The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is the closest thing to state-on-state warfare we have seen in the Middle East for quite a while. If Southern Lebanon was a nation-state, this fits the Westphalian view of state violence and would probably be formalised with a declaration of war. Interestingly, the strategies of both sides in this conflict presume their opponent is engaged in total war.

Source: Burning oil fields in Iraq from google maps. Total war is becoming restrained by public opinion on civil and environmental casualties.

Total war is where the whole nation is geared toward warfare. This means the complete mobilisation of all national assets; politics, society, culture, industry etc for the purpose of warfare.

Under this doctrine, any aspect of the opponents mobilisation is a fair target. This includes civilians, housing, culture, etc. Anything that can disrupt the complete war effort of the opponent is valid for destruction.

The ultimate weapon for this kind of warfare is the nuclear bomb. It is utterly indiscriminate in its power; destroying anything civil, societal, political, military and cultural that gets in the path of its blast.

The nuclear bomb is such a cheap and relatively precise weapon that it makes the fire-bombing of London in 1940 and Dresden in 1945 quaint historical curios of a doctrine of total war's past.

4GW

Fourth Generation Warfare theorists prefer to see both imprecise and precise tactics as disruption based, rather than total war. For instance John Robb commented on Hezbollah's rocket attacks;

Hezbollah's success against Israel codifies two strategic methods that we will see global guerrillas emulate. The first is the value of strategic coercion through economic attrition. Ongoing disruption of the Israeli economy through rocket attacks attaches a quantifiable strategic cost to the conflict.

The lobbing of rockets, largely arbitrarily, into Israel can also be viewed as a statement of Hezbollah's rising status as a nation-state competitor. It is a traditional aerial bombardment that is a component of total war. In my opinion this is a mix of both strategy and their lack of precision technology.

Israel has followed a similar path of total war, destroying Lebanese infrastructure so the Lebanese nation-state cannot support Hezbollah economically, socially or politically. In fact Israel has stated their aim is to make the Lebanese reject Hezbollah from their nation-state due to the depravities they will suffer from no electricity, air conditioning etc.

Both Israeli and Hezbollah's strategies find their rooting on the presumption of total war. Additionally, both strategies assume that Giulio Douhet's theories of terror bombing can bring conclusions in a conflict through submission of the national character.

During World War II the British and German bomber assets originally did not target cities or civil populations. They attempted to attack only military targets and keep collateral damage to a minimum. This changed with the wholesale bombing of London in 1940.

Arthur Harris commanded RAF Bomber Command in World War II. His main platforms flew at night as they were particularly vulnerable during the day. Due to the inherent imprecision of the technology available, and the large numbers of aircraft that were being produced by industrialism, bomber command started the process of carpet bombing cities.

This came with the hope that in the destruction of the city were military and infrastructure targets. It also assumed that Douhet's theory of the destruction of national character by bombing would also occur.

The lessons of Britain and Germany was the terror bombing does not work. Anger becomes focused outward on the aggressor, not inward on the political, civil services or military forces which are unable to protect the population.

Israel and Hezbollah are on a hiding to nowhere with their total war, or Douhet, approach of affecting the opposing population.

The American development of precision weaponry in the 1970s has changed the dynamic of public opinion to Total War. Originally these precision weapons could only be carried by larger strategic aircraft, but now even smaller platforms can deploy them.

The media arrival of this technology was in the first Gulf War where presentations were given to the media of precision bombs flying in through ventilation shafts on bunkers and hard-areas.

Western public opinion has become intolerant of collateral damage, of which nuclear or carpet bombing creates a lot of. This aspect of Total War has largely disappeared from western nations due to technology improvements.

In the same way that Hezbollah's old style carpet-bombing or indiscriminate rocket firing is condemned; Israel has been criticized for attacks on Ambulances and civilians. Public opinion has also become hostile to environmental damage resulting from bombing attacks.

Douhet's theories still have traction. It was assumed in the second Gulf War that American 'shock and awe' tactics using precision weaponry would reduce the Iraqi will to fight (or mobilise in Total War). Yet Iraq remains an insecure environment three years after the invasion. It prefaced military victory, but did not subdue Iraq itself.

Israel and Hezbollah face similar problems. There will be no resolution or victory in their tactics. Total War and Douhet place the emphasis in the wrong area. Victory requires the political defeat of an opponent, the military is just one aspect of that defeat.

Lyn writes on public opinion:

There doesn't seem to be much point urging legislation against the world we live in, when it's not all that different from the one we've always managed to negotiate, since evil was thought to periodically block out the sun and some naked tart bearing promiscuous fruit had us all kicked out of paradise. Various prohibitions have demonstrably failed, if not encouraged consumption probably via another basic urge in the form of curiosity.

Democracy is messy and one of the goals of debate and deliberation is to achieve a point of minimum dissatisfaction, however, one of the insights of the 19thC Australian republicans was that morality came through liberty, not the coercion of legislation, especially not of manipulative interest groups. The human condition becomes humanity at its most moral. Rather than the enforced morality of the state through its monopoly on violence.