The Low-Tech War Against Terrorists
Lebanon has been at the forefront of future conflict for at least a year, first with last summer's ill-named "Katyusha" rocket war and now with the death of six Spanish peacekeepers by an "improvised explosive device," or IED, an innovation that has proved deadly in Iraq.
Yesterday's car bomb was detonated by remote control, as were many of the rockets fired on Israel last July and August. Remote-control devices allow terrorists to kill and harass without exposing themselves. Suicide attacks continue, of course -- but the combination of cheap electronics and available arms makes for a reproducible and "targeted" weapon.
A more targeted weapon? It's more a conventional military approach than a terrorist one. Maybe there's a military and technological solution here after all: If we could look past the political struggle over Iraq and see that, as the bad guys become more ambitious in their military objectives and weapons, they are also opening themselves up to "conventional" counters.
Lebanon 2006: Hezbollah fired just over 4,000 rockets at Israel over 34 days. A disciplined and highly prepared organization pre-positioned rockets and supplies at over 180 locations and, under constant Israeli attack, was able to sustain fire up to the last day of the war.
The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war will always be known as the "Katyusha" war, named after the old Soviet multiple rocket launchers that were the ancestors of most of Hezbollah's short-range rockets fired on Israel. The most deadly weapons employed last summer, though, were anti-tank missiles, straight out-of-the-box wire-guided and even laser-guided weapons with a range of up to four kilometers. Hezbollah fired just over 1,000 of these missiles, disabling and destroying tanks and armored vehicles. But they were most "successful" when employed at long distances against Israel Defense Forces in village warfare. The majority of Israeli military deaths and injuries were caused by anti-tank missiles.
Second in deadliness behind anti-tank missiles were booby-trap demolitions and IEDs planted on southern Lebanese roads or inside village homes and strong points. Hezbollah fighters still carried the ubiquitous and venerable Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, but the real innovation and the main threat were the new technologies. With those new technologies came a need to plan and "target" attacks in order to take advantage of remote and longer range firing.
Yesterday's death of six United Nations peacekeepers in a car bomb explosion near Lebanon's eastern border continues the same trends. Explosives in the car were set off by remote control (likely either a walkie-talkie or cell phone "pulse"). Spanish military investigators have already determined that the car had false license plates and had been imported from Syria.
It is the first serious attack against the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon force deployed after last year's war. Also last week, a Katyusha rocket was fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel, the first since last summer's war.
The local debate in Lebanon and Israel will be about who is responsible for these renewed attacks. In Spain, the immediate question mirrors our Iraq war debate: The peacekeepers were traveling in a lightly armored vehicle, but one that was not equipped with any kind of jammer. The Spanish defense minister was immediately asked why the vehicle had no kind of "frequency inhibitor" to thwart detonations initiated by remote electronic signals.
To counter IEDs in Iraq, the Defense Department is spending heroic amounts, a technological approach that generally gets low marks because it seems to be providing so little relief for American soldiers. I suspect, however, that the frustration over billions that the Pentagon has thrown at the problem is as much about the war as it is about anything else.
Of course, once one gets into a technological battle, it never seems to end. Jammers are thwarted by changing vulnerable frequencies and technologies, low tech is used to beat high tech, operational patterns are shifted to counter changed tactics or improved surveillance. In Iraq, we already see insurgents and terrorists moving roadside IEDs frequently, and we see the marshalling of booby traps and demolitions to protect terrorist strong-points, such as in Baqubah in eastern Iraq, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have found neighborhoods have been seeded with the defensive weapons.
Some 100 IED and remote controlled attacks occur daily in Iraq, and the technology has been exported to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and now Lebanon.
Though the conventional wisdom is that IEDs are simple to make and use, the truth is that sustained and effective use of IEDs and remote controlled weapons in battle demands planning, logistics and command and control. That is where the enemy becomes most vulnerable. And this might be where a combination of technology and changed tactics can ultimately prevail. U.S. forces in Iraq have already been successful in keeping casualties lower even while the numbers of attacks have risen. The cat-and-mouse game of measure and counter-measure is already afoot.
IEDs such as the one employed in Lebanon can never be stopped. But an organized campaign that relies upon IEDs or large weapons such as Katyushas and anti-tank missiles can be. There is no question that the movement and export of many of these weapons can be better controlled -- an effort that the WMD-obsessed arms control and proliferation world doesn't take seriously. Even many of the deadliest components of IEDs -- shaped charges, old ammunition - can be better controlled.
I'm not making an argument that the United States throws more money at the problem. I'm simply saying that if terrorist and insurgent groups want to become more "effective" against organized military forces, they are also increasing their own vulnerability. If we recognize the bigger trends in the basic materials and the weapons trends, perhaps we can forge a more effective long-term counter.
By William M. Arkin |
June 25, 2007; 9:19 AM ET
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Posted by: o8anxx0fap | July 17, 2007 11:08 AM
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Posted by: o8anxx0fap | July 17, 2007 11:07 AM
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Posted by: o8anxx0fap | July 17, 2007 11:07 AM
A philosophy professor once asked his university students the following question:
Philosophically speaking, why?
No one came up with the answer, which was, why not?
Philosophically speaking, your proposal is just what you wrote, a counter trend. However, it does not in any way address the problem, i.e.,
If we recognize the bigger trends in the basic materials and the weapons trends, perhaps we can forge a more effective long-term counter.
The question is how do we eliminate the problem of 'man's inhumanity to man'. That is what we will have to address someday.
Otherwise, we will continue to counter the trend, and do nothing else.
Or on the other hand we could address the real problem by eliminating all of those individuals who cannot sit down and resolve their problems without fighting each other - another worldwide deluge could accomplish the objective!
Posted by: The Rev | June 28, 2007 12:11 PM
There is an answer to hundreds of missions in addition to the IED detection mission in the case of a new invention known as MIRIAH. It is built on the foundation of much older inventions, which are completely reliable and relatively inexpensive (on a global per capita scale its less than a dollar per incident requiring information). This solution can be found at http://www.billgrisham.us . The military R&D center in Huntsville, AL knows of it but is kept down by the "big boys" in the Pentagon who are control freaks (of course).
Posted by: Bill Grisham | June 27, 2007 7:46 PM
There is an answer to hundreds of missions in addition to the IED detection mission in the case of a new invention known as MIRIAH. It is built on the foundation of much older inventions, which are completely reliable and relatively inexpensive (on a global per capita scale its less than a dollar per incident requiring information). This solution can be found at http://www.billgrisham.us . The military R&D center in Huntsville, AL knows of it but is kept down by the "big boys" in the Pentagon who are control freaks (of course).
Posted by: Bill Grisham | June 27, 2007 7:46 PM
There is an answer to hundreds of missions in addition to the IED detection mission in the case of a new invention known as MIRIAH. It is built on the foundation of much older inventions, which are completely reliable an relatively inexpensive (on a global per capita scale its less than a dollar per incident requiring information). This solution can be found at http://www.billgrisham.us . The military R&D center in Huntsville, AL knows of it but is kept down by the "big boys" in the Pentagon who are control freaks (of course).
Posted by: Bill Grisham | June 27, 2007 7:45 PM
I agree that Katyusha war is a misnomer. It should be called a daisy-cutter war or cluster-bomb war. These were really the deadliest weapons used which killed more than a thousand Lebanese civilians and forced hundreds of thousands to flee. I am surprised at Arkin's description of such a deadly war as just an exchange of Military gadgets. At least he should have found some space to mention civilian casualties and condemn Israel's aggression.
Posted by: Masmanz | June 27, 2007 5:41 PM
this is the first time I read your writing and have to say I am a bit disturbed. You are nothing more than an apologist for the Hezbollah terrorists who attack innocent civillians in cold blood. Hezbollah attacks Americans too, in 1983 at the Marine barracks and in Iraq right now they are fighting our military. And the washington post lets you praise them?
Posted by: Jon from Arizona | June 25, 2007 10:00 PM
Mr Arkin,
I concur with you regarding US ability to counter large scale operational use of IED and unguided rockets. These weapons are essentially terror devices, and most effective when employed in accordance with fourth generation warfare (4GW) CONOPS.
Mass force attacks, such as the operations of Hezbollah, are vulnerable to disruption and prevention by US way of war.
The real threat, Al-Qaeda, understands that victory can only be achieved through attack on vulnerable centers of gravity... the "will-to-win".
Consider the terrorist threat moved left, to CONUS. IEDs, sniper teams, swarming UAVs purchased as radio controlled model planes all employed in denial of service attacks.
The fight will not become more high tech, more capital intensive. It will become lower tech, and less capital intensive, that al-Qaeda might balance means and ends.
Our 19th century laws restricting domestic use of military force look ever more antiquated. The ongoing preparations of NORTHCOM, and their development of SOF for HLD, look ever wiser.
Posted by: Hawk58 | June 25, 2007 9:09 PM
Who benefits from the IED attack on the Spanish peacekeepers? It is likely the work of Israeli intelligence running a falseflag operation to creat chaos and civil war in Lebanon. The British and American military have been implicated in car bombings in Iraq, as they provoke a civil war in the classic divide and conquer strategy of empire. The empire needs war to justify its existence, perhaps 9/11 was one such operation to vector the American people into a war against Islam, after all Osama was a creation of the CIA and ISI. Arkin, there is no effective counter against the human desire to be free of imperial domination except genocide.
Posted by: go | June 25, 2007 5:27 PM
Shape charges are not a high tech weapon, and I imagine many a former member of the Iraqi military can make one. According to the Dictionary of Military Terms, put out by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, A "Shaped Charge" is "a charge shaped so as to concentrate its explosive force in a particular direction". They have military and civilian applications. A Land Mine directs the force of the explosion upward in dealing with armored vechiles. They don't need the Iranians to make these things.
Palesinian Qassam Rockets have reduced th population of Sderot in Israel from 25,000 to 10,000 people not because they kill a large number of people but because no one, including the Palestinians know where they are going to land. It is harassing fire, but they can disrupt the social and economic life of a city. These rockets are made from household and agricultural materials. They are reaching further and further into Israel.
I do not believe Hizbollah is using IEDs against U N Forces, they will go into action when Israel invades Southern Lebanon. It is probably some group trying to get the Lebanese to fight each other or to discredit Hizbullah.
The Bush administration is lying again.
Posted by: P. J. Casey | June 25, 2007 3:38 PM
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