Link
Abu Exum, here
In the following few paragraphs, though, I am going to lay out a case for why the United States should continue its support to the LAF along pre-2009 levels.
- As Bilal Saab and others have argued, a coherent U.S. strategy in Lebanon requires long-term investments in the institutions of the state -- not money given depending on who happens to win a few extra seats in the Metn. Aid to the LAF has been the cornerstone of U.S. policy toward Lebanon since the end of that country's civil war and should not be radically altered following this election. Because...
- Nothing is really going to change. Hizballah is already in the government. There are rumors, in fact, thatHizballah will take fewer seats in the next cabinet than in this one -- even if their coalition wins. So we have been giving money to a government of which Hizballah is a part for some time now. Again, why should a few seats in the Metn change U.S. policy?
- Hizballah doesn't need the arms we're giving the LAF. How effective do you think a few old tanks and some basic close air support would be against the IDF in a fight? Not very -- ask any Palestinian or Lebanese who fought in 1982 how well militias perform when they attempt to fight the Israelis using modern and advanced weapons platforms. As far as the combat was concerned in 2006, Hizballah hung in there with theIDF largely through really competent small units fighting with home-field advantage, a well-prepared rocket campaign, some pretty good information operations, and highly effective use of anti-tank munitions. (Not to mention a very good information campaign and a plan to provide essential services to its constituency both before and after the fighting ended. And I'm not even going to get into the IDF's myriad strategic and operational failings.) If I am a commander in the IDF and I think Hizballah is going to fight this next war with crappy hand-me-down tanks, I am licking my chops along the Blue Line. Those arms we are giving to the LAF are intended to help the LAF content with domestic threats. And against a group like Fatah al-Islam, rudimentary armor capabilities and (proposed) close air support platforms can have a devastating effect. Which leads me to my final point.....
If you ask anyone in U.S. Central Command or the Department of Defense, they will point toward our aid to the Lebanese as being important for securing U.S. interests in the region. Those interests do not go away if a coalition including Hizballah wins this next election. Now this does not mean that the United States simply bankrolls the entire LAF -- as some people apparently believe that we should....
*Lebanon is a delightful case study for the "emulation" school of military innovation theory. Some senior commanders in the LAF, having grown up in the armored community, want Lebanon to have a mechanized army with the latest and greatest tanks and vehicles. Never mind the fact that such an army -- due mostly to Lebanon's size -- would get crushed by either the IDF or the Syrian Army in a conventional fight. Sometimes armies desire to look like what they think a "modern" army should look like rather than what would be most militarily effective. Militias can do the same thing -- just look at the PLO in 1982. (Why did they need all that artillery and vehicles? So the IAF would have something to shoot at?) Effective military organizations, meanwhile, adopt the kind of force structure that makes sense in terms of their threat environment and the kinds of conflicts they expect to face.
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