Military Innovation and Tactical Adaptation in the Israel–Hizballah Conflict: The Institutionalization of Lesson-Learning in the IDF

This article highlights a pattern of military adaptation and tactical problem-solving utilized by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while engaged in protracted conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hizballah. It discusses the IDF’s recent attempts to institutionalize their historically intuitive process of ad-hoc learning by developing a formal tactical-level mechanism for ‘knowledge management’. The diffusion of this battlefield lesson-learning system that originated at lower-levels of the organization is examined, as well as its implementation and effectiveness during the 2006 Lebanon War. A nuanced analysis of IDF adaptation illustrates the dynamic interplay between both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes of military innovation.     

Close Encounters of the Tribal Kind: the Implementation of Co-option as a Tool for De-escalation of Conflict – The Case of the Netherlands in Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province

Abstract

In contemporary counter-insurgency campaigns de-escalation is typically achieved by obtaining the local population's collaboration. The rationale underlying this approach is that such collaboration spawns control over the population and therefore weakens the insurgent's position. This article seeks to understand how this approach is practised in the reality of contemporary counter-insurgency warfare. In Iraq as well as Afghanistan counter-insurgents were confronted with fragmented indigenous societies in which the various local segments were dominated by local power-holders. Consequently, obtaining the local population's collaboration required co-option of these agents. As such a strategy of co-option is a highly localized approach, this article focuses on Afghanistan's Uruzgan province and analyzes the implementation of co-option by the Netherlands' Task Force Uruzgan (TFU), which operated there from 2006 to 2010. The analysis discusses how the counter-insurgents obtained a profound understanding of Uruzgan's societal landscape and how co-option of local power-holders became part of the counter-insurgency routine. In the end, co-option was successfully implemented as TFU even succeeded in obtaining the collaboration of previously marginalized elements of the population. However, as the methods employed for co-option were mainly of a persuasive nature, the TFU co-option strategy was less effective in containing the influence of notorious spoilers. Thus this case study provides an insight into the dynamics and limitations of co-option as a tool for de-escalation in contemporary counter-insurgency warfare.     

‘Second-Class’: The Grievances of Sunni Officers in the Syrian Armed Forces

The defection of a significant number of Sunni officers amidst the ongoing turmoil in Syria created a unique opportunity to get access to original data on the Syrian armed forces. This study draws on extensive fieldwork to probe the sectarian question in the Syrian officer corps. On the basis of a series of interviews conducted throughout the summer of 2014, I investigate the politics and consequences of sectarian stacking in the Syrian military as well as the root causes of Sunni officers’ grievances and alienation. My conclusions draw on an original database that compiles the sectarian affiliations of 81 prominent officers who occupied the most senior military positions under Bashar al-Asad.     

Israel’s Security Nexus as Strategic Restraint: The Case of Iran 2009–2013

This article examines the debates in Israel between 2009 and 2013 over Iran’s nuclear programme as a reflection of a particular type of civil–military or civil–security relationship. It analyses how key actors within that relationship – particularly those with an intelligence background – engaged with media outlets in Israel and further afield to influence domestic and international opinion over how best to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In so doing, it seeks to address one fundamental question: are governments in Jerusalem any longer the final arbiters over deciding what is in the national security interests of the State of Israel?     

The practice and theory of British counterinsurgency: the histories of the atrocities at the Palestinian villages of al-Bassa and Halhul, 1938–1939

This article details two largely unreported atrocities by British forces operating against Arab rebels during the Arab revolt, 1936–9, at the Palestinian villages of al-Bassa and Halhul. It then examines the military-legal system that underpinned and authorised British military forces operating in aid of the civil power, suggesting that the law in place at the time allowed for a level of reprisals and punitive actions, such as happened at al-Bassa and Halhul. The article does not conclude that the law allowed for atrocities but it does argue that it gave a basic form and understanding to an operational method that was brutal and could lead to atrocities. It thus tests the idea in much of the literature on counterinsurgency that the British were restrained and used minimum force when compared to other colonial and neo-colonial powers fighting insurgents.     

The Ethnic Russian as an Enemy of Islam: Frame Analysis of the Kavkaz Center News Agency (2001–2004)

Abstract

Typically, when analysing contemporary Russian–Chechen conflicts, the relegation of the nationalist struggle to a secondary role by the religious battle waged by the North Caucasus insurgency is pinpointed as one of the fundamental differences between the First and Second War in Chechnya. This article discusses how it was reflected in one of the most important media of the Chechen Islamist insurgency: the Kavkaz Center. To this end, 2859 English language news items posted on the website during 2001–04 were reviewed using media frame analysis.     

Hard Balancing in the Age of American Unipolarity: The Russian Response to US Ballistic Missile Defense during the Bush Administration (2001–2008)

One of the central debates in contemporary international relations scholarship concerns the issue of whether balancing has occurred in response to US-based unipolarity, and if it has, how this should be characterised. Existing research has seen analysts argue that major power responses to unipolarity can be placed in one of either three categories: an absence of balancing, soft balancing, and hard balancing. This article contributes to the scholarly literature by providing a case study of hard internal Russian balancing against the US’s development and deployment of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems during the Bush Administration (2001–08). Russian hard balancing against the US has involved: (1) fielding new strategic nuclear and conventional weapons equipped with BMD countermeasures, and, relatedly, (2) making changes in military doctrine. As a result, security dilemma dynamics are increasingly in evidence in US relations with Russia.     

Disregarding the Bear: How US Intelligence Failed to Estimate the Soviet Intervention in the Egyptian–Israeli War of Attrition 1

This article analyzes the main factors that contributed to the failure of the US intelligence community to alert against Soviet intentions and the intervention in the Egyptian–Israeli War of Attrition in 1969–70. Based on fresh archival sources, this research describes the US intelligence conception concerning the USSR; explains the crystallization of the intelligence estimate on the probability of Soviet intervention in 1970; deals with the intelligence data that were acquired but eventually ignored; and concludes with several plausible explanations for the intelligence blunder.     

The danger of “hybrid warfare” from a sophisticated adversary: the Russian “hybridity” in the Ukrainian conflict

The term “hybrid warfare” is a new one that the West began to use to explain its failure to cope with asymmetric threats. Focusing on the war on global terrorism, the West temporarily withdrew its attention from traditional adversaries, such as Russia, which has used this gap and has audaciously returned to the stage as a global actor. Until the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and inflaming the Ukrainian crisis, most Western authors attributed “hybrid threats” mostly to non-state actors. But the Ukrainian scenario showed the true face of “hybridity” in the modern battlefield when practised by a powerful state actor. Russian “hybrid warfare” in Ukraine has already been seen as a combination of conventional and unconventional methods, that have been complemented with other instruments of national power – diplomatic, economic and information. The purpose of this article is, through an analysis of the Ukrainian scenario, to demonstrate that although the term “hybrid” is new, the concept itself is old and is a continuation of already seen doctrine from the Cold War era. Although “hybrid threats” can come both from state and non-state actors, the Russian interference in Ukraine is proof that they are especially dangerous for the West if, or when, they are initiated from a traditional, sophisticated adversary that has the capacity to use all forms of warfare.     

The resource-conflict debate revisited: Untangling the case of farmer–herdsman clashes in the North Central region of Nigeria

The resource debate is easily discerned as part of the ongoing history of farmer–herdsman conflict in the North Central region of Nigeria. Scarcity theorists are adept at linking scarcity with the onset of livelihood conflict while on the other hand resource abundance pundits insist it is profusion and not scarcity that impels conflict. This article traverses these wrangles and proceeds to downplay the resource polemic altogether. It is proposed that the resource debate, despite its profoundness, presents a narrow reading of farmer–herdsman clashes in Nigeria’s North Central region. It is suggested that a number of other factors, including elite land grabbing, ethno-religious identity construction, weak state capabilities, the citizenship question, corrupt traditional institutions, the lack of an effective land tenure system and a widespread culture of impunity, make for better readings of the conflict. Owing to the negative impacts of the conflict on state and society, it is recommended that the state in Nigeria should commit itself to addressing the citizenship question, strengthening the capabilities of security institutions, extirpating the culture of impunity and revaluing its policy on land redistribution.     

The structural origins of social cohesion: the dynamics of micro-solidarity in 1991–1995 Wars of Yugoslav Succession

This article explores the dynamics of social cohesion on the frontline. It attempts to show how micro-level solidarities largely depend on macro level organisational processes. I argue that frontline social cohesion is often the product of social development linked with the organisational structure. This general argument is applied to the case studies of two armed forces involved in the 1991–1995 Wars of Yugoslav Succession – the Croatian Army (HV) and the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS). Drawing on in-depth interviews with the former combatants I show how HV social cohesion played an important role in winning the war and how these networks of micro-level solidarity were shaped by long term organisational development.     

The Wretched of the Empire: Politics,Ideology and Counterinsurgency in Rhodesia, 1965–80

This article examines the vital importance of political ideology in formulating effective counterinsurgency, by examining the case of Rhodesia between 1965 and 1980. During this period, the Rhodesian Front (RF) Government of Ian Smith adopted a radical right-wing ‘world-struggle ideology’ to justify settler resistance to African decolonisation. The RF's ideology, based on settler-status anxiety, upheld a conspiratorial interpretation of modern politics that emphasised virulent forms of Anglophobia, anti-communism, anti-internationalism and anti-liberalism. The Smith Government portrayed African nationalism not as an indigenous political phenomenon, but as an external instrument of world communism and Western appeasement. After 1972, when Rhodesia faced a protracted insurgency, many of the principles of RF ideology were applied to counterinsurgency warfare with disastrous results. Because the Rhodesian Government viewed African guerrilla warfare as unrelated to domestic politics, Rhodesian counterinsurgency lacked a realistic political dimension. The dictates of settler ideology blinded the Rhodesian Government to the vital need to win ‘hearts and minds’ by applying timely principles of political pacification and reform to its counterinsurgency effort. Instead a Rhodesian counterinsurgency campaign of maximum force was pursued. Such a campaign proved counter-productive accelerating strategic deterioration and leading ultimately to the political victory of the African guerrilla cause in 1980.     

The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001): ‘War-Making and State-Making’ as an Insurgency Strategy

This paper examines the institutional and functional aspects of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). The Taliban’s coercive approach and its entire reliance on “war-making” to “state-making” shows the difficulty of the transformation of an insurgent group into a state structure. The Taliban was primarily capable of establishing a two-track system of governance. However, the assessment of the IEA’s institutional and functional capabilities shows that the military–political organization formed by the Taliban lacked statehood in all three areas of legitimacy, authority and capacity.     

The essence of war: French armies and small war in the Low Countries (1672–1697)

In the late seventeenth century during the Dutch War (1672–1678) and the Nine Years War (1688–1697), French armies relied on small war for the accomplishment of essential tasks and as part of an overall strategy of exhausting their opponents in the Low Countries. The purposes of small war included the imposition of contributions on enemy populations, the destruction of the enemy base of operations, blockades of fortresses, and the general support of campaign armies. The expression ‘small war’ in the French language appeared with growing frequency in the 1690s. Small war can be viewed as both a cause and consequence of the characteristics of these wars. The limited policy goals of Louis XIV the king of France required a strategy that minimised risk and accomplished the goal of reducing if not eliminating the Spanish presence in the Low Countries that bordered the north of France. As French armies increased in size during this period, the demand for specialists at small increased in order to provide security and ensure supply. Small war in the late seventeenth century was thus not ideologically motivated insurgency, but in the minds of French commanders an essential component of strategy and the nature of war.