Hilal Khashan
Arabs and Israelis fought conventional wars in 1948, 1956 and 1967. The Six-Day War convinced Arabs that their militaries were no match for Israel’s technologically superior forces. Even before that conflict, the United States and the Soviet Union knew that Israel had a military edge over Arab states. Aware of his army’s weaknesses that led to its poor performance against Yemeni royalists in 1962-67, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser admitted that he had no plans to start a war against Israel. Realizing that they could not count on Arabs to end their forced displacement, the Fatah Movement decided to wage an asymmetric war against Israel as early as 1965.
Asymmetric wars apply to internal conflicts, motivated mainly by ideology or the rejection of a colonial power without ideological attachment to its colonies. This essay argues that all Arab entities that have waged asymmetric warfare against Israel have been unsuccessful and that its further use does not bode well for Arab armies and guerrilla movements in their wars with Israel. The Israelis do not see themselves as an occupation force, and waging war against them, whether conventional or asymmetric, would not cause them to concede.
Asymmetric Warfare Explained
Chinese military general Sun Tzu constructed the asymmetric warfare concept two and a half millennia ago. He understood it as the ability to take on an adversary when it cannot defend itself or counterattack. Mao Zedong gave the term contemporary meaning during his stay in the north-central Chinese city of Yanan in 1937-47. His war strategy centered on using the weak to defeat the strong. The conditions specific to China that led to the defeat of the nationalists (mainly rampant corruption, hyperinflation and the loss of popular support for the movement) and the triumph of the communists do not apply to the Middle East’s asymmetric wars. Later, Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara described guerrilla warfare as the preliminary stage of an armed conflict that does not lead to complete victory unless the insurgents develop into a regular army.
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