31 Jul When Nations Fight Networks
This article in the New York Times by Thom Shanker raises a critically important question for the current conflict in the Middle East. Shanker writes,
Hezbollah, with the sophistication of a national army (it almost sank an Israeli warship with a cruise missile) and the lethal invisibility of a guerrilla army, is a hybrid. Old labels, and old planning, do not apply…. ‘We are now into the first great war between nations and networks.’… To attack Israel, Hezbollah dispersed its fighters with no distinguishing markings or uniforms or vehicles. Fighters access the weapons only at the moment of attack, and then disappear. This makes preventing the attack all but impossible. It is a significant modernization of classic guerrilla hit-and-run tactics. Israel has been unable to significantly degrade the numbers of rockets because of this approach. Hezbollah fired more than 100 a day at the start of this conflict; they are still firing more than 100 a day, despite Israeli bombardment. Hezbollah still possesses the most dangerous aspects of a shadowy terror network. It abides by no laws of war as it attacks civilians indiscriminately. Attacks on its positions carry a high risk of killing innocents. At the same time, it has attained military capabilities and other significant attributes of a nation-state. It holds territory and seats in the Lebanese government. It fields high-tech weapons and possesses the firepower to threaten the entire population of a regional superpower, or at least those in the northern half of Israel.
How is a nation supposed to legally respond under the laws of war to these sort of civilian attacks by a hybrid quasi-national army and still have any hope of success? If one side does not respect the normal rules of engagement, what is the other side to do? More generally, if a nation is fighting a super-powered terrorist network, what are the rules of engagement?
In recent days blogs have ably addressed legitimate concerns about Israeli proportionality, but we seem to have ignored the international law principles at stake when Hezbollah refuses to recognize basic norms of jus in bello. I would welcome the thoughts of others.
A propaedeutic: The use of ‘network’ language is midleading and inappropriate because it appears to assimilate Hizbu’llah to al-Qaeda, a fundamental analytical mistake, as any number of experts on Islamism and politics in the Middle East have explained (most recently, Professor Juan Cole over at his blog, Informed Comment). Like the notion of civil society, the concept ‘network’ means many things to many people, and has become all-the-rage of late in the social sciences: see, for example, Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 1: The Rise of the Network Society (1996), and most recently, Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (2006). To make matters worse, it has become a rather amorphous analytical concept within Islamic Studies proper, as in miriam cooke [sic] and Bruce Lawrence, eds., Muslim Networks: from Hajj to Hip Hop( 2005). It behooves us to properly characterize Hizbu’llah as best we can: Islamist social movement (e.g., jihadi movement to fight oppression and in resistance to Zionism; ‘jihad’ is of course used here in the sense of the ‘lesser jihad‘ that is defensive in nature, akin to a religiously sanctioned notion of just war, hence Islamic just… Read more »
Addendum to Propaedeutic:
There is a helpful discussion of Hizbu’llah available now at Middle East Reports Online: ‘Hizbullah: A Primer,’ by Lara Deeb
Available at http://www.merip.org/mero/mero073106.html
Roger, Your post about what military types call asymmetrical warfare poses the ultimate question for modern day warriors – how do you fight and win against such an enemy? Some of your readers may be interested in considering this question from the strategic through tactical military perspective. If so, they might want to take a look at the following book “Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam” by LTC John Nagl. Nagl was a classmate of mine from Command and Staff College who is (I believe) currently commanding a US Battalion in Iraq. I did not know him personally, but I do know his work is highly respected within the military. Nagl reminds us that while aspects of the current fight are indeed “new”, the basic problem of unconventional warfare is certainly not (in fact, the quote used in the title is attributed to T.E. Lawrence). Such conflicts (perhaps more than any others) require a carefully conceived and executed application of not just military power, but all components of national power, sometimes referred to within the military as the “DIME” – the four pillars of national power leveraged to achieve strategic objectives: Diplomatic, Informational,… Read more »
The post on asymmetrical warfare was very interesting. It is a term that is prominent in U.S. military thinking these days because it does reflect the use of “unconventional” tactics to compensate for a disparity in military capability. From a legal perspective, this is particularly troubling. Asymmetrical warfare in this context essentially refers to a confrontation with an enemy who seeks to gain advantage by exploiting his opponent’s efforts to comply with the law of armed conflict. This may be tactically logical, but because it eviscerates the ability to distinguish between “warrior” and “civilian”, the civilian population invariably pays the heaviest price. It is worth noting that the legal dilemmas associated with “asymmetrical warfare” have long been understood. Historically, the response has generally taken the form of one of two approaches. The first was to rely on sanction – either in the form of increased application of combat power or post-capture punishment – in the hopes of deterring such tactics. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on perspective), this approach rarely achieves the objective, which is not surprising considering the resolve of such an enemy to confront overwhelming military disparity to begin with. The second approach is one rarely discussed: extending… Read more »
Professor Alford,
As it pertains directly to your post, I suspect you would be interested in Dr. Avi Bell’s piece, ‘Human Rights Watch’s Q&A on Lebanon War: Selective and Distorted Application of International Law,’ found at NGO Monitor: Promoting critical debate and accountability of human rights NGOs in the Arab-Israeli Conflict (The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Institute for Contemporary Affairs
An exchange of letters followed in The New York Sun between Professor Bell and Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. The Sun followed with its own editorial castigating Roth and HRW.
Some readers may be relieved to learn that several impending deadlines preclude me from commenting, although I admit the temptation is rather strong.
Perhaps you and/or Opinio Juris readers want to comment….