Authority control and that, after all, negotiations were still open.
The trend was then with Israeli continued withdrawal in time. I don't say that the conflict was totally solved but there was a clear direction and a will for moving.
It seemed that long ago we passed the point of no return on this issue. This is why their endless pretext that occupation is the reason of the intifada was a lie. And even if the rest of the world [who hardly does understand a thing on this conflict] falls into the trap, OK but we, the Israelis?
We entered once more the territories only because of terrorist attacks, because we left these territories and for us it was good so. No one among us, sane, did come back by joy or will; and if the leader of the Authority had been fighting terror instead of supporting it, we wouldn’t have been entering back, period.
I repeat: Arafat like a pupil of strategy knew that war is a tool of politics. Sharon knew that too but in a democracy we do not forgive the use of soldiers for political aims, over pure defense. He paid expensive price on this issue.
Rockets on our civilians before we left Gaza, rockets after its evacuation . So what link with occupation? Sand in the eyes .
Did we really try to fight the phenomenon? Must not peace be based first on next generation and hope for living together?
Gradually the Palestinians got back to youth paramilitary organizations, to real children training camps with use of weapons, and to the need to liberate Jerusalem by "blood and fire".
We remained dumb. We learned how to shake hands, they learned how to throw fist. We let things being done.
A state which does not react (or reacts only), which does not stand still on its positions, loses its will for life, and I repeat, remains with no "right" for existence.
Every time on the radio the same answer for years. Under-under ranked Palestinian speaker, grey like any Zyad Abou Zyad sings back his refrains: occupation. Pathetic. Their ex-Minister of the prisoners . There is real Minister need for the issue?
The direct result of self-paralysis is lack of initiative, and only the riposte, without a plan and without any wisdom. It means that in front of reality we had not any real usable strategy. Until it was finally decided to fight terrorism, and then too, not up to the end of the conclusions and the needed initiatives .
(As we saw in 2000, fortunately, the army, although weakened, was not at the pitiful level of the government, they were ready for the scenario).
There is no strategy without initiative, military and political. This is why we only lose.
As we do not use cleverly our force too, it is not efficient and then the "intelligent" ask: "Why more power if force does not prevail?" It is not true, idiot force hits the air. We were champions for making wind.
More semantics
Abou Mazen (Mahmud Abbas), the man of peace and pragmatist is of course ready to sign with us a peace agreement. Even maybe a honest one. But to ask his people to stop terror he has only one reason to give: it does "not help their interests". We could ask: yes but when it will help, will it be worthy? So he will support terror too?
I let some subjects aside to treat them apart. The first one is land.
30
Land
We'll start with a story by Tu Mu:
(Taken from the French version of Sun Zu Art of War from the edition by Samuel B. Griffith, chapter I paragraph 23).
"At the end of the Ch'in dynasty, Mo Tun established his power for the first time. The Hu of the East were strong.
They said: "We would like to buy the "thousand li" horse of Tou Ma."
All the counsellors disapproved. Mo Tun: "Why refusing a horse to a neighbour?" and he sent it.
Then they said: "We would like to receive a princess of the Kahn." All counsellors said: "They are cynical, we ask you to attack them." Mo Tun:"Why refusing a young lady to a neighbour?" and he sent the wife.
Soon after they asked: "You have a thousand li of land that you don't use and we want it ." Mo Tun once more called his counsellors. Some said it would be reasonable to give up the land, some said no. Mo Tun got angry: "Land is the foundation of the State. How could we give it up?" All those who advised to grant the land were decapitated. Mo Tun jumped on his horse, commanded that everyone remaining behind would be decapitated, and made a surprise attack against the Hu of the East.
The Hu, who despised him, had made no preparation. When he attacked them he destroyed them."
This story, a stratagem in its origin, explains how to put to sleep the enemy cautiousness, how to bring him to vanity; but as a prologue to this chapter [on the importance of land], it matches on some topics.
First, in the spirit of my previous warnings, it is obvious that I will not enter myself into the "sacred" character of the land in a religious point of view. Yet, we could remind in our peculiar case that Judea and Samaria, after Jerusalem, were a fundamental population and intellectual centre for Judaism.
After that the religious Zionists in their variety, massively deep-rooted themselves in the region – with a real economical importance for both local populations (Jews and Arabs); it is much more difficult to speak – in a civilized manner – about the future of the region. Back to this world:
1 land as source of sovereignty and power
The world today is known and delimited. Ended are the periods of discovering new lands and multi-continental empires. Every State (almost) has clear frontiers or a physical limit to its development. To every land legal rights, including territorial waters . This asset is limited but basic to grant each political entity a possibility for reasonable existence.
Under the earth natural resources belonging to the State . Agriculture, industry and population management are easier when density is lower. Same with water, surface needed to develop new energies etc…
We naturally class States according to their surface and population as basic criterions. After we add the economical, military and natural resources... We know also that surface cannot be extended. It is limited, and any limited thing is rare, which means has great value.
2 land as source of manoeuvre
We saw in the first Israeli doctrine, not by hazard, that it was important to transfer the battlefield to the other side, far from the national territory. The bigger the campaign battlefield, the further from civilian areas; easier to fight and manoeuvre.
It means that territory by itself holds a huge defensive value, and that to conserve it is to preserve victory for the future of the State.
An army, without manoeuvres potential, fights under inferiority conditions. More, in need of escaping, you must be able to go far. Mao Zedong with the 12.000 km of the long march in 1935 (in fact it was a running away) knew this very well.
Importance of the ground when huge and difficult to access: Napoleon and Hitler failing against immense Russia, England and its empire suffering the blitz as a far and big island. Today much more: a possible rain of missiles demands a larger dispatch of resources, military and of the population.
3 Importance of conquering territory
Clausewitz: "The end is defeat of the enemy, or at least conquest of a part of its territories, in order to take advantage, not of the momentary situation of the military forces, but of the acquired advantages for war and peace."
True and we certainly forgot it until Lebanon war II, there cannot be real surrender without conquering territories.
During the campaign, conquest of lands avoids the use (by the other side) of their resources (including recruitment), harms the moral of their troops, their will to continue the campaign; and weakens them in view of future negotiations.
The fact that the enemy holds missiles forces us more to enter their territory, to avoid closer and more precise launchings. There were people at the top of the State who saw in the missiles era the end of the importance of the land. Example: during Gulf War I, Shimon Peres explained that the Golan plateau has no more real importance as Syrians hold a big arsenal of missiles able to hit every point in Israel. It was even (for this group of thinkers) an additional point to renounce with more ease to any territory, as if land were not a strategic asset. Was I speaking of blindness?
Tragic mistake! The missiles era strengthens the importance of the ground under our control, also as a security band for civilian manoeuvre. And I get back to Clausewitz, always relevant: for him occupation brings the end of fighting, it makes more difficult the defense. There is no decision by aviation only, it is to be forgotten; enough we paid for this mistake when strengthening Hezbollah.
As writes Alain Dieckhoff: "In case of conventional war, physical presence on the ground, and not only bombardment, creates the supremacy of a side over the other. So the possession by Israel of a strategic increased depth and the topographic trumps of the occupied territories precisely remove the danger coming from the neighbour land forces and so reduce the real missiles threat."
Reading this text we can dream: this book, dealing only with Israel, was published in 1987. There is no replacement to earth. And considering possible lessons of Lebanon war II, it is cruel too much. Idiocy in conception at the top of the army .
4 On the other side
Should I really have to remind how the Palestinians deal with the land issue?
They use the religious pretext as if Jerusalem were really important to them (quoted not even once in the Koran). Above the natural will to conserve the Arabic part of the town and to avoid Jews population increase, It is obvious that fixing Jerusalem as their capital is only aimed to weaken our legitimacy. The issue is more appropriate when we take the land of Israel as a part of the "land of the Book" (the Koran), i.e. which was once under Muslim domination – and so, which must come back under it.
(Yes, Spain and part of Eastern Europe are in the same list.)
The topic is of course a big bluff for the Palestinian Authority but not for the different religious movements like Hamas.
Here too two ideologies: the natural returning of the Jewish People to his physical origins of national and religious history; and in front the return of Islamic sovereignty on lands which went off it once.
Reminding the subject as uniquely religious avoids any possible solution.
Politically, the Likud party left the dream of a unique Jewish State between the Jordan river and the sea but was replaced by the Palestinian movements. When I write that they stole Zionism from us it is not for free. Real recognition of our State there is not. The right of the Jewish People to be sovereign on its land is still not recognized. The lack of Israel appearance on Palestinian maps is only the visible part of the iceberg of their ideology. Haifa, Acre, Jaffa are still occupied lands.
The subject of the "returning" of the refugees inside the State is not an ordinary one. It is an additional point to invert the human balance in order to break the land judaizing. If it is not (for both sides) a try to conquer the land, so what is it? For them it is essential, because land is important, it is the basis for power.
Here too they do not remind for free the Jew of the Exile, the wandering, who looks for double nationality, who invests abroad to escape; although when precisely Jews worldwide invest here as a possible shield!
5 At both sides, literature and poets bring back in fashion the land, insist on its importance. Text is different, the tone too, more poetic here, more militant there, as like in any dictatorship, art is recruited to the "service of the people".
When will we consider the land issue seriously?
31
Economy and peace
The second subject concerns the relationship between economy and terrorism. Does economical development remove terror further? It seems logical. Always ? After WWII, the United States with the Marshall plan gave to Western Europe the possibility to economically rebuild itself. Against the communist enemy at the border, in the heart of Europe, all the democratic regimes found a common language, first by economy to live in peace. Some dream of the same process for here. Is it possible?
The "unique thinking" on this subject is that obviously, people living inside an economical development will look for peace and not for war. It means, if we give the Palestinians economical growth, hope for a better future, we will remove war.
Any simple, regular person understands that. Every one dreams to improve his living conditions, to grow up his children and to grant them an education so they will live better more.
Is this truth still real when people want to make more children just in order to have more shahidim to sacrifice, is it really true?
We saw that in economy too, the individual does not choose always the logical path but that internal forces, not rational, move him. This myth of the rational choice was discovered, an Israeli received Nobel Prize on this issue.
From somewhere else: just before the first turn of the 2002 presidential elections, the then Prime minister and candidate Lionel Jospin acknowledges an error. He honestly declares that he and his government thought that by fighting unemployment, by social support to poor populations they would manage to reduce violence and the unsecure feeling of lots of French. He both recognized his error and lost the elections.
He was, by the way, a honest and frank man (rare in politics) who called Hizbollah a "terrorist organization" and this is why he was received by stones in a Palestinian university. Alain Juppe made then a grave mistake proclaiming that by his declaration he harmed the honor of France.
Who says the truth does not diminish the honor, it does strengthen it. It was Juppe then, still under the influence of the traditional pro-Arab and anti-Israel policy, that respect was lacking.
In the past it was considered that economy and happiness, education, commerce, progress and science would improve the world, would bring peace between nations.
Why does it not work? Why is it not enough?
These same dreams on Assad's son that we were inflated with, about his interest for internet . Like if technology could at any case, why "could", it "must" move our neighbours towards direction of democracy, peace and improvement of human rights. We are not able to free ourselves from the blah-blah of utopian fantasies and because of that we pay the high price. Be Laden also used, Hamas also use internet. So what?
Did we forget what happened to the European nation then the most cultured worldwide? What is the link between technological progress or commerce and political opening? Were we speaking of democracies, really, then the self-developing bourgeoisie could influence. But when a dictator, he decides alone. Is it different with China? What is the value of education in a dictatorship?
So, we will bring wealth to the Palestinians, and so happiness, and like every other normal nations, they will prefer peace to war and poorness. Do they really have the right to speak? to influence?
We face here another example of this illusion of the economical world, as if it were governing and not other forces.
What do we forget on the way?
# That their leaders built a long term war strategy till the end (our disappearing), with no importance for the suffering of their people, all focused to the good… of the goal.
# That the religious issue is used a lot and avoids a rational process between adult people.
# That education on the other side is directed to teach hate, that financing goes to terror and weapons purchase.
# That except for a minority living on high developed corruption, among the most intense worldwide, economical development does profit to people; so it is difficult to sell them the fruits of peace and the promise that it is worthy.
There were n Europe leaders of another level (De Gaulle, Adenauer) who knew how to lead their nations. Nations too, even with great mutual love, were tired by hundreds of years intra Europe and were afraid of communism.
There was common culture, common goals, common interests and a strong and rare economical growth. The will of the leaders (and behind American power) lead to a real peace . There was no territorial quarrel too, Germany was parted.
I would like to remind here that the Western taxes financed the expenses of the Palestinian Authority, the first ten years of its existence, for a total amount higher than the Marshall Plan for Western Europe after WWII. An ocean of money that left for… a sea of terrorism and in the pockets of some folks .
The first difference is that regimes were democratic with almost no corruption. It is a basic point and it changes a lot. Goals were common facing the communist threat. There was no religious issue between the nations. Already few hundred years Catholic and Protestant do not massacre one the other (it happened).
From all the promises of a "new Middle-East", the Palestinians did see nothing.
The intifada (the second created by Arafat) destroyed all. They could have been the link, the meeting point between Israel and the Arab world (at least), and instead they threw themselves into confusion, hunger, culture of beggary and a counterfeit national proud, without any exit.
Is it true that if only we were granting them an economical development, they would act otherwise? It is not sure. First, we do not remake history. Second, we do not change the governmental bases of the Palestinian Authority.
Furthermore, it is not obvious that an economical development [alone] brings peace.
Only when they will interiorize the idea that there cannot be a destruction of Israel, then only, maybe, we'll have a chance.
I get back to a part of the conclusions made by Dr. Alain Dieckhoff in his book ("Les espaces d'Israel"). He refers to the Peres government at the end of the eighties:
"Tensions will not be defused, in any case, by the strategy of "functional devolution" applied by the Shimon Peres' government. This strategy aiming to give more autonomy to the local Palestinian authorities, to ease interventions of help & support organizations (for sanitarian programs, building housing and plants…)… is inscribed in a very clear political calculation: to grant the population better day to day life conditions and to make the occupation more bearable. This reasoning may be relevant in short term, but for long term it is fallacious. Because more the Palestinians will accumulate resources in cultural, economical and "technical" domains… less they will accept to be deprived from the essential: mastering their fate. Their day to day existence improvement will lead, at term, to radicalization of the political struggle, not to its attenuation.
A good dictator does conserve his people in poorness.
Truth is that more than once in history, the "weak" revolted after their minimal life conditions were improved, and then their political consciousness awakened, even if with some help of bourgeois elements allied to the movement.
We discover here a paradox, against the common way of thinking: after a sure improvement [in life conditions] and the first intifada [really popular and spontaneous], expression of an immense frustration: after the P.A. creation, the second intifada (organized by Arafat), the economical net was torn and the extremists took the power (Hamas in Gaza).
To give money is to support terrorism and corruption. Salam Fayyad changed the deal (and the change) on the day to day management, not on the deep ideology and discourse to the masses.
Irony: it is the regime of the P.A. that was a spider net. What does really happen in Judea-Samaria?
Economical development will give fruits only if business men take the power, efficient, not/lightly corrupted, with a minimal democratic base to govern. Without these conditions, we throw money to dustbins and keep on in a new lethal self-blinding (for us but before all for them).
Land, economical development, on both issues bitter truth is still smoother than any sugared lie. But how difficult it is!
The "new Middle-East" is like the communist dream: a nice dream that bad actions turn into tragedy. It is forbidden to work against human nature and the nature of organizations.
32
Three and a half historical examples of self-blindness and manipulation
I come now to three lessons from history, one a real trauma, important to remind to ourselves. These three lessons belong to psychological field, linked to auto-intoxication and to the way people follow, like flock, after good intentions; idiot and dangerous, of leaders or groups. This chapter could be called "collective self-lie at high intensity".
All refer to the collective, to leaders' blindness but much more, to full nations.
Munich agreements 1938
The Jewish People crossed the Shoah, in my point of view as a direct effect of the weakness of the Western democracies of the 1930's against Hitler. The tens of thousands of people that came to applaud Chamberlain and Daladier were the "leftists" of the era, who thought in their innocence that they succeeded in avoiding war with the dictator.
This chapter in History had to leave a traumatism to the Jewish People, but like all other people, we forget what happened, even after only very few years. We did not learn about France's policy (already then) and even about England.
But the Brits, they knew how to correct and stand still as a standing nation under another leadership.
This same process occurred in the 70-80's in Western Europe: the States paid to Palestinian terrorist organizations, by secret agreements, to avoid terrorist attacks on their territory. Governments like Italian or French fell on their knees and covered weapons transfers and terrorist operations as long as they were not made on their ground or concerned Jews only. The revelations made for instance by Francesco Cossiga during 2008 summer gave a public stamp to these facts. It included shameful liberations of terrorists in these countries within few hours only.
History comes back as a cycle, the issue is great when it occurs for the first time, after, you get used to it.
The high school boy I was then remembers the liberation of the terrorist Abou Daoud by Valery Giscard d'Estaing and his then Prime Minister Raymond Barre, two symbols of the prostituted France. And after this, these two toads wanted to give us lessons!
Western Europe pacifists in the Eighties
In this period, the peace lovers' movements protested against the installation of ballistic missiles systems in their countries. Soviet propaganda and the innocent will of the youth were fighting against installation that was aimed to balance the real – ready – already existing missiles systems of the Soviets targeted to the West and threatening Western Europe. Like Francois Mitterrand, socialist left French president said: "Pacifists are in the West, missiles are in the East".
These same movements gather today to call for Israel boycott. Islamist Propaganda, leftist anti-Semitism, amalgam… there is every element in the pot. You boycott democracy, you lie down in front of the dictators.
Of course, there were no protests in Soviet Union to disband their missiles.
This is what Vladimir Boukovsky called: "Pacifists against peace".
Exactly the same when people protest against the security wall and not against the terrorism that obliged the Israelis to build it. Because to raise a barrier is a collective punition, but permitting free movement of terrorists (to kill civilian Jews) it is legitimate as they are "activists", "freedom fighters", "independence fighters", "occupation fighters". Vision distortion is also a sort of self-blinding.
Intellectuals defending communist crimes
I grew up in France but this happened in many places.
There, until 1968 and even after, the Communist Party was receiving support and justification of its actions from a majority of intellectuals, some of them at the top of the scale. Tens of thousands signed and gave their support, for many years, to Stalin crimes, all Moscow trials, in the USSR and its suburbia.
They justified every hanging, all the trials, all the actions. Hard to believe that full divisions of people, "thinking", can in a democracy give support to a dictatorship because of an ideal. But this is exactly the crime of the ideologies.
They went tens of thousands as a herd when only few individuals asked questions, started to take distance, and these last were called traitors by the Party.
The communists said as, like the Khmers Rouges in Cambodia, that there is no choice and that they must be victims (necessarily sacrificed) to construct Socialism. The same criminal illusion we heard here with the "victims of peace". In front of us the same illusion with the shahidim.
Like Munich 1938, Budapest 1956, Prague 1968, we must find someone at the left ready to open his eyes, to ask and to open his mouth. How many at the right side will abandon a blind religion, like when everyone was blind in front of the Holy See of the new religion in Moscow? The message is different, the way it is sent; blindness and victims are the same.
Nothing new under the sun: the way to hell is paved with good intentions.
Nevertheless, maybe there are different ways to see the light.
33
East and West
I want in this chapter to try to present differences in the way of looking through the world between eastern and western. It is needed because specially in China, strategy has always been an important topic, an essential part of their world. To help in introducing the concepts, I will present them via different angles.
I built this chapter from a very strong "little" book in French from Francois Jullien, quoted in the bibliography, translated in English: "Treatise on Efficacy: Between Western and Chinese Thinking". This chapter is only a pale introduction compared to his opus (and his global work). The occidental I am must think also "from outside of the box".
1 Inside and outside
We think in the West, as active agents, we see the reality, we want to transform it into something else, to change it. We fix goals and means, (a strategy!) and start to work until reality meets our desires. Our seeing is done as if we were living outside from the world, maybe its masters, as if we were able like with plasticine to transform it to something else.
In the East, people think that we are inside, a part of the world. We act from inside, and remain dependant on its transformations and circumstances. We have goals of course, but we understand that to reach them, there must be some circumstances that are beyond our control to create; or, that the requested effort to reach them without using some trends can harm us, we and our forces.
In another way: the strategic Chinese art does not oppose the world to guide it, but between the frontiers of the circumstances and inside them, it builds a choice of potential possibilities. When circumstances are (will be) favorable (the famous positive supporting trends), the strategist will push in a stronger way the existing situation towards his desires.
2 The eternal wheel and the model
We act in the West by creating models, making shapes of the world and of the situations, building molds – fix ones. We ambition to reach an ideal situation and to maintain it . As if we would like to create an eternity. We also think that History goes towards one direction, even if not always really clear. The Chinese see the world as an infinite movement for anything, moving between existence and potential, eternal dual between Yin and Yang, the thing and its contrary. Movement flows out, when one is strong, second is weak but for any strength situation its peak and after this maximum starts the inverted process; the strong weakens until it becomes the weak side, and then starts once more to strengthen itself.
Our goal is to use the opportunity of these supporting trends.
Clausewitz himself guessed that when describing the zenith, the highest point of power and the process of power weakening which starts just after. He considers this highest point by the power of the adversary attack (highest point). What occurs then? The forces ratio naturally reverses itself because the attacker did not receive the decision, but his lines are stressed and his defense is more difficult to ensure – when in front of him people prepare the counter-attack. Classical example: Napoleon during his adventure until Moscow, and Hitler 140 years after and who did not learn the lesson.
When the enemy grows up to its maximal power extension, if you cannot oppose yourself, get small and wait for the moment to pass.
Because in this trend, after the peak there must be a drop in power, and situation can be reversed
The Chinese see the world as some worlds of different possible-s, in which we will be able to adapt ourselves in order to take opportunity of changing circumstances. These circumstances change by infinite and mutual influence between two contraries like good and evil, weak and strong, attention and negligence, full and empty… The powers game is changing all time long and reacts/makes react to this change on the other side of the opposition.
This eternal topic explains why strategy receives in itself ruse and stratagems as natural: they are part of the real world and they exist more than the will of the Western man who wants something and is ready [in order to reach it] clash against this world of (various possible) situations.
3 Sensation of reality, cause and results
Let's imagine that we look at the start of a battle. One side is strong and concentrated on the ground which is favorable to him, the other is weak and on a ground full of troubles. In such a battle surely the first one is to win.
To occidental eyes, of the man who does not think, the results (victory/defeat) seem natural as they appear on the battlefield as situation started in a certain way, which justifies this result.
In Chinese strategy they want you (your military power) to be like water.
Because water spouses the shape of every recipient and enters every possible corner, it changes its form all along, adapts itself but also drags a force which passes round any opposition.
Translation: the battle start conditions are already themselves the results of a prolonged action, secret, silent, which "naturally" brought to these battle start conditions. All the time you acted to reach the situation as it is, and the situation now on the battlefield is not a start situation but the result of your action (linked to circumstances) which made all slip according to your wishes.
In another way: it is indeed your strategy, from the – real - campaign start, which brought the enemy to be weak, to this place you chose, with too few forces, not organized… he will not be defeated because he is here at one against thousand, this is already a data, it was clear that he would lose; but you have lead the operations to create this situation. By ruse, manoeuvre and many other things up stream in the campaign,
Then you are like water, adapt yourself to every position and flow with huge power at the right moment. After the computations (chapter 11) you made before you started the whole campaign, and the making of a right strategy which weakened the enemy, victory is obvious, absolute, before even you make the first engagement.
When you perfectly used circumstances and their trends, you defeat an adversary that circumstances lead all along without his understanding or tries to change them.
In another way: "In Old Chine culture, power and weakness do not depend of the nature of the fighters, but depend on the situation they are involved in" (Pierre Fayard). This is why it is important to discreetly bring circumstances in a favorable direction towards our objectives. Circumstances do not come from nowhere. They are as you made them and as you used them as opportunity.
4 Use of circumstances to your profit
The occidental "I", so full of himself, wastes his forces for nothing when he wants to change a reality being at the opposite of his desires; instead of adapting himself or at least to work with her in harmony.
On the contrary, Orient accepts notions like "favorable", "positive", "with potential". The westerner can also feel this but his feeling remains a feeling, not a part of a conception of the world. On the contrary we consider these feelings as illogic and we repulse them. When the Chinese consider and calculate these notions. (Ch. 11)
When situation seems us favorable, it is our duty to reinforce it to use it at its maximum, to roll with it until success. Intelligence of this reality gives us flexibility, allows us to save energy and resources, and this is why you will not be complied to fight in an exhausting dual, but you will be able to fight plans and objectives of the enemy, which is the key of success.
Here remains the possibility to stand up once more as a phoenix against an enemy exhausted by his fight against the currents of the circumstances.
Some additional conclusions
# Conception or law of the systems
Instead of building a general and closed idea, it is preferable to understand the important principles, to identify them and to be ready to react in front of a variety of situations. This is what we concretely do in simulations: we use a prism of tools to adapt an adequate solution, without prejudice (preconception).
# Ruse and deceit, stratagems, are not matter to disdain or criticism by the "pure nice souls", as if they were only hypocrisy; but they are considered as natural fruits of the use of the circumstances and are part of the spine of strategy. They change in a world of uncertainty, so they are integrant part of the process.
# Although he acknowledges that in the reality, not every war is forced to end or ends by a great decisive battle, Clausewitz bases his theory upon the existence of this principle. The Chinese prefer the use of circumstances as a natural and silent current to direct the circumstances towards the desired situation, and it is preferable without any battle if possible. Please remind that according to them to win without fighting, this is the truest and the most wonderful victory. More than this, in the case of guerilla for instance, there is no decisive moment, there is no real notable moment but a smooth permanent and infinite trend which – slowly – erodes the enemy.
Every situation eroding us does threaten us to defeat.
# The Chinese strategist sees in victory the natural result of an efficient organization coupled with the gathering of the population around the leader. We speak about internal harmony between leader and the governmental system. It is in fact the key to success, to be a soldered nation working under an efficient and precise administration. Why? Because when efficient and precise, you are both strong from inside and strong against any external hostility
I notice the parallel with the "good laws and good weapons" by Machiavelli.
Comprehension and internalization of this last paragraph is vital.
At the end of the chapter, I would like to put together Orient and Occident. The British Lidell Hart, maybe because he read Sun Zu, reaches close conclusions: [translated from Hebrew and French, not original English]. "Perfection of strategy holds its base in bringing decision without real battle… Let's suppose that the strategist has the power to look for military solution. He can do so with best conditions to reach best results. In consequence, his real aim will not be to look so much for battle but to search for a strategic situation so advantageous that, even if it does not bring decision by itself, its continuing through battle will assuredly allow it to come. In other words, the objective of strategy is dislocation… of the force of the enemy, or its easier breaking during the fighting…"
I will not develop the subject anymore; I only hope that I managed to explain this world vision in its essential on strategy and war. Although a direct fruit of the Soviet Communist policy, Yasser Arafat was belonging to the Third World, to the Non-Aligned, and influence of Mao Zedong, Giap and Ho Chi Min were dominant on him. He learned from them, among others ideas, the "low intensity conflict".
The need to destroy the enemy army or at least to neutralize it brought to the preference, by lack of choice, to direct contact in order to obtain the absolute decision. This is what is generally called the direct strategy.
But how to reach the goal without falling into the danger of direct contact ? Here West and East can meet once more, as we accost the indirect approach.
F THE INDIRECT APPROACH
Few articles in the general (Israeli) press treat this subject. Now that we made closer Orient and Occident and that we look at strategy with a broader angle, it is easier for us to go forward in which really gathers them: what does save blood, the indirect contact instead of the shock, which is a wonderful thing when possible.
Why do I write "approach" (and not strategy or war)? Because from above, at the political level, not only on the battlefield, we use this approach . By the way in marketing we use it too like when using public relations and not advertising. I enter into the approach all movement, even in thinking, which tries to avoid frontal shock, decision by one moment or battle. This approach desires to avoid direct contact and its high cost, it plays with time and attrition. I simplify too and gather under one title an approach and concepts that strategists wanted to differentiate: according to Liddell Hart for instance there is an indirect approach strategy which is different from indirect strategy. It creates confusion and would be superfluous in our case.
34
The by-passing (or passing round)
We’ll start with it in order to enter the subject in an easy way. The by-passing can be done within the diplomatic field. The shock approach, battle front against battle front, is preferable for the strongest side. Its cost can be high, even very high, this is why it is better not to use it.
What do we really expect from the battle? To break the enemy's center of gravity, to dislocate the balance in order to create breaches into his defense until he looks for a way to escape. We want also to create the surprise because it will help us to break this balance, and it will influence the moral.
The dispatching of the army forces is usually defined in three parts, the centre, the left wing, the right wing. Our left wing against their right wing . The aim of the manoeuvre is to choose a side and to start passing round it, to attack it by side or from behind. To envelop enemy forces from a not foreseen direction and to break its stability . It is dangerous because you separate forces from any fresh supply and from your communication lines; because you diminish too your forces on the [said] principal battle line.
On the other hand, you force the enemy to turn forces to a new front; he must organize a new dispatch, without knowing how many forces he has to invest and if the new front is really dangerous. The issue is double for manoeuvre and troops organization:
# Nature of the attacked forces is important, are they able to defend themselves and to avoid lines breaking?
# Inside the units too, the internal figures constructions of a relevant defensive front are victims of friction, difficult to be implemented, much more under fighting fire. It was an intensive basic training in China and Rome: how can a group of soldiers transforms itself [for instance] from a square to a circle and changes direction. The individual soldier is not the master of his faith, he belongs to a team belonging itself to a broader group. A change in direction or of the fighting nature (attack/defense, holding/moving…) demands a time for reaction and a momentary weakness.
The goal of the attacker in by-passing is to break up the lines of defense of the adversary and to enter him the feeling of defeat, the start of escaping, understanding that he has no margin of manoeuvre except escape (or to surrender).
Via by-passing, it is easier to obtain victory and with less wounded. Why to run against strong defense lines, under organized fire, to face the failure of the assault? (In Hebrew: to throw the head against the wall)
We use for passing round regular forces or troops that have been hidden and we create the surprise which harms the moral of the enemy, as if evident that balance of powers is broken.
The initiator of the by-passing is the attacker, who fixes what will happen and when, this is why there is an advantage to attack, against the one who can only react all the time and must guess what is to come.
Examples of by-passing:
Global military strategy – the Germans in 1940 with Guderian and his tanks by-passing the Maginot Line towards fast France invasion.
Economical strategy – Napoleon wanted to isolate England from the European continent, to implement a boycott. But helped by its immense fleet and its Empire, England managed to inverse the attempt.
On the battlefield - closer to us, Kippur War, Ariel Sharon crosses the Suez Canal and the Egyptian army is isolated with no water supply. and many more examples…
Although, the by-passing does not cancel the battle itself, the shock, it modifies it, it diminishes the power of the enemy in the case of the simple shock on the meeting original front line. By-passing by itself only cannot cancel the forecast shock, any serious physical contact.
It is not that we do not try, for instance to paralyze the enemy like we – the Israelis – have been so many times. The unique way to act right is to integrate the military campaign into the global one, larger, to reduce the importance of the physical battlefield to the other elements of the conflict.
This is the indirect strategy.
I will present here a shortening of the chapter from the book by general Andre Beaufre, "Introduction to strategy". Beside concepts we already saw, we enter the new field of the called "modern" war. One thing more, dear reader, it is not important if part of the text is not clear for you at first glance. I will develop in the following chapters until you have a comprehensive clear image.
The extracts are taken from the French anthology by Gerard Chaliand, as Beaufre's book in French was out of reach for many years. (cf. bibliography).
35
The indirect strategy
The following chapters are for me beyond the most important of the memento: please dear reader, understand that this book was written more than forty years ago, which means that all, yes all, was already black on white; even on the propaganda/communication issue. Because it is not prophecy, all already happened, and so this analysis of historical existing trends. Yehoshafat Harkabi reminds the opus of Andre Beaufre in the nineties. If only this book had been taught in Israeli and occidental political and military schools, we would have saved many mistakes and lot of blood.
In the inspiration of the by-passing aiming to reach victory on the battlefield, the weak side developed a global strategy, which aims to avoid this decision on this same battlefield. In the atomic and decolonization era, this strategy reached very notable results.
In this war, the search for manoeuvre/movement of the troops becomes a basic element as too much violence or intensity in the conflict would threaten world peace. For a regular power like a State, freedom of movement [freedom to manoeuvre] is limited. The use of the forces must be silent, almost not felt. This is how the West lost the Far-East, part of Africa, of the Americas – Central and South.
Beaufre gets closer to the "Chinese" definition of the situation, when he writes that "all these results are not fatal product of historical evolution, they are the result of a judicious use of natural tendencies of evolution by manoeuvres precisely calculated, according to a very precise strategy, what we call the indirect strategy… (which appears) as the art of knowing how to exploit at its utmost the thin margin of freedom of movement which is out of the dissuasion field by atomic weapons, and to achieve decisive important successes despite the limitation, sometimes extreme, of the military means that can be used."
Decisive: a military event with deep influences in the area, in long term, an history turning point. With this definition he previously gave, Beaufre starts his analysis.
To notice: when Beaufre writes his text, the atomic weapon is essentially bipolar, USA and USSR, West against communism. But today it is more dispatched, and States / non-governmental organizations, fanaticized, try to reach it. Situation today is worse.
In other words, war of the weak against the strong. The leading idea: to inverse outside the battlefield a negative forces unbalanced ratio. Do not mistake: the goal of the indirect strategy remains political-military victory, using means different from the regular military field. The leader using them will permanently search for freedom to manoeuvre. In a paradoxical way, a global nuclear threat reinforced many times the freedom to movement in local conflicts, like in the one interesting us.
36
Indirect manoeuvre conception
Freedom of manoeuvre is almost independent from what happens in the field. It bases itself, principally, on external factors, out of what happens on this field: fixation of international frontiers, possibilities linked to the state of mind (and morality) of the enemy; of its sensitiveness facing planned operations against him and external pressures etc...
Beaufre underlines: "…we did not see that the core part of the struggle was not played on the battlefield but out of it. It is in general this grave countersense which brought the too many setbacks we faced."
Beaufre, writing in the sixties, refers mainly to Viet-Nam and Algeria. He explains the indirect manoeuvre in six parts. I quote:
A Conception of the external manoeuvre
"The central idea of the external manoeuvre is to ensure ourselves the maximum of freedom of movement by paralyzing the adversary by thousands of ties of dissuasion, like the Lilliputians did with Gulliver. Naturally – like any dissuasion – it is a psychological manoeuvre gathering to the same goal political, economical, diplomatic and military means.
The employed tools of this dissuasion go from the most subtle to the most brutal ones: We will play on the respect of legal forms, national and international, of the Right; we'll command respect for the moral and humanitarian values and we'll try to give the adversary bad conscience in his struggle by causing him doubt about the rightness of his cause; we'll so create an opposition in a part of his internal public opinion when also stirring up, if we can, any part of the international opinion, creating a real moral coalition in which we'll bring naïve supporters seduced by arguments matching their preconceptions; this climate will be used in the UN for instance or in other international meetings, but it will be mainly used as a threat aimed to avoid the adversary to undertake any action… (we'll threaten with) direct intervention…"
The term "observers" does not appear. And I don't develop another conclusion: the accusation of disproportionate response. In short: no way out.
Dear reader, does this paragraph remind you anything? To them the right to lie, to play the weak ("We have even no tanks!"), to complain about curfew, blockade, massacre (which is of course a genocide) etc…
So we once more fall into the trap, and the Western populations with us, we give these respectable people to keep on whimpering; a part of us forgets who we deal with, does not want to see frankly when they spit on us.
This never stopping mansuetude (gentleness) against the enemy propaganda frightens much more as a symbol of the collapse of our self-respect. Human law: if you don’t respect yourself, how can you expect that others will do?
Beaufre continues: "But this aggregate of proceedings cannot be used efficiently without two realized conditions: first that dissuasion military force (nuclear or classic) constitutes a sufficient global threat in order to paralyze reactions and second that the concert of forecast actions is inscribed into a political line rightly chosen in order to build a coherent total..."
A long term political line: the end of the State of Israel, creation of one State on the whole territory. I want to remind here that since the start of the second intifada, programmed long before end of September 2000, some commentators explained that it was a strategic decision from Arafat to use violence. Only the blinded did not accept those facts and saw by Sharon's visit to the esplanade of the Temple Mount the reason (of this intifada).
How much can a man lie to himself? How many beaten women believe that tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, soon, the violent husband will calm himself; and that after all they are also maybe guilty? This is how we became a beaten nation.
Beaufre: "Curious thing, we could establish in this domain that one can in psychological field appropriate himself abstract positions; like in military war you can invade a geographical position and you forbid it from the enemy."
In marketing, you call it a position into the customer's head, in the consumers mind, it is a basic of marketing, the notion of positioning and of the importance of the brand (examples Volvo = security, Mercedes = luxury etc…).
"The Soviet managed by this way to make us admit that the Iron Curtain was a political impervious barrier in the West-East sense but [that it was] permeable in the East-West direction, they appropriated to themselves the platform of peace, the one of the refusal of atomic weapons (despite that they developed them), the card of the anti-colonialism although they hold the only one colonial empire still subsisting."
Already a part of the occidental public opinion was made totally blind by a marvellous propaganda which included the recruiting of a fifth column, the communist parties from all countries with movements, manipulated by Moscow as "fellow-travellers".
I point out today the easy parallel between imported soviet propaganda and the imams nowadays, enough to replace Moscow by Teheran and you get the same thing, the one who destroy from the inside, on the national territory shown as ridiculous, but this time added by hate, multiplied by the cultural refusal, of civilization, hate and total rejection.
B Conception of the internal manoeuvre
With a built external manoeuvre, remains the need to create a road map for the geographical field on which we want results, and it is the "internal manoeuvre".
We check the subject according to three criterions: physical (military) forces, moral forces, lasting (in time).
Two extreme sorts of strategic manoeuvre:
The first one is by circumstantial superior of military forces: "To realize very fast a partial objective… then to seem stopping… manoeuvre by successive objectives, relatively modest and parted into negotiations… the "manoeuvre of the artichoke".
In Hebrew [and German] we speak about the strategy of salami, one slice after the other. Beaufre gives the example of Hitler during the years 1936-39 with the reunification of the German people.
The second one is of lassitude, of long lasting conflicts, maintained so by intention so they become heavier and heavier for the adversary. Beaufre quotes Mao Zedong and Algeria.
Of course you can switch from one sort to the other.
C Manoeuvre by lassitude [other terms: maneuvers by tiredness]
Beaufre: "The conception of "maneuver by lasssitude" is extremely interesting because it is really subtle. It is to bring an adversary, much stronger than you, to accept conditions, often very hard, by engaging against him very limited means.
Here plays in full the complementary variable data formula that we already met: the inferiority of the military forces must be compensated by a crescendo superiority of the moral forces as long as the operation lasts. So the operation is developing itself simultaneously on two plans, the material one of the military forces and the moral one of the psychological action."
What was important to not falling into the second intifada trap?
Obvious that during the intifada, the State of Israel, facing the need to cope with the erosion caused by war against the Authority, with any foreseen improvement, they had the chance to transform the exam into success.
We had to give the enemy to fall down by himself till the bottom, and not to throw them once more and more a rope for rescue; once more a meeting, "he is the partner", "not bringing him to collapse", "the least worst"…
This situation forces to create a front of communication with simple messages, clear, with an organized timing. Enough we heard about the incapacity of the national union governments with a "leftist" direction to implement. How could it be possible when from ourselves we do not stop looking for pleas to explain / justify the other side behaviour ? (By the way, the left has no monopoly on cacophony).
Harassed by struggle, by the "occupation", erosion, does it remind you something?
D Material plan
Beaufre: "On the material plan the important is to last. This objective that Raymond Aron considers as the ultimate of strategy is indeed the aim of any maneuver by lassitude. [I hope that the verb "to last" fully describes the author intentions]
Beaufre explains that "with great inferiority of means you can expect surviving only if you avoid fighting and by using harassment tactics to maintain the existence of the conflict."
Beaufre immediately brings us the guerilla, but if it is an very old war tactics, appearing with every generation and forgotten each time, it has gained these last forty years [from then] an implanting and a deepening that made it much more efficient. This factor reduced "notably the unbalance of the material forces."
Beaufre keeps on by developing the guerilla issue on which I present forward a chapter.
No, the Palestinians will nor renounce for nothing their ultimate goals.
How can we neutralize their wish to continue, to believe in them (to bring them to understand that they are not implementable, that he struggle is not worthy)? Did we really start to take care of these questions? Does it justify in parallel not to do anything or to be swept along after an extremist and anti-social right?
E Psychological plan
Here too the important is to last, to conserve permanency. In this goal, it is imperative to develop and reinforce at high level the moral forces of the fighters and the population. The moral lever is essential. In parallel, you must of course weaken the resistance strength of the enemy.
Beaufre: "This complex psychological action, as it turns simultaneously to the fighters and the population, friends and enemies, leans on two principal elements, the "political basic line" and the choice of the psychological tactics."
"The political basic line… must be able to mobilize for the struggle the latent passions of the people that you want to move. In addition, these passions (patriotic, religious, social, etc), must be introduced according to an orientation which demonstrates the justice of the cause that you want to support. The success of the operation must also appear as sure… [for instance] because "God (or other obscure historical force), is with us." The historic determinism, by predestinating history in the desired direction… creates a sort of historical optimistic fatalism (and symmetrically pessimist in the enemy's mind)."
"Psychological tactics obviously include the use of nowadays well known techniques of propaganda, indoctrination, and organization of the population by a tight framing and carefully supervised. But in this type of war, it is before all indispensable to understand that the favorable results belong only to the psychological plan, so that the material actions have interest only by their value to raise up the moral or the prestige of the fighters or the population… On the other hand, if success is missing or if [favorable results] are tiny, bluff – even total full lies – will replace them.
Beaufre continues: "Thanks to the exterior and internal maneuvers lead in perfect symbiosis, the conflict, firstly minor, can become encysted and then develop and last.
If the external maneuver produces the indispensable minimum of dissuasion, and if the internal maneuver is not stifled from its start, the best chances appear towards a successful end. At best we will reach abandon of the struggle by the adversary (Tunisia, Morocco, Alger). If the external maneuver does not avoid intervention of other powers, we will find a compromise under a partition frame (Israel, Indochina).
If external maneuver does not feed enough the internal action and if the adversary stands still, then we go to failure (Kenya, Malaya). But the germs sowed during the struggle will develop later and, at the minimum, we imposed the adversary a huge effort against ridiculous means.
This last consideration underlines the interest for maneuver by lassitude: well directed, strictly thought, it offers a minimum of risks, when its possible dividends are considerable, and even if you fail, you wore the adversary without wearing yourself."
I get back to the point: General Beaufre wrote those lines more than forty years ago. He was not a prophet, it was already the reality. He "simply" analyzed this reality and tried to build a basis of structured thinking to face it. How many among our "statesmen", our famous well-informed and doctors and poodles did have only some information on his works? I will remind later another historical example of failure, the Galula case.
F Maneuver of the artichoke
Beaufre: "[It] is much more simpler, because in its internal execution phase, it leans mainly on calculations taken from the military strategy field. On the contrary, the external maneuver plays here a decisive role as in the manoeuvre by lassitude. We saw this clearly with the Suez and Sinai events, when the military successes remained with no influence on the final failure of the operation, as its external covering was de facto close to zero."
Capital question:
When will we be able to translate one day a military success into a political one? For the "weak" defeat becomes a victory, we face it once more in Gaza in November 2012. 1956, 1973, 1983, 2001, 2009, 2012 – among others, and the same not learned lessons.
Need to explain Beaufre's intention: in 1956, France and the U.K., and Israel behind, lay down after the parallel and mixed pressures from the USA and USSR. The General Beaufre led French forces in the region during these events. Militarily (inside), the operation was a tangible success but, politically (outside), it failed: as if nothing happened, at the contrary, Europe definitely lost its control on the Suez Canal.
We cut the strategy and the going forward on the ground in small parts, and advance slowly. To succeed in this maneuver it is very important to make on the field a [blitz] surprising attack, to create fast and strong a "fait accompli", from where there will not be any step backwards.
The writer quotes as successful Hitler's moves on the left side of the Rhine and his entering in Austria and Czechoslovakia. The advantage was in a very fast action, less than 48 hours: it was then the required minimal time until an international diplomatic reaction. We don't make point-lace, there must be an energetic action, strong, the surprising iron fist, something which reminds "Homat Magen – Defensive Shield" of 2001. You don't improvise such an operation.
This is why - supplementary condition to receive the international community approval of the fact, its objective must be seen as limited enough to be approved. The general Beaufre reminds us that the game succeeded three times until the Munich agreements. He reminds too the – then – Israeli example and its use (then clever).
I must ask if – when we feel that we always react instead of being the initiators, i.e. when the general feeling is that for instance Arafat (or Nasrallah, or Hamas) is the initiator and brings us to reaction – is it also the sign that this too, the use we once had of this tool, we lost it to the advantage of the enemy? The Palestinians did not steal our Zionist semantics, they do not rob only, with our passive consent, our history the very here; but they robbed the political-military initiative we always held. The top, cherry on the cake, is maybe November 29… 2012.
In the next chapter our very dear general Beaufre presents some ideas to face the by-passing. I will remind them later. He underlines that since year 1935, this strategy knew almost only successes.
37
Guerilla
Despite its recent name and modern apprehension, it is in fact very old. Napoleon tried to establish dynasties linked to France to strengthen his empire and fight England. In this goal he conquers Spain and names his brother king of Spain. The Spanish received first the French with open arms as liberators from the English yoke. They suddenly discovered that their great hope is not more than replacing one occupation by another and started a popular rising, the war of the Spanish people against the French occupiers. Military consequences were catastrophic for France, intensive endless pumping of forces and resources. The name of the rising was the "small war": the guerilla. From there the term prospered. I will not detail in this chapter all relevant info on it, only the minimum to have in mind.
Far in History, organizations or States used tools of guerilla. The most famous is Hassan-I Sabbah, the old of the mountain, who lived during years 1056-1124. After various adventures, he reaches the mountains of Alborz in Iran, and there leads troops who occupy the fortress of Alamut, an isolated location and naturally defended at 1800 meters height. Helped by hard religious doctrine and the culture of hashish, he organized assassinations at large scale, without comparison. He caused great instability to the regimes of the region. Using the threat of murder by his men, the word "assassins" was born there ["the men of the hashish" one of the most possible sources], he created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion among all the kingdoms around. His men were drug-addicted before being sent to their mission and believed they were going to paradise, ready to die when murdering, which means suicidal terrorists already 900 years ago.
A place difficult to reach, a strong small force very militant, a deep religious belief, brainwashing and continuously repeated slogans, a lubricated organization and the exceptional charisma of the leader, no need for more, already then.
The guerilla underlines the war of the weak against the strong, and also the fact that the strong conquers or threatens a territory of a population who supports (at least a part of the population) the combatants. They are in fact at home, on their land and dispatched among the innocent civilian population.
To shorten definitions, I remind the characteristics by Yehoshapat Harkabi, who by his intelligence managed to gather in one page two sorts of guerilla: guerilla and terrorism, with here and there small differences. He lists intensity of limited violence, prolonged for a very long period in a patient fight, with very unclear physical boundaries, the importance of the human factor (and not the material), of great spreading and not centralism, of tiny battles – if even, until the final stage, the will of exhausting and making leave the adversary, tactical maneuver.
All the "playing" the guerilla is to avoid the open war of battles, to exhaust the troops, their moral and the moral of the country who sent them to the occupied territory. Small operations, blizzard concerning the communications, the supply of the combatant . He is at home, on his land, easy for him to find support and hiding-places.
Against heavy army, with the most updated material (or not!), every man is transformed from the status of soldier to become a warrior. I mean that instead of learning only one specialized function into the frame of a defined arm or organization, the guerilla man is to be capable of doing all by himself alone, to use a various spectrum of weapons. Over all, he can take the initiative on the spot and take the opportunity of any breach according to his own will: he is soldier and chief. The importance is on the quality of every man, included the moral.
Let's go back to General Beaufre on his chapter on guerilla I skipped before. He reminds us two principal concepts to ensure strengthening the freedom of maneuver for guerilla by local fighters:
The first one, from the Soviets, was used also by the Irish. To avoid discouragement and so the renouncement of the population by spreading fear, to avoid people from informing the occupant, by systematic terror (hitting everybody). He adds, and not for free: "We have been able to evaluate in Indochina and Algeria the efficiency of the method, [but] this cruelty did not - still – raised up indignation of world opinion."
Question: what does the Palestinian Authority [and concerning the fascist religious Hamas in Gaza we'll not speak about – wrongly…] against foreign journalists and to citizens who really want peace, what is the difference with Beaufre's text? As everyone shuts down about it, we cannot yet touch the "world conscience" on this issue.
But this essential war too, we don't make it.
The second concept is to take the enemy into the trap so he will not want to withdraw, but when it will be more and more difficult for him to keep on defending the whole conquered territory. The cost is simply high too much, added to internal pressure in front of the damages and being far from home. Beaufre gives the Algerian example: 300.000 French soldiers brought to fight 30.000 Algerian rebels.
At long term we want you out, but before we will break you until you want to escape forever.
Semantics: should I call them "activists" like they are named in France/Europe for Palestinian terrorists? Are the Taliban activists?
The General Beaufre adds: "At the end, the guerilla forces – whose attrition is terrible – must be well-maintained and constantly developed for pressure to be increasing. This requests an initial system of weapons contraband [written 40 years before the Carine A ship capture and the tunnels in Gaza]… followed as soon as possible by establishment of bases close to the attacked territory, from which the inviolability will be ensured by the means of dissuasion of the external maneuver… Some authors saw in the organization of those bases the decisive element of this sort of war." Because the lack of bases of this type, Beaufre explains the failures in Malaysia and Kenya .
So I would like to remind that we are not inside Gaza anymore. They are in their homes and we in ours. The Palestinians worked this way in Tunisia, in Lebanon for years, a state into the state. We gave them the A zones as sovereign, in which we were forbidden to enter. Only after years of glittering idiocy, we understood that we had to enter, and we learned how to do so better and better, without falling into the traps.
By the way, the Americans made the same when entering [from Iraq] to Syria, they too learned the lesson.
An example from our close history: T.E. Lawrence [of Arabia]. He used guerilla against the ottomans, avoided classical battles, caused erosion of their forces, exhausted them. It is interesting, out of his memories book and previous published articles, that in 1926 he presented his knowledge in the Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. X, 14th edition, "Guerilla". What does he write in this brilliant article?
[Taken from French translation in "anthologie mondiale" by Chaliand ref bibliography – I did not manage to find original text so I translate from French, sorry]
"The logical end of a war of beliefs is the definitive destruction of one side… The algebraic factor had to consider before all the area to conquer [he makes a simple calculation]… The Turkish were stupid and thought that the rebellion was something absolute, like war, and that they would treat it the same way they did for absolute war…
After the mathematical paragraph, Lawrence goes to the "biological" plan that he also calls "exhaustion and tears":
…Most of the wars are of contact, both forces trying to remain close to avoid any tactical surprise. The Arab war had to be a war of rupture: to maintain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast unknown desert and discovering itself only when the attack starts… The third factor was psychological… Our real strategic goal was to look for their weakest point and to make pressure on it until time will manage to break down the whole [military] building… The Arab army had to impose the Turks the longest possible passive defense… We looked for the maximum irregularity and flexibility…"
The end of the article is not less clear:
"Here is the thesis: the rebellion must hold a non-attackable basis, a shield not only from any attack but also the fear of an attack: a base like the Arab revolt held in the ports of the Red Sea, in the desert or inside the mind of the men who subscribed.
It must have a foreign adversary with up to date equipment, presenting itself as a disciplined occupation army, small too much to satisfy the troops number-territory ratio, small too much to adapt numbers to space, aiming to dominate efficiently the whole area from fortified posts. It must lean on a friendly population, no actively friendly, but supportive enough to not inform the enemy about the movements of the rebels. A rebellion can be lead by two per cent of active elements… Victory will belong to the uprising because the algebraic factors are at the end of the day decisive, and against them, perfections of the means [weapons] and moral struggle are in vain."
Lawrence published this article in 1926 but during Lebanon II war, eighty years after, at Tsahal Headquarter, like during first Lebanon war, they did not know what is guerilla; like Dan Halouts (the then General in Chief, after having lead the Air army) did not know what is important down from the wings of the planes, and every one shut down.
Because maybe of the general ignorance, because Lawrence was considered by us as an enemy, a type of the "ultimate English" in the bad meaning of the term, who helped eth Arabs so against us. But to refuse the lessons and the experience of our enemies in order to build a strategy it is an idiocy. On the contrary! After their huge failure against Prussia, the French looked for inspiration and discovered the Prussian Clausewitz. The Germans learned on tanks from de Gaulle, better and faster than the French. For us [Israelis, Western, democrats], and this without speaking about Arab litteratureitself like Al-Muttaki, Al-Bokhari, Al-Tabari and the books of stratagems .
I will end with Mao Zedong, quoted by Beaufre and numerous others. I must remind that Mao wrote books on this issue already during the Thirties. Here too, there was no secret. When Beaufre introduces Mao, he defines his struggle [on the way to power] as a "total prolonged fighting of low intensity". Arafat knew Clausewitz, Sun Zu, Mao and the others. He had met Giap. Only Sharon was, it seems, knowing like him and able to stand still.
Beaufre: "Mao defines in seven rules the essence of guerilla: intimate agreement between populations and guerilla soldiers, withdraw against enemy attack in force, harassment and attack during enemy's withdrawal, strategy at one against five, tactics at five against one [by the centripetal movement which gathers forces during the withdraw]… at least logistics and weapons thanks to the taking from the enemy… they are the necessary minimum.
Another point that Mao reminds us: I guerilla you don't have a center of gravity unique and clear. As long as fighters move freely the conflict is everywhere and there is no way to break down the balance because no centre of gravity important for the guerilla. The struggle is always under movement, flexible, inside a flow which does not appear in sight of the eyes as logical or planned. The fighters must take the initiative.
They have not the possibility to wait in defense position. We see the same structure in organizations like Al-Qaida: for the essential a soft net of small equal points. [Yes there are exceptions]
Nevertheless there are differences between guerilla and terror. Not great in the way of practice, but clearer for the rest.
In 1982 there was not, at the Israeli headquarter, any organized teaching material on this matter. It is not the first time that minimal education lacks at high commanding level in real time. We live here with professional training system but with no real military academy. "Precisely" us! In the general mediocrity we live in very few officers "read" the situation in its truth and become real "comprehensers".
Until now for the memento, we remained inside the limits of the classic, conventional war, well known. All that has been reminded so far is a part of History, nothing new.
So, what did happen which changed the deal, what is behind the thoughts on "modern war" [out of nuclear]?
Something above the indirect ? What are the important differences between the old way and war against [worldwide] terror? We will try to answer these questions in the next part.
G MODERN WAR
38
Simple definitions
To enter easily in this new world, we’ll separate between wars and conflicts as follows:
1 Symmetrical war
It is regular war as we knew, state against state or coalition, comparison of forces and equipment, in the meaning that we can measure material, political goal, where evaluations are clear, what we call classical war. Usually difference in forces is not big or in a ratio that does not foresee with certainty who is to win. Each side is looking for a certain type of superiority.
2 Unbalanced war (or dissymmetric)
When difference is important in dimensions of the forces but their nature remains similar, like between two states or between a state and a like under state control organization, in classical war even without any decisive battle. In these two schemes, on the basis of traditional forces comparison, we can measure and verify results easily; operation and results are linked and can be analyzed. Results are often immediate. When objectives are reached, you stop.
Remains conflict between two different entities like a state and a minimalistic organization, without any organized headquarter upon a land defined as its territory, with totally different objectives.
Not that the "weak" side does not want victory at the end of the day, to destroy the enemy (state, government), but this supreme goal cannot be implemented by a military classical regular victory.
This is why tools at its disposal are different and more than once goals differ, under the influence of the tools themselves. For a terrorist organization, no importance in receiving a territory or wealth, it was not founded for these goals, there are only means.
3 Asymmetrical war
This war is not the conventional one, clearly a modern one.
Of course this type of war does interest us. Not anymore guerilla only, not yet uniquely war against terrorist cells. We are today in a conflict with states (Iran, Syria), against guerilla organizations almost becoming states (PLO-PA), without any guarantee that they want peace and gave up – really – violent combat. We finally fight against a terrorist organization that yes based itself on a border-land ground, with active and declared support of Iran: both Hezbollah and Hamas.
We will concentrate in the memento in our war against these organizations, not against the states, even if those organizations are only puppets of these states. I will remind changes and we'll enlarge the asymmetric war.
39
New world
The general frames change (nuclear, scientific, media). Types of weapons are improved, electronics enter every basic equipment, even plasma screens received their "hour of glory". Other elements changed the face of war. Although, its nature did not change: a dual, even if masked, search for victory (a word to redefine), political will, forces and physical ground.
For us the classical war of a small dynastic army towards the huge national army. Frontiers were clear, it was easy to mark combat zone and players. We were used to definitions and to the existence of entities, vertically built, state or organizations, at the top the leader, down to the last simple soldier or citizen. But in our modern world these frontiers are not enough.
Globalization changed the deal. The subject is not only economical but involves different forms. The identifier state-nation loses its power in favour of international very broad alliances) Europe, Euro zone, South America, NATO…), All are simultaneously partners and competitors.
But in those zones an internal force unclear, a weak capacity of leadership, advantages not tangibly obvious. The citizen of the state or the nation feels his identity in question. What happens when next to him an immigrant, not always receiving a nice integration; then the second generation, the third too, still feeling being inferior value citizens?
The state, weak or corrupted, the leaders of the country not capable of governing, everyone feels alone and searches for a belonging to a strong and identified current. No matter where is this current geographically located. Here the power of ideology / religion and the trans-national.
Vertical fixed blocks are in opposition to fluid horizontal nets of people or entities, gathering by economical sector, common interest, personal or religious identity. New communities fighting all around the globe: producers against ecologists, Islam [extremist?] against Occident, police against criminal organizations mixing operations of commerce of merchandises and human beings. Horizontal strata replace in the conflict the vertical states or organizations.
The world is today a worldwide village: in every place do live different diasporas, meeting points between cultures are multiplied and felt everywhere: world capitals, international conferences, medias of various languages. A local event receives an echo over the whole globe. It happens also about our conflict, even more intensified.
Terrorist organizations have a worldwide flexible coverage. War against us on internet for instance is not lead from a unique defined base, it holds thousands faces and places. If on classical communication we already do not succeed to influence, what will we [Israelis, Occidental, free men] be capable to do on new communication fields?
Because of new technology and dispersion of populations, knowledge itself changed its nature. Not important who holds the most powerful computer, or their quantity: speed of the information from the source to its satellites is prodigious. Everyone can feel close to the battlefield – he is a part of it. Not important also how many data you collect but how much time you need to treat them in order to take position and make decisions. The media become more than once the field of victory or defeat for the parties. Confusion between real information, news and propaganda increased, every lie becomes truth until it is denied, and even…
Even if you manage to prove it was a lie, believers will not change their opinion, at worst they will talk about conspiracy. Media, images on television are like drumhead court-martial for nowadays time.
More, for terrorist organizations, no need for traditional headquarter, information and orders travel all time long on the net, passing fast from a place to the other, make possible unlimited mobility of the agents.
We live in a worldwide village of the immediate, including Tsahal's speaker, including the ministry of foreign affairs, even if no one updated them yet.
Images on TV and internet, the flow of information / lies flashes on the net, interaction through forums and reactions even before truth of stories is checked. On the other side the low cost and wide spreading of information and orders.
Suddenly a punctual event, tactical in its nature, can become a strategic case as it demands a stopping of the operations and does harm our forces, more than once with the reinforcement of our "friends". It happened already with "grapes of wrath" in 1996. You should not think that it happens only with us: the adventures of the European, mainly French and Deutsch, in the Balkans are not less severe. Difference is only that missiles and rockets did not [yet] fell down on western, French, Deutsch, English, Swedish civilian areas… and after (1) we'll hear about disproportioned reaction.
Violence. We saw how much militaries and strategists hate violence and praised the leader who wins without fighting. On the contrary, although because of the media, violence is an important tool for terrorists. They need violence, spectacle, shock, every time stronger. More blood, more excitation for the eyes, then more successful. The aim is to hurt, to afraid, to harm the moral, to develop feelings of guiltiness on a part of the adversary population, and to create a chain reaction stronger from our side, which will prove a posteriori the justice of their cause… and after (2) we'll hear about disproportioned reaction.
And I did not remind yet the use of violence to create chaos. It is not the case in our local conflict.
Violence entered too in our western culture, it is accepted as a part of the countryside, day to day violence, of society, of the suburbs, of the rejected from the national community. By violence of isolated individuals, of groups, strata of the population, of peoples; all manifest an identity, express it, this action a part of the process.
What to say about the ideological umbrella given by men
of religion so numerous to justify murder, blood and even suicide as being part
of commandments of their god to purify the world, the culture of shahids. Here
too an occidental mistake: in Orient, for death, different meanings, and to
sacrifice the individual for the commonweal, it is good. The occidental moral
vision brings us only to blindness. What seems to us healthy logic, evidence,
is not received so by other cultures.
Are we different? What happens when we get used to
regular civil violence, here, under the western angle of a general process, in
which simultaneously are assassinated a judge, a lawyer or simple citizens, for
free, and when a criminal become a "celeb".
In the research of identity and new belongings when
ancient disappear, in a global society more savage and violent, more anonymous,
unstable and not secured on all grounds – family, income, future with a
question-mark – we enter a period of crisis, over the period of conflict. A
crisis reminded to us every day in the media, so it really exists.
Concepts like conflict or war are clear in a cognitive
way, in time and place. To the crises is added an uncertain element, unknown,
which touches the deepest fears of the individual. Because of that, the
importance of its comprehension in front of every event, so the importance of
messages and images .
40
Strategic changes
1. Before all, forces are not measured today [uniquely]
by their military capacity, equipment and quantities, but referring to their
effectiveness. It means according to their final goals, the superior ones. The
problem is that what was rational between states is not so anymore with terror
organizations. In war between weak and strong, the only means is to make crazy
the system to make it implode from inside, to submit wills, to cause
hurly-burly. Apocalypse now .
The final objective of the Hamas is the destruction of
Israel. That is why it was created. But since the moment it took power in Gaza
from the crumbs of PLO, their immediate interest brought them [not once] to
accept cease-fire. They have something to lose – power, a place, a de facto
state despite the lack of international recognition (this comes too when we stammer).
The same process occurred with the after Arafat PLO. This is why what is true
for worldwide terrorism is not relevant for us. They look like concerning final
aims, Hezbollah too (for them to take the power in Lebanon is as important),
but the transforming of the organization with governmental responsibility
requests to cope with reality.
Of course the Islamic revolution in every place worldwide
is their blessed objective, and they are by this goal a part of the militant
extreme Islam. The difference is only in the temporary way. In this, Hamas is
not Al-Qaida.
Hezbollah too has something to lose, the problem is that
it is a part of the population and dispatched in many places, and works as a
fascist movement, violent against weak populations who seem to have renounced
to their future.
What gives us confirmation that what we manage as a
conflict against Hezbollah-Iran is different from a conventional confrontation?
Fact that the Iranian president shouts out his will to erase us? It is not
enough.
Against Al-Qaida it is another story, to fight them only
in order to neutralize them or to annihilate them.
2 Against an organization vertically built you see a head, a structure, forces. Against an organization horizontally built, flexible in structures, made of links valid for a limited period of time [by project], and disappearing after the project is realized, hard to oppose oneself. It is difficult to find an anchoring point on the gravity center or in bad cases a neuralgic point which could weaken the organization. An organization built in nets and changing its structure all along will never surrender.
The importance of intelligence comes to first line. Sun Zu writes a full chapter on this issue, basic to be able to enter inside the head of the enemy. I will not develop here what he explains of the different categories of spies, on their importance. Above the importance of intelligence / information, two subjects to notice:
1 And with September 11 and in other cases not less sensitive to us, intelligence services failed and caused enormous damages.
2 Even in places where order reigns, competition between organizations [of intelligence] and search for prestige caused results of the type "hit with our proper weapons".
These two elements must remain part, ahead, in the scale of priorities of our services. Each time we avoid an attempt or an operation soon enough, this is in fact what happens. It is furthermore important when grows the use of primitive weapons like shaving blades or bulldozers.
41
The battlefield
We saw in indirect war, the one which concerns us the most, that there are two circles: the interior, linked to the physical battlefield, the geographical zone of the conflict and the combats – and the external, including the whole others combats "fields", psychology and pressure on the public opinions, ruse in the direction of the adversary, towards the international community, to target audiences in order to receive support…
Capture of ground, like with no limits. We ended with the only relation to the geographical ground as the unique field important in war. Because information moves in hyper speed between distant places on the map, the concept "field" is much more linked to time itself. Dynamics of the movement of information and the forces of the individuals, control of supply of the information to targeted audiences; all those elements of psychological war, everything changes the traditional battlefield into a modest element inside the comprehensive active field of the conflict. In this enlarged territory, every point can become a critical point if not a gravity center for the "strong" side.
I previously spoke about the meeting points of the diasporas. It means too that the meeting points between the parties in conflict and their supports worldwide are more numerous, propaganda too covers greater physical and virtual territories. The big original conflict remains in its sphere but its metastases are spread around the globe. Diasporas inter-shock everywhere, propaganda attacks and more and more of physical violence [look at the importation of Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the crowds and killing violence on French Jews, and in all Europe, typical example].
Small blocks like sleeping cells of Al-Qaida in the heart of the [their] enemy's territory can wake up without awakening your attention. All the surface of transmission, particularly the web, is the battlefield.
More global battlefield because at almost every place "agents" are identified to the parties in conflict: Muslims, Arabs, Jews, believers of all religions present in all the capitals of the world, employed in all the media.
As a European and an Israeli, I regret the fact that when we spoke about public opinion, for tens of years, we meant, in this usual ethno-centric optic, only the European/western public opinion. Rest of the world being anyway dependant of the official propaganda of their governments .
This way of looking is no more valid. Specially for us the Israelis, it is important to understand that it is our duty to try to influence [counter influence] on world public opinion, wherever, as much as it is possible. We have weapons, internet included. Like tiny organizations use every piece of information to make pass their message of destruction, we can too [let's try at least] to defend ourselves and transmit messages.
We’ll be able to inverse the position by using the tools of the so called "weak side".
To vanquish, or at least to manage the conflict, it is before all to fight on two fronts. We did not understand this, never completely. We still see the media globally as an external, collateral battle, asking for a Tsahal number 2, telecom defense forces.
The Palestinians did yes understand and succeeded not badly. Specially the most open extremists, when they speak about the "Ouma" [the Nation] they succeed too: you must not count only on the western opinion, it is not enough. Here too everyone [here in Israel] knows that we fail; with some gifted individuals against activist organizations and the support of numerous countries with anti-Israeli tendency.
I don't say that the whole war is resumed to media. But it is a clear decisive element in the campaign.
42
Asymmetry – towards the extreme
I would like to remain inside the frame of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To be able to do so, I need to go to the extreme of world terror. Only this way will I be able to present ways and new tools, and then to come back to our region with more complete information.
Why? Once more, because the entities who fight against us look like only partially to world terror, but they gave it and drawn from it tools and ways of practice, which are important for us to identify. It is not that there is a clear frontier separating world terrorist organizations from the regional ones.
Asymmetry as a twin sister of indirect strategy uses most of its means, its objectives and tools. We easily can make the link between them, like Yehoshafat Harkabi: "small war" = terrorism or guerilla. I presented General Beaufre's theory on indirect war, I will signalize here some of its components. Asymmetry at its extreme can identify itself by a tangible difference between both adversaries on certain points like:
Difference in nature between the organizations
Who is opposing itself to an organized state with a government, a legislative authority depending on democratic [or not] elections, with independent [or not] juridical system? Who is fighting against states with heavy and procedural management, with media and un-effective management, even if they dream to base themselves on truth when telling facts?
A small organization, flexible, keeping its secrets, rejecting every international law against it – but knows how to use it to its advantage to cause international public opinion cry. An organization dispatched into cells, small and not always linked, working more and more independently. In fact under the same named roof act entities which have no more in common than the flag. It is a nebula with unstable construction. Recruiting, when you don't speak about volunteers, works by project like with modern work, and cells return to coma until next project.
No headquarter, no real ranking differences, but a moral to fight and strong affection to the message of the leader. Technical knowledge received via electronic media, incognito.
No center of gravity which falling would stop the struggle, not even a critical point important enough, so it seems.
Although, here too there are some frontiers . For instance, for September 11, the terrorists had to organize piloting education and training, to inject money, to recruit and conserve forces in certain locations for a long period. There is great importance to hold, more than once, in the meeting and training points of the Islamic fundamentalist organizations in Afghanistan [etc…]. People have links, friend brings friend.
It means that we have something to do, even if we don't close the organizations, we can hit them strong and reduce the damages. War between cat and mouse .
It is evidence but must be noticed, this difference is great. A state (at least) with a structure, international relations, financing, various security agencies. On the other side a tiny organization, sometimes without real financial needs, without need for up to date weapons.
When "charity" does not bring enough support, and no state to finance, crime will furnish the money: drugs deal, kidnappings and ransoms. Here too money is a link and we can fight against its flow. The problem is that, like with other issues, we never act until the end, over the problem of flows crossing borders.
Not less important is cultural difference. Not everyone thinks "occidental", not everyone considers suicide as waste or failure solution. The shahid is a hero, because he gave the Umma, superior value compared with the value of the individual or his personal life. Democratic laws are not always over religious laws, place of the woman in society not always matching egalitarian or feminist trends. Their vision, their vision of the world, is completely different from ours. When they display astronomic quantities of drugs to our youngsters, they find and financial sources, and destroy our states from the inside. Double benefit . It looks like, by the way, the various operations of Soviet Union during the Cold War, when everything was legitimate to break down the capitalist world.
Suicide is not consequence of repression, of despair, anyway not only. It is a free choice, political tool with religious cultural official recognition. Why to hold in pity only the "poor" Palestinians?
Differences in goals
We start here to touch relatively new stuff. Like the old man on the mountain, Hassan ibn al Sabbah, blackmail can be looking like "Let me reign in my country and you will be quiet in yours." It worked nicely in Europe, for instance when France and Italy during the Seventies and the Eighties paid Palestinian terrorist organizations [PLO among them], when Palestinian terror was allowed to act there against tranquility on their national territory.
But Al-Qaida and other Palestinian entities, even in our area, dream another world order: the return of countries which belonged to Islam during a period of time, establishment of a religious government in all Arab countries, and following worldwide. Other movements on the globe dream to export their revolution, not less; terrorism is searching for one thing, goals and tools mixed together: chaos.
Some for example pretend that the objective of September 11 was to cause a reaction, disproportionate, of the USA to strengthen the "refusal" of the Umma against them. This to create instability that would make fall down Arabic conservative regimes supporting the West. It did not happen then but how much are these regimes stable? Did someone hear about any Spring [-Winter] in Arab countries?
Where are we? On the land of the
Middle-East, land belonging to the Umma, i.e. to the [Muslim] people or
to the Palestinian brothers [exclusively], with a population and Arab
and Muslim. Even the Jewish State – a religion born long before Islam
and also, one more malediction, a democracy working the Western way.
With irony I could say that we have everything to make nervous our
neighbours! It means that against us any movement can find a basis for
its operations. No need to invite them, they come alone.
I underline this point because sometimes we are told, even by Israelis: "You did not make peace, you did not recognize PLO, and you received Hamas. You don't recognize them, you will not speak with them, and you will receive worse."
How to end with thus type of debility of thinking once and for all? Before all, "we" made PLO rebirth.
I underline this point because sometimes we are told, even by Israelis: "You did not make peace, you did not recognize PLO, and you received Hamas. You don't recognize them, you will not speak with them, and you will receive worse."
How to end with thus type of debility of thinking once and for all? Before all, "we" made PLO rebirth.
After, they did not really recognize us and our right for a Jewish state for us. Enough with illusions! Their belief, like their Charter, was never changed.
Third, they fell by themselves because Arafat gave other organizations the possibility to strengthen themselves against us and did not take care, as he had to, of the stability of the future of his regime. You have to remind that his aim was not to establish his regime or to create a state, but simply to expel us away from the map.
Furthermore, this worldwide trend would have developed itself here too. To think that, specially here, a fundamentalist movement like Hamas or Al-Qaida would not root itself was only illusion. The un-capacity of PLO and Abou Mazen [Mahmud Abbas] to rule the territories were the helping factor to Hamas to develop itself until the putsch in Gaza. With no organized Arab regime before did happen what happened in Gaza.
Do we have the capacity to change this state of things? Would liberation of hundreds of prisoners "strengthen" someone? Really?!
This paternalism, considering Palestinians for more imbecile than they are, passed far over any limit of understanding.
I come back to the Palestinian goals, they fix everything, included the tools we must use. To make peace, we need someone in front of us, who genuinely desires peace, and who is also capable to implement, i.e. someone able to "deliver the goods". Democratic elections or not, the regime must be, first of all, stable, the leader popular and solid. Is it so? In his hands there must be available sufficient both military and police forces. Is it the situation in the PA [Palestinian Authority]?
There is no short cut, without partner who really wants peace and who is in capacity to lead his people towards peace, there is nothing but only a conflict you have to "manage" until serious opportunity.
In indirect classic war, goals are still conventional: land, wealth, political gain. The asymmetric aim does not principally takes care about material gain but of psychological impact, attrition, despair, evacuation of the enemy, but aims to look at the end the fracture of the system, of the civilization, of the culture of the enemy.
To shake the other side, terror must be spectacular to the eyes, and to receive the support of the majority is not a goal. To receive the support of a solid nucleus at every place, inside the enemy territory, it is a good objective, and more the images will be cruel, more the support of a small quantity of men ready to act will be great. To their eyes, in total, the West receives the punition it deserves, it is justified, all is justified.
War against organizations type Al-Qaida is different: the aim is chaos for itself. The source of asymmetry is that there is no possibility to reach [with them] any agreement. The enemy wants all, no renouncement, no compromise. The other side is in complete opposition, he does not recognize us in a rational way, he does not oppose himself according to the classical political meaning of victory or compromise. He is not dissuaded - it seems so far, by any military power of dissuasion. We simply do not act in the same world: we count weapons, they recite their slogans, we count the wounded, they send their saints [shahidim], we dream of developping economy, they make fun of our most basic materialism, we want stability, they dream integral chaos which will bring a new worldwide order (this expression should awake any normal human). Most simply, the adversaries do not transmit on the same wavelength. It is the heart of asymmetry. Did I reach the heart of the subject concerning goals? Yes and no. Yes concerning the final objectives, clear enough. Not yet concerning the ways of operation, we'll get there.
Differences in ethics
For terrorism, the real victim is the small organization and the population it pretends represent, fighting against Great Satan, who imposes to the rest of the world its culture [not important that the organization wants to replace one by another everywhere]; its values, its language, and sucks the wealth belonging to the inhabitants. The same today in Europe: we speak about the age of slavery and human commerce from Africa to America. This trade enriched Europe and established the United States. Not a word on the other hand on this same trade of slaves before and even today when it continues towards Arab countries or other African countries. Researches proved that precisely these both trades were much more developped than the only one we speak about [to justify all]. Only the West is looking to its past with self-reproach and only the West is asked to do so. On this issue we never speak. Ethics are selective.
Same thing with Darfour: this time the Occident wants to save Black people from crimes made by Muslims, organizing on them genocide, stealing from them land and lives.
Sight is mono-directed. Anyway, whatever you do, in the best case it is not enough, it is a crime most of the time.
The only ethics taken into account is of the pretty souls hitting inside the occidental population (included in ours) and causing an auto-culpability feeling about everything. What happened (all) is because of us, they are guilty for nothing, we don't understand them, we don't help them to go forward. Those ethics are important for them because it weakens us against them.
Broadly and with simple hypocrisy: you use the law as long as it serves you to fight, you throw it down [always in internal language, never with occidental languages] when you can't use it anymore. An ex-special French commandos' chief underlines the double language of religious leaders, when speaking to broad French media the public discourse calls – in French – for order and quietness; but when people leave the mosques, the one to one speech is only stirring up. He adds: "There is in fundamentalist Islam an approach called traqya, in Arabic: armoured shield. You go covered by a mask. Traqya allows you to stand round-shouldered [like cats] when situation is closed, to push ahead the soldiers and to speak the language of the one in front of us to allay his suspicion, in order to attack in a stronger way when situation permits… all this, without our spies, we would not know".
The French (at least, some of them) discover ruse and that the end justifies for somebody the means to reach it, so, we progress forward!
About ethics for us as a state, we have to come back to our chapter on ethics (separation between individual and collective ethics, moral and politics, intention against results). You have two ways to enter into the mind of the adversary: to supply him information (lies of course recovered in a cloud of logic), to use his ethics in a direction favorable for us. The Palestinians succeeded to do so with us, we did not manage.
To finally close the point of ethics, I would like to quote few lines of a former chief of Swiss secret services, nauseous when speaking about Israel. Few lines can cover multiple subjects: "Terrorism in itself is more often a way to communicate than a way to vanquish. In terrorist act, it is less the destruction which is important, than the manifestation of a will to fight or to demonstrate the weakness of the adversary. On the other hand, in our highly media influenced society, to last catching attention is a challenge. And more our society will get used to violence, more the terrorist actions will have to be spectacular."
I could not be clearer. What about ethics in this issue?
Differences in means
Different organizations, different objectives, to implement the strategy it is obvious that means will be different. Since we put aside the occidental tradition leaning on the quantitative [power and material dimensions], and that we get closer to the fighting man, his value and his capacity to stand still; then the importance of technical tools trends to zero.
A machine-gun, active and focused, will harm more than a blind [without information] regiment, paralyzed inside the desert. A simple blade will push over a plane, one liter of liquid too. A virus will influence the health of huge populations. The less the material is sophisticated, the cheaper it is, the more reachable it is; more active it will be against expensive electronic material. The height of budgets at both sides of the front line is totally asymmetrical.
Example: the very cheap rockets thrown from Gaza to our civilians during years by thousands, compared to the Iron Dome missiles neutralizing their most dangerous missiles but not stopping the rain of the short-range cheap ones.
The goal of asymmetry is not looking for superiority. Its goal is to transform the superiority of the enemy [the "strong" side] into weakness. This way you diminish his legitimacy, this way you exhaust him, you paralyze, you neutralize, you let him without any solution or under feeling that he is without solution.
Why? Because on the physical battlefield you maintain a guerilla, because the enlarged battlefield is made of communication, of public opinion (the audiences), because at last, inside the mind of everyone. Some images/pictures published during some years and the [propaganda] work is done.
43
How does it function?
In a first step, the "organization of liberation" performs a terrorist painful operation. The aim is to cause harm, to cause the enemy tangible loss, bitterness, to touch the moral of the targeted population.
We must immediately notice that under prolonged "weak intensity", those incidents are not even announced by the foreign – dishonest – medias; including the European, so the un-comprehension when reaction occurs.
Second step, this population revolts and asks for revenge / reaction / payment. The weak government implements the reaction and this is their real goal: it reacts "without any proportion" compared with the original terrorist attack.
We leave the internal circle of the physical battlefield and reach the external circle:
In the third phase, the organization shows the world this reaction, images "speak". Whatever happens, any reaction will be shown as with no proportion. To add propaganda, some help from friends of foreign media so happy to hit on Israel [or the USA, or the West], and here it is, the work is done, the nail is inside.
If the information does not reach public opinion, the system is already lubricated enough and will anyway enter new lies in the air, always there will be enough greenhorns to swallow any bullshit: here a massacre, there a crime, a collective poisonning, ethnic cleaning, everything allowed. The stall is always open at the Middle-East bazaar.
The first classical example was Viet-Nam. Two phenomena to remind:
The first, the communist army advanced very slowly for years, but within guerilla, crawling in, without decisive battle, i.e. almost without any regular military moment. To wear out and exhaust .
The second, that we today understand but that was then un-identified, including in Israel: television, coffins, declarations of intellectuals and other actions caused a deep gap inside the United States, and they made the decision. Despite certain military successes, they politically created the decision of retreat and escape.
It is the right place to remind here the General Giap, Viet-Kong commander, who inspired and taught Arafat on all these matters.
Arafat did indeed learn at the best school. Not our generals. With the "maskirovka" that he learned from his Soviet masters, Arafat was ready for the war he lead against us until his last days.
By the way, the Viet-Kong had [in its back] external close bases and the support of China and friends. It is an issue that General Beaufre insisted in. This is why, when Ariel Sharon expels PLO from Lebanon, he acts with great logic – both military and politically. After ten years really not glittering, PLO is collapsing, just when a gang of graduates [pretended intelligent Israelis] puts it back on its foot. Not that I justify all which occurred during Lebanon first war, far from this, but at least, let's learn from right and clever actions.
Lesson: once more a physical victory becomes a defeat in legitimacy, once more turns into an internal debate and paralysis, in self-accusation, in anger. There is only to wait for next time. We are inside a "magical" circle and it seems that there is no way to stop it. It is depressing and exhausting. Here it is: we understood until pain the strategy of exhausting, not only the military on the ground, but moral in our way of considering ourselves [by auto-criticism and as seen by others]. This is by this way that they stole David from us and transformed us into Goliath.
From there we also learn that true, sometimes, to restrain ourselves is a force. Here too for a time, Ariel Sharon was right. Our response by Homat Magen [Defensive Shield, April 2002] based itself upon a discontinued series of terror attempts.
We are forbidden to start an operation before we inform in all [media] directions about what happened up-stream. On the contrary, this sort of news is usually hushed up, censored.
At first sight we could think that a punctual defeat is
bad for strategy. As we learned during whole History, each side, like when
playing strategic games, tries to cumulate tactical advantages until the last
push. We live here under the so called paradox of inverse result: because of
the not proportional reaction, the strong is weakened. A plane above an
inhabited area will always look bad. [Although that when it comes to Syria, no
one cares.]
In simple language: the weak side uses the strength of
the strong against itself, transforms it into weakness. Laws of marketing
really loved this idea.
In old strategy, like of France against USSR, there was a
strategy of dissuasion from the weak aimed to the strong. The attacked weak
side [France] was remaining able to answer by strong and harmful riposte; so no
interest to start hostilities. The strategy of the weak against the strong is
understood, this is why all maintain status quo. Non perfect balance but still
correct enough to avoid [direct] violence. Logics of life still prevail.
With radical movements in search of chaos, there are no
such issues: they have nothing to lose, no kingdom, no ground, no capital, no
regime. The real goal, without any concession, is precisely to break out these
balances, to create crises. We are here in what can be defined as the strategy
of the crazy towards the strong. The crazy side is vacuuming off the strong his
capacity of reason and exhausts him, makes him feel guilty and paralyzed. He remains with his
clear truth and you; you remain with your questions and your torment. Here lies
his victory.
It is easier now to distinguish the psychological side of
the matter. It is not only ruse and fraud to confound the enemy, to hide our
real plans from him. No, it is to dismantle his psychological forces, to weaken
him physically outside and, more important, "mentally" from the
inside, i.e. in his spirituality, in his capacity to think, in his soul.
It means that to vanquish them, we must react in order to
reach – we too – their minds, their moral, their soul; until they understand
that they are inside a dead-end.
(If it is not looking like the essence of marketing, what
is it?)
H ELEMENTS OF AN ANSWER
44
Real victory – part 2
Above superiority on the physical ground, on the old battlefield, which cannot bring perfect victory, what to do? The answer was written 2400 years ago by Sun Zu: to enter the mind of the enemy Chief Commander. Marvels of the past to re-discover
Yes, against any regular conflict, which asks for the same operation, in asymmetry too you must, no choice, to focus on the spiritual, not material / equipment / physical.
The aim is to break the combat spirit of the adversary, to make him understand that it is vain, that it will not bring anything.
This spiritual struggle exits between armies, fighters, between nations and mainly the chiefs of war. Who will hesitate first? Here, I personally check who can be a real leader. By intention I do not write a chapter on the leader at war, maybe in the future, but on this criterion of selection, no way to escape.
To establish this argument, I will use the world of marketing, through an extraordinary book, small and clever, giving us the key of the issue: Al Ries and Jack trout put under the light two simple laws. First, the consumer buys according to models, from ordered lists in his mind, brands inscribed in his mind. If you are thirsty the first name will be Coca-Cola, even not simple water. It is the first law of mind, to be the first [of the list] in the head of your target consumers. The fourth law, not less important, concerns the feeling: the truth, according to the authors, is not a cold thing above us. No, the contrary, it is what you, the consumer, you feel. Your truth in more important than universal truth, your impressions, what is in your mind, this is the truth – full stop, period. According to it you act.
You manage inside your mind a rich universe of feelings. Marketing is this "art to make working these sensations". If we have something to remind from marketing, it is clearly this above paragraph, it is the basis, the axiom of all the rest, the "why". All the continuation is only the "how". To not understand this matter is to miss the mainspring of marketing.
H ELEMENTS OF AN ANSWER
44
Real victory – part 2
Above superiority on the physical ground, on the old battlefield, which cannot bring perfect victory, what to do? The answer was written 2400 years ago by Sun Zu: to enter the mind of the enemy Chief Commander. Marvels of the past to re-discover
Yes, against any regular conflict, which asks for the same operation, in asymmetry too you must, no choice, to focus on the spiritual, not material / equipment / physical.
The aim is to break the combat spirit of the adversary, to make him understand that it is vain, that it will not bring anything.
This spiritual struggle exits between armies, fighters, between nations and mainly the chiefs of war. Who will hesitate first? Here, I personally check who can be a real leader. By intention I do not write a chapter on the leader at war, maybe in the future, but on this criterion of selection, no way to escape.
To establish this argument, I will use the world of marketing, through an extraordinary book, small and clever, giving us the key of the issue: Al Ries and Jack trout put under the light two simple laws. First, the consumer buys according to models, from ordered lists in his mind, brands inscribed in his mind. If you are thirsty the first name will be Coca-Cola, even not simple water. It is the first law of mind, to be the first [of the list] in the head of your target consumers. The fourth law, not less important, concerns the feeling: the truth, according to the authors, is not a cold thing above us. No, the contrary, it is what you, the consumer, you feel. Your truth in more important than universal truth, your impressions, what is in your mind, this is the truth – full stop, period. According to it you act.
You manage inside your mind a rich universe of feelings. Marketing is this "art to make working these sensations". If we have something to remind from marketing, it is clearly this above paragraph, it is the basis, the axiom of all the rest, the "why". All the continuation is only the "how". To not understand this matter is to miss the mainspring of marketing.
We can now come back from the consumer to the citizen, it
is not always different.
To vanquish, I first must be convinced by the soundness
of my cause. Even if I don't agree upon every point, even if it is not always
easy, I must be convinced that I work according to the most pertinent way.
As an individual, as a collective, even when a part of my
people is under influence of propagandas, even when it is mono-directed in his
opinions. A nation ready to renounce to his principles, to its way, to the
goods ensuring its existence, this nation has no future.
There are some among us pretending our right to be like
other nations. Like if we were "deserving" it. Once more, this matter
[this way to present things] does not exist. Like for social and democratic
rights, there is no natural evidence stamp. You have to prove your right
sometimes, and in warfare strategy it means to fight.
To vanquish, my message to the adversary must be clear:
you will not succeed, you will not break me. Some remind us sometimes the
famous Churchill's speech on blood tears and sweat. True, it is not pleasant,
but this way the world functions. Weakness is an invitation to aggression. The
enemy must not have the shadow of a doubt concerning our wills. As long as he
sees us like spider nets, we have a problem.
The enemy knows how to act so, and he understands the
importance of this matter: let's have a look over so long a time Nasrallah
managed to influence our public opinion. He mixes with intelligence truth and
lies, pretends himself more credible than Israeli media, at least the official.
He pretends that lots of Israelis believe him more than the Israeli media.
To vanquish, you must transmit a clear message to his
mind, explaining without any doubt that when comparing cost / advantage, it is
not worthy for him to continue.
The issue here is great: he does not care of the
well-being of his population. The suicidal is a shayd, a martyr, hunger is an
examination for the believer, and every sacrifice is good for him. And when it
is not true, you always can find candidates by violence and manipulated social
pressure. What has he to lose? He knows from his point of view that by your
reprisals, he makes you fall into the trap. So what has he to care of? How can
we cut this Gordian knot?
To play attention: even a fanatic and dictatorial
organization like Hamas is able to read their audience feelings. They too knew
how to reach a pause when Gaza population was close to sink. Crazy, but not
till the very end .
45
Superfluous myths
In our way towards possible
answers, we will dismantle few myths acting as obstacles.
First and like a continuation
to our chapter on violence - In the world of labour, all our actions and our slogans
about quality bring us to the zero default goal.
Similar, in parallel to our
refusal for death and sacrifice, against growing sensitiveness facing mourning,
we too dream, like the whole West, of a no human casualties war.
It is of course thanks to our opinion
on life and our values, and it is good that being so. But such results, you
hardly find even in action movies. There is no such a thing zero damage. It
does not free us to make the utmost efforts to avoid casualties, to reach this
goal, but not more.
By researching with no logic a
zero victim, there is paralysis, not search for victory. Then you make half
work and of course the problem is increasing. By looking for zero victim, there
is no search for victory.
The second myth is linked to
our capacity to stand still, to conserve our positions. It is not possible for
us to make all time long compromises, to act like if our axioms were only ice
you can skate above. We knew for years how to resist to terror, to pass clear
messages to their organizations [and to the world]. The concept “blood on the
hands” is very clear, let not them tell us stories. And even if we forgot its
meaning, they did not. Then started this surfing of politicians under pressure about
their position, ready to sell their soul to politically survive and who started
to negotiate. (A new limit in this forfeiture is reached during end October
2013). You start by changing 1 against 100, one against hundreds; then you keep
on by receiving corpses against living terrorists.
They spit on us and we say
that rain falls. What enemy can respect us, renounce to his ultimate objectives
– our vanishing, when seeing us subsiding right down by ourselves? A silly
negotiation, superfluous and pitiful promises to the concerned families, and the
nation, the population feels aground. By our proper abandon of our principles,
there is no search for victory.
The third myth lies too deep inside
the lack of continuity in our positions, crumbling our strategy, in case there
is one. Circumstances change and can really demand punctual changes, but to
touch some principles, no indeed.
When our principal and
substantial allied declares that a state supports terrorism, it is not the right
time to grant this state legitimacy. Once more we revert to Oslo mistakes and the
rebirth [by our fault] of a corpse. It pushes also states with weak spirit like
Europe to get closer to these states. Crime is worthy.
Our claims disappear like if
they never were, and we ask ourselves – after – why did we fail. It happens
today with Hamas. Also with money sent to Gaza. With Syria for years . Acting listlessly
with our allies, there is no search for victory.
Terrorism wants to harm. It
always attempts to break the quietness, to cause bigger reprisals operation. In
order not to fall into the trap, and for truth and for public relations, we
must take the initiative. Initiative, on which Sun Zu always insisted on, is an
essential matter to oppose the enemy plans. Public opinion likes less people
who always say no. You can present a more positive approach without putting
yourself in danger; there is obligation to take initiative on all parts of the
battlefield.
The last myth I want to
explode, is the possibility for a so-called “modern” reading of the situation,
more flexible, more sophisticated, semantic, rhetoric. We accept to speak about
conflict, we accept that it has to be managed, that we have to “manage” it the
best we can in order to maintain limited embers; because in fact it is a
limited intensity war. All this is true, but, not a pretext to reach the
conclusion that we cannot win, that there is no way, no solution. We fast
enter, under a nice words make up, to renouncement and to defeatist spirit. New
concepts do not annihilate old facts.
A leader making laugh of these
fundamentals, it is forbidden for him to lead. So what to do, how can we fight,
create a strategy solid enough? We must before all accept two conventions.
1 We are not [locally], in an
apocalyptic situation of world terrorism towards chaos, but still inside the
frame of fighting to control the battle field, sovereignty, independence of a
local population/nation on the account of our possibility to exist, with strong
will to erase us from the map. It means that all classic components dominate in
the frame of the conflict we are side in.
2 In addition, this conflict
becomes complex, with simultaneous players in the arena, and everybody at the
other side is using the tools of indirect strategy, all other parties act
according to the rules of indirect strategy. This strategy dominates still
here, and you can easily bet that if we can oppose ourselves to this strategy
in a fruitful way, we will be able to hold the decision.
To this strategy add
themselves elements of asymmetry, still marginal, used also by new tiny
players.
This is why, to keep on
presenting my advices to manage the campaign in a clear and useful way, I will
take advantage once more of the intelligence of General Beaufre with the
skeleton he built to show the reactions against indirect strategy. In this
frame I will be able to add and update. I will do like with Sun Zu, will quote
and add comments and advice. Everyone can add and enrich the “conversation”.
General Beaufre himself wanted to give us general ideas to lead us towards
valuable actions.
46
External counter-attack
“In direct
strategy the essential is the power, i.e. the material means, whose importance
will permit to obtain more or less easily the freedom to act [to maneuver]. In
indirect strategy, the essential lying too on research for this liberty in action,
the interest will concentrate on the indirect means able to ensure it, so at
first place on the “external counter-maneuver”.
On this
issue, putting aside the fact that some people do not want to hear us, we are totally
wrong.
We acted and
we are punished because of our reaction.
So, to be
able to act, we must before all to “explain” inside the outer circle that we
are obliged to react. Two good examples: the great operation in Gaza we spoke
about for weeks, on the need to make it. At the end it did not occur then but
we prepared its psychological background [it ended months after with Cast Lead
operation in 2008]. Other example is with second Lebanon war in summer 2006.
Our messages seemed then legitimate and our entering the operation justified. The
fact that, we later wasted the “momentum” is another story.
General
Beaufre makes the link with the atomic weapon because he speaks in the name of the
Western camp, United States or France, against the Soviets. He does not treat
specifically about our conflict nor considers a small state. He describes the
spreading ahead of Soviet presence worldwide during fifteen years of “peace”. We
have to neutralize this aspect when dealing with our conflict.
He continues:
“The external counter-maneuver consists in achieving the most possible complementary
dissuasions of global nuclear dissuasion. The choice of these dissuasions as we
saw with external maneuver, can be made starting from the vulnerabilities of the
adverse system (interior public opinion, economy, situation of satellites and
moral allies, taboos of Marxist
psychology – or Muslim or Black etc...). From this analysis must be deduced the
political line consisting in fixing the ideological and geographical positions
to defend and the ones that you want to threaten. We must understand that a
political line with purely defensive character would have only a weak value of
dissuasion because the key to dissuasion is the capacity to threaten. So you
absolutely need an offensive political line”.
[=You have
something to lose]. Reading these lines in 2014, we understand that we do
nothing; on the contrary Mahmud Abbas [Abbu Mazen], he, knows how to continue the
attack.
Yes. Fifty
years ago he was writing that, just describing what he met, but nevertheless
there is some naive colour in his writing. To calm the other side we must avoid
him to advance, we must threat to advance from our side. Doing this, without
entering into the traps of exhausting and harmful occupation - from which the
importance of initiative, from which the importance of flexibility and
maneuver.
Beaufre continues: “On the ideological
platform, an offensive political line consists first in the necessity of being
capable to efficiently attack the weak points of the adverse ideological
system. So you must start from those weak points and not from our moral or
philosophical conceptions.” In simple language: enter the thoughts of the
enemy, in his system of values, not yours, and attack him. We have no chance to
defeat them if we are not able to enter their mentality. General Beaufre
reminds the weakness of the West in these matters, including Africa. He already
wants to tell us that the occidental system not always corresponds to the needs
of those populations. The Americans too, it is clear, did not read him since
then.
On the psychological ground, General Beaufre underlines the importance of
the prestige [of the western civilization] that we have to re-conquer, by
re-linking two elements which complete one the other. He meant the way the
other side is perceiving / comprehending us.
The first element, for the West, is to
work altogether in harmony to show a unique front. It is clear that against
world terrorism [then made in USSR like PLO was created], there are multiple
advantages, despite the stammering of a part of the European.
The question is for Israel: are we a
part of the West? The question is not innocent, nor any answer, but yes, we
must hope that we are part of eth democratic states, parliamentary, with diversity of free parties.
Even with the will to conserve our
heritage and our traditions, and despite the pressure made by some groups
inside our society, we can easily be described as a part of the Free
World.
The truth is that we, as a small state,
among ourselves, present a large society of opinions, with an internal hate
[between groups] stronger even that our attitude against our enemies. The
internal ideological gap is not less dangerous than external threats: the right
insulting our soldiers; the left sucking some parts of the PLO leaders and
inflating hate against the inhabitants of Judea-Samaria - in this, too much of
spider net.
Second element of prestige, the fear
you inspire. Ended is the Supermen era of the Six days War. We too much became
the victims of jokes, spoiled children, always crying; the vagabond Israeli who
desperately looks after a foreign passport or who invests abroad because you
never know... What can think the other side when he sees how we do behave
relating to our state and our land? Exactly what was making Arafat moving: one
day maybe, no matters when, we’ll succeed.
Vanity of declarations made by
politicians or officers in ridiculous press conferences, it is only the visible
part of the iceberg, which cannot be nothing else but subject to mockery for
any thinking adult. General Beaufre speaks about the “face” you show, specially
in front of young nations.
On the
geographical plan General Beaufre enjoins: “We must choose the regions where
you want to make the effort to defend, threaten or attack. This choice must
then to be focused on first hand in regions covering our sensitive points, on the
other hand where an action could be easy. Beaufre recommends us “to search for the
action centers which allow future developments and to avoid entering
into zones wherein the adversary can develop his efforts at smallest price when
obliging us to use considerable means.”
He ends: “At
last, even if we will find difficulties, priority must be given to elimination
of the external bases which permit the adversary to manage his indirect aggressions.”
He does not come back on this issue for free, which means for us expelling PLO
from “Fatah-Land” in Lebanon [1982]. We have the same problem for years with
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. But if Lebanon is a state and his citizens
an important minority inside an impotent majority; in Gaza, the Hamas government
should have fallen long ago. But as usual we speak, declare, louder from the
right side, but we do nothing.
47
Internal
counter-maneuver
Beaufre: “On the
field of the aggressions, riposte can take very different forms. If we speak
about violent aggression like one of the “artichoke strategy” type, we must
have ready tactical forces, indispensable to avoid the “fait accompli” to fast
occur. Existence of such forces will normally be enough to ensure efficient
deterrence. If on the contrary you don’t dispose of the needed means on the
ground, you are obliged to use external maneuver. The example of Suez-Sinai
[1956] shown that with somehow hesitating aggressors, external maneuver could
be sufficient to cancel local successes. But a rapid intervention – like the
one of the Americans in Korea – can avoid a local decision and consequently can
put the whole adverse maneuver on tracks. This is to say the dissuasive
importance of forces capable to organize very fast interventions.”
“If the aggression
looks like “strategy by lassitude”, we can hesitate between some different
solutions. The best if possible would consist in conserving the essential [i.e.
governmental control without engaging huge means and to resolve the conflict by
suffocating it by an enough useful maneuver. If on the contrary the external
maneuver fails [like France in Algiers], we would be complied to manage an
internal maneuver aiming a direct counter-attack.
Clear for us
the Israelis so far, that concerning war of propaganda, we usually lose. It
will always be hard for us to win “the war on the screen”. This, even when
taking into account being able one day to speak with one voice. The difference is
that we don’t have a mother-land like France when leaving Algiers. We don’t have
the possibility to let too big a military force to develop itself beside us
[even if...].
We did so when bringing Arafat and gave him weapons, with Hamas who continues
to develop its army, with Hezbollah. This maneuver is very limited for us to
use.
Beaufre continues: “On the military plan,
it is indispensable to thwart the guerilla strategy of the adversary
as it was described above: you must first avoid to be overflowed by the
maneuver on surface by using strict economy of forces setting in default the
“maneuver of Medina”. This will bring to
limit the generalized protection of the persons and the goods, thanks to a high
occupation density in reduced and well chosen zones, in function of their
political and economical importance; and to permit in the rest of the country a
certain degree of un-safety.”
We are here inside the essence of the economy of forces. We cannot defend
the whole territory, the whole country, every settlement. It is expensive too
much, it pumps high too much public
resources then missing for investments much more important. The army cannot be
a simple baby-sitter with open purse in every place and every situation. Over
the internal break about the using of resources from all [the citizens] to
those needs, there is the economy of forces.
“The posts that will be installed will have for only goal to maintain an
intelligence system, which will permit us to launch a series of operations
aimed to avoid the organization of adverse bases... Correlatively, the
frontiers will have to be hermetically closed thanks to a tactic of barrages.”
General Beaufre did not think about our separation wall, the only reference
was the Berlin Wall, there to avoid the escaping [from the “communist paradise”]
of men towards the Free World. Pacifists who compare between these two walls –
by the way, it is not always high cement in our case – don’t know what they
speak about. And we, we don’t know how to explain.
“Even very well managed, these operations will need very important means.
It is their great weakness for a war necessarily prolonged, when the
organization will have to implement formulas conceived for duration.”
We find here the notion of organization linked to the “operational
strategy”, which I did not deal with, managing the forces in the conflict and
their movements: imbrication of the different forces towards their common
objective, preparation of the military operations, in fact its translation into
practical operations on the ground. This link between strategy on the paper and
its physical implementation is prepared by the operational chiefs, in Hebrew
the officers of operations: ktsiney hamivtsaym. The terrorist organizations
have their own people and so they are a privileged target.
Once more: we cannot, as a small state, finance everything and the life of our soldiers would be inconceivable under this situation. We have too many enemies and battle fronts.
“At last, of
course, the operations must be directed with constant preoccupation to obtain a
psychological effect on the enemy and the population.” Beaufre advises us to be
able to compare between life quality of the populations [that] we defend and
life quality of the population living under the enemy’s authority. On this
subject, the dominant idea for the Palestinians was, under Arafat’s leadership,
that no matters how bad was their situation, the important was that it must be
bad for the Jews.
The facts
were opposite to his wills: on every territory passed under Palestinian
control, conditions of life worsened despite that in parallel, the Israeli economy developped itself – at
least if we consider GDP. Tourists come more and more after years and years of
sleep; our diplomatic relationships transformed themselves, the same time
Palestinian leaders, out of taking their part of corruption, they can but
whimper and beg all the time. The gap, enormous on all fields, between both
populations only deepened and continues to grow.
Abbu Mazen (Mahmud
Abbas), very rich and rotten to the core makes almost the same by supporting the
Palestinian terrorists with Western taxes.
Bad for them,
relatively good for us, this is what happens. How many “refugees” and
inhabitants still receive from the UN [your taxes] a permanent support for tens
of years? For most of the refugees or victims of disasters in the world, help
stops or strongly diminishes after tens of years. Is it worse for the
Palestinians than in Africa? Where is the help of the “brothers”? All the
slogans of their struggle come on their faces as boomerangs. The Palestinians
could have chosen their local Nelson Mandela, they could have received all they
wanted or almost all. They “chose” Arafat. Go explain them the difference.
Last important
point that Beaufre presents: “Despite all these precautions... it is necessary
to have in mind that this sort of struggle has hardly been favourable to the
defense and as we underlined it, only where they were not external close bases
able to feed the guerilla.”
In other
words, we, the majority of us, managing a war of defense [we don’t try to
conquer other territories but try to avoid the adversary will], we cannot
expect victory. A direct defense against an indirect attack is a receipt to
failure. You must attack the external maneuver
- Beaufre argues that you must run like the bull towards the toreador,
who is the real target, the external maneuver, and not towards the red fabric
he agitates.
The problem
is that today everybody wants to support Abbu Mazen and Fatah, the only chance
of dialog and agreement. We managed to convince the Americans that it is so. It
is a problem: when we criticize him, they say it is forbidden because it
weakens him. Once more the situation is absurd, a dead end. Then we come back
to the lie, to ourselves and the others. A new blindness, in full conscience .
So, it is
important to control the flow of weapons that comes, a thing that has not
always been done in a serious way; and of course on the monetary flows – here too
our acting was not once clownish.
48
Beaufre’s
conclusions on indirect strategy
In his
following part on indirect strategy Beaufre presents some conclusions.
In his
opinion, this cold war in low intensity is like medicine in front of surgery,
which operates in warm wars. Here, we must hold preventive vaccines or
treatments against infections we must avoid their development. Psychological
infections look like biological war. Hard to stop them once they appeared.
The special
in indirect strategy is the need to answer by external maneuver (and not inside
the frame of internal physical and regular circle which is limited) in order to
conserve our freedom of maneuver. “The real game of indirect strategy must take
place at the level of the prodromes. After it is too late.”
At the
moment, up-stream, of the initiatives, you must avoid problematic situations.
Extraordinary it is how in those paragraphs Beaufre gets so close to Chinese
philosophy seeing the potential of a situation long before its present perception.
I take the
opportunity to make the parallel with marketing: at the start mass marketing
knew advertising. An immense power held by the multinational companies. The
stream-roller of advertisement, no care for the amounts poured down the drain,
the essential consisting in having a big market share, in being a market
leader. Competitors will not be able to follow the monsters [in size] and will
develop by market segmentation. Then, the data bases technology created direct
marketing. Suddenly not everything appears above the line of communication
noise. A lot happens behind the curtains. Surgery developped itself but [in
parallel] appeared “soft” medicines all along the media course. War knew this
same trend.
For General
Beaufre indirect strategy “is only the application of the general formula of
strategy until extreme values of some of certain variables, power [reduced to
its minimum], and time [strongly intensified] ... the psychological element...
has a determinant role. The matter is to replace missing material force by the
force of a rightly built ideology, and by the power of combinations which
result from thought and precise calculations. “
Nevertheless,
how modest the importance of military power, it must not be neglected. It
remains indispensable to use the situations that psychological maneuver
created.
Beaufre
arrives to ethics:”Force in itself can be good or bad. Its qualification
depends on the cause it serves, then of the policy which animates it.” We
reach, by another way, to moral of ideal and wills against ethics of results.
Last Beaufre’s warning:
“Politics... will have to decide if the objectives will be reached via indirect
strategy or not. But the conducting of this strategy is no more politics but
strategy.” This is why it is forbidden to treat the issues under an empiric
way, i.e. to adapt ourselves all time long to circumstances, but – like the
enemy – to use in a conscious and planned way the tools of indirect strategy.
All this was published before the drunkenness of Six days War. Do we implement
these principles? Do you feel so my dear reader?
In fact,
Beaufre gives us in short all the answers, in their elementary meaning, to
prepare ourselves to the situation we today face. He did not know internet,
which multiplies and accelerates the images impact. He did not know the number
of suicidal which became a culture, blessed by so many religious leaders - in
Islam, even against other Muslims, as mosques too are blown out!
We have now
to go back to these subjects in another way, in a simpler language, with an
organized list of advice and principles – of course not definitive. The
strategic working site is made here and now for discussions which exist
somewhere on the ground in Israel – at least we must hope so.
My goal is
only to give, after all the explanations, the [simplified] background of the
rules and the ideas. The reader will start now from his side to try to add to
the list and will check if his propositions pass by the selection net presented
in the memento.
A refusal can
come fast: there would not be money enough in order to finance all the
missions. I refuse – a priori – this argument.
The state
wastes enough money in an un-useful way so it can find solutions. More, an
improvement of our safety situation and our reputation will bring new sources
of financing, without comparison with the requested level of investments. The
“cleverness” of those free discussions caused us enough trouble like with the
water crisis, our poor position about public transport and the destruction of
our education system.
Few more words
about next chapters: I don’t detail every point. I think that there is no need
to publish every idea, every thought, no need to give the enemy too many ideas
on our wills. Better to think, to do and not to declare.
It is
permitted too, like minister of finance with devaluation, to say something else
or the contrary. It is a good base for ruse. I invite the reader to read
between the lines.
Strategy,
like we saw previously, is founded on three phases: fixation of the objectives,
research of the means in function of the needs, of the way to reach these goals
(diplomacy, force, indirect, asymmetric...). We will pass by them all.
Once more, intelligence is here decisive. Sun Zu and his commentators are clear on the subject: there is no theoretical budget limitation in order to receive precise information. The adversary must fear one the other, to be in doubt all the time concerning who is giving us information. Local treatment of informants [and not “collaborationists” which is an oriented and not proper expression] by Israel is pitiful not only for those people but goes also against politic fundamentals. Now we learned that he regular battlefield, despite its essential character, is the less underlined part of history. For them too, intelligence is crucial.
49
Advices to thwart: goals
Goals are clear enough in the other
side. Are ours clear? I am not convinced. Although, far from suicidal
tendencies of the left and messianism of the right; there is, even if not
always precise, a general agreed background for the majority of the nation. A
certain Palestinian sovereign entity, some compromises on the geographical
field, security as an absolute for Israel, including all it may require. I am
not a political actor [belonging to any organization] in the meaning of
political parties; that is why this definition [of the consensus] seems to me
flexible enough.
Still, it is not really relevant because
who is our stable partner, credible enough, able today to supply the goods? This
is why to try to publicly promote – as an end – our will would be an idiocy. Let’s
learn from the Chinese how to surf with circumstances which can from time to
time move in our advantage.
Our first goal now, and for some
years, is the weakening / annihilation of Hamas and Hezbollah movements [this
over our preparation in front of any warship possibility with our neighbours].
If we manage to do so and reduce the terrorist danger, we will be able to think
that we succeeded.
Another objective is to make
understand to a majority of Palestinians, at long run, that they can only lose
when they try to injure us. It is also a legitimate goal.
So, we have a minimum of objectives
which correspond to (almost) all the Israelis.
50
Advices to thwart: means
I will try to class them according to
battlefields.
On the regular field, small and mobile
units, on the one hand knowing very well the ground but also always fresh. The
most difficult is to break routine, to avoid fixed hours, tracks which repeat
themselves. Advanced equipment comes to support high levelled fighters, able to
cause the other side a lack of balance, a perpetual research for cover, a preferred
effort to defense instead of attacking us. Maneuver requests to avoid fixed
bastions and thoughtlessness. I am not a specialist and will not develop. The
issue here too does not consist in knowledge but in implementation.
Once more, intelligence is here decisive. Sun Zu and his commentators are clear on the subject: there is no theoretical budget limitation in order to receive precise information. The adversary must fear one the other, to be in doubt all the time concerning who is giving us information. Local treatment of informants [and not “collaborationists” which is an oriented and not proper expression] by Israel is pitiful not only for those people but goes also against politic fundamentals. Now we learned that he regular battlefield, despite its essential character, is the less underlined part of history. For them too, intelligence is crucial.
All the rest is occurring on
the enlarged battlefield, the psychological.
The second subject deals with
the control of the movement of information to all target audiences, not only
the occidental. Years ago already, IBA, the Public Israeli TV opened a
satellite channel in Arabic aimed to the Arab world. No matter why, it was
closed. How do we look like? To base ourselves uniquely on the Arab channels ?
The so important work the Israeli public broadcast realizes in Iran with its
station in Persian language. We cannot measure anything but it is a national
duty to hold means of communication to send messages [“propaganda” for people
who want to feel clever]. We need modern tools with rapid reactions, young in
their format. In real time, there will not be any possibility for Tsahal’s
Speaker to deliver the goods. Oshrat Kotler [Tv10] shown some years ago that
even our Foreign Ministry is not capable
to do so. Here too we are wounded by our own forces because of wars of egos.
All is pitiful improvisation
without means, only good will when during the same time Palestinian propaganda
turns tens of years in world universities and televisions. Even, to lose the
vulgar multitudes, but we lose the world elites.
We have to fight on line
against every lie, in every language, on every channel including the Arabic. We
even did not start on this field. For internet, we could feel some pride when
reading Ronen Bergman’s article [“Yediot” November 2008] on the Intelligence
units (about a group of Blue-White hackers who work to defend also the Israeli
servers). Here too, a tear in the ocean.
Are all the groups coordinated?
In year 2000 already, Hezbollah created groups of hackers to attack Israeli
sites. How many are we? How did we manage to let the “Analyzer” hacker leave the
country? I take him as an example of the huge waste [personal cases are not
important], in order to build a team of people we must favour to the good of the
state, to transform them into a weapon to our advantage. Yes it is legitimate. If Israel is a power in
computers and internet, why is the state so far from leading this maneuver?
Here too the number of actors
will not equal the quantity of enemies’ soldiers. But quality and focusing
towards clear goals can strengthen the necessary gap. We need young people,
strongly able to “pass” the screen, able to make birth of numerous
interrogation signs in the viewers’ minds.
On every serious item we should
remind the truth, in an organized way, with messages shared by every speaker,
same keys-sentences. For instance, about education in Palestine, showing their
school books and maps, including under Abbu Mazens’ regime. The use and
direction of imaginary wounded, of ambulances, of the cultural meaning of the
shahid and its increase in force, importance of corruption. To remind all that
everything of this is financed by taxes paid by the citizens of the free world.
Some years ago the European Parliament strangled audits that shown how does European
money finance terrorism. A French socialist deputy was thrown out of his
socialist group because he dared to make public the reports and data, and it
was embarrassing even the French socialist party. And we don’t speak. To make
emerge subject to everyone’s knowledge, it is also a part of initiative,
according to Sun Zu, it is to manage the circumstances, to fix the agenda. Enough
of only reacting! In internal politics we have champions in spin making. For
international affairs, nothing!
The use of images is not innocent. Numerous people worldwide,
even at high ranks, build their decisions after few images of few seconds seen on
television. The Palestinians know how to organize movie direction and fake. We
do not have to do the same, but we don’t show enough what happens on our side.
No shame, we must not hold any shame, we must show the citizens, children and
eldest, ambulances, we must show all. Even the Palestinian operations which
target to cause fear to “journalists” we must show. We let the terrorists the
monopole of feelings. It is simply a crime. This, without speaking about the
massacres they commit one to the other.
In the occidental world, our advocates [people who defend
us] are not numerous. They do what they can, but without support, without
means, with lots of qualities but with no real training of speakers in the
media. Language must be sharp and smart, the message short and intensive. That’s
why the trained intervening must work in teams succeeding one the other all
time round, not only during periods of combat or special events. There is no
place for amateurism. Good intentions are not enough. The rare defending
Israel, are mostly Jewish – which means suspect – a priori – of automatic
collaboration. Also because they are not numerous, they appear too many times
and the effect of their intervention is diminished. Like Palestinians know how
to present young men and women, we must, I insist, present “telegenic”
speakers, i.e. who nicely “pass” the screen concerning both presentation and
content, people who know how to “pass” the messages.
51
Proposals to thwart – the way to succeed
First thing: to enter the mind of the enemy, preference
made to the one of the leaders, in order to receive information and transmit
messages.
Transmission of messages: to present our position, our
legitimacy, beyond any doubt [according to us].
1 To convince them by means, including religious, that
their struggle has no real justification, to weaken the “why”.
2 To give them to weigh once more and more the
cost/usefulness ratio until they interiorize that the management of the
conflict is not worthy, that they will receive the maximum only by negotiation;
that we do not fall into their traps. We will not be the one who blinks [his
eyes], we keep on strengthening ourselves.
Tens of years it did not happen but it is forbidden to
despair. Inside psychological war, we feel good.
To enter into the mind: I am still amazed to consider
that for tens of years we fought against Arafat and we did not manage to really
enter into his black box; how our leaders were made fools by him despite that
all was open, written on the wall: the unclear influence of a religious myth,
half Muslim Brothers and half Saladin, linked to a Marxist ideology of the Fifties,
with the right lesson tought by Mao and Giap. If you don’t understand the
cultural world and you don’t know [or you want to ignore] what he says to his
intimate circle, then you really don’t know anything. Can it be? The goal is
not only to know: of course Hamas wants to push us out of the land, but how. To
discover the wills and the operative plans.
3
Important of course for us to dissimulate . To be like Nasrallah, who knows how
to mix truth and lies but presents himself as a more credible person than our
leaders. Because of internal politics and the war of egos, everything in our
side is transparent. Even concerning special operations every candidate to the Prime
Minister function is ready to make himself flaring up in prime time television.
On
all above treated matters, on the communication level, the element of fastness
of actions and reprisals is essential. If we cannot react immediately, with
prepared teams and messages on the net within few following minutes, we lose.
Like Napoleon’s soldiers faster marching speed gave him a rare advantage on his
enemies, the messages – the soldiers of psychological war – must move fast and
be spread at storm speed. Waves of updating bulletins will improve the positions,
but the essential is to conquer positions even virtual [heat of marketing]. General
Baufre reminds us that the Soviets knew how to build virtual frontiers. Nowadays,
it is an increased need.
Here
too, press conferences or briefings at fixed evening hour, full of pride and arrogance
like those of Tsahal’s speaker in 2006 [Lebanon War 2], is pathetic. War is on
line.
4
For classical conflicts too we must fond natural allies. International communities
sensitive to certain subjects and who can get closer to us than the other side.
It does exist with Christian believers who understand what falls down on their
heads, inside their heart homeland. We can act so with other groups. Even like the
ecologists, even groups struggling for human rights but which are not infected
by anti-Semitism of certain worldwide minorities. The openness of the Israeli
society, no matters what happens with the orthodox branches, specially glitters
in a Middle-East suffocated by barbarian laws [attention: according to European
point of view]. To remind too that the issues we face here very look like
theirs on lots of fields. Today, in international polls, Israel is often placed
beside Iran as a dangerous state for world peace. It proves till what extent we
are mental defective in our way of presenting ourselves.
We
will not succeed to annihilate Palestinian and fundamentalist propaganda. We
yes can, and a lot, weaken its results by a machine of explanations and
efficient propaganda. We will bring here tourists, we’ll strengthen our links
with the world, our situation will be improved. So once more the other side
will understand that it does not succeed, that they do not break us, they don’t
isolate us.
Classical
example: the English organizations that want to boycott us. We move ourselves only
from time to time, only at the edge when they are to make decisions. We must
not work this way! Every day we must make pass messages, cause change opinions,
to take out from their roots the ideas wishing to break links with us. The
effort is permanent. Universities, we almost fully abandoned for fourty years;
are the nest of future elites. There, Arab propaganda holds festive party. It
is not only a question of money.
52
Real victory – third part
Beaufre: “The decision [to
stop fighting, to recognize the defeat] is an event of psychological domain.”
Vital issue -to check victory, over the simple visual stopping of military
operations, we can base ourselves on few principles and criterions: the fact
that we know that the other side has integrated on a definitive or long term
way that he entered a dead-end-issue and that he will not succeed. His thinking
that there is no possible way to bring a desired result, just a deep feeling of
helplessness. No motivation, no hope, no more any artifice that could re-light
on the fire. Of course this conclusion may come on basis of material
conditions, but in a conflict of this nature, the essential is psychological.
The losing side reaches the
conclusion, according to the data, that continuing the struggle gives no
advantage. The vanquisher does not proclaim out and loud his victory, or that
war facts are clear; here the loser does not declare his defeat. We are inside
the world of feelings. Like with my reminding of the mind of the customer: it
happens inside, no need for declarations. The terrorist, the leader,
acknowledges first to himself that the story ends. He renounces to any
insurrection supplementary effort.
He starts focusing on
survival, on escape. Will, based or not on facts, is broken.
Our target is the feelings of the
enemy. We despair about the situation, not that we are facing an existential
danger [really?], but because we feel that there is no possible solution before
numerous years, there is no one to deal and conclude with. It is another sort
of despair. Even, as a state, as the Jewish People, we face this despair but
still feel strong, when others can see us as another “tiger [made] of paper” [the
description of the USA made by Mao Zedong].
Our goal is to influence and
to submit their will [a base of the principle of war] to make them stop
fighting.
Terrorism often acts as a
communication tool, and we saw that its aim is to touch the feelings. To break
their legitimacy, to diminish their means of financial and public supports, to
reduce the results of their terrorist action to tiny results, this is bringing
them to conclusion that it is not worthy.
Even if we would not manage to
completely annihilate their will, at least in their spirit [here too let’s not
despair]; we could be able to transform every event to be marginal. This, from
their point of view, is a failure.
Opposite example? In 2006,
fact that Hezbollah stood still and continued to launch missiles, it was in
their opinion a victory. It means that, and the world saw it so, it was enough
to see that we did not win to reach the conclusion that we lost. Our proper
feeling of having our tail between our legs and dead people for nothing, for
them, it is a victory.
The feeling of defeat is not a
new thing: the result of numerous battles, starting relatively balanced, was
decided when one chief stepped back, by intention or mistake, as if he were willing to escape. Such red flag undermines the
moral of our troops; our soldiers too start to look backwards. Opposite, they
feel that a little bit more and the issue will end, so their effort is
strengthened. The spiral continues to spin and absorbs everything inside.
Defeat can start with a little
break, unforeseen, which the other side identifies it and uses it until the
real break. Physical fracture, moral fracture.
Before it is physically measured,
defeat is felt. If they see that we develop and that they are always late,
until that “the token enters the slot”, which means until they finally understand
their un-capacity. Or that their population, wherein the majority would like to
live normal life, could be heard [as if they were listened to!].
The organized use of knowledge,
explanation and propaganda, in their language and their cultural bases, it is the
only real chance to bring them to real conclusions.
In the future I will add here
a chapter about David Galula’s key book on counter-insurrection.
53
Towards an end [temporary]
Questions before the end,
worthy also before elections.
If you were the parents of a
kidnapped soldier, who would you lean on to bring him back home? Will you vote
for him? Can we negotiate at any price and in every situation [dead/alive]?
A real leader looking for peace
teaches his nation the importance of peace, fruits of peace, his clear will to
make it. See Nelson Mandela. How to speak clear and loud of another horizon, of
the will, yes to change. You want peace? So you need to start at school.
School calculation exercises
counting the dead Jews, this permanent education of vengeance since pre-school
age. Training camps for children and teenagers. Palestinian television and
media speaking only one language, incitation to violence, apprenticeship of
hate. Today, Peace Now” in Israel, at the opposite, education of hate. Violence
sanctified.
Since the beginning, the quiet
position is only tactical, but the shouting of the illusions of the return of
all the “refugees” on all places is keeping on. But, a part of us doesn’t want
to hear, even today. Moderate language and public relations in English - programs
more in conformity to the real plans in Arabic. Here too also we wanted to hear
only the “corrected” language.
Clausewitz compares war to
commerce. To sign a contract you also need trust between both sides. No stratagems
in permanence, no double talk, no conservations of the dreams of the past.
Moreover any action the other
side can start, we have to fix our destiny: as long as we are a strong state – not
only in money or infrastructures – then they cannot do anything against us.
Will be continued
