Thinking soldiers

For outstanding examples of how military transformation can make life difficult for your enemy, look towards Israel. Then look north.

Setting aside political baggage, a look at the performance of combatants belonging to the Lebanese political party, Hezbollah, during the summer 2006 war with Israel reveals many instances of military innovation that are relevant to the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

Whoever planned Hezbollah’s war strategy broke the mold that Arab armies had used against the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for decades.

One caveat: I have never been to the Lebanon. The inferences I draw here are based on post battle analysis and the pile of magazine clippings on the 2006 war that I've amassed.

In tank versus tank combat with Arab armies, IDF tankees had proven unbeatable. So Hezbollah waged war without tanks.

Israeli warplanes had an unmatched battle record against Arab aircrews. So Hezbollah went into battle without a single combat aircraft.

The Israeli Navy had Sa’ar 5 stealth corvettes bristling with missiles, automatic weapons and cutting edge electronic warfare gear. Hezbollah had no navy. But it attacked an IDF Sa’ar 5 corvette with a shore-based anti-ship missile, casting a poser on whether the Israeli Navy had really woken up to the loss of the destroyer Eilat in the world’s first SSM attack decades earlier.

Despite overwhelming odds, Hezbollah transformed its land-based force into a lethal war machine that fought the IDF to a stalemate.

To Hezbollah combatants, IDF armour such as Merkava main battle tanks were no deterrent. Merkava tanks were high-value targets whose destruction was sought after for its propaganda value.

IDF infantry who invaded southern Lebanon by the hundreds were not to be feared, but captured and used for barter.

Hezbollah’s missile teams had no compunction using anti-tank guided weapons against IDF infantry bunched up in defensive battle formations during urban combat. While conventional armies would ration anti-tank missiles for use against real tanks, Hezbollah tactics called for the use of these weapons in precision strikes against IDF infantry. Bunched up in Lebanese streets, Israeli infantrymen made nice tight targets for Hezbollah’s missile teams.

On 9 August 2006 (Singapore’s National Day), nine IDF soldiers were killed after the building they had occupied was demolished by Hezbollah guided missiles. The liberal use of ATGWs rewrote the playbook for such ordnance.

Rocket-propelled grenades were issued to Hezbollah infantry on a scale unheard of in most conventional armies. This includes the SAF section, armed with just two single shot Matador light anti-tank weapons under the current TO&E.

Add Metis-M anti-tank missiles to the mix, combined with fortified primary firing positions, multiple secondary firing positions as well as dummy firing points and one can understand the confidence with which Hezbollah infantry engaged their adversary.

Hezbollah waged war with Israel by transforming the way in which its forces met the Israeli war machine. It did not follow the linear growth path of military modernization. It did not evolve from one generation of war machine to a more advanced version.

Given a blank sheet to build its arsenal, Hezbollah’s military advisors chose to do things differently.

Their panache and innovativeness is different from Singapore’s military transformation, which has largely replaced older war machines with more capable ones and placed much faith in the power of a network-enabled fighting force.

Bionix 1 was augmented by Bionix 2. Old A-4SU Super Skyhawks made way for F-15SG Strike Eagles. Missile Gunboats retired as Formidable-class stealth frigates entered operational service. Old makes way for new in much the same way as old Israeli war machines are replaced with new ones.

But they faced a new enemy, an ardent combatant whose highly-motivated forces were fighting with a home ground advantage, fired up with the promise of an eternal place in paradise for those who waged war for the Party of God.

During operations, Hezbollah banked on the aversion of Israel’s citizen’s army to casualties and the free world's disdain for civilian bloodshed.

To achieve this end, Hezbollah made astute use of the world’s media. Foreign journalists were hosted on embeds in safer parts of Beirut, kept safe from harm to feed the world’s appetite for news of the war. Hezbollah's media officers conducted tours of Lebanese neighbourhoods devastated by Israeli air strikes to showcase Israeli brutality.

They are said to have fought the information war as resolutely as the physical battlespace. This is something the SAF should take note of.

Fighting without air cover meant the IDF won air supremacy by default.

To Hezbollah, this meant its combatants had to move faster and make better use of the urban sprawl to escape the attention of omnipresent Israeli eyes-in-the-sky.

These tactical considerations were matched by a strategic bombardment campaign, fought using a bewildering variety of unguided rockets, the likes of which Israel had never endured before.

Missiles fired singly and in barrages disrupted the Israeli economy and sapped civilian morale.

These rockets exerted an impact on Israel’s political and military scene all out of proportion to their actual military value.

For Singapore, the master plan for hardening civilian infrastructure has been thrown behind schedule, thanks to wrangling by developers more concerned about their bottomline and the creativity of architects who skirt the mandatory bomb shelter rule by leaving a token structure standing (all new Singaporean homes must include a bomb shelter). Thanks to such dilatoriness and foot-dragging, the number of Singaporean homes equipped with a hardened shelter has fallen somewhat behind what the master plan had envisaged. Pity.

If Singapore was to face with an enemy willing to think out of the box like Hezbollah, the SAF would probably fare no better than the battle-tested IDF. Indeed, our tight adherence to the scripted war plan would probably see the SAF worse off.

With Malaysian peace keepers on active duty in southern Lebanon, it probably won’t take long before the Federation’s military intelligentsia give some thought to Hezbollah’s war fighting methods.

When that translates into the real transformation of the Malaysian Armed Forces, the SAF will really have its work cut out for it.

And if we don't stay one step ahead of regional armies, our young officers will never make it to CO. And by that I don't mean Commanding Officer...