Big lessons here for both the US and Russia fromThe Belmont Club

The Way to Dusty Death
Michael Totten examines the quagmire that never was. How did Israel achieve the task, regarded as impossible by media analysts and many diplomats, of defeating the Intifada? He quotes the "New Republic".

Israel's triumph over the Palestinian attempt to unravel its society is the result of a systematic assault on terrorism that emerged only fitfully over the past four years. The fence, initially opposed by the army and the government, has thwarted terrorist infiltration in those areas where it has been completed. Border towns like Hadera and Afula, which had experienced some of the worst attacks, have been terror-free since the fence was completed in their areas. Targeted assassinations and constant military forays into Palestinian neighborhoods have decimated the terrorists' leadership, and roadblocks have intercepted hundreds of bombs, some concealed in ambulances, children's backpacks, and, most recently, a baby carriage. At every phase of Israel's counteroffensive, skeptics have worried that attempts to suppress terrorism would only encourage more of it.

The most remarkable thing about Israel's campaign against the Intifada was not it's adoption of new warfighting concepts, like Europe's Human Security Doctrine, but its reversion to the oldest method of all: winning by fighting back. Social historians in the future, should we ever attain it, may endlessly wonder how it was possible for Western European and liberal American intellectuals to forget 5,000 years of military experience in favor of the slogans, some composed facetiously, of the Peace Movement of the 1960s. However that may be, Totten concludes that Israel is a test case, the pathfinder to America's future in the war on terror. "Israel's present may be our future. Best get used to it now."

The necessary corollary is if Israel's future is to America's then Palestine's is to the Islamic world's: a bleak landscape of impoverished, poorly educated people living on a diet of fantasy: the least necessary tragedy in history. The Jihad like the Intifada is the highroad to vacancy. But the Left encouraged Yasser Arafat to hold out for more at every turn; solemnly assuring him by whatever gods of historical determinism they worshipped that the Intifada was unstoppable; the wave of the future. What they forgot to tell him was that it was unstoppable only for so long as it wasn't stopped. To listen to the Left is to share it's epitaph. Time to stop listening.

a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.



The Narrow Way
Patrick Belton at Oxblog links to a European think tank study recommending what the continent's response should be to terrorism, genocide and weapons of mass destruction. The Human Security Doctrine for Europe seems consciously designed to be the not-American response to these threats. It begins with these stirring words:

Many people in the world lead intolerably insecure lives. In many cases, insecurity is the consequence of conflicts in which civilians are deliberately targeted with impunity. In an era of global interdependence, Europeans can no longer feel secure when large parts of the world are insecure. Over the last few years, the European Union has been developing a common security policy. In December 2003, the European Council agreed a European Security Strategy (ESS), which advocates preventive engagement and effective multilateralism. This report is about implementation of the ESS. It argues that Europe needs the capability to make a more active contribution to global security. It needs military forces but military forces need to be configured and used in new ways. The report focuses on regional conflicts and failed states, which are the source of new global threats including terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and organised crime.

Those threats are to be met by "A ‘Human Security Response Force’, composed of 15,000 men and women, of whom at least one third would be civilian (police, human rights monitors, development and humanitarian specialists, administrators, etc.). The Force would be drawn from dedicated troops and civilian capabilities already made available by member states as well as a proposed ‘Human Security Volunteer Service’." To keep this formidable force within civilized bounds and to prevent it from riding roughshod over the rights of terrorists, mass murderers and nuclear proliferators, they will adhere to the European version of Asaimov's Laws of Robotics.

Respect the primacy of Human Rights; Act within a legal framework that is locally acceptable; Act within the framework of multilateral treaties and obligation; Adhere to the "Bottom-Up" approach, to "take account of the most basic needs identified by the people who are affected by violence and insecurity," preferably by working with non-government organizations. To act within a regional political setting whenever possible; To use law enforcement as the primary mode of fighting threats to global security. "The use of law, and particularly international law, as an instrument does not pertain just to diplomatic fora and decisions concerning whether to intervene: they are at the core of how operations should be conducted." To use force as a last resort: to be "prepared to kill in extremis, as human security forces should be. Hence, in line with principle 1 (primacy of human rights) and principle 6 (legal instruments), minimum force is key. Minimum force suggests for instance that it would be an over-reaction to kill someone who threatens violence when an arrest can be made."

Come down to brass tacks, the study proposes a three-tier force structure consisting of a headquarters in Brussels, which would "be composed of strategic planners, with a capacity for analysis of intelligence and information, and a civil-military crisis management centre, with a capacity for assessing what military and civil capabilities, both European and local, are needed in a particular crisis situation.".

The second tier would consist of 5000 personnel at a high level of readiness able to deploy within days. They would include civil-military teams and a deployable command and control headquarters. They would be on permanent standby constantly training and exercising together and ‘breathing human security’. They would be able, at short notice, to deploy ‘Human Security Task Forces’. The third tier would consist of the remaining 10,000 personnel, who would be at a lower level of readiness but nevertheless could be called on for deployment and who would periodically train and exercise together.

In keeping with the overall professional tone of the report, it does not neglect to provide for Reserves. Far from it.

"NGOs could be registered as part of the Human Security Volunteer Service, along with individuals. The Service could provide a framework for contracts with NGOs that would involve vetting to ensure that they were reliable and effective These contracts would entitle them to participate in training and exercises, as well as being deployed as part of a wider force. For private corporations, there could be a registration procedure and tenders for certain non-military tasks such as logistics or communications, but they should not form an integral part of the force."

To make all these wonderful things possible requires material support. "A deployable headquarters, a command and control system, aircraft carriers and other transportation equipment should be dedicated to the EU force ... planes, trucks, jeeps and helicopters, as well as communications systems, for example mobile phones, should be usable in a range of tasks and have both civilian and military components. They need to be compatible and interoperable both among member states and between civilian and military." Which of course, means NATO standard.

This a serious (the report was presented to EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana) exposition of the kind of security policy some European political groups actually think will work. It is a refreshing departure from the purely reactive critique of the American approach to international security. It is entirely earnest and devoid of any irony, which from my own personal point of view, makes it very frightening indeed. This is what some people actually mean when they talk about a more "sensitive" approach to fighting terrorism, one that is multilateral and nuanced.

It would be a mistake, of course, to characterize every European critic of the Bush administration's foreign policy as an adherent of the Human Security Doctrine, but it is probably fair to say that its spirit finds wide currency among them. God help us all.

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Terror and Victory
Back in January I tentatively planned to visit Iraq during this coming winter. I changed my mind for reasons that ought to be obvious, as I mentioned in this space before. Some parts of that country are the most dangerous places in the world right now, at least for foreigners. For a while there, though, I thought I would be safer in Iraq than I would be in Israel. Iraq wasn’t a quagmire. But Israel/Palestine was.

It’s amazing what a difference a year can make.

Take a look at the cover for this week’s New Republic.



In one of the cover stories Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren (author of the indispensable Six Days of War) explain how Israel beat back the intifada. Here’s the short version.
Israel's triumph over the Palestinian attempt to unravel its society is the result of a systematic assault on terrorism that emerged only fitfully over the past four years. The fence, initially opposed by the army and the government, has thwarted terrorist infiltration in those areas where it has been completed. Border towns like Hadera and Afula, which had experienced some of the worst attacks, have been terror-free since the fence was completed in their areas. Targeted assassinations and constant military forays into Palestinian neighborhoods have decimated the terrorists' leadership, and roadblocks have intercepted hundreds of bombs, some concealed in ambulances, children's backpacks, and, most recently, a baby carriage. At every phase of Israel's counteroffensive, skeptics have worried that attempts to suppress terrorism would only encourage more of it. [Emphasis added.]
The doom-mongers were wrong. Period. Just as they were wrong when they predicted disaster in Afghanistan. Just as they were wrong when they predicted disaster in Iraq the first time around. Just as they were wrong when they (although it was mostly Republicans this time) predicted disaster in Kosovo.
Those who keep insisting we or one of our democratic allies will actually lose a war have been wrong for a third of a century now. I am thirty four years old. The last time the doom-mongers were right I was three. They have been consistently wrong throughout my entire living memory. (Am I forgetting something? Have we lost a war since Vietnam?)

It’s always the same refrain. Only the details are different.

That doesn’t mean they are necessarily wrong about Iraq. Iraq could turn into an actual quagmire. It does happen sometimes. And they aren’t crazy to look at Iraq now and thinks is a mess. It is a mess, and it’s a bad one. I’m not in denial about it. I planned to visit, then I changed my mind, so I am well aware that the country has deteriorated.

My point here is that the pessimists among us were guaranteed to declare regime-change in Iraq counterproductive and/or a quagmire no matter what actually happened short of an instantaneous transformation of Mesopotamia into Belize.

It wasn’t at all long ago that I barred myself from visiting Israel. I didn’t expect to get killed if I went there. I would almost certainly have been fine. But I didn’t want to sit in a coffeeshop clicking away on my laptop and be consumed with worry about whether or not I was sitting at the “safe” table. I would visit today and hardly worry at all. If all goes well I’ll be in Libya over Thanksgiving, and that doesn’t scare me in the slightest. (Though it does worry my mother a bit.)

I hope the pessimists are wrong about Iraq, and I also hope they hope they’re wrong. The reason I’m pointing out their track record isn’t to say the optimists are right. No one yet knows. (If you’re certain you do know, can I borrow your crystal ball? Pretty please?) Nor am I saying we should do exactly what Israel did. We couldn’t even if we wanted to. We can’t wall off Baghdad.

I understand why people look at Iraq today and are overcome with a sinking feeling. It happens to me sometimes too. It’s so easy, especially if you opposed the invasion of Iraq in the first place, to look at the horrible things that happen and think they represent the whole story or are part of a trend that goes only one way. But remember Israel. They had a horrific spike in terrorism awfully recently. You could have predicted that trend would keep rising indefinitely. And yet it did not. The reason it didn’t is because Israelis fumbled around until they found a strategy that actually worked. Then they implemented it. Now the intifada is over.

A few days ago I linked to Victor Davis Hanson who started off his essay by quoting Georges Clemenceau:
War is a series of catastrophes that results in victory.
Indeed. It isn’t always this way. Sometimes, albeit rarely, we do lose wars. We lost in Vietnam, after all. But we almost always win. And when we do it is first by enduring a gut-wrenching series of catastrophes.
It isn't all going to be rainbows and sunshine, though, no matter what happens. Israel’s victory came at tremendous cost. And I don’t just mean the lives lost on both sides in the fighting. Orem and Halevi continue:

The price Israel has paid for its victory has been sobering. Arafat may be a pariah, but Israel is becoming one, too. Increasingly, the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty is under attack. Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, for example, has called Israel's creation a "mistake." In Europe, an implicit "red-green-black" coalition of radical leftists, Islamists, and old-fashioned fascists has revived violent anti-Semitism. Along with the desecration of Jewish cemeteries by neo-Nazis and the assaults on Jews by Arab youth, some European left-wingers now sense a sympathetic climate in which to publicly indulge their anti-Semitism. In a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Greek composer and left-wing activist Mikis Theodorakis denounced "the Jews" for their dominance of banks, U.S. foreign policy, and even the world's leading orchestras, adding that the Jews were "at the root of evil." In the Arab world, a culture of denial that repudiates the most basic facts of Jewish history--from the existence of the Jerusalem Temple to the existence of the gas chambers--has become mainstream in intellectual discourse and the media. Government TV stations in Egypt and Syria have produced dramatizations based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Boycotts of Israel are multiplying: The nonaligned states recently voted to bar "settlers"--including Israelis who live in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem--from their borders. Among young Israelis across the political spectrum, there's growing doubt about the country's future and widespread talk of emigration.
Just in case you don't know what the authors are driving at, here's the next sentence.
In its victories and its defeats, Israel is a test case of what happens to a democracy forced to confront nonstop terrorism.
Israel's present may be our future. Best get used to it now.
Posted by Michael at September 21, 2004 03:48 PM | TrackBack