dec 1, 2012 - Irregular warfare tactics of Hezbollah, transferred to Hamas fighters in Lebanon training

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AN ANALYSIS OF HEZBOLLAH’S USE OF IRREGULAR WARFARE
by STEPHEN KEITH MULHERN
Intelligence and National Security Studies Program

pg. 14: "...In his 2002 article, A Clash of Wills: Hizbollah’s Psychological Campaign against Israel in South Lebanon, Frederic M. Wehrey illustrates that Hezbollah’s success in forcing the 2000 Israeli withdrawal was from Hezbollah’s ability to mobilize the Shi’as using “Iranian revolutionary doctrine, the propagation of a martyrdom ethos, and the provision of social services.”23
In addition to discussions of mobilizing the Shi’a, Wehrey demonstrates Hezbollah’s actions to enter into Lebanese politics and further illustrates Hezbollah’s actions to force out Israel through psychological operations.'

pg. 15: "Frank G. Hoffman in Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars notes that Hezbollah is actually a prototype for hybrid warfare, which will be discussed later in the next section. Hoffman considers Hezbollah to be a prototype worthy of further study and, more disturbingly, emulation by other organizations like HAMAS for how to fight against a militarily superior state like Israel. Hoffman states:
The amorphous Hezbollah is representative of the rising hybrid threat… Mixing an organized political movement with decentralized cells employing adaptive tactics in ungoverned zones, Hezbollah showed that it could inflict as well as take punishment. Its highly disciplined, well trained, distributed cells contested ground and wills against a modern conventional force using an admixture of guerrilla tactics and technology in densely packed urban centers.25"

1.4 Irregular Warfare Theory 50
T.E. Lawrence’s main thesis in the Science of Guerrilla Warfare states, “granted
mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents ...” 51
His thesis sets the framework for successful insurgencies—mobility, security, and indoctrination. Mobility allows for the insurgent force to hit where the enemy is weakest allowing for maximum damage and minimal losses. Lawrence’s plan was to whittle down the Turkish army not through casualties but through loss of materials, as Lawrence writes in Science of Guerilla Warfare:
In the Turkish Army materials were scarce and precious, men more plentiful than equipment. Consequently the cue should be to destroy not the army but the materials.
The death of a Turkish bridge or rail, machine or gun, or high explosive was more profitable than the death of a Turk.52
Regarding security of the insurgent forces, the Arabs fought a war of detachment. A war fought completely through the element of surprise (i.e.—hit and runs, and the threat of attack—“to contain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast unknown desert, not disclosing themselves till the moment of attack”).53
This threat of attack was also not directed at enemy personnel, but against their more precious materials, in particular, they would target parts of the railway far from any
Turkish protection almost eliminating the threat of combat and maximizing tactical success.
Another major aspect of the war of detachment was never providing a target to the opposing forces, i.e. the Arabs would never get close enough to the Turks to provide a target “this chimed with the numerical plea of never giving the enemy’s soldiers a target.”

51 T.E. Lawrence. Science of Guerilla Warfare. (1929), 9. Accessed Feb. 27, 2012.
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~eshaw/lawrence.htm.

Successful application of this concept can be seen in the success of Viet Cong fighters against American soldiers during the Vietnam War as well as in Afghanistan and the Iraqi Insurgency. By attacking when the insurgent deemed it suitable, the American soldiers were put at the disadvantage, inflicting minimal damage to the insurgent, while suffering high levels of damage from the insurgent.

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