April 16, 2015
http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/preparing-for-warfares-subterranean-future/
Amidst the myriad mistakes associated with the Iraq War, perhaps none were as costly in terms of lives of U.S. personnel as the failure to anticipate the threat posed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and, subsequently, to rapidly develop technologies capable of detecting and defeating the insurgents’ deadly innovation. Despite the extensive use of IEDs in conflicts in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, and Southern Lebanon, and the loss of U.S. personnel to IEDs in Somalia, U.S. policymakers and the military were caught unprepared for these devices that by one estimate were responsible for 64 percent of all U.S. combat deaths through 2007.
The defense community, however, has an opportunity to avoid repeating this error in regards to another potential operational threat if it does a better job drawing lessons from last year’s conflict between Hamas and Israel than it did from the various guerrilla conflicts of the 1980s. Operation Protective Edge demonstrated both the tactical challenges and strategic threat posed by subterranean warfare (i.e. tunnels), which is likely to proliferate in the coming years as weaker combatants seek to evade detection and targeting by air assets.
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