Saturday, June 19, 2004
The Predominance of the Strategic Offensive Confirmed
You can't win a baseball game without swinging a bat.
I wrote at length about the benefits of a bold, vigorous, and ruthless strategic offensive in this post:
as long as Hamas is busy devouring itself looking for the traitor in their own midst, it's not going to be able to coordinate any major offensives.
Gee, who woulda thunk?
Splash, out
Jason
I wrote at length about the benefits of a bold, vigorous, and ruthless strategic offensive in this post:
as long as Hamas is busy devouring itself looking for the traitor in their own midst, it's not going to be able to coordinate any major offensives.
This is the beauty of the strategic offensive.
The killing of a leader has value and repercussions far beyond the leader's own death. As long as the Israelis keep aggressively going after them, Hamas has to devote minds and man-hours to defensive measures. They'll have to travel in smaller groups. Their cells will have to operate in more isolation from one another. They will have to rein in communications. They will have to spend scarce resources on expensive MANPADS--which means less money is available for offensive operations.
An attack in one place can have effects far removed from the immediate objective. And when the attack is pressed, effects can compound themselves exponentially.
Success begets success. When Saddam Hussein was captured, sources in the Sunni triangle started singing like birds.
When the Russians pierced the Axis line as they initiated their counteroffensive at Stalingrad, Romanian units miles away broke and fled.
Small, local successess, skillfully and ruthlessly exploited, can be leveraged into huge gains.
Such is the terrible beauty of the calculus of war.
Well, lo and behold, here's Krauthammer:
At the height of the intifada, there were 9 suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the last three months, there have been none.
The overall level of violence has been reduced by more than 70 percent.
Gee, who woulda thunk?
Splash, out
Jason
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