“The Lebanese army has about 80,000 troops, with around 5,000 of them deployed in the south. Hezbollah has more than 100,000 fighters, according to the militant group’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Its arsenal — built with support from Iran — is also more advanced.”
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“The U.S. had been a primary funder of the Lebanese army before the crisis. It has given some $3 billion in military aid since 2006, according to the State Department, which said in a statement that it aims “to enable the Lebanese military to be a stabilizing force against regional threats” and “strengthen Lebanon’s sovereignty, secure its borders, counter internal threats, and disrupt terrorist facilitation.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has also touted the Lebanese army as a key part of any diplomatic solution to the current war, with hopes that an increased deployment of its forces would supplant Hezbollah in the border area.
But that support has limits. Aid to the Lebanese army has sometimes been politically controversial within the U.S., with some legislators arguing that it could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, although there is no evidence that has happened.
In Lebanon, many believe that the U.S. has blocked the army from obtaining more advanced weaponry that might allow it to defend against Israel — America’s strongest ally in the region and the recipient of at least $17.9 billion in U.S. military aid in the year since the war in Gaza began.
“It is my personal opinion that the United States does not allow the (Lebanese) military to have advanced air defense equipment, and this matter is related to Israel,” said Walid Aoun, a retired Lebanese army general and military analyst.
Nerguizian said the perception is “not some conspiracy or half-truth,” noting that the U.S. has enacted a legal requirement to support Israel’s qualitative military edge relative to all other militaries in the region.”
“Despite international sanctions meant to cripple Russia’s war machine, Russia has maintained an edge over Ukraine when it comes to artillery production and rate of fire.
Over a dozen analysts from the Royal United Services Institute wrote in a new report that Russia’s artillery advantage “is the single greatest determinant of the distribution of casualties and equipment loss, the balance of military initiative, the calculus of what is operationally possible, and thus the political perception of the trajectory of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Russian artillery is estimated to be responsible for more than 70 percent of Ukraine’s combat casualties.
The analysts at RUSI said that the West needs to disrupt the industries that are keeping Russia’s deadly and destructive howitzers firing before it’s too late for Ukraine.
Russia’s defense industry is growing through new facilities, supply imports, and mass recruitment, the analysts said. They said that, without interruption, Moscow will be better poised to strengthen its position in Ukraine within the next few years.
The report explained that “Russia is self-sufficient in many of its needs, especially in raw materials like iron ore, and may have enough machine tools and stored howitzers from the Soviet era to support its war in Ukraine.”
However, the analysts said, “the longer the war continues, the more Russia’s dependencies on foreign suppliers will become a weakness.”
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“These vulnerabilities include placing sanctions on the supply of essential materials to Russia, preemptive purchasing of raw materials on the open market to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile nations, or putting diplomatic pressure on countries to examine their domestic companies that are exporting goods to Russia.
One example the RUSI report gave was targeting chrome ore imports for barrel production. Another involved hindering the flow of machining equipment into Russia.
The analysts said that Ukraine’s Western partners should immediately prioritize disrupting Russia’s artillery supply chain because doing so for prolonged periods will make it more difficult for Moscow to maintain its howitzers and artillery ammunition.
This is critical for Ukraine. The analysts warned that “left on its current trajectory, Russian fire superiority will increase year-on-year and become less vulnerable to external disruption through pressure on the supply chain.”
The task potentially becomes even more urgent for the West as Russia continues to increase its security ties with China, Iran, and North Korea. The US has publicly expressed concern over Moscow’s deepening military relationships with its rivals and foes over the past few years.
Ukraine has managed to reduce Russia’s long-held artillery advantage and is increasingly taking steps to degrade its stockpiles of shells by using long-range drones to attack ammunition depots inside Russia, but more is needed to break Russia’s edge.”
“In 1982, before Hezbollah existed, Israel invaded Lebanon to root out Palestinian guerrillas. Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon envisioned an operation aimed at “transforming Lebanon into a reliable ally,” assassinating Palestinian leadership, expelling Palestinians, and eventually overthrowing the government of Jordan, according to Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman.
After Israeli forces stormed Beirut, the Lebanese capital, they successfully installed their ally, Bachir Gemayel, as prime minister and forced the Palestine Liberation Organization to withdraw from the country. (U.S. Marines were sent to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal.) But Gemayel was assassinated by one of his own countrymen, and a new militia called Hezbollah emerged to fight both the Israeli and U.S. presence.”
Russia’s nuclear doctrine change makes their use of nuclear weapons more likely, but the factors that make nuclear use a poor choice still exist, so their use is still unlikely.
“A 21-year-old Yazidi woman has been rescued from Gaza where she had been held captive by Hamas for years after being trafficked by ISIS.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday that Fawzia Amin Sido was freed this week in an operation coordinated between Israel, the United States and other international actors.
Fawzia told CNN that she has been returned to Iraq after enduring years of captivity.
She said that she was initially kidnapped by ISIS as a child in August 2014 when the group captured the city of Sinjar in the Nineveh Governorate of northern Iraq, executing Yazidi men and boys and committing acts of sexual violence and rape against women and girls, among other crimes.
Over the next few years, Fawzia was trafficked to different locations across several countries.
“We ended up in Al-Hol camp (in Syria) before we were smuggled to Idlib in 2019, and from there, we went to Turkey. In 2020, they arranged a passport for me in Turkey so I could fly from Istanbul to Hurghada, Egypt, and then to Gaza,” she said.
She told CNN that she stayed in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip for a year, where life was “unbearable.”
“Hamas constantly harassed me due to my Yazidi background and contact with my family, even going so far as to format my phone [erase its contents] during their investigations. After a year, they moved me to a guest house.”
When the Israel-Hamas war broke out in 2023, she was again moved around frequently – until October 1, when she said an NGO rescued her.
The IDF said that her captor was killed, “presumably during IDF strikes” in Gaza, allowing her to flee to a hideout, from where she was rescued and taken to the Kerem Shalom border crossing.”
“The fighting between the U.S.-funded army of Israel and the U.S.-funded army of Lebanon seems to be another such consequence of U.S. policy. When the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Israel began fighting last year, the Lebanese government tried its best to stay out of the fray. It reportedly even pulled troops away from the border when Israel announced a ground invasion and ordered Lebanese citizens to evacuate north of the Awali River. But on Thursday, the Lebanese army announced that it had, in fact, been sucked into the conflict.
“One of the soldiers was martyred as a result of the Israeli enemy targeting an army center in the area of Bint Jbeil South, and the center’s personnel have responded to the source of fire,” the army stated on social media. An official in Lebanon told Agence France-Presse that it was the first time the Lebanese army fired on Israeli forces throughout the war.
Two hours before, the Lebanese army had announced that one of its soldiers was killed by Israeli fire while “carrying out an evacuation and rescue mission alongside the Lebanese Red Cross in the town of Taybeh-Marjayoun,” down the road from Odaisseh, a town that several Israeli troops were killed trying to enter on Wednesday morning. The Red Cross said that four of its paramedics were injured, and the Israeli army said that it would be investigating the incident.”
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon may not go well. Just pushing Hezbollah to the Litani River will be tough due to varied and difficult terrain and hardened Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah can operate defensively despite losing several leaders.