Here is an interesting excerpt of an al-Manar summary of a recent speech made by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah:
Sayyed Nasrallah asserted that “the results of the war are evident even today, in both the military and political fields in Israel.” He said Israel is facing the worst leadership crisis in its history.
“The entire front line of the army’s brass stepped down because of the war. Gal Hirsch, who was defeated in Lebanon, went to Georgia and they too lost because of him,” his eminence said.
For the past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping the Georgian army to preparer for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice
Hirsch, a brigadier-general in the reserves, served as commander of the Israeli Army’s Galilee Division during the war and resigned in its wake. In recent years he consulted the Georgian army on the establishment of elite units and rearmament, and gave various courses in the fields of combat intelligence and fighting in built-up areas.
“Relying on Israeli experts and weapons, Georgia learned why the Israeli generals failed. What happened in Georgia is a message to all those who accept that Washington entangles them in adventures, miscalculated wars and dead-end confrontation. In the end, the US (administration) will abandon them because its interests are above anything else, just as they did to their allies in Lebanon.”
Interesting, no? In a short couple of sentences Nasrallah clearly spells out two of the important lessons of the war in Georgia:
a) US-Israeli-NATO doctrine, equipment and training suck. One of the things which are hammered in the heads of the Western public is the well-known line that “we have the best trained and equipped forces in the world”. That’s complete baloney. Recent military history has shown over and over again that this is totally false. When is the last time that Western trained and equipped armies (or proxies) faced a tough opponent and held firm, nevermind prevailed? Just think of how little resistance the US trained Lebanese militias showed against Hezbollah recently. Photogenic and high-tech does not translate into militarily effective it appears…
b) The Empire is a lousy ally and patron. Simply put – when things get tough, the Empire runs. When is the last time the empire actually stood by an ally in trouble? WWII? Even the US support for Britain at that time was, I think, pretty late coming. The Americans fought well against the Japanese and they fought decently in Korea. But in both cases this was not to help some ally, but to defend US national interests. But it appears that standing by an ally (or puppet) in trouble is just not something the Empire does (think of the betrayed Kurds and Shia in Iraq here and compare that with Russia’s support for South Ossetia).
There are plenty of US allies out there (think Taiwan or Colombia here) who might want to think very carefully about how much trust they are willing to put into Uncle Shmuel’s “protection”.
Hi,
The Saker, one penny. You forgot about air superiority. It saved Israel and US many times. If someone finds effective countermeasures against that kind of hardware, both US and Israel will lose next battles.
nasrallah is clever. While taking about Georgia he was really talking of march 14. And I’m sure they got the hint.
@p2o2: I did not forget it, I just did not address it here :-) mainly because I believe that air warfare is something the US is actually *really* very good at (the post was about what the US is not good at).
Western pilots are very good indeed, their engagement doctrine is very solid, and their aircraft are fairly good (although vastly over-rated by the popular press). All-in-all, air combat is what the West does best, followed by naval operations, and ground warfare coming dead last, far behind.
However, the Russians are the world leaders in air defense systems, at *all* levels, from the subunit to the Army level their air defense systems are vastly superior to their western equivalents (I mean literally at each level). What has still never happened so far is a confrontation between Western airpower and Russian air defenses (Iraq, Lebanon, Kosovo, etc. all had extremely old Soviet hardware which the West learned how to beat).
I don’t know what the outcome of such a scenario would be. The fact is that the West never had to show all its airforces can do so US, NATO or Israeli Air Forces might have a couple of good tricks hidden up their sleeves…
The only effective countermeasures to the Western air power is to either:
a) equip yourself with modern Russian anti-air systems and get the required training. That is a very difficult thing to do, very expensive etc.
or
b) deny the Western air forces a good target. This is what Saddam totally failed to do, but what Hezbollah and the Serbians did very well (in Kosovo, at least). That is a cheap option, but it might be no less effective than a the more expensive first one, in particular for a guerrilla force which does not have to hold terrain or protect fixed assets.
Still, air superiority does not win battles – only boots on the ground do. What happened in Iraq in 1991 only proves that Saddam was the worst moron to ever command an army – not that airpower could do the trick (as was shown in Kosovo were airpower was utterly useless).
I don’t see that changing in the foreseeable future.
Kind regards,
VS
This is of interest:
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19109
Saakashvili told a group of foreign journalists in a conference call earlier on August 13, that the plan was to stop the Russian forces at the Roki Tunnel in the north of South Ossetia, which links the breakaway region with Russia’s North Ossetian Republic.
“Once they got to Tskhinvali, they could march on the capital. We tried to stop them in the mountains before Tskhinvali, but we were too late and there were too many of them,” Saakashvili said according to the transcript provided by the President’s press office.
So… it only makes sense that the Georgians tried to block the Roki tunnel – but they failed. Was it because of Russian counter intelligence arrest of Georgian agents a month ago, that I’ve read about somewhere?
As for Serbia: it was the Western bombardment of their industry and infrastructure that did them in right?
FkD
Looks like Poland hastened to sign a deal with the US with added assurances:
“…unusual aspects of the final deal: that at least temporarily American soldiers would staff air defense sites in Poland oriented toward Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO, of which Poland is a member.”
So, WW3 may yet come about as Russia says that this move will “not go unpunished.”
saker,
What are the prospects of runway denial as a tactic? Could relativly cheap s to s missiles be used to prevent take off and landing?
What are the prospects of runway denial as a tactic? Could relativly cheap s to s missiles be used to prevent take off and landing?
Not good. Runways are hard to really damage and while there are missiles which can do that, they are sophisticated and pricey. Only the big guys have that kind of capabilities.
Also, there are a lot for airfields and highways out there. This is particularly true of Russian aircraft which can often land and take off even on grass, dirt and snow (you can forget about an F-15 trying this trick).
No, the best way to damage and air force is still destroying the planes on the ground :-)
@The Saker
What about the Israeli attack on Syrian nuclear facility? As it was said half the Lebanon comms were out for a while. On the other side to operate sophisticated AA h/ware one must be real skilled. And Syrians didn’t manage to get it on the time of the attack. Is it, I mean ECM, one of the aces you wrote the West hid in their sleeves? New air defence rigs are not in much supply at the beginning as usual. So? :)
Regards
P2o2: first, the Syrian air defenses are really outdated. Check out this excellent review here:
http://geimint.blogspot.com/2007/09/syrian-sam-network.html
As the into to the article above says, the so-called “nuclear complex” was not defended at all (which should tell you something about its importance…).
As with most Israeli “military successes” once you clear the Hollywood like propaganda you see that they are not nearly as impressive as it may seem.
Fundamentally, air defense is not about any one platform, but about a layered and integrated system which is something that Syria simply does not have. But then, most of the Syrian armed forces are hopelessly outdated anyway.
Cheers!
VS
@p2o2
I don’t think the Syrians ever turned on their radar or activated their air defenses. At least, that is what I foggily remember some people as saying.
If this conflict is informing your opinions of NATO/US training Vs Russian, you may want to reconsider.
For one, it took 3 days for one of Russia’s premier army groups to dislodge Georgia’s much smaller forces from a city which was friendly to the Russians.
For two, while Georgia’s Russian-style Tank units equipped with Russian tanks were mauled, US-trained infantry using tank-killer missiles did enough damage to the 58th Army’s tanks to cause an incident between Russia and the missile’s supposed source country Israel.
For three, the US trained about 4,500 Georgians total, 2000 whom were in Iraq at the start of the war. The 58th Army counter-invaded with around 10,000, plus Ossetian forces. If around 2,500 US-trained Georgians backed by poorly-trained guard units without air support getting steamrolled by that size of a force indicates anything, its that against anything less the Russians feared the Georgians would prevail.
And yes, the Bush Administration is a completely crappy ally. They start fights for insane reasons, waste lives and money, and leave their dependent allies out to dry when it suits them. But that has no bearing on the training or ability of US/NATO forces.
@ Warjen
I could only go by the results. Georgia initiated this attack, meaning it had the element of surprise. They took Tsvingali in the first hours. It took the Russians 12 hours to assemble there forces and it seems by Sunday there was no longer any doubt Russia controlled th town. After that Georgian resistance collapsed and by Monday Russian forces had taken Gori and were roaming the Georgian countryside at will. How quickly in your estimation should they have done all this?
Compare it to Israel’s most recent invasion of Lebanon. They used 30,000 men plus total air dominance against 3000 Guerrillas and after 34 days had advanced maybe 3-4 km and had to withdraw even from that area.
It took the U.S. 3 weeks to reach Baghdad in 2003.
Indeed that was probably Saakashvillis mistake. He assumed that Russia’s army was slow lumbering, ill equiped and poorly trained. He gambled he could take Ossetia, block the tunnel, dig in and hold out for a couple of weeks while the western media shamed the Russians into a ceasefire. Instead, he lost in the first 24 hours and it was all down hill from there.
No doubt the Russians took casualties. They absorbed them and kept going.
Hi,
re: Syrian air defences
The Saker, I’ve read the review. It lacks two very important issues:
1) system integration (fiber newtorks, additional multitarget phase radars, etc.)
2) incorporation of another AA means
I do not believe that having so much h/ware they didn’t create multi-layered dome-like system(s). Such defences are being built by Israel now.
Perhaps Syrians are “inherently” incapable of doing so, for example due to command structure, but I wouldn’t count on Iranians are the same like them.
Perhaps even having “out-dated” Russian equipment one could revamp the whole parts joining them into very dangerous system using up-to-date electronics. But of course I am not expert in those fields, I am only trying to grab the whole picture. :)
Regards
@warjen, lysander
It is obvious to me that Russian forces were given strict order NOT to anihilate Georgian forces. Fight them off, of course, but not to erase ’em from the face of the earth.
Regards