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[Order Daniel Greenfield’s new book, Domestic Enemies: HERE.]
America has never successfully liberated and held territory from Islamic terrorists. After thousands dead in Afghanistan and Iraq: both countries are now controlled by Islamic terrorists.
Many top current and former defense officials who oversaw both disasters, despite a track record of zero wins, have been criticizing Israel for not following in their footsteps.
Everyone from former Gen. David Petraeus to current Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown offer the familiar criticisms that Israel is not following the COIN or counterinsurgency model.
“Not only do you have to actually go in and clear out whatever adversary you are up against, you have to go in, hold the territory and then you’ve got to stabilize it,” Chief Brown argued.
The problem with this model is that it failed and left a lot of widows and orphans along the way.
The United States spent over 50 years losing wars, prestige and young men by trying to follow the familiar strategy for defeating guerrilla armies through conventional warfare followed by efforts to hold and stabilize the territories. And what exactly do we have to show for it?
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) discarded this conventional wisdom for another approach.
Rather than trying to hold territory filled with an enemy population among whom the terrorists move, it has used its manpower to attack concentrations of enemy forces, moving quickly and at times unpredictably, while refusing to get bogged down by trying to ‘hold’ any particular area.
This strategy has frustrated the entire Hamas war plan which like that of Jihadis in Iraq and Afghanistan depended on using terror attacks to pin military units in place, forcing them to defend and patrol a territory, and then exploiting their weaknesses to launch ambushes.
Israel learned a hard lesson from Oct 7. It’s not interested in playing defense anymore. Instead the goal of the initial stages of the war has been to keep the terrorists forces on the defensive. Complaints that Israel has to ‘reclear’ areas that it’s already taken miss the point. The enemy population supports the terrorists and so the area can’t be ‘cleared’ or ‘stabilized’. But once Israel has taken control of terrorist infrastructure, it’s better able to understand their operations.
When Israel ‘re-cleared’ Al-Shifa hospital, it took by surprise and captured much of the leadership of Islamic Jihad and some Hamas leaders as well. Rather than a weakness, re-clearing is a strength because when terrorists return to territory that Israel is now familiar with, it can turn the tables and launch surprise attacks on those old positions.
Israel is not fighting to take land, but to grind down enemy forces wherever they operate.
“The measure of effectiveness will not be enemy killed,” Gen McChrystal told the Senate about his Afghanistan strategy in 2009. McChrystal’s strategy killed a lot of Americans instead.
Israel is betting that McChrystal is wrong. It’s measuring effectiveness in just that way.
Holding and stabilizing territory, the basis for the COIN model, bogs down armies in defensive modes, while Israel’s approach is purely offensive and plays to its strengths. The IDF is bad at defensive operations, but quite good at rapid assaults. COIN would play to Israel’s weaknesses and the strengths of the terrorists, much as it did with us in Iraq and Afghanistan, but discarding COIN has made the IDF’s campaigns far more effective even if they’re nowhere near the end.
COIN advocates cite their ‘successes’ against ISIS in Iraq. But those successes pitted one group of Islamic terrorists against another. They would like Israel to pit the PLO against Hamas, but not only is the PLO unwilling to fight Hamas (and lost badly the last time it tried to do so) but the end result would be the same disaster in which Iraq fell into the hands of Shiite terrorists.
The problem with COIN when applied to Muslim countries is that whoever wins, we lose.
COIN in Afghanistan propped up an ineffective warlord and kleptocrat alliance that couldn’t survive without our military support while COIN in Iraq turned over the country to Iran. Not only did both pathways lead to dead ends, but neither one is even available for Israel to utilize.
The Biden administration and some former defensive officials have proposed finding Muslim nations willing to help “stabilize” Gaza afterward. Not only aren’t such nations available, but Egypt, which controls the Rafah crossing into Gaza, did everything possible to stop an Israeli advance in order to cover up the massive tunnels leading from Gaza into Egypt.
Once Israel went into Rafah, Egypt cut off aid through its crossing into Gaza in order to manufacture another “humanitarian crisis” and allow Hamas to take control in Rafah again.
That is what Israel’s prospective Muslim “partners” are really up to behind the scenes.
But that was also exactly how America’s Muslim partners acted. While America searched for Osama bin Laden, Pakistan was harboring him in one of its military towns. Qatar harbored Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and Saudi Arabia, which provided most of the hijackers (along with our other regional allies) rushed to defend the terrorists at Gitmo.
Israel has a more realistic assessment of those Arab Muslim “partners” than D.C. does.
Oct 7 was enabled by generations of peace accords overseen by D.C. beginning with the Camp David Accords, that enabled Egypt to recover territory that it had lost in a war without actually offering anything more than the coldest possible peace, and then followed by the Oslo Accords and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza which turned over the territory to Hamas.
The Camp David Accords, the Oslo Accords and the withdrawal allowed Hamas to not only dominate Gaza, but connected it directly to Egyptian territory and forced Israel to refight the conflicts that it should have left behind in the 50s because there was no longer a security zone.
If Israel still controlled the Sinai and Gaza, Oct 7 would have been impossible.
Oct 7 happened because Israel put diplomacy and its hope for peace ahead of its strategic imperatives. After Oct 7, it’s finally putting strategic imperatives ahead of diplomatic ones.
Nation-building, currently referred to by politicians as a ‘day after plan’, is not on the agenda. Israel is not trying to “hold” or “stabilize” territory. Even if such considerations emerge later, it will only be when the situation on the ground has shifted significantly. The current focus is on destroying concentrations of Islamic terrorist forces and their infrastructure.
Biden administration critics claim that the collateral damage from the war will allow Hamas to recruit more men, but the Israelis know that what really allows terrorists to recruit is leaving them in power. Allowing Hamas to control Gaza for 17 years is what built it an army.
Israel is out to destroy Hamas as an organized force. The goal of the war is to take out its leaders and reduce the enemy to its smallest possible components.
“If they leave and get out of Gaza, as we believe they need to do, then you’re going to have a vacuum, and a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again,” Secretary of State Blinken complained on CBS News.
Chaos and anarchy, while not ideal, are still a better deal than Hamas. Given a choice, Israel would prefer to live next door to Haiti than Iran. Islamic terrorists fighting warring gangs over territory are far preferable to terrorists building rockets and missiles.
After Oct 7, Israel is applying a crude realpolitik to the problem. It’s insufficient as a solution, but it’s a whole lot more pragmatic than the nation building and counterinsurgency rabbit hole that swallowed up a generation of our finest fighting men with nothing to show for it except despair.
Israel is trying to limit its casualties while maximizing its results. Our politicians and generals could learn a thing or two from that. The IDF is not being tasked with digging wells, winning hearts and minds or having three cups of tea with the terrorists. Its soldiers are tasked with pushing out and engaging enemy forces to expose their leaders and command structure.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, we used military force to achieve political and diplomatic aims, while Israel is using military force to achieve military aims. What a shockingly sensible notion.
Perhaps our politicians and generals ought to consider it next time we get involved in a war.
Here’s three hard lessons for America: Lesson number one: Israel is fighting to exist. Lesson number two: your avowed allies, sooner or later, will desert you and leave the fight to you. Lesson number three: Israel, although surrounded by its enemies, and targeted by world opinion, never gives up the fight.
America has not been in a desperate war for existence in many years. Most of the last fights across the globe were for the Military/Industrial complex, plus too many were managed from the White House. The end may be approaching as reality is terrible.
America has never been under existential threat. Israel has never been free of it.
Exactly.
Tiny Israel has been under Arab terrorist attack, fighting for its survival since (and before) 1948. Has the superpower US been under terrorist attack, fighting for its survival since 1776?
America is currently in a “desperate war for existence” with the Democratic Party.
If Trump beats the vote cheating of the Dirtbagocrats, you can bet he’ll stop our next war and handle it right if it happens.
There is no pusillanimity when it comes to Trump.
Spot on. Sounds good to me. Devastate area A then leave it, Go to area B, then C, then D. They will retake area A, or B, etc. but each time in a weakened, less organized way. Then when your intelligence tells you its refilled, hit A again, or B again. Devastate it then move on to E or F. Hit any one of them again ON YOUR TERMS at your pace. Surprise, organized offensive. That is what IDF is best at. Then move out and on. But keep recycling – weakening what forces (men) they have each time. No need to ever hold a place. Let them move back in – then kill it again – over and over. Intelligence should tell you what area is being refilled.
A brilliant strategy. Dumb to try to hold land and try to win hearts and minds. That will capitulate when the weakened forces evaporate..
Winning hearts and minds in an area where the local population has been raised, from cradle to grave, to hate you, seems the proverbial fool’s errand.
20, 40, 60 and 75 years ago little sweet Gazan baby boys, indoctrinated with Nazi inspired Islamic hate from birth, grew up to be rapists and murderers. So will the little boys in Gaza today.
Gazan’s overwhelmingly voted Hamas into power. They would do so again.
Egypt and Jordan refuse to take these animals in for the threat they pose to their own rule. Kill’em all Israel.
And it’s actually less like an ‘occupation’ than the COIN nonsense. It emphasizes mobility, not territory.
The only long term answer is for Israel to take complete control of Gaza after completely removing the current population and having Jewish Israelis settle it.
Actually this strategy is quite effective if one wants perpetual wars. And who wants perpetual wars? It’s spelled MIC. Lots to be made from all those bullets, bombs, planes, body bags, not to mention the reconstruction.
Good analysis Daniel.
Good article, if correct. I want Israel to *win* this war, not by being sensitive, but by proving that they are the “strong horse”!
USA should avoid wars if possible, but if there is one, the goal should be *victory*! I don’t know if our woke military understands this, or agrees.
We have too many generals, much more than we had in WW2 when we were in a fight for existence. Our current overload of soft generals now are at least partially woke and weak. The Pentagon is a huge and highly inefficient bureaucracy. A hungry enemy can defeat a soft, overweight, spoiled general.
The US Commander in Chief and his expert generals’ mindset (or set of questionable minds) are somewhere between annoyed and enraged by Israel’s approach to the Hamas Gaza genocidal enemy war because, they are literally lost in translation. How so?
What they call the ‘IDF‘, or, Israel Defense Force, is not a totally accurate translation of the hebrew word for Israel’s army.
The hebrew word for Israel’s army is ‘Tzahal‘, the acronym for
Tzva HaHagana L’Yisrael, which means Army for the Protection of Israel. Not just defense- but for the
Protection of Israel. Duh.
Obviously, it must be more than a “defensive” force.
But the US administration seems to have honed in on the word “defensive”. So they say Israel has a right (thank you so very much) to ‘defend’ herself, but not to ‘protect‘ herself. “Yes”, they say, “You have a right to try not to die, but not to remove the threat”. It’s sickeningly absurd, and they know it, and probably secretly marvel at the IDF, as they abuse their own soldiers at home and around the world.
Never have a people been more justified in routing out Hamas after the sickening barbarity on Oct 7. Netanyahu is a godsend in how he has been handling Gaza all the while ignoring the U. S. And Europe’s calls for a ceasefire.
I have been really impressed with how the IDF has surgically destroyed Hamas strongholds. Now that is how you fight a war. Plus the Israelis have great technology and equipment.
Israel needs to do whatever she feels necessary. Taking over Gaza completely seems like a good idea to me.
The UN human trafficking agency IOM.int has a strategic goal of “regular mass migration” people think that the UN fights trafficking, it doesn’t, it organises human trafficking.
Isn’t “Rachel” Levine a General here in America? Oh. Scuse me. An Admiral. Yeah. We’re ready for a fight with our enemies.
The etymology of the word “admiral” is fascinating. I first read the story in a book on British Naval History. It was originally an Arabic word (meaning “commander of the seas” or something like that), then picked up in Old French somehow, then picked up in England.
Yes, she, or is it he, or is it an it, is an admiral. It is not exactly battle ready. But then neither is the woke Pentagon.
The real lesson being taught by the IDF is that is intent on destroying the enemy and not in nation building
Young Americans have learned the lessons of the Endless Wars (and who benefits) and Recruitment is down by 48, 000 men and women! Even the second Top Gun movie did not HELP. US Military families are no longer accepting the ‘fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here’ BS, or the lie of defending Democracy. That ship has sailed….We aren’t sending our kids into that meatgrinder. Our young Patriots belong here at home and so do our Veterans. A million Chinese military men have invaded America and we do nothing? WHOSE SIDE ARE WE EVEN ON???? God bless and keep Israel.
We won the Revolutionary War out numbered and out weaponed by the Brits by guerilla warfare. The kong gooks used guerilla warfare against our ill trained youth in Nam. How stupid our leaders are while they have their manicures and pedicures while sending conscripted troops out to be slaughtered.
Two disagreements. Second one first. The ARVN, Americans, Aussies, et al did pretty good against the VC. Eventually, the NVA had to replenish most of the VC field units with their own men. After the Tet offensive the VC were a spent force. Most of fighting after that was with NVA forces, with a lot of Chinese “volunteers”. General Giap stated in his memoirs that the commies, (my term), had a million casualties.
The final assault on South Vietnam was primarily a blitzkrieg.
Now as to the American War of Independence, General Washinton’s tactics were Fabian, not really guerilla. The story of the brave farmer hiding behind a tree picking off a British regular make for good copy, but it is not entirely accurate.
The Brits were actually quite good at what we call today counter insurgency. They learn a lot during the French and Indian War. The war was won when militia men were drilled into real soldiers at Valley Forge. The Continental Army was a real Army. In addition to musket men, it had artillery that could hit the target, horsemen who swing a sword, and quartermasters who could keep the supplies coming. That’s what won the war. And a lot of help from the French.
Now after all that, I agree with you that Vietnam was not place for conscripts.
Or you could just carpet bomb all of Gaza and push the Palestinians into Jordan and make Gaza part of Israel. End of problem.
Maybe in the future, if and when altruism and self-sacrifice are rejected and absolute self-preservation is accepted as the highest moral ideal.
Oooo Mr. Tough guy wants to carpet bomb Gaza. Mr. Weakling, always telling others to do the dirty work.
A normal person would say yes. But you are anything but normal. You are an insane totalitarian. Because your conditions will never happen or take root.
First of all how do the Palestinians get from Gaza into Jordan? There is a little country called Israel in the way. And then there is the West Bank Territory (also part of Israel). Secondly the IDF goes out of its way not kill civilians.
Not only do you know nothing about Judaism….you know nothing about the map of Israel.
Maybe you should restrict your insanity to telling the Christians in this country how to conduct their lives. Not that we will listen.
BTW, the THX Beer Drinking Game has been invoked with the word altruism. Maybe you should go to Tel Aviv and tell them how to run their war. The Israelis would tell you to eff-off after you are dispatched with a few bumps and bruises.
Your motto should be “I’m not insane….it’s all of you that are insane.”
The situation is really very simple. The type of individual that works in a bureaucracy does not like to make changes. Total victory is not on the table because it has not been since Nagasaki. No one gets in trouble by following current procedures. Evolutionary ideas are like a cross to a vampire. Wars for the US should mean total destruction of our enemy for our self defense. Otherwise stay home and do not provide a jobs and profit programs for the second class intellectuals in government and the MIC.
The Pentagon lost Korea, Vietnam and the Mid East by not updating failed plans or policies. Citizens of a country hate outside soldiers marching their streets. Germans and Japanese still resent us after 80 years and rightfully so. Would you want a Vietnamese soldier on Main Street?
The Mid east is and always has been tribal. The throne is volatile at best.The only way submission works is to “create a desert and call it peace.” Anybody seen Hannibal around lately? Israel must destroy the two tribes of the PLO and Hamas. This eliminates the paying one against the other Bibi.
Similar to the way they screwed up the war in Ukraine.
The “plan” is survival I guess.
Vietnamese and the VC remembered the experience of the British in our Revolutionary War. The best and largest army in the world outmatched by a few Generals and a ragtag bunch of farmers with different types of muskets.
I also believe the British had little skin in the game because they weren’t fighting for their country. They were on foreign soil without incentives.
America haters, please don’t mention WWII….a completely different set of circumstances.
I posted a reply to your comment. However, after the moderators reviewed my extremely provocative language, they posted it with the all the other comments.
It begins with, “Seriously doubt….”
My “advice” or “two cents” has always been to give the ENEMY what they want! The muslims want their 7th Century ideology so give it to them! DESTROY EVERYTHING not available in their glorious 7th Century! Reduce their airports to rubble, sink all ships, destroy all communications, utilities, and infrastructures that provide benefits to the terrorists! Make it KNOWN that IF they are responsible for ANY terrorist attacks we will be back with our bombs and missiles! The GOAL of any war should be to WIN! We don’t fight wars to win or even for the OIL!! THAT was a big mistake too!! We SHOULD have taken the OIL to REPAY us for the costs in materiel and PERSONNEL! After we remove ourselves from the UN, ICC, and the OTHER COMMUNIST organizations, we should work to establish REAL ALLIES and not just the “fair weather” types! Some SMALL Nations are taking steps to curtail their muslim takeovers – we had better make hay while the sun is shining! First step we make HERE is to REQUIRE anyone in a Government Position – Congress Critter down to janitor – to place their hands on a BIBLE and SWEAR ALLEGIANCE to The UNITED STATES of AMERICA and OUR CONSTITUTION! If they can’t do that then no job and if not a CITIZENS then they LEAVE! THEN we ENFORCE that PLEDGE! If a Congress Critter does an aoc/ilhan/rashida/etc then they are IMMEDIATELY removed from Government Activities and stand in TRIALS for forsaking their OATHS! If Guilty – then OUT they GO from their JOB and if not native born – BACK from whence they came!! Harsh?? We had BETTER be HARSH because THEY surely ARE NOT and WILL NOT BE!
Yes, its totally about survival and defending a nation and their people. That is commendable and necesssary. Islam does not want Israel to survive or America either. Islam’s intentions are to get rid of all the Jews and then to go after the all the dispicable Christians as they have stated.
The other lesson that should come out of this is to go back to a total war concept. Hand wringing about civilians—especially ones that still overwhelmingly support a terrorist-run government only gives the filth time to mount a propaganda campaign. Better to finish the war as quickly as possible instead of allowing time for terrorist to attract the world’s quislings to its side.
“Biden administration critics claim that the collateral damage from the war will allow Hamas to recruit more men”
No! Hamas victory, whether it be by killing the enemy or convincing millions in America and the EU that they were the victims of their own sneak attack will bring more recruits to their Islamic cause of killing all Jews.
When did killing the enemy and destroying their ability to make war get replaced with “can’t we all just get along” type of nation building that has always resulted in the enemy regrouping just to come back to fight another day?
indeed, victory is the best recruitment strategy
The IDF is a very different type of military than the American. It is actually modelled after the Swiss system, with a few changes. In short, universal conscription, no service academies, all officer candidates pulled from the enlisted ranks, a small regular force, the great bulk of the force in reserves. All this makes for a very small military bureaucracy and thus a nimble force. New ideas don’t have to face a lot of inertia.
The Israelis also have the great advantage of always fighting on ground and against an enemy they are most familiar with. This is not to disparage in any way what they do. I have been a great admirer of the IDF ever since they pulled off the Entebbe raid. I was in the USAF at the time. It is extremely doubtful we could ever pull something like that off.
Seriously doubt that Nguyen That Than, aka Ho Chi Minh ever studied the American War of Independence. Mao Tse Tung was no doubt his greatest influence.
To say that the British were defeated by a ragtag bunch of farmers is not really accurate. Makes for Good American Mythology. What won the war was the Continental Army, which after von Steuben’s training at Valley Forge, could go toe to toe with the best of the British Army. Of course, the French were a greater help than most American realize. There were more French troops at Yorktown than Colonists. Those nice big siege guns were a great help.
Great article – should be required reading in the Pentagon and Ministry of Defence . Pity the Americans have forgotten the success of General JJ “Blackjack” Pershing in the Philippines in the early 1900s . Bury dead terrorists in pig skins – they can’t get to paradise then . The word will soon get around ……
Israel is still trying to focus on saving Islamofascists instead of killing terrorists. Level Gaza and start without them
Attempting to uphold the higher moral and ethical ground under Geneva Convention protocols against an enemy who affords no such reciprocity literally guarantees occupying the lower ground (six feet lower!). In the war against fundamentalist terror, the objective is to win … Not to fight fair!
Daniel, I have always been impressed by the Israeli’s. I was working in there VA suburbs, doing aircraft and aircraft systems reliability and support, for Navy and Marine aircraft, for which Israeli Companies were developing and making electronic systems. I made 70 trips to Israel, met their company and military leaders. I also met their junior troops as well. They all were aware of the areas they traveled, and they passed keeping safe info to me.
I asked one mid level gentleman if he could stay a couple of days for a demo the company was going to do. Answer, No, I live in a Kibbutz and have guard duty for those days, I need to get back. They know what their environment is, and they protect family and Friends.
Semper Fi, Murf
Excellent article. You should be teaching at the U.S. Army War College.
CRIMSLAM has to be DEBUNKED to win the war against civilization. Secular at best, Israel and AmeroBabylon refuse to attack it’s lack of religious validity see the works of Jay Smith. At worst, the bad faith Satanist theosophist, pedo-Illuminati DO NOT WANT TO WIN and END wars in good faith. “Clear & Hold” is evil Clintonista permissive wheeled peaceniking by force. The USMIL bureaucracy does not understand war can be either Nation State War (NSW) or Sub-National Conflicts (SNCs). The things needed to win SNCs like debunking CRIMSLAM the U.S. MILINDCOMP isn’t willing to do so a new professional organization is needed: www.combatreform.org/johnpaulvann.htm
Hollywood Halfwit Richard Gere once said WAT HAS NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING except for making America a Free Nation shows what little a Drug and Booze Hollywood know-nothing celebrity knows
While I support Israel’s response to Oct 7, I believe it is only buying some time.
When this is all said and done, Hamas might be hobbled for a number of years, perhaps even for a decade.
However, this is only the short run.
Hamas and International Islamism are playing the long game.
The Marxist rabble currently infesting our centres of learning will be holding the reins of power in another ten to fifteen years.
They’ll start by cutting aid and work their way up to sanctions.
Eventually, Jews trying to leave Israel, will likely run into the same diplomatic brick wall that the Boers are currently facing.
Idf tactics owe much to the Christian-Zionist orde wingate who showed the way in what was to become the current israel and in Burma with the chins it raiders. C murphy.