"... In Lebanon, the Israelis faced terrain & enemy conditions for which they were not prepared..."

Thos. Ricks in FP/ here

"By chance, when I reached into my ragged black Land's End bag for my "subway reading file" during my commute home yesterday afternoon, out popped Military Capabilities for the Hybrid War: Insight from the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon and Gaza, by David E. Johnson of RAND Corp. I'd printed it out a few days ago and forgotten about it.

It is a good short summary piece, and speaks right to some of the questions I had after reading Col. Gentile's worries about the US Army's tank force. In Lebanon in 2006, Johnson concludes, the Israeli military "was largely incapable of joint arms fire and maneuver." Tank training especially had been neglected because it had been "deemed largely irrelevant."

He also makes the interesting point that with state sponsorship, it is relatively easy for an armed non-state group to make the transition from irregular capability to a very lethal "hybrid capability." He points to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s when the U.S. government gave them Stingers anti-aircraft missiles, as well as to Iranian-aided Hezbollah in Lebanon..."

[From the RAND report]

"... In Lebanon, the Israelis faced terrain and enemy conditions for which they were not prepared. An Israeli journalist, writing about the war, noted that in the years preceding the operation in Lebanon, “at no stage was an Israeli unit required to face down an enemy force of a size larger than an unskilled infantry squad.” Hezbollah, although not ten feet tall, was trained and organized into small units and armed with sophisticated weapons, including anti-tank guided missiles, RPGs (including RPG-29s), rockets, mortars, mines, IEDs, and MANPADS. Hezbollah also occupied prepared defensive positions in Lebanon’s difficult hilly terrain and urban areas.

Initially, the IDF tried to decide the issue with standoff air and artillery attacks, but this did not stop the rocket attacks on Israel, nor result in the return of the soldiers whose capture had precipitated the war. Eventually, Israeli ground forces entered Lebanon, where they had real difficulties, well documented in Matt Matthews’s We Were Caught Unprepared. One of the key deficiencies was that the Israeli Army, highly conditioned by its LIC experience, was initially confounded by an enemy that presented a high-intensity challenge that required joint combined arms fire and maneuver and a combat mindset different from that of Palestinian terrorists, even though Hezbollah did not have large formations. One IDF Israeli observer noted that “Prior to the war most of the regular forces were engaged in combating Palestinian terror. When they were transferred to Lebanon, they were unfit to conduct combined forces battles integrating infantry, armored, engineering, artillery forces, and other support forces.” This was particularly apparent with field artillery and air—which were used almost exclusively for attacks on preplanned targets and rarely in support of ground maneuver.

Hezbollah was a disciplined and trained adversary, operating in cohesive small units and occupying good terrain. It also had a standoff fires (ATGMs, mortars, and rockets) capability. Thus, defeating Hezbollah required joint combined arms fire and maneuver, something the IDF was largely incapable of executing in 2006. Fire suppresses and fixes the enemy and enables ground maneuvering forces to close with him. Fire also isolates the enemy, shutting off lines of supply and communication and limiting his ability to mass. Maneuver forces enemy reaction. If the enemy attempts to relocate to more favorable terrain, he becomes visible and vulnerable to fire. If he remains in his positions and is suppressed, he can be defeated in detail by ground maneuver. Thus, hybrid opponents like Hezbollah demand integrated joint air- ground-ISR capabilities that are similar to those used against conventional adversaries, but at a reduced scale. Finally, the IDF’s highly centralized C2 system, which had been effective in confronting the intifada, proved problematic against Hezbollah.

Quite simply, during the Lebanon War the IDF was not prepared for ground operations when standoff strikes did not force Hezbollah to meet Israeli demands...." (the report in full/ here)